ILLUSTRATION IN GERMANY, SPAIN, AND OTHER COUNTRIES.
In writing upon drawing on the Continent, I have heretofore found it
only necessary to classify illustrators under three nationalities. In
discussing illustration it seems to me that this question of nationality
can be even further simplified. Italy and Spain have not produced a
single original illustrated book of real importance. Although several of
the foremost illustrators of the day were born in one or the other of
these countries and partially educated there, they have left their
native land as quickly as possible, for France or for Germany.
[Illustration: BY MARTIN RICO. FROM A PEN DRAWING.]
In Italy the important publishing house of the Fratelli Trevès, in
Milan, has made many attempts to bring out fine books, the works of de
Amicis being among their best-known productions, but this importance
comes from their literary rather than artistic side; and I am not aware
that the Fratelli Trevès have ever done anything to surpass the
"C'era una Volta" of Luigi Capuana, illustrated by Montalti, published
in 1885, a most extraordinary example of the skilful use of _papier
Gillot_, or scratch paper. The Fratelli Trevès issue a large number of
magazines and papers, a certain amount of good newsy wood-engraving is
seen in these, process having been almost entirely given up, especially
in the leading illustrated Italian weekly, "L'Illustrazion Italiana." In
Spain I know of no notable illustrated books published of late. I may be
labouring under a mistake, but I must frankly admit that I have never
heard of, or seen any.[19] If they do exist I should be only too glad to
have them brought to my notice. But there are two very good illustrated
papers, "Illustracion Espanola y Americana" and "Illustracion
Artistica." To both, Fortuny, Rico, Vierge, and Casanova--especially
Rico--have contributed important drawings. These journals are now almost
entirely using wood-engravings, some of which are very good indeed. They
are mainly, however, reproductions of the typical Spanish historical, or
story-telling, machine which is turned out with such facility by a large
number of Spaniards. But the bulk of the work is made up of _clichés_
from American papers and magazines, in which matter I find that even I
have proved a useful mine.
[19] See note p. 78.
Dutch books are not remarkable. Here and there a good drawing may be
found in a magazine called "Elsevir." Though in Holland there is an
artist, H. J. Icke, who, in his studies from the old masters in pen and
ink, evinces a power and brilliancy only equalled by reproductive
etchers like Mr. Hole, Mr. Macbeth, or Mr. Short. The same is true of
Belgium. Austria and Hungary have little to show, their illustrators,
like Myrbach, Marold, and Vogel, coming to Paris, or sending their work
to Munich, for the publishers mainly ignore their own artists, and
either send abroad for their designs, or borrow and adapt from other
men's work with a recklessness which is charming. And yet, the only
international black-and-white exhibition was held in Vienna a few years
ago; while one of the best photo-engraving firms in the world, Messrs.
Anderer and Göschl, are located there. Russia and Scandinavia are
equally unfortunate in the matter of illustrated books, all of the
artists of these countries being in Paris, London, or New York, and
their work only finds its way back to their native countries as
_clichés_. Men like Chelminski, Edelfelt, Répine, Pranishnikoff really
owe all their reputation, not to their native land, but to the country
of their adoption.
[Illustration: FROM AN ORIGINAL PEN DRAWING BY H. TEGNER.]
[Illustration: PEN DRAWING. BY HANS TEGNER. FROM "HOLBERG'S COMEDIES"
(BOJESENS).]
[Illustration: BY ADOLPH MENZEL. PROCESS BLOCK FROM ORIGINAL DRAWING IN
THE POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR.]
There is, however, one little country that deserves more than a word of
mention, and this is Denmark. For it can boast an illustrator of
individuality and character, Hans Tegner. His drawings for the jubilee
edition of "Holberg's Comedies," published in Copenhagen in 1884 to
1888, must be ranked as masterpieces of graphic art. Though evidently
based on the style of Menzel and Meissonier, they are quite individual;
especially in the rendering of interiors crowded with people he has
surpassed any living illustrator. This book is also interesting from the
fact that while it was being produced the change was made from
_facsimile_ wood-engraving to process, and though the engraving of
Hendricksen and Bork is excellent, the process blocks in some ways are
even more interesting. The decorations to these volumes, head and
tail-pieces, are as atrociously bad as Tegner's illustrations in the
text are good. There are also a number of lesser artists, Danes and
Norwegians, who have done good work, but to name them would merely be to
make a catalogue, as their work is never seen here.
[Illustration: BY GOYA. FROM "CAPRICES."]
During the last three-quarters of a century German illustration has been
absolutely dominated by Menzel. Not only has he been the leading spirit
in his own country, whether he was influenced originally by Meissonier
or not, but he has himself influenced the entire world of illustrators,
his drawings having been received with rapture and applause by artists
wherever they have been shown. And, most interesting of all, he is a man
who has been perfectly able, throughout his long life, to adapt himself
to the various radical changes and developments which have been brought
about in reproduction and printing. Commencing with lithography, he
produced the amazing series of drawings of the uniforms of Frederick the
Great. Next, taking up drawing on wood, he introduced exquisite
_facsimile_ work into his own country, educating his own engravers,
Unzelmann, Bentworth and the Vogels, in his edition of the "Works of
Frederick the Great." Later on he drew much more largely and boldly for
the "Cruche Cassée," which was freely interpreted on wood. And now he
has so arranged his beautiful drawings in pencil and chalk that they
come perfectly by process. He is a man who recognizes fully that we have
not got to the end of art, but that unless we are ever pushing onward,
and striving for improvements, we may very easily get to the end of
ourselves. He looks backward for nothing but design; he looks forward
to the perfection of everything.
[Illustration: BY GOYA. FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING (A PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE
OF WELLINGTON) IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.]
[Illustration: BY FORTUNY. FROM A PEN DRAWING.]
[Illustration: BY JOSEPH SATTLER. FROM "THE DANCE OF DEATH" (GREVEL).]
Following Menzel, and encouraged by "Fliegende Blätter," which started
in the early forties, came Wilhelm Dietz, whose studies of armies on the
march, and of peasants at work or at play, are inimitable. He, too, has
been followed by Robert Haug and Hermann Luders. Dietz was the mainstay
for years of "Fliegende Blätter," the only weekly comic paper of which
it can be said, that during the half century of its existence it has
been not only at the head of its contemporaries, but has on the artistic
side left far behind any pretended rival.
Germany has for the last half century, too, possessed a remarkable
school of interpretative wood-engravers: men who have been able to take
a large picture, which they have either drawn on the wood themselves or
had drawn for them, and produce out of it an excellent rendering, which
would print perfectly in black and white, under the rapid requirements
of a steam-press. The work of these engravers can be seen any week in
the "Illustrirte Zeitung," "Uber Land und Meer," and the other weeklies.
Wood-engraving has been treated as a serious profession for years in
Germany, as a Professorship of the art was held in the Berlin Academy
before the beginning of this century by J. F. G. Unger, who died in
1804. Even in Vienna, a Professorship has been established for many
years. The trouble with German wood-engravers, however, has been that
most of the work, though signed by the name of one man, is produced
really by another. From one of these engraving shops, that of Braun and
Schneider, issued a year after its establishment "Fliegende Blätter," in
1844. Save for Menzel, most of the work in the middle of the century was
of that heavy, pompous, ponderous sort which we call German, and, though
good in its way, is now well forgotten. The best-known of all these
shops was that of Richard Brend'amour, who since 1856 has been
established in Dusseldorf, though he has branches--an artist with
branches!--in Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Munich, and Brunswick. Still,
as he seems to have been able to get an extremely good set of
apprentices and workmen, who were the real artists, a great amount of
very interesting work has been turned out, and _clichés_ from his
excellent blocks have been used all over the world.
One sort of decorative design, developed by a German, or, I presume, a
Pole, Paul Konewka, though his work, was, I believe, first published in
Copenhagen, is the silhouette; Konewka has had imitators everywhere, but
none of them have surpassed him. His edition of "Faust" is one of the
best-known examples. Retche's outline drawings for Shakespeare are also
good.
[Illustration: BY DE NITTIS. PEN DRAWING FROM "PARIS ILLUSTRÉ."]
[Illustration: BY W. BUSCH. FROM "BALDUIN BAHLAMM" (MUNICH,
BASSERMANN).]
Following the classical tradition of Overbeck and Kaulbach, but changing
it rather into mysticism and decadence through the influence of Böcklin,
and probably the pre-Raphaelites in England, has been developed a school
of mystical decorators who are unequalled, unappreciated and curiously
unknown outside of their own country. The chief of these men is Max
Klinger. Like his master, Böcklin, and like Schwabe in France, he
brings both his mysticism and his drawing up to date, and makes no
attempt to bolster up faulty design and incomplete technique by
primitiveness, or quaintness, or archaism. For his illustrations Klinger
usually makes an elaborate series of pen drawings, and then etches from
these. The only example which I know of in England available for study
is a copy of the Apuleius which is in South Kensington, and this is not
by any means one of his most successful books, as the etchings are hard
and tight, and the inharmonious decorations which surround the small
prints in the text are crude and unsatisfactory. To know Klinger's work
one must visit the Print Rooms in the Museums of Berlin and Dresden.
Another group have devoted themselves to lithography. H. Thoma in this
has been probably the most successful, but in the exhibition held this
year in Vienna he was closely followed by Otto Greiner, W. Steinhausen,
and Max Dasio. Their work may be seen in "Neue Lithographem," by Max
Lehers, published in Vienna. Whether there are two or three men of the
name of Franz Stuck who draw, or whether it is the same Franz Stuck who
produces the mystic arrangements and the burlesques of them, the
decorative vignettes and the absurd caricatures in "Fliegende Blätter,"
I do not know. I only do know that it is all very well worth study, and
very amusing and interesting.
Busch and Oberländer, Meggendorfer, and Hengler, are names so well known
that their mere mention raises a laugh, and that, if anything, is the
mission of those artists: while Harburger's and Aller's marvellous
studies of character, and René Reinecke's exquisite renderings in wash
of fashionable life, marvellously engraved by Stroebel, can be seen
every week printed in the pages of "Fliegende Blätter" and other
papers. The works of Hackländer, published in Stuttgart, have been
illustrated mainly by process by that clever band of artists of whom
Schlittgen, Albrecht, Marold, Vogel, and others are so much in evidence.
The German monthly magazines, like "Daheim," "Kunst für Alle," "Felz und
Meer," "Die Graphischen Kunste," etc., are very notable, especially
"Kunst für Alle," which seems to me to be about the best-conducted art
magazine in the world. Altogether the arts of illustration and
reproduction, and the business of publishing, in Germany are apparently
in a most healthy condition. It could scarcely be otherwise, however,
when we consider that one of the greatest illustrators in the world is
still alive and at work there, as well as the most curious mystics, the
most amusing comic draughtsmen, and the most conscientious and clever
realists.
[Illustration: FROM ETCHING BY GOYA. FROM "CAPRICES."]
[Illustration: DEATH THE FRIEND. LINE DRAWING BY RETHEL.
REDUCED FROM A WOOD-ENGRAVING BY H. BURKNER.]
[Illustration: BY H. SCHLITTGEN. FROM "EIN ERSTER UND EIN LETZTER BALL"
(STUTTGART, KRABBE).]
[Illustration: BY MAROLD. FROM "ZWISCHEN ZWEI REGEN" (STUTTGART,
KRABBE).]
[Illustration: BY FRANZ STÜCK. FROM BIERBAUM'S "FRANZ STÜCK," MUNICH
(ALBERT AND CO.).]
[Illustration: BY GARCIA Y RAMOS. GIPSY DANCE. Process block,
from pen and wash drawing.]
_Note._--A recent visit to Spain shows me to be quite
mistaken in this matter. A very fine book has lately been
published in Barcelona by a Seville artist, F. Garcia y
Ramos, "La Tierra di Maria Santissima," and though Señor
Garcia y Ramos is greatly indebted to Fortuny, Rico and
Vierge, he has made a very notable series of designs; he has
also contributed several drawings to a comparatively new
Spanish paper,--"Blanco y Negro"--which has printed very good
work by a group of young men in Madrid, the most
distinguished of whom is Señor Huertas. Another artist on the
staff is Jiminez Lucena; he is realistically decorative. The
most popular man in Spain, after the artists of "La Lidia"
(the organ of the Bull Ring), is Angel Pons, who, however, is
but an echo of Caran d'Ache. "La Lidia" is illustrated
entirely by lithography and in colour; the designs, often
full of go and life, are the work of D. Perea. I find, too,
that the French work of 1830 was seen and known in Spain,
that some books were produced in the style of "Paul and
Virginia," with drawings by Spaniards, though I imagine they
were all engraved either in Paris, or by French engravers who
went to Spain. The work, however, is but a reminiscence of
the French, and simply curious as showing the power of the
Romanticists, but more especially of Meissonier as an
illustrator. The most interesting of these books is "Spanish
Scenes," illustrated by Lameyer, engraved by G. Fernandez,
rather in the manner of Gavarni. But there is one Spaniard
who as an illustrator is unknown, at least to artists--for he
only produced one set of designs for publication--but who is
universally known in almost every other branch of art, F.
Goya. The only widely published and generally circulated
publications, the bank-notes of Spain, are the work of this
artist, and they reflect little credit on him. His etchings
are to be found in all great galleries; but, interesting as
they are, they give no idea of the amazing drawings in chalk,
wash, and ink, in which mediums they were produced. Even in
Madrid the originals are but little known; the greater number
are in the Library of the Prado, the National Museum,
inaccessible to the ordinary visitor: but a small selection,
undescribed, and not even in the catalogue, are placed upon a
revolving screen in the Room of Drawings; but as this is
almost always closed, most people leave Madrid without even
being aware of the existence of the greatest treasures
possessed by the museum after the Velasquez. On this screen
are the designs for the bull-fights, admirably described by
T. Gautier, in his "Voyage en Espagne," from the literary
artist's point of view, but from the artistic stand-point,
they are quite the most uninteresting of all, and do not in
the slightest express the great passion Goya is said to have
always shown for the noblest sport in the world.
It is rather to the exquisite designs in red chalk for the
"Scenes of Invasion," that one sees him at his best. Here he
is the direct descendant of Callot, only there is a power in
his work that Callot never possessed. It is, I am now
certain, from these designs that Vierge obtained many of his
ideas--although they are worked out in an entirely different
fashion. The drawings for the "Caprices" are in pen and wash,
and are as much finer than the aquatints made from them, as
the aquatints are superior to the caricatures of any of his
contemporaries. As Goya passed, an exile, the latter part of
his life in France, his work must have been known to the men
of 1830. He died in 1828, just as the few lithographs he has
left show that he was aware of the work of Delacroix in that
newly invented art.
Still, Goya cannot be called an illustrator, for none of his
work was published as illustration; yet, at the same time, it
is so well adapted to that end that it is perfectly
incomprehensible that these drawings have not only never been
published, but I am informed they have never even been
photographed. The two that are in this book are from the
"Caprices," those of the "Invasion" are too delicate to stand
the necessary reduction. The portrait of Wellington in red
chalk is in the British Museum.
[Illustration: BY W. L. WYLLIE, A.R.A. PEN DRAWING FROM "THE MAGAZINE OF
ART."]
[Illustration: BY J. W. NORTH. FROM A DRAWING ON THE WOOD IN THE
POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR.]