It does not seem as though Sir George Reid as an illustrator had any
followers. He could hardly have imitators. If a man had delicacy and
patience of observation and hand to produce drawings in this 'style,'
his style would be his own and not an imitation. The number of artists
in black and white who cannot plausibly be imitated is a small number.
Sir George Reid is one, Mr. Alfred Parsons is another. Inevitably there
are points of similarity in the work of artists, the foundation of
whose black and white is colour, and who render the country-side with
the understanding of the native, the understanding that is beyond
knowledge. The difference between them only proves the essential
similarity in the elements of their art; but that, like most
paradoxes, is a truism. Mr. Parsons is, of course, thoroughly English
in his art. He has the particularity of English nature-poets. Pastoral
country is dear to him, and homesteads and flowering orchards, or
villages with church tower half hidden by the elms, are part of his
home country, the country he draws best. It is interesting to compare
his drawings for 'The Warwickshire Avon' with the Scottish artist's
drawings of the northern rivers. The drawings of Shakespeare's river
show spring trees in a mist of green, leafy summer trees, meadowsweet
and hayfields, green earth and blue sky, and a river of pleasure
watering a pleasant country. If a man can draw English summer-time in
colour with black and white, he must rank high as a landscape
pen-draughtsman. Mr. Alfred Parsons has illustrated about a dozen
books, and his work is to be found in 'Harper's Magazine,' and 'The
English Illustrated' in early days. Two books, the 'Old Songs' and 'The
Quiet Life,' published in 1887 and 1890, were illustrated by E. A.
Abbey and Alfred Parsons. The drawings of landscape, of fruit and
flowers, by Mr. Parsons, the Chippendale people and rooms of Mr. Abbey,
fill two charming volumes with pictures whose pleasantness and happy
art accord with the dainty verses of eighteenth-century sentiment. 'The
Warwickshire Avon,' and another river book, 'The Danube from the Black
Forest to the Sea,' illustrated in collaboration with the author, Mr.
F. D. Millet, belong to 1892. The slight sketches--passing-by
sketches--in these books, are among fortunate examples of a briefness
that few men find compatible with grace and significance. Sketches,
mostly in wash, of a farther and more decorated country--'Japan, the
Far East, the Land of Flowers and of the Rising Sun, the country which
for years it had been my dream to see and paint'--illustrate the
artist's 'Notes in Japan,' 1895. In the written notes are memoranda of
actual colour, of the green harmony of the Japanese summer--harmony
culminating in the vivid tint of the rice fields--of sunset and
butterflies, of delicate masses of azalea and drifts of cherry-blossom
and wisteria, while in the drawings are all the flowers, the green
hills and gray hamlets, and the temples, shrines and bridges, that make
unspoilt Japan one of the perpetual motives of decorative art.
Illustrations to Wordsworth--to a selected Wordsworth--gave the artist
fortunate opportunities to render the England of English descriptive
verse.
[Illustration: ELMS BY BIDFORD GRANGE. BY ALFRED PARSONS. REPRODUCED
FROM QUILLER COUCH'S 'THE WARWICKSHIRE AVON.'