OF the famous 'Poems by Alfred Tennyson,' published in 1857 by Edward
Moxon, Mr. Gleeson White wrote in 1897: 'The whole modern school of
decorative illustrators regard it, rightly enough, as the genesis of
the modern movement.' The statement may need some modification to touch
exact truth, for the 'modern movement' is no single-file,
straightforward movement. 'Kelmscott,' 'Japan,' the 'Yellow Book,'
black-and-white art in Germany, in France, in Spain, in America, the
influence of Blake, the style of artists such as Walter Crane, have
affected the present form of decorative book-illustration. Such perfect
unanimity of opinion as is here ascribed to a large and rather
indefinitely related body of men hardly exists among even the smallest
and most derided body of artists. Still, allowing for the impossibility
of telling the whole truth about any modern and eclectic form of art in
one sentence, there is here a statement of fact. What Rossetti and
Millais and Holman Hunt achieved in the drawings to the 'Tennyson' of
1857, was a vital change in the intention of English illustrative art,
and whatever form decorative illustration may assume, their ideal is
effective while a personal interpretation of the spirit of the text is
the creative impulse. The influence of technical mastery is strong and
enduring enough. It is constantly in sight and constantly in mind. But
it is in discovering and making evident a principle in art that the
influence of spirit on spirit becomes one of the illimitable powers.
To Rossetti the illustration of literature meant giving beautiful form
to the expression of delight, of penetration, that had kindled his
imagination as he read. He illustrated the 'Palace of Art' in the
spirit that stirred him to rhythmic translation into words of the still
music in Giorgione's 'Pastoral,' or of the unpassing movement of
Mantegna's 'Parnassus.' Not the words of the text, nor those things
precisely affirmed by the writer, but the spell of significance and of
beauty that held his mind to the exclusion of other images, gave him
inspiration for his drawings. As Mr. William Michael Rossetti says: 'He
drew just what he chose, taking from his author's text nothing more
than a hint and an opportunity.' It is said, indeed, that Tennyson
could never see what the St. Cecily drawing had to do with his poem.
And that is strange enough to be true.
It is clear that such an ideal of illustration is for the attainment of
a few only. The ordinary illustrator, making drawings for cheap
reproduction in the ordinary book, can no more work in this mood than
the journalist can model his style on the prose of Milton. But
journalism is not literature, and pictured matter-of-fact is not
illustration, though it is convenient and customary to call it so.
However, here one need not consider this, for the decorative
illustrator has usually literature to illustrate, and a commission to
be beautiful and imaginative in his work. He has the opportunity of
Rossetti, the opportunity for significant art.
The 'Classics' and children's books give greatest opportunity to
decorative illustrators. Those who have illustrated children's books
chiefly, or whose best work has been for the playful classics of
literature, it is convenient to consider in a separate chapter, though
there are instances where the division is not maintainable: Walter
Crane, for example, whose influence on a school of decorative design
makes his position at the head of his following imperative.
Representing the 'architectural' sense in the decoration of books, many
years before the supreme achievements of William Morris added that
ideal to generally recognized motives of book-decoration, Walter Crane
is the precursor of a large and prolific school of decorative
illustrators. Many factors, as he himself tells, have gone to the
shaping of his art. Born in 1846 at Liverpool, he came to London in
1857, and there after two years was 'apprenticed' to Mr. W. J. Linton,
the well-known wood-engraver. His work began with 'the sixties,' in
contact with the enthusiasm and inspiration those years brought into
English art. The illustrated 'Tennyson,' and Ruskin's 'Elements of
Drawing,' were in his thoughts before he entered Mr. Linton's workshop,
and the 'Once a Week' school had a strong influence on his early
contributions to 'Good Words,' 'Once a Week,' and other famous
magazines. In 1865 Messrs. Warne published the first toy-book, and by
1869-70 the 'Walter Crane Toy-book' was a fact in art. The sight of
some Japanese colour-prints during these years suggested a finer
decorative quality to be obtained with tint and outline, and in the use
of black, as well as in a more delicate simplicity of colour, the later
toy-books show the first effect of Japanese art on the decorative art
of England. Italian art in England and Italy, the prints of Duerer, the
Parthenon sculptures, these were influences that affected him strongly.
'The Baby's Opera' (1877) and 'The Baby's Bouquet' (1879) are classics
almost impossible to criticise, classics familiar from cover to cover
before one was aware of any art but the art on their pages. So that if
these delightful designs seem less expressive of the Greece, Germany,
and Italy of the supreme artists than of the 'Crane' countries by whose
coasts ships 'from over the sea' go sailing by with strange cargoes and
strange crews, it is not in their dispraise. As a decorative
draughtsman Mr. Crane is at his best when the use of colour gives
clearness to the composition, but some of his most 'serious' work is in
the black-and-white pages of 'The Sirens Three,' of 'The Shepheardes
Calendar,' and especially of 'The Faerie Queene.' The number of books
he has illustrated--upwards of seventy--makes a detailed account
impossible. Nursery rhyme and fairy books, children's stories, Spenser,
Shakespeare, the myths of Greece, 'pageant books' such as 'Flora's
Feast' or 'Queen Summer,' or the just published 'Masque of Days,' his
own writings, serious or gay, have given him subjects, as the great art
of all times has touched the ideals of his art.
[Illustration: FROM MR. WALTER CRANE'S 'GRIMM'S HOUSEHOLD STORIES.'