Studio: international art (57.1913)

The Lay Figure

THE LAY FIGURE: ON THE

ART OF ILLUSTRATION.

“ Do you not think that book illustration
has become a little inefficient of late years?” said
the Plain Man. “The demand for illustrated
literature has grown greater than ever and yet the
artists are less able than they were formerly to
make the best use of their opportunities. Illus-
tration, as illustration, seems to me to have lost its
spirit and character and to be generally lacking in
interest.”

“ That is rather a severe indictment,” laughed
the Man with the Red Tie; “ and one that I find
it a little difficult to endorse. Are you not for-
getting what a number of clever men there are now
who devote themselves to illustrative work and
what a high standard there is to-day of technical
achievement ? ”

“ Oh, I do not deny the cleverness of the
modern illustrators,” returned the Plain Man ;
“and I do not deny that there are some excep-
tional men who are keeping up the best tradi-
tions of their art. But what about the others ?
There are lots of them who can turn out remark-
ably skilful drawings and whose work is as accom-
plished as any one could wish it to be ; but don’t
you think that you want something more than
mere cleverness of execution in an illustrative
drawing ? ”

“ You have made rather a good point there,”
broke in the Art Critic. “ You are right. Clever-
ness of execution is, of course, as important ift
illustrative work as it is in all other forms of
artistic production, but the true illustrator needs
to be something more than a merely skilful crafts-
man. He has to work under certain restrictions
and he has to keep in view a certain purpose in
everything he does. If the purpose of his work is
missed its cleverness alone will not make 'it
satisfactory.”

“ But you will derive a vast amount of pleasure
from looking at a really able piece of work—what
more need you have ? ” asked the Man with the
Red Tie. “ Personally, I feel quite satisfied with a
book which is full of memorable works of art; it
is a real joy to me and it seems to me to have quite
fulfilled its mission.”

“ Because in your mind its only mission is to be
a picture-book,” asserted the Critic. “ But that is
where you miss the whole point of the argument.
What is the use of filling a book with works of art
which are obviously suitable only for places on
the walls of a gallery ? The function of an illus-
266

tration is to illustrate, and an illustrated book is,
or ought to be, a good deal more than a mere
picture-book.”

“ You mean that the illustrations in a book ought
to have an intimate connection with the letter-
press” interrupted the Plain Man ; “and that they
ought not to be simply independent works of art.”

“ Precisely, that is just what I do mean,” replied
the Critic, “the illustrations to a story must be
pictorial explanations of what the author has written
if they are to fulfil the purpose for which they have
been brought into existence. They must not be
extraneous and independent things, mere artistic
abstractions. They depend for their meaning
upon the text and it should not be possible to
separate them from it or to assign to them any
independent interest.”

“ Do you really mean to say that if the illustrator
does not merely repeat the ideas of the author his
illustrations must be bad ? ” asked the Man with
the Red Tie. “ Is he not to be allowed any
opinion of his own ? ”

“ Emphatically he must subordinate himself to
the writer of the book if his work is to be good of
its kind and to have the right meaning,” declared
the Critic. “ He must strictly respect the limita-
tions which are imposed upon him by the very
nature of the undertaking to which he is committed,
but, of course, within these limitations he must
strive to make the best display of his own capacities.
In other words, he must handle artistically the
material provided for him.”

“ You would seriously cramp his liberty of action
and freedom as an artist,” complained the Man with
the Red Tie.

“ I do not think so,” returned the Critic. “ I
would only ask him to have that thorough under-
standing of his mission that is essential for success
in all artistic effort, whatever may be the class to
which it belongs. The illustrator, if he is to be
efficient, must work in the closest sympathy with
the author ; he must never allow any of the details
of his drawings to contradict, or to be out of con-
nection with the details of the text. He must
choose, too, to illustrate those episodes in the story
which are most significant and best explain the
spirit of what has been written. He must recognise
the dramatic points of the letterpress and handle
them with intelligence. He must strive to make
more clear the purpose and intention of the
author and the special aims of the book. In fact,
he must understand what illustration really means,
and what are its inevitable obligations.”

The Lav Ficuke.