Studio: international art (2.1894)

Drawing for Reproduction

of activity it is informed. If your editor be a

DRAWING FOR REPRODUC-
kindly creature, he will base his repudiation of
TION : IMPRESSIONISM IN impressionism in black and white upon an assumed
BLACK AND WHITE. BY inability of the public to understand it. The man
CHARLES G. HARPER. in the street, the editor says in effect, is capable
_—-——-------- only of understanding the simplest statement of

Wk^amn.i impressionism facts; and as this pleasing entity is the chief prop

^ItT^Bp^^ in paint has had of the illustrated papers, why, give him facts of the

"V tIHH its day of storm most poignant and unmistakable character ! But

fill A and stress, and it seems to me that this plea is insulting to the

SBl I jSg '' has won to a intelligence of all those that go to and fro amidst

?''Bf * popular accept- these varying conditions of life and under ever-

?*&lfl| ||f ; ance in a man- changing skies.

^jfflj ||| '. ner truly aston- I am by way of acquiring an intimate knowledge

^'Jmm^M ishing since its of the editorial mind, since, primarily for my own

Niifyil/ Pyrrhic victory, satisfaction and in some degree for the instructive

^JS«ulKf . when that his- purpose of collating official ideas, I made the

W ''>4Ht ioric farthing drawings that illustrate this article. It would

P'ifflHlb was its only seem that in drawing for the papers you need pay

I• Jlfllf award in the no attention to atmospheric conditions. A Black

^KMi matter of Night on the Victoria Embankment is not, for

W/Sgi Whistler v. instance, a subject that would be allowed generally

J||f jj Ruskin. This to come within the range of practical illustration,

WF is a matter for for where, an 't please you, is the Embankment?

Wm pleasurable It is a prevalent editorial superstition that a pre-

contemplation, sumably intelligent public would want at once the

for it proves a blackness of the night and the architectural features

remarkable ad- of that riverside boulevard; which (in the Euclidian

vance in taste formula) is absurd.

1 and an alto- Yet the locality can readily be made recognisable

* i i i ' gether admir- without the poor expedient of falsifying the natural

drawn on " scratch-out paper corrective effect of such a night; and it is a subject that fills

to the otherwise severely utilitarian and matter-of- one with a great enthusiasm for rendering in wash.

fact spirit of this time.
But although paint has
become emancipated
from the fallacy of the
sharp focus and micro-
scopic detail, it would
be the gravest error
on the part of an
illustrator to imagine
that illustration has
won to a similar free-
dom. Illustration, as
the British editor will
very promptly tell you,
is illustration first and
art afterwards ; so long
as it fulfils sufficiently
well the functions of
the diagram, it is no
manner of concern of

his with what degree " victoria embankment : a black night." from a drawing 54x31

. 1 175

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