Studio: international art (10.1897)

Pencil Drawing at Bushey

Professor Herkomer contends that the custom,
which is now almost universal, of doing illustrative
work on a large scale so that it may be reduced by
photography to the size in which it is intended to
appear is one which imposes upon the artist a very
definite obligation to learn exactly what will be the
full effect of his drawing after it has passed through
the hands of the engraver. This knowledge, he
argues, can only be arrived at by a method of
training which will teach the illustrator to express
both tone and detail simultaneously. A drawing
done after the old fashion, by building up tone
masses with a multitude of extremely delicate lines,
must, in his opinion, undergo in reduction much
falsification of the producer's original intention ;
and if the artist has never acquired the power of
treating his effects largely, whatever may be the
smallness of the scale in which they ultimately
appear, his work can scarcely fail to lose something
of its value and much of its ability to convince
people to whom it is presented.

So what the students of the Herkomer school
are doing with lead pencil is really a kind of point-
painting. Following tlie example of their professor,
who has himself used this material with conspicuous
success, they are aiming at a manner of expression
which allows them to put down what they see, and
want to interpret, without imposing upon them the
obligation to labour for many hours at what is really
nothing but mechanical surface-making. They use
for their drawings a machine-made paper which is
smooth on one side and has on the other a regular
but not too pronounced grain, and consequently
they are able to vary the surface on which they
work in accordance with the effect they wish to
produce. The pencil with which they draw is one
that will give them broad and expressive touches,
and is as often as not the large lead affected by
carpenters, which can be cut into a chisel shape so
as to give at will fine lines or wide modellings as
full of variety and character as a brush mark. The
qualities which come from this manner of work-
ing are those which make so effective the figure
study by Mr. Soord, reproduced on page 19, in
which the avoidance of mechanical definition and
the successful modulation of masses of graduated
tone are secured in a fashion which it would be
difficult to praise too highly. By such work the
possibilities of the medium are made very apparent,
and the opportunities which it affords to an artist
who can handle it with intelligence, and without
undue subservience to traditions which are now
out of date, are shown in a manner that puts its
value beyond all question.

Indeed there seems nothing needed but a sincere
appreciation of what is being done by Professor
Herkomer and his pupils to make the pencil once
more one of the most widely used of artistic imple-
ments. Now that full demonstration has been
made of its adaptability to a very much wider range
of purposes than has hitherto been allowed to it we
may expect to find it adopted much more generally
for serious and permanent work. As a means of
producing drawings for reproduction as illustrations
it has advantages that put it far above either chalk,
pen and ink, or monochrome wash. Its greater
delicacy of tone and beauty of texture when com-
pared with any of these make it infinitely more
pleasant in effect; and it imposes upon the block-
maker no mechanical difficulties that cannot be
overcome with comparative ease. It is free from
the granulation of chalk, from the hardness of pen
and ink, and escapes the opacity of brushwork;
while at the same time it can be made to show-
grain enough for efficient printing, line strong
enough for satisfactory definition, and breadth of
tone sufficient to give all that is requisite in the way
of intelligible modelling and suggestion of rich
colour. And above all it is at the disposal of
every one, without trouble in preparation and re-
quiring nothing that cannot be easily learned in
the way of management.

A. L. BaldrY

STUDY IN LEAD I'EXCIL BY D. A. WEHRSCHMIDT

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