The more you study the position of illustrators during the last forty
years, the more you are inclined to believe that they owe their very
existence, as a class, to the popularity of magazines and periodicals.
From the time _Once a Week_ started, to the present to-day, the bulk
of illustrations of any merit have been issued in serial publications.
It is easy to find a reason for this. The heavy cost of the drawings,
and, until recent times, the almost equally heavy cost of engraving
them, would suffice to prohibit their lavish use in ordinary books.
For it must not be forgotten that every new book is, to a great
extent, a speculation; whereas the circulation of a periodical, once
it is assured, varies but slightly. A book may be prepared for twenty
thousand buyers, and not attract one thousand; but a periodical that
sold twenty thousand of its current number is fairly certain to sell
eighteen thousand to nineteen thousand of the next, and more probably
will show a slight increase. Again, although one appears to get as
many costly illustrations in a magazine to-day as in a volume costing
ten times the price, the comparative sales more than readjust the
balance. For a quarter of a million, although a record circulation of
a periodical, is by no means a unique one; whereas the most popular
illustrated book ever issued--and _Trilby_ could be easily proved to
merit that title--is probably not far beyond its hundred thousand. This
very book was published in _Harper's Magazine_, and so obtained an
enormous advertisement in one of the most widely circulated shilling
monthlies. One doubts if the most popular illustrated volumes published
at one or two guineas would show an average sale of two thousand
copies at the original price. Therefore, to regard the periodical, be
it quarterly, monthly, or weekly--and quite soon the daily paper may
be added to the list--as the legitimate field for the illustrator,
is merely to accept the facts of the case. True, that here and there
carefully prepared volumes, with all the added luxury of fine paper
and fine printing, stand above the magazine of their time in this
mechanical production. But things are rapidly changing. One may pick up
some ephemeral paper to-day, to find it has process-blocks of better
quality, and is better printed, than 'the art book of the season,'
be it what it may. The illustrator is the really popular artist of
the period--the natural product of the newer conditions. For one
painter who makes a living entirely by pictures, there are dozens who
subsist upon illustrating; while, against one picture of any reputable
sort--framed and sold--it would be impossible to estimate the number
of drawings made specially for publication. Nor even to-day--when
either the demand for illustration is ahead of the supply, or else
many editors artfully prefer the second best, not forgetting all the
feeble stuff of the cheap weeklies--would it be safe to declare that
the artistic level is below that of the popular galleries. Certainly,
even in the thirties, there were, in proportion, as many masterpieces
done for the engraver as those which were carried out in oil or
water-colour. Waiving the question of the damage wrought by engraver,
or process-reproducer, the artist--if he be a great man--is no less
worthy of respect as an illustrator in a cheap weekly, than when he
chooses to devote himself solely to easel pictures. It is not by way of
depreciating paintings that one would exalt illustration, but merely
to recognise the obvious truth that the best work of an artist who
understands his medium can never fail to be of surpassing interest,
whether he uses fresco, tempera, oil, or water-colour; whether he works
with brush or needle, pen or pencil. Nobody doubts that most of these
products are entitled, other qualities being present, to be considered
works of art; but, until lately, people have not shown the same respect
for an illustration. Even when they admired the work, it was a common
form of appreciation to declare it was 'as good as an etching,' or 'a
composition worthy of being painted.' Many writers have endeavoured to
restore black-and-white art to its true dignity, and the labours of Sir
F. Seymour Haden, who awakened a new popular recognition of the claims
of the etcher, and of Mr. Joseph Pennell, who fought with sustained
vigour for the dignity and importance of illustration, have helped to
inspire outsiders with a new respect. For it is only outsiders who ever
thought of making absurd distinctions between high art and minor arts.
If the thing, be it what it may, is good--as good as it could be--at
no age did it fail to win the regard of artists; even if it had to
wait a few generations to charm the purchaser, or awaken the cupidity
of the connoisseur. It is a healthy sign to find that people to-day
are interesting themselves in the books of the sixties; it should make
them more eager for original contemporary work, and foster a dislike to
the inevitable photograph from nature reproduced by half-tone, which
one feared would have satisfied their love for black-and-white to the
exclusion of all else.
If, after an evening spent in looking over the old magazines which
form the subject of the next few chapters, you can turn to the current
weeklies and monthlies, and feel absolutely certain that we are better
than our fathers, it augurs either a very wisely selected purchase from
the crowded bookstall, which, at each railway station as the first of
the month approaches, has its hundreds of rival magazines, or else that
it would be wiser to spend still more time over the old periodicals
until a certain 'divine dissatisfaction' was aroused towards the
average illustrated periodical of to-day.
Not that we are unable to show as good work perhaps, man for man, as
they offer. We have no Sandys, no Millais, no Boyd Houghton, it is
true; they had no E. A. Abbey, no Phil May, no ..., but it would be
a delicate matter to continue a list of living masters here. But if
you can find an English periodical with as many first-rate pictures
as _Once a Week_, _The Cornhill Magazine_, _Good Words_, and others
contained in the early sixties, you will be ... well ... lucky is
perhaps the most polite word.
That the cheapness and rapidity of 'reproduction by process' should be
directly responsible for the birth of many new illustrated periodicals
to-day is clear enough. But it is surprising to find that a movement,
which relatively speaking was almost as fecund, had begun some years
before photography had ousted the engraver. Why it sprang into
existence is not quite so obvious; but if we assume, as facts indicate,
that the system of producing wood-engravings underwent a radical change
about this time, we shall find that again a more ample supply provoked
a larger demand. Hitherto, the engraver had only accepted as many
blocks as he could engrave himself, with the help of a few assistants;
but not very long before the date we are considering factories for the
supply of wood-engravings had grown up. The heads of these, practical
engravers and in some cases artists of more than average ability, took
all the responsibility for the work intrusted to them, and maintained a
singularly high standard of excellence; but they did not pretend that
they engraved each block themselves. Such a system not merely permitted
commissions for a large quantity of blocks being accepted, but greatly
increased speed in their production.
There can be little doubt that something of the sort took place;
it will suffice to name but two firms, Messrs. Dalziel and Messrs.
Swain, who were each responsible often enough, not merely for all the
engravings in a book, but often for all the engravings in a popular
magazine. Under the old system, the publisher had thrown upon him
the trouble of discovering the right engraver to employ, and the
burden of reconciling the intention of the artist with the product
of the engraver. This, by itself, would have been enough to make
him very cautious before committing himself to the establishment of
an illustrated magazine. But if we also remember that, under such
conditions, almost unlimited time would be required for the production
of the engravings, and that, to ensure a sufficient quantity being
ready for each issue, a very large number of independent engravers must
needs have been employed, it is clear that the old conditions would not
have been equal to the task.
When, however, the publisher or editor was able to send all his
drawings to a reputable firm who could undertake to deliver the
engravings by a given time, one factor of great practical importance
had been established. It is not surprising to find that things went
even further than this, and that the new firms of engravers not only
undertook the whole of the blocks, but in several cases supplied the
drawings also.
Without claiming that such a system is the best, it is but fair to
own that to it we are indebted for the masterpieces of the sixties.
No doubt the ideal art-editor--a perfectly equipped critic, with the
blank cheque of a millionaire at his back--might have done better; but
to-day there are many who think themselves perfectly equipped critics,
and perhaps some here and there who are backed by millionaires, yet on
neither side of the Atlantic can we find better work than was produced
under the system in vogue in the sixties. But after all, it is not the
system, then or now, that is praiseworthy, but the individual efforts
of men whose hearts were in their professions.
The more you inquire into the practice of the best engravers then and
now, the more you find that ultimately one person is responsible for
the good. In the sixties the engraver saw new possibilities, and did
his utmost to realise them; full of enthusiasm, and a master of his
craft, he inspired those who worked with him to experiment and spare
no effort. That he did marvels may be conceded; and to declare that
the merely mechanical processes to-day have already distanced his most
ambitious efforts in many qualities does not detract from his share.
But in this chapter he is regarded less as a craftsman than as a
middleman, an art-editor in effect if not in name; one who taught the
artists with whom he was brought in contact the limits of the material
in which their work was to be translated, and in turn learned from them
no little that was of vital importance. Above all, he seems to have
kept closely in touch with draughtsmen and engravers alike; one might
believe that every drawing passed through his hands, and that every
block was submitted to him many times during its progress. When you
realise the mass of work signed 'Dalziels' or 'Swain,' it is evident
that its high standard of excellence must not be attributed to any
system, but to the personal supervision of the acting members of the
firms--men who were, every one of them, both draughtsmen and engravers,
who knew not only the effect the artist aimed to secure, but the best
method of handicraft by which to obtain it.
If, after acknowledging this, one cannot but regret that the
photographic transfer of drawings to wood had not come into general use
twenty years before it did, so that the masterpieces of the Rossetti
designs to Tennyson's _Poems_ and a hundred others had not been cut to
pieces by the engraver; yet at the same time we must remember that, but
for the enterprise of the engraver, the drawings themselves would in
all probability never have been called into existence in many cases.
This is especially true of the famous volumes which Messrs. Dalziel
issued under the imprint of various publishers, who were really merely
agents for their distribution.
_The Penny Magazine_ in 1832, and other of Charles Knight's
publications, _Sharp's Magazine_, _The People's Journal_, _Howitt's
Journal of Literature_, _The Illustrated Family Journal_, _The Mirror_,
_The Parterre_, _The Casket_, _The Olio_, _The Saturday Magazine_,
_Pinnock's Guide to Knowledge_, _Punch_, _The Illustrated London
News_, had led the way for pictorial weekly papers, even as the old
Annuals and the various novels by Ainsworth, Dickens, and Thackeray
had prepared the way for magazines; but the artistic movement of the
'sixties,' so far as its periodicals are concerned, need be traced back
no further than _Once a Week_. Perhaps, however, it would be unfair
to forget the influence of _The Art Journal_ (at first called _The
Art Union_), which, started in 1851, brought fine art to the homes of
the great British public through the medium of wood-engravings in a
way not attempted previously; and certainly we must not ignore John
Cassell, who, on the demise of _Howitt's Journal_ and _The People's
Journal_ in 1850, brought out an illustrated chronicle of the Great
Exhibition, which was afterwards merged in a _Magazine of Art_. As _The
Strand Magazine_--the first monthly periodical to exploit freely the
Kodak and the half-tone block--started a whole school of imitators,
so _Once a Week_, depending chiefly on drawings by the best men of
the day, engraved by the foremost engravers, was followed quickly by
the _Cornhill Magazine_, _Good Words_, and the rest. Many of these
were short-lived; nor, looking at them impartially to-day, are we
quite sure that the survivors were always the fittest. Certainly
they were not always the best. But the number of new ventures that
saw the light about this time can scarce be named here. Then, as
now, a vast army of quite second-rate draughtsmen were available,
and a number of periodicals, which it were gross flattery to call
second-rate, sprang up to utilise their talents. Besides these, many
weekly and monthly publications, ostensibly devoted to catering for
the taste of the masses, gained large audiences and employed talented
artists, but demand no more serious consideration as art, than do the
'snippet' weeklies of to-day as literature. But some of these popular
serials--such as _The Band of Hope_, _The British Workman_, _The
London Journal_, _The London Reader_, _Bow Bells_, _Every Week_, and
the rest--are not, relatively speaking, worse than more pretentious
publications. It is weary work to estimate the place of the second
and third bests, and whatever interest the subject possesses would
be exhausted quickly if we tried to catalogue or describe the less
important items. Yet, to be quite just, several of these, notably the
cheap publications of Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, Messrs. S.
W. Partridge and Co., and many others, employed artists by no means
second-rate and gave better artistic value for their money than many of
their successors do at present.
It is well to face the plain fact, and own that at no time has the
supply of really creative artists equalled the popular demand. Not all
the painters of any period are even passable, nor all the illustrators.
Much that is produced for the moment fulfils its purpose admirably
enough, although it dies as soon as it is born. Nature shows us the
prodigal fecundity of generation compared with the few that ripen to
maturity. The danger lies rather in appreciating too much, whether
of 'the sixties' or 'the nineties'; yet, if one is stoical enough to
praise only the best, it demands not merely great critical acumen,
but no little hardness of heart. The intention always pleads to be
recognised. We know that accidents, quite beyond the artist's power to
prevent, may have marred his work. Each man, feeling his own impotence
to express his ideas lucidly, must needs be lenient to those who
also stammer and fail to interpret their imaginings clearly and with
irresistible power. Yet, although the men of the sixties survive in
greatly reduced numbers and one might speak plainly of much of its
trivial commonplace without hurting anybody's feelings, there is no
need to drag the rubbish to light.