DOI issue:
No. 114 (September, 1902)
DOI article:Jenkins, Will: Illustration of the daily press in America, [2]
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19876#0296
American Press Illustrators
ledge of what good design really is : probably
due to many of the workers having to turn their
hand to this branch of drawing equipped only with
a training for pictorial efforts. Much of the work
seems to be more or less inspired by what
others are doing—a mild sort of copying some
other artist's style—instead of grappling with the
problem and thinking it out. There is also much
evidence of lack of knowledge or respect for
fundamental growth, too much of impossible radia-
tion, foliation growing in opposite directions, with
motives based on degenerate acanthus leaves,
sometimes pointed at both ends and with a stem
somewhere near the middle. Lettering, as a rule,
is good—drawn in relation to the other parts and
to the page, legible, and not often eccentric, or, as
formerly, with a worrying manner of interlacing,
shading, and imitation of debased styles. There
is still much room for improvement to the men
who will sufficiently realise its importance and
possibilities of beauty to look into its traditions.
The pages made up of half-tone blocks by them-
selves and containing none of the artist's work are
anything but pleasing, merely so many rectangular
smudges of ink, ofttimes grouped or scattered over
the space without relation either to each other or
to the page. These faults the designers know how
to rectify, and in so doing not only make the
page agreeable as a whole, but they equalise
the force of the blocks, relieve the monotony of
a flat, weak picture, strengthening it by contrasts,
or tone down the harsh note of a heavy black
mass.
The general public does not appreciate the pains
and expense necessary to do these things as they
could and ought to be done; but this is not the
final word on that line of thought. Each effort to
improve the appearance of newspapers or any other
form of printing is doing much to disseminate
things less ugly, and even to accomplish some-
thing of beauty in a newspaper page, and thus
create artistic taste, which, even if not the function
of newspapers, will come to be understood as
making the world a better place to live in;
ledge of what good design really is : probably
due to many of the workers having to turn their
hand to this branch of drawing equipped only with
a training for pictorial efforts. Much of the work
seems to be more or less inspired by what
others are doing—a mild sort of copying some
other artist's style—instead of grappling with the
problem and thinking it out. There is also much
evidence of lack of knowledge or respect for
fundamental growth, too much of impossible radia-
tion, foliation growing in opposite directions, with
motives based on degenerate acanthus leaves,
sometimes pointed at both ends and with a stem
somewhere near the middle. Lettering, as a rule,
is good—drawn in relation to the other parts and
to the page, legible, and not often eccentric, or, as
formerly, with a worrying manner of interlacing,
shading, and imitation of debased styles. There
is still much room for improvement to the men
who will sufficiently realise its importance and
possibilities of beauty to look into its traditions.
The pages made up of half-tone blocks by them-
selves and containing none of the artist's work are
anything but pleasing, merely so many rectangular
smudges of ink, ofttimes grouped or scattered over
the space without relation either to each other or
to the page. These faults the designers know how
to rectify, and in so doing not only make the
page agreeable as a whole, but they equalise
the force of the blocks, relieve the monotony of
a flat, weak picture, strengthening it by contrasts,
or tone down the harsh note of a heavy black
mass.
The general public does not appreciate the pains
and expense necessary to do these things as they
could and ought to be done; but this is not the
final word on that line of thought. Each effort to
improve the appearance of newspapers or any other
form of printing is doing much to disseminate
things less ugly, and even to accomplish some-
thing of beauty in a newspaper page, and thus
create artistic taste, which, even if not the function
of newspapers, will come to be understood as
making the world a better place to live in;