A great name among English wood-engravers is that of William J. Linton, who has done more by his work and pen to advance the art than any one. His best work was executed about the middle of this century, particularly in the engravings of Rossetti’s designs for Tennyson’s poems (1857-59). He is also known as a writer and designer of considerable power. A pupil of his—Mr. Walter Crane—whose work is so well known and admired in the present day, has designed some fine decorative work for book illustration. His children’s books are good examples of colour and design, but perhaps his own poem, “The Sirens Three,” where he has designed and executed the lettering and beautiful decoration, best fulfils the conditions of what a decorated page ought to be, and maybe ranked as one of his greatest efforts in book decoration. The late Randolph Caldecott, whose characteristic humour appears in every line of his work, was another great designer of children’s books. His colouring is very harmonious and refined, and though his work is mostly of a pictorial character, yet in his larger pages he displays a true feeling for the decoration of the page. Children’s illustrated books of fairy tales have multiplied very much of late years, and in many of them is seen some of the old decorative feeling, where the text and illustrations are considered in an artistic relation to each other. This will also be noticed in many illustrations to poems which often appear in the monthly magazines of the present day. On the other hand, picture illustrations and scrappy designs of the vignette order are very common. These are generally inserted, without any apparent order, on any part of the page, and the type matter filled into the vacant spaces. This picture-screen method of book, newspaper, and magazine illustration has no doubt been developed by our recent acquaintance and infection with Japanese art, which, though highly artistic and decorative in many senses, is wanting in balance of mass, and is only occasionally right in arrangement of line. Japanese decoration as such is generally charming, but when the Western designer copies the Japanese ideas without the style and methods of execution, the result may have novelty to recommend it, but otherwise it is a failure. It is hardly necessary to say that the reign of wood-engraving is almost now at an end as far as book illustration is concerned, and, like steel engraving, has nearly become an art of the past, owing to the great advance made in recent years in the many methods of black and white reproduction, which is mainly due to the powerful help and agency of photography. END. --------------------- PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPMAN & HALL’S ART PUBLICATIONS. [Illustration]