Studio: international art (3.1894)

Decorative Illustration

DECORATIVE ILLUSTRATION,
WITH ESPECIAL REFER-
ENCE TO THE WORK OF
MR. PATON WILSON.

So far as it is possible to see our art as others see
it, there can be little doubt that the decorative
school is to foreign eyes the most conspicuous to-
day. Especially is this true of black and white
illustration. Nor is the reason far to seek. Hardly
a single example of the modern use of the Diirer
line is to be found among American illustrators.
Howard Pyle and George Wharton Edwards,
although they have in the'past produced distin-
guished work in this manner, stand almost alone.
In France, until very recently, Grasset, Schwabe,
and a few others, but served to emphasise the in-
difference of the majority. Germany one had
thought to be still carrying on the tradition of the
art that grew to its full maturity in the hands of
her artists; yet despite some modern instances the
Fatherland has so far contributed little important
work to the present revival of the craft. Here

"CHEVALIER DE CHARIOT" BY PATON WILSON

it is not needful to go back to the days of the Pre-
Raphaelite illustration, and trace its renaissance
among us. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Mr. Walter
Crane, come to hand among the most prominent
of the scores of artists of various degrees of merit
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now working in the manner of the old woodcuts.
Nor is it obligatory to include in this brief notice
of the works of one of the latest recruits—Mr.

"THE ROAD TO CAMELOT " BY PATON WILSON

Paton Wilson—a critical review of the present state
of the school of artists.

Each day sees a larger number of new works in
this style. It must be owned that the decorative
school of illustrators is a loose term, which includes
the facile invention of Walter Crane, the distin-
guished fancies of Charles Ricketts, the scholarly and
severe conventions of Selwyn Image and Herbert
Home, the fantastic imaginings of Aubrey Beards-
ley, the charmingly delicate compositions of R.
Anning Bell, to name but a few of the best known.
Others in some respects less easily grouped under
one label—Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway,
Heywood Sumner, Edgar Wilson, Laurence Hous-
man, A. G. Gaskin, and the whole of the Birming-
ham School—nevertheless when compared with the
realists, and the followers of Fred Walker, Percivall,
Charles Keene, and others of the " Once a Week "
group, stand obviously on the same side of the
sharp dividing line between " realismand decora-
tion, however far they may be from each other.