Studio: international art (1.1893)

Drawing for Reproduction

PEN-DRAWING FOR REPRO- throuSh the PaSes of illustrated publications to a

DUCTION. — MIXED DRAW- final dlsrePute-

INGS, AND DRAWINGS NOT JArtlStS a,re beSinninS t0 ask how they can

MADE FOR REPRODUCTION dlsS0Clate themselves from that merely manufac-

BY CHARLES G. HARPER. ' tUri"S °f ^"tic drauShtsme» -ho never or

rarely go beyond the exercise of pure line-work;

Everywhere to-day is the illustrator (artist he and the widening power of process gives them

may not always be), for never was " the pic- answer. Results striking and unhackneyed are

turesque " so marketable as now; and the corre- always to be obtained to-day by those who are not

spondence editors of the Sunday papers have found hag-ridden by that purely Philistine ideal of the

a new outlet for the superfluous energies of their clear sharp line ; the mixed drawing has many

eager querists in advising them to "go in" for possibilities of artistic expression, and here are

CARN BREA, CORNWALL. IN PEN AND PENCIL. REPRODUCED BY HALF-TONE, WITH THE SKY CUT AWAY

black and white, as one might adventure upon
any commercial career. It is so easy to make
black marks on white cardboard, is it not ? and
not particularly difficult to seize upon the egregious
mannerisms of the accepted purveyors of "the
picturesque," a phrase battered nowadays out of
all real meaning.

Pen-drawing has by reason of these things
almost come to stand for exaggeration and a
shameless license, and the convention that sees
everything flamboyantly quaint is being worked
down to the bed-rock. Everything now points to
a period of instructed sobriety when the now unin-
structed abandon of these mannerists has rioted

submitted some essays in mixtures, harnessed to
experimental arrangements of process.

First comes this experiment in pen and pencil,
reproduced in half-tone. It is a scene in Cornwall.
Cam Brea is a hill of hoary Druidical traditions
that soars above the work-a-day mining-field and
arrests the clouds of this humid county. The
cottages that straggle down to mid-distance are
miners' huts, commonplace enough, all white-
washed and staring, and the Disssnting Chapel—
the Ebenezer of the place—is merely an offence
to the eye. But, taken as a whole, as going to
make up a natural composition, these white spots
and streaks are immensely valuable, and things of

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