DOI issue:
No. 92 (November, 1900)
DOI article:Wood, Esther: On some recent examples of chromo-xylography
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19786#0118
Chromo-Xylography
art. The impulse towards "beauty for beauty's
sake " woke tardily in the present century in the
too-logical and utilitarian West. Even to-day we
hear intelligent people, when some purely decora-
tive composition is brought before them, begin to
torture themselves with the question, What does it
mean ?—when probably the painter meant nothing
but beauty, being well content if he achieved that.
Against this narrow vision of beauty has been
thrust during the past thirty years the audacious
fancy, the brilliant characterisation, and the in-
exhaustible symbolism of the Japanese. All that
our laboured realism sought after, they achieve by
one suggestive flash. The moods of Nature, for
which we so often mistake our own, they know by
living with them more intimately, and with single-
ness of heart. Life, life in form and action, they
seize and sum up for us while we are analysing its
component parts. They confront us with the con-
trast of an art in which the spiritual and the
aesthetic elements have never been at war.
In London, as in Paris, at the present time,
Japanese influence can be traced in all the
" newer" draughtsmen, from the real or affected
eccentricities of the French illustrated press to the
decorative work of Edgar Wilson in England and
the grotesque social satires of J. W. T. Manuel and
S. H. Sime. What were the methods in which
these surprising faculties of the Japanese were
spent?—would the adoption and development of
them bring us any nearer to their magical charm ?
These were the questions that fascinated the first
learners in this so unorthodox school. That its
masters were unique and inimitable did not deter
the students from their course; the influence was
too strong and vital to be utterly in vain. Hitherto
the craze for mere collections, the treatment of
foreign works of art too much in the light of
curiosities, had vulgarised all that we had laid our
hands on, and blinded us to the practical lessons
they had in store. Could not the unprejudiced
study of these examples help us towards fresh
creations of our own—since there is surely no
copyright in methods, and genius is its own
security from the infringement of its powers ?
So, at least, argued the three or four men who,
unknown at first to each other, began within the
present decade to experiment with the cutting of
colour-blocks. The first suggestion came from a
designer who had in hand the illustration of a
children's book. He had prepared for the opening
page a drawing of Eve and the Serpent, a simple,
decorative picture not unpromising for reproduc-
tive experiments. "Would it not be possible," he
said one day to a friend, " to print that frontispiece
in colour? "
Hence arose the long and arduous efforts to
which Mr. J. D. Batten and Mr. Morley Fletcher
now devoted weeks and even months of thought
and care, which at first seemed almost fruitless.
To learn from difficult and unfamiliar sources the
exact details of the Japanese method was but a
preliminary task. To re-apply these with any
approach to success was quite another. But so
fascinating did the work become, that no sooner
were a few really satisfactory impressions secured
of Eve and the Serpent, than the two enthusiasts
began upon a second design, of a bolder and more
elaborate character. It was over this second
experiment, The Harpies, now to be seen, with
its predecessor, at the South Kensington Museum,
that the main technical questions were effectually
fought out.
It would be needless here to repeat in full the
details of the Japanese process which has already
been described in these pages.
The work done by Mr. Edgar Wilson in the
direction of colour-printing differs characteristically
from that of Mr. Batten and Mr. Fletcher in that
he has from the first pursued it side by side with
etching, and in his later experiments combined the
two methods habitually in the same print. This
innovation has been criticised in several quarters
as a spurious mixture of two essentially different
processes, but there seems no reason why wood
and metal should not be used together in a colour-
print, any more than in any other decoration, since
no deception in the picture is attempted or desired.
In modifying and developing so variable a handi-
craft in the direction of his own best powers—
giving scope for finer and more elaborate line than
can be easily obtained from the wood-block—
Mr. Wilson frees himself from the limitations of
the latter only to submit to no less arduous con-
ditions from the metal. In his own art, in his
own personal way of seeing things, colour is
always subordinate to line. Is it not wiser, then,
to follow here the instincts of his temperament
and adapt the handicraft to their expression ? The
Windmill (reproduced here in colour), one of
Mr. Wilson's earliest colour-prints, is already known
to connoisseurs, and for beauty of atmosphere
and simple dignity of composition has scarcely
been surpassed in England.
An attempt was made at first by Mr. Batten to
minimise labour by having the design engraved on
the cross-section of the wood by the ordinary
English process (it being found impossible to use
99
art. The impulse towards "beauty for beauty's
sake " woke tardily in the present century in the
too-logical and utilitarian West. Even to-day we
hear intelligent people, when some purely decora-
tive composition is brought before them, begin to
torture themselves with the question, What does it
mean ?—when probably the painter meant nothing
but beauty, being well content if he achieved that.
Against this narrow vision of beauty has been
thrust during the past thirty years the audacious
fancy, the brilliant characterisation, and the in-
exhaustible symbolism of the Japanese. All that
our laboured realism sought after, they achieve by
one suggestive flash. The moods of Nature, for
which we so often mistake our own, they know by
living with them more intimately, and with single-
ness of heart. Life, life in form and action, they
seize and sum up for us while we are analysing its
component parts. They confront us with the con-
trast of an art in which the spiritual and the
aesthetic elements have never been at war.
In London, as in Paris, at the present time,
Japanese influence can be traced in all the
" newer" draughtsmen, from the real or affected
eccentricities of the French illustrated press to the
decorative work of Edgar Wilson in England and
the grotesque social satires of J. W. T. Manuel and
S. H. Sime. What were the methods in which
these surprising faculties of the Japanese were
spent?—would the adoption and development of
them bring us any nearer to their magical charm ?
These were the questions that fascinated the first
learners in this so unorthodox school. That its
masters were unique and inimitable did not deter
the students from their course; the influence was
too strong and vital to be utterly in vain. Hitherto
the craze for mere collections, the treatment of
foreign works of art too much in the light of
curiosities, had vulgarised all that we had laid our
hands on, and blinded us to the practical lessons
they had in store. Could not the unprejudiced
study of these examples help us towards fresh
creations of our own—since there is surely no
copyright in methods, and genius is its own
security from the infringement of its powers ?
So, at least, argued the three or four men who,
unknown at first to each other, began within the
present decade to experiment with the cutting of
colour-blocks. The first suggestion came from a
designer who had in hand the illustration of a
children's book. He had prepared for the opening
page a drawing of Eve and the Serpent, a simple,
decorative picture not unpromising for reproduc-
tive experiments. "Would it not be possible," he
said one day to a friend, " to print that frontispiece
in colour? "
Hence arose the long and arduous efforts to
which Mr. J. D. Batten and Mr. Morley Fletcher
now devoted weeks and even months of thought
and care, which at first seemed almost fruitless.
To learn from difficult and unfamiliar sources the
exact details of the Japanese method was but a
preliminary task. To re-apply these with any
approach to success was quite another. But so
fascinating did the work become, that no sooner
were a few really satisfactory impressions secured
of Eve and the Serpent, than the two enthusiasts
began upon a second design, of a bolder and more
elaborate character. It was over this second
experiment, The Harpies, now to be seen, with
its predecessor, at the South Kensington Museum,
that the main technical questions were effectually
fought out.
It would be needless here to repeat in full the
details of the Japanese process which has already
been described in these pages.
The work done by Mr. Edgar Wilson in the
direction of colour-printing differs characteristically
from that of Mr. Batten and Mr. Fletcher in that
he has from the first pursued it side by side with
etching, and in his later experiments combined the
two methods habitually in the same print. This
innovation has been criticised in several quarters
as a spurious mixture of two essentially different
processes, but there seems no reason why wood
and metal should not be used together in a colour-
print, any more than in any other decoration, since
no deception in the picture is attempted or desired.
In modifying and developing so variable a handi-
craft in the direction of his own best powers—
giving scope for finer and more elaborate line than
can be easily obtained from the wood-block—
Mr. Wilson frees himself from the limitations of
the latter only to submit to no less arduous con-
ditions from the metal. In his own art, in his
own personal way of seeing things, colour is
always subordinate to line. Is it not wiser, then,
to follow here the instincts of his temperament
and adapt the handicraft to their expression ? The
Windmill (reproduced here in colour), one of
Mr. Wilson's earliest colour-prints, is already known
to connoisseurs, and for beauty of atmosphere
and simple dignity of composition has scarcely
been surpassed in England.
An attempt was made at first by Mr. Batten to
minimise labour by having the design engraved on
the cross-section of the wood by the ordinary
English process (it being found impossible to use
99