Joseph Pennell
The Illustration of Books
A Manual for the Use of Students, Notes for a Course of Lectures at the Slade School, University College
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4057664606259
Table of Contents
LECTURE I. WHAT IS ILLUSTRATION?
LECTURE II. THE EQUIPMENT OF THE ILLUSTRATOR.
LECTURE III. METHODS OF DRAWING FOR REPRODUCTION IN LINE.
LECTURE IV. THE REPRODUCTION OF LINE DRAWINGS.
LECTURE V. THE MAKING OF WASH DRAWINGS AND THEIR REPRODUCTION BY MECHANICAL PROCESS.
LECTURE VI. REPRODUCTION OF DRAWINGS BY WOOD ENGRAVING.
LECTURE IX. THE PRINTING OF ETCHINGS.
LECTURE X. PHOTOGRAVURE AND PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHY, ETC.
LECTURE XI. MAKING READY FOR THE PRINTING PRESS.
PREFACE.
THESE lectures were delivered in the Slade School, University College, at the request and suggestion of Professor F. Brown, and, I believe, were the first, or among the first, serious attempts in this country to point out all the various methods of making and reproducing drawings for book and newspaper illustration.
Since they were first delivered, now some three winters ago, courses of lectures on illustration, and classes for instruction in drawing and engraving have been started in almost all art schools.
It seemed to me, therefore, that a small manual on the subject might be useful.
There is no attempt in this book to define Art, or even to tell the student how to draw; that he learns in his ordinary school work. Still less is there any endeavour to dictate, or even suggest, any especial style, or manner of handling, or technique.
But illustration is, up to a certain point, a mechanical craft, which must be learned, and can be learned, by any one. And ignorance of the requirements and absolute necessities are evident all around us.
The book, therefore, might rather be described as a series of tips or hints—to put it on as low a plane as possible—the result of practical experience, which should enable the student to make his drawings so that they will produce a good effect on the printed page; but, first of all, he must be able to make the drawing well. No one can teach him that; but he can be taught what materials he should use, where he can get them, and how he should employ them. That is all I have tried to do.
As I have said in this book repeatedly, processes are discovered and perfected almost daily. Since these lectures were last given, the method of etching zinc and copper half-tone blocks has been entirely revolutionised. Now, there is no inking up of plates; the photograph on the metal serves as a protecting and acid-resisting ground, and the biting is done as simply as in ordinary etching; though, of course, it is the lines or dots which are left in relief.
Possibly before the book is out, even greater improvements and developments may be made.
Nor have I attempted to describe all the tricks, dodges, and clever schemes employed in newspaper offices for making blocks from photographs, or for the rapid reproduction of sketches, such as drawing on lithographic transfer paper, making photographic enlargements on fugitive prints. All are most useful and valuable in their way, but not exactly what one would tell a student to do. If he becomes an illustrator he will learn these things fast enough.
As the book is passing through the press Mr. W. Lewis Fraser, the art manager of “The Century” magazine, writes me that he thinks it “a good practical book, likely to be of much use to the young illustrator, and save the art editor many a pang and many a sorrow.” I hope so, and it is with this hope that the book is published.
JOSEPH PENNELL.
London, Oct., 1895.
THE ILLUSTRATION OF BOOKS.
LECTURE I.
WHAT IS ILLUSTRATION?
THE craving for pictures, that is, for illustrations, is as old as the world. The cave-dweller felt it when he scratched on the walls of his house, or carved the handle of his battle-axe; one there was “who stayed by the tents with the women, and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon the ground.” Others painted themselves blue, and were beautiful; and these were the first illustrators.
The Egyptians were the most prolific, and their works may be found, monuments more durable than brass, not alone in their places, but scattered to all the corners of the earth.
From the Egyptians and the Assyrians we may skip, offending but the archæologist and the pedant, to the illuminators who threw their light on the Dark Ages. They changed their methods from carving to tracing, and their mediums from stone and papyrus to parchment and vellum.
But always these illustrations were single works of art, they were not reproduced, and only duplicated by copying by hand.
Beautiful as are the manuscripts, they play but a small and unimportant part in the history of illustration, when compared with the block books that follow them; though block printing is but a natural evolution from the stamp on the bricks of the Egyptian, or the painting on the vases of the Etruscan.
The block books, more often loose sheets, were printed from designs, picture and text, cut on the wood, in one piece, sometimes possibly engraved in metal. These blocks, being inked, and having sheets of paper placed on their inked surfaces, and the paper being rubbed, gave off an impression; as many blocks having to be cut as there were pages, and as many impressions having to be taken from each block as there were copies desired. The first of these illustrated blocks is the St. Christopher, 1423, though playing-cards, produced in the same way, were known much earlier.
It is only, however, with the invention of printing with movable types, practised by the Chinese centuries before we ever thought of it, that illustration, in its modern sense, may be said to have been created; though printing with movable type is but the