DOI issue:
No. 242 (May 1913)
DOI article:Salaman, Malcolm C.: Wood-engraving for colour in Great Britain
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21160#0315
Wood-Engraving for Colour
colour-wash is carefully applied, the first is to take bicycle and tent wheresoever the mood
already too dry for satisfactory printing, hence in directs them, in search of the pictorial subject,
practice an extended number of printings is For every print he makes many sketches from
adopted. It will be seen, therefore, that a nature, and his prints testify to camping days
rhythmic order, ideal in theory, is of little and nights in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia. Let
advantage, because undue attention given to one us hope their recent adventuring in Corsica will
colour-shape might leave insufficient time properly bear rich fruit. For the making of one splendid
to colour the others. It was to obviate these print, Swan and Cygnets, Mr. and Mrs. Giles lived
difficulties, by a great saving of time, that Mr. Giles six weeks in a covered punt on the Thames near
made the interesting experiment with cameo zinc Windsor. To the intimacy that ensued between
plates, which resulted in the charming colour-print the artist and the stately swan and her young ones
reproduced in The Studio's last Winter Number, we owe the essential truth and vitality of this
He has already proved that metal plates, printed in glorious print. And the water is as much alive as
the relief way of the wood-blocks, but without their the birds. Relative truth and beauty of colour,
drawbacks of rapid drying, can give the pure with artistic vitality of design, and the poetic ex-
luminous colour one gets from the wood; but the pression of the subject, distinguish all Mr. Giles's
powdered colours must be mixed with rectified prints, while the elusive quality of style hall-marks
petroleum in place of water, and one drop of poppy them. My Lady's Birds—I doubt if the colour-
oil instead of rice-paste for binding; then the glories of the peacock's plumage has ever been
metal must be coated with shellac which shall . rendered with a richer and more exquisite sense of
become perfectly hard, to prevent the chemical harmony, or if the birds have lent themselves to
action which would otherwise inevitably
soil the colours. But of this more another
time, for I am convinced that the develop-
ment of this method will greatly influence
and extend the production of colour-prints.
For the moment, however, we are con-
cerned only with Mr. Giles's work on the
wood.
Septeviber Moon, reproduced here in
colours, is one of the most beautiful and
poetic of Mr. Giles's prints. It is, per-
haps, little to the purpose to tell that the
actual scene depicted may be found in the
Shinfield Woods of Berkshire, a fact that
the artist confided to me as reluctantly as
if he had been betraying some romantic
tryst, for, in truth, the picture is subjective
rather than objective. It is the romance
of moonlight that has inspired his pictorial
mood. Companioned by gracious trees,
he has seen the moon, in one of her
tenderest and sweetest moments, breaking
above the cloud-banks, and bathing the
landscape in a crystalline purity. The
Passing of the Crescent—Umbria, Italy,
shows another moonlight mood in fine
colour and impressive design. I imagine
the scene to be in the neighbourhood of
Spoleto, a favourite sketching-ground ot
Mr. Giles.
It is his happy custom, in company
with his wife —herself a charming and
. cold cloud (from the queen of the fishes
accomplished water-colour painter— lucien pissarro
292
colour-wash is carefully applied, the first is to take bicycle and tent wheresoever the mood
already too dry for satisfactory printing, hence in directs them, in search of the pictorial subject,
practice an extended number of printings is For every print he makes many sketches from
adopted. It will be seen, therefore, that a nature, and his prints testify to camping days
rhythmic order, ideal in theory, is of little and nights in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia. Let
advantage, because undue attention given to one us hope their recent adventuring in Corsica will
colour-shape might leave insufficient time properly bear rich fruit. For the making of one splendid
to colour the others. It was to obviate these print, Swan and Cygnets, Mr. and Mrs. Giles lived
difficulties, by a great saving of time, that Mr. Giles six weeks in a covered punt on the Thames near
made the interesting experiment with cameo zinc Windsor. To the intimacy that ensued between
plates, which resulted in the charming colour-print the artist and the stately swan and her young ones
reproduced in The Studio's last Winter Number, we owe the essential truth and vitality of this
He has already proved that metal plates, printed in glorious print. And the water is as much alive as
the relief way of the wood-blocks, but without their the birds. Relative truth and beauty of colour,
drawbacks of rapid drying, can give the pure with artistic vitality of design, and the poetic ex-
luminous colour one gets from the wood; but the pression of the subject, distinguish all Mr. Giles's
powdered colours must be mixed with rectified prints, while the elusive quality of style hall-marks
petroleum in place of water, and one drop of poppy them. My Lady's Birds—I doubt if the colour-
oil instead of rice-paste for binding; then the glories of the peacock's plumage has ever been
metal must be coated with shellac which shall . rendered with a richer and more exquisite sense of
become perfectly hard, to prevent the chemical harmony, or if the birds have lent themselves to
action which would otherwise inevitably
soil the colours. But of this more another
time, for I am convinced that the develop-
ment of this method will greatly influence
and extend the production of colour-prints.
For the moment, however, we are con-
cerned only with Mr. Giles's work on the
wood.
Septeviber Moon, reproduced here in
colours, is one of the most beautiful and
poetic of Mr. Giles's prints. It is, per-
haps, little to the purpose to tell that the
actual scene depicted may be found in the
Shinfield Woods of Berkshire, a fact that
the artist confided to me as reluctantly as
if he had been betraying some romantic
tryst, for, in truth, the picture is subjective
rather than objective. It is the romance
of moonlight that has inspired his pictorial
mood. Companioned by gracious trees,
he has seen the moon, in one of her
tenderest and sweetest moments, breaking
above the cloud-banks, and bathing the
landscape in a crystalline purity. The
Passing of the Crescent—Umbria, Italy,
shows another moonlight mood in fine
colour and impressive design. I imagine
the scene to be in the neighbourhood of
Spoleto, a favourite sketching-ground ot
Mr. Giles.
It is his happy custom, in company
with his wife —herself a charming and
. cold cloud (from the queen of the fishes
accomplished water-colour painter— lucien pissarro
292