English Illustration 'The Sixties': 1855-70: With Numerous Illustrations by Ford Madox Brown: A. Boyd Houghton: Arthur Hughes: Charles Keene: M. J. Lawless: Lord Leighton, P.R.A.: Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A.: G. Du Maurier: J. W. North, R.A.: G. J. Pinwell: Dante Gabriel Rossetti: W. Small: Frederick Sandys: J. Mcneill Whistler: Frederick Walker, A.R.A.: and OthersWhite, Gleeson
Philosophy
English Illustration 'The Sixties': 1855-70: With Numerous Illustrations by Ford Madox Brown: A. Boyd Houghton: Arthur Hughes: Charles Keene: M. J. Lawless: Lord Leighton, P.R.A.: Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A.: G. Du Maurier: J. W. North, R.A.: G. J. Pinwell: Dante Gabriel Rossetti: W. Small: Frederick Sandys: J. Mcneill Whistler: Frederick Walker, A.R.A.: and Others
White, Gleeson
Illustrated books -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century -- Bibliography; Illustration of books -- Great Britain -- 19th century; Illustration of books, Victorian -- Great Britain
The twopenny rival to _Punch_, began life on May 1, 1867. Although Matt
Morgan supplied many of the early cartoons and 'socials,' the really
admirable level it reached in the eighties is not foreshadowed even
dimly by its first volumes. With vol. ii. J. Proctor, an admirable
draughtsman, despite his fondness for the decisive, unsympathetic line
which Sir John Tenniel has accustomed us to consider part and parcel of
a political cartoon, is distinctly one of the best men who have worked
this particular form of satire. Afterwards 'W. B.' contributed many.
The mass of work, in the volumes which can be considered as belonging
to the period covered by this book, contains hardly a single drawing
to repay the weary hunt through their pages. Yet the issues of a later
decade are as certain to be prized by students of the 'eighties' as the
best periodicals of the sixties are by devotees of that period.
PUNCH AND JUDY,
Beginning in October 1869, yet another paper on similar lines, ran
a short but interesting career of twelve weeks, and continued, in
a commonplace way, for a year or two longer. The reason the first
dozen issues are worth notice here is that the illustrations are all
by 'graphotype process' (which must not be confused with the far
earlier 'glyptography'), and so appeal to students of the technique
of illustration. The principle of the graphotype process, it is said,
was discovered accidentally. The inventor was removing, with a wet
camel-hair brush, the white enamel from the face of a visiting-card,
when he noticed that the printing on it was left in distinct relief.
After many experiments the idea was developed, and a surface of metal
was covered with a powdered chalky substance, upon which the drawing
was made with a silicate ink which hardened the substance wherever it
was applied. The chalk was then brushed away and the drawing left in
low but distinct relief on the metal-plate, from which electrotypes
could be taken in the usual way. The experiment gained some commercial
success, and quite a notable group of artists experimented with it for
designs to an edition of Dr. Isaac Watts's _Divine and Moral Songs_,
a most curious libretto for an artistic venture. In _Punch and Judy_
the blocks are by no means bad as regards their reproduction. Despite
the very mediocre drawing of the originals, they are nevertheless
preferable to the cheap wood-engravings of their contemporaries. After
its change, 'G. O. M.' (if one reads the initials aright), or 'C. O.
M.,'contributes some average cartoons. When it first appeared, at least
one schoolboy was struck with the curious difference of technique that
the illustrations showed, and from that time onwards had his curiosity
aroused towards process-work. Therefore, this lapse into anecdotage,
in the short record of a venture otherwise artistically unworthy to be
noticed here, may be pardoned.
WILL O' THE WISP
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