Studio: international art (21.1901)

Chromo-Xylography

springing up around art, aided by journalism of Batten, who came still earlier into the field, trans-
the more serious kind, takes ever keener cognizance ferred to it at much personal sacrifice the versatile
of new development and changes of method all the and assiduous talent which had already won recog-
world over, whether occurring through the redis- nition in design. The delicate and strangely
covery of some mine of beauty in the past, or the English woodcuts of Mr. Lucien Pissarro are
breaking of fresh ground by modern men. also well known, and he too has made original

The pioneers of colour-printing in England have, experiments in the Japanese method, but has
however, been men of broad culture and acknow- now begun to print his colour designs after the
ledged position in the more orthodox branches of manner of Mr. W. P. Nicholson and other English
art. Mr. Edgar Wilson, whose etchings are always impressionists. The work of M. A. Godin, in
looked for at exhibitions of black and white, holds hand-printing in colour without the line, has
also a distinct place as a decorative designer, and been exemplified in this journal. From Baron
has imbibed perhaps more successfully than anyone Rosenkranz we have also had some vigorous and
the constructive ingenuity of the Japanese. The imaginative studies. Here, however, we approach
attainments of Mr. F. Morley Fletcher, a winner the continental schools, led by M. Lepere and
of international honours in painting, have been M. Henri Riviere, whose xylographs were de-
publicly acknowledged by his appointment as scribed in a former issue. We may note, before
director of the arts department of Reading College, returning to strictly English work, that a similar
newly affiliated to Oxford University. Mr. J. D. development is taking place in America, largely

stimulated by the gift of a fully-
equipped colour-press to the United
States National Museum from the
Imperial Government of Japan,
supplemented by a valuable hand-
book of instructions written by
Mr. Tokuno, Chief of the Bureau
of Engraving and Printing at
Tokio.

The original native Japanese
colour-print has by this time taken
its place among us as an accepted
thing, and is no longer regarded as
the hall-mark of eccentricity in the
owner, or dismissed in the same
category as the tiger-skin or the
Tiji necklace — the spoil of the
travelled sportsman in heathen
lands. It has passed unscathed
through the next stage of fashion
as a drawing-room ornament, and
begun to be seriously reckoned as
a work of art. And though a few
sturdy English traditionalists like
William Morris and certain of his
disciples have been curiously deaf
to the message of Japan, and kept
one little circle of designers still
ignorant of its power, most of us
are now aware of the revolution it
has wrought in European draughts-
manship and design.

For it is to the Japanese that we
especially owe the growth of the
from a chromo-xylograph by morley fletcher decorative spirit in our pictorial

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