Recent Illustrated Books

THE illustrated edition of the Sermon on the Mount¹may be taken as a late nineteenth-century version of an illuminated gospel. It is in black and white instead of in color; it brings in the aid of the graver and of mechanical processes ; it represents the labor of several artists, instead of that of one patient monk ; and finally it exhibits the naturalistic treatment of the subject curiously mingled with one suggested by a fading tradition of ecclesiasticism.

As if to emphasize the fact that this bit of gospel is to be construed in a wholly modern spirit, the publishers have secured an introduction by the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, who is noted for the earnestness with which he seeks to translate the gospel into the terms of current life. It is a singular piece of writing, in which an off-hand talk blends with serious discourse. We are not especially concerned with the literature of the volume, however, but merely note in passing that it anticipates the slight incongruity of treatment which runs throughout the work. The plan provides for a division of the discourse into three parts, in accordance with the conventional chapter division of the New Testament: each of these sections has its half-title, with brief contents; the text then follows, engrossed in a modification of black letter, and surrounded by decorative borders, which are occasionally repeated ; but these full pages of text are broken up by full-page drawings without text, illustrative of single points, and by vignette drawings, set in the text, which interpret salient passages.

The incongruity in treatment which strikes the eye is in the frequent transition from a conventional to a naturalistic manner, and in the divergent view of the theme arising from the variety of aspects which it assumes to the different artists engaged upon it. One regards the symbol, another the matter of fact, another the fantastic, another the historical, and there seems to be a lack of any especially unifying principle. It is, to be sure, interesting to get a contributory view of the sermon on the mount, and one might go on at some length speculating upon the agreement of such a view with the diverse mind of this generation ; nevertheless, in a work of art one is hardly satisfied with such miscellaneousness of method, and would prefer to see evidence of a little more unity of design.

The most thoroughly satisfactory part of the book, if one looks at it piecemeal, is Mr. Fenn’s contribution from his studies in the East. He has thrown that oblique light upon the text, which we in this day are wont to expect. With our closer knowledge of geographical and ethnological details, we are no longer satisfied with a local or conventional presentation in art of biblical subjects. To a Venetian or Florentine, Palestine was a bit of Italy, and an apostle was a devout neighbor; but we insist upon a geographical Palestine and an Hebraic apostle. Thus we get what we want in Mr. Fenn’s view of the desolate mount on which the sermon was said to have been delivered, and at once begin our skeptical speculations as to how the scene could have been realized in such a place. Very lovely, too, is his representation of a real city set upon a real hill, and his Mount of Olives is not a painstaking restoration of the place in the Saviour’s day, but a faithful picture of its present appearance. This picture, by the way, is interjected as a general accompaniment to the series, for it does not strictly appertain to the discourse. So, also, the view of Jerusalem, by the same artist, is that which he took on the spot, unaffected by any purpose at realizing “ the city of the great king.” His final sketch of a ruined house is the only one which may be said to have an imaginative reference to the text.

One looks at these delicate engravings, after an artist who has a delightful sense of pure color, with unbroken enjoyment. One is not disturbed by any question as to what they illustrate. He could see them in a portfolio or on the wall, and never have a suspicion of the sermon on the mount. A frugal publisher could use them to illustrate any number of other biblical portions with equal pertinence, or could apply them to anthologies, of verse, or some Travels in the East. If they were dropped out of this book altogether the explication of the text would not be lessened. But we are very glad they were not left out, for we are getting our pleasure from the book in a disjointed, fragmentary fashion ; and when once we have thrown away any regard for the unity of the volume, these pictures by Mr. Fenn remain as on the whole the most genuine and satisfactory part, and certainly very lovely.

Turning to the other pictures, whether full-page or vignette, we are disposed to consider them by the artist, rather than by the order in which they occur; for we easily fall into the way of considering the book as consisting of sets of contributions. Mr. Sandham’s name is attached to the greatest number of designs. He has conceived his subjects in the historical-romantic manner, and his work is in kind what one expects in a carefully prepared book of this sort. There is an occasional remnant of the traditional; the two similar groups of the Saviour delivering his discourse and a disciple preaching are distinguished by placing the Saviour in the background and surrounding his head by a halo, and by bringing the disciple and his hearers immediately before the eye and freeing them from any unusual character. He attempts an occasional allusive treatment. Thus the beatitude for mourners is illustrated by the angel announcing Christ’s resurrection to the two Marys at the tomb. We like this artist best when he keeps closest to realism. The misty angel, mysteriously, if not uncomfortably, seated on a rock which partakes of the angelic character, points upward with an over-developed hand, while the two women take attitudes which, if proper, yet seem somewhat studied for artistic purposes. On the other hand, the dramatic action in the secret almsgiving and the faces and figures in the hypocrites of sad countenance are freshly conceived and vigorously executed. “ Solomon in all his glory,” again, is a rich and showy figure, though one cannot escape the feeling that it is some one who wants to look as he thinks Solomon may have looked, and thus has a little of the swagger of a stage despot.

Mr. Church throws in a characteristic New England reading of the line, “ Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” A Priscilla-like young matron with her babe stands in the wintry forest, while Indians rage, having just tomahawked her husband. The elements of the story are suggested by the figures and scene rather than scrupulously defined, since a matter-offact analysis would require the figure in the foreground to be more hidden, and the Indians to be more remote, if the face of the mother records her emotions fairly ; but here again, dismissing all context, one may find a sincere pleasure in the pathetic group.

Mr. Harper, on his part, has provided the enigmatical and hyperpoetical form of interpretation. He has three subjects, and he darkens the text with them. We admire greatly the rich chiaroscuro effects in his picture, “ Ye are the light of the world,” though we are disposed to quarrel with the engraver for not better distinguishing between the texture of the prophet’s robe and the rock before and on which he stands, but the solid black is laid on with courage. It is only when we come to explain the exact significance of the figure that we are embarrassed. We suppose it to symbolize the church offering to the world below a light illuminating the clouds; but the world itself certainly gets very little light thrown upon it. However, the meaning is tolerably clear beside that of the design accompanying the words, “ Enter ye in at the strait gate,” from which all our ingenuity, patiently applied, can extract no reasonable meaning. The same artist’s interpretation of “ Depart from me, ye that work iniquity ” belongs to the feebly melodramatic order of which the work of John Martin offers typical example. Compared with the corresponding work of more truly imaginative artists, as Vedder, for instance, it seems singularly weak and ineffective.

The other set designs are mainly good, and further show the somewhat desultory nature of the treatment; Mr. Taylor’s illustration of prayer giving us a nineteenth - century maiden surrounded by the old furniture which she has picked up at Lynn and Salem, and his miser being drawn from the story-books. Mr. Fraser succeeds better with his publicans saluting one another, which has a bright, really humorous touch, than with his Jewish Family, which is rather formal.

We have reserved to the last a consideration of the work upon this volume which divides the honors with Mr. Fenn’s Oriental studies. The decorative borders show a fertility of resources and a richness of detail which separate them from ordinary borders. Mr. Smith is indeed partial to one or two forms of arabesque ornament which quickly betray his hand, but the elegance and freedom of his modeling easily reconcile us to a general repetition. He shows, however, in this book a wide range of treatment, and if the scheme had required him to supply a fresh border for each design we have no doubt that he would have been quite equal to the emergency. Of the borders which make no use of the human figure we should especially praise the arch and pillars inclosing the words “ That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven ; ” the choice of the form is a very happy one, the impartial goodness of God being symbolized with dignity in the perfect harmony and symmetry of the parts. We are tempted to ask for a little more depth and rotundity in the technical rendering of the design, but the whole effect is so satisfying that the eye rests on it long with pleasure. Again, there is a most brilliant setting of the Lord’s Prayer by this same artist, which one longs to see translated into glass ; and the reproduction of architectural and sculpturesque effects is singularly well considered, the statues in the niches losing none of their stony character. All of the figure decorations are carefully studied, and not mere meaningless forms. One is reminded of this when, in the repetition of these borders, the use in one instance is fit and clear, in another far-fetched and not immediately applicable ; but that is not the artist’s fault.

The variety discoverable in this book follows very naturally from the distribution of the parts to several artists, and the apparent absence of any controlling mind, harmonizing all into an intelligible unity. There is no doubt that the entire effect, if a little bewildering, is rich and ornate, and tempts one to a comparison of details. The contrary impression easily follows from an examination of Mr. Kingsley’s illustration of a selection from Mr. Whittier’s poems.² The reading of the title-page suggests the spirit in which the work has been undertaken. Mr. Whittier’s poetry is recognized as finely interpretative of nature. It has the breath of life in it; it is nature living, pulsating, in sympathy with man, sometimes even fantastically reproductive of human sentiment, but always a nature which has been seen out-of-doors, so to speak. Mr. Kingsley, on his part, is understood to approach nature in the same spirit, to undertake the translation of her moods into line as the poet into verse. Hence when he selects Mr. Whittier’s stanzas for illustration, we may assume that his intent has been to see into the subjects of the poetry from the same angle as that employed by the poet. Although this book contains no formal announcement of Mr. Kingsley’s method, it is no secret that the draughtsman is his own engraver, and that he professes to rely for a portion at least of his results upon open-air work with his tools.

From such conditions one may justly expect a unity and an integrity in the execution of this work of a remarkable sort. It would seem impossible to provide conditions more favorable to a fine success. Mr. Whittier, feeding his eye upon the Conway intervale, breaks out into the lines, so fervid with emotion, which record his spiritual pilgrimage as he travels through the gateway of the hills. Many a person reading A Summer Pilgrimage has taken the lines to himself as repeating, more definitely than he could invent, his own sentiment. But Mr. Kingsley is permitted to see the same view, and with the poem in mind, while the sunlight falls upon the actual scene before him, to reproduce, not the view as it lies before the unthoughtful observer, — a photograph could do that, — but the view poetically charged by the information which the poet has given it.

We have taken for our example the first of the designs in the book, but all are substantially to be subjected to the same test. If this soul of poetry be not in the pictures, all excellence of technique is but a barren result, and the mere conditions of execution are of no significance ; if it be there, one is privileged to inquire bow far its presence is due to extraordinary means. Is the artist and engraver a Whittier on wood ?

That Mr. Kingsley does see into nature these pictures intimate rather than show unmistakably. In each design there is something more than a mechanical rendering of landscape effects, yet no one picture, unless it be Deer Island Pines or November, satisfies one that the artist has passed beyond a certain crude state of expression into that of a really serene poetic mood. Even November, in which the gray, gusty aspect of nature is delicately reproduced, has an irritating note in the sombre, misty figure on the hillside. The want of precision in the lines of an object apparently so near the eye indicates a helplessness in this artist when dealing with the human figure, which is further instanced by the two figures in The Mirage of Memory, and by the almost childish treatment of the string of men in The Decoy Beacon. We should say in general that composition — that test of the real artist — was only partially developed in Mr. Kingsley, and that he succeeded best in those scenes which the camera would outline for him. Thus his comparative failures in this book are The Storm on Lake Asquam, Night after a Storm at Sea, The Three Bells, and The Decoy Beacon. In all of these he has used a certain violence of fancy in place of a strong, commanding imagination. Let one, for instance, compare his rendering of The Storm on Lake Asquam with Whittier’s corresponding verses. The poet has made his few masterly lines to sweep through all the sudden changes of the air with an unfeverish, yet quick, majestic movement, while the prelusive reference to the prophet Elijah seems to linger in the reader’s mind throughout. There is no straining for effect, but the storm comes and goes in these few verses with a rush and a subsidence which are the very image of nature. Mr. Kingsley, on the other hand, who can of course seize only a moment, manages to solidify the scene by the hard emphasis which he has laid upon the cloud forms, and by the unpleasant marking of his foreground, — a fault which reappears in other pictures, — while the clouds themselves offer a grotesque suggestion of a gigantic form struggling.

It is when Mr. Kingsley contents himself with patient rendering of some fraction of a picture that we can take satisfaction in his work. Besides those of which we have spoken, we may call attention to A Winter Storm, where he has wisely limited his work to the expression of a single phase. Evening by the Lakeside strikes us as nearest to success in composition, while owing its greatest merit to its reproduction of atmospheric effect. Mount Chocorua, if one can keep his eyes upon the mountain, instead of having them drawn off in curiosity to the foreground, is strong where strength is most needed, but the large, broad view with which the book opens is minified by the lines which fracture the effect instead of heightening it.

Yet in all these pictures there are bits so good, so truthful, so full of fine suggestion and poetic thought, that one is almost ready to forgive the artist for his pardonable ambition to make great pictures in the frequent opportunities which this ambition has brought him of showing how admirably he is capable of expressing a single thought. If the general impression of the book is one of crudeness, the most abiding one, after all, is of native force, and enthusiasm, and genuine love of nature, with a dexterity of manipulation which hits oftener than it misses.

There is a certain uniqueness in the design of this Whittier volume which interests one at the outset. The illustrated Childe Harold³ comes with no such coigne of vantage. It is one of a large class of picture books with which the public is tolerably familiar. The example was set, we believe, by Rogers’s Italy, and has been followed with fair success, especially on this side of the water. A poem which needs no heralding is placed in the hands of a number of artists, who are bidden express in black and white their views of certain scenes and figures ; where actual landscapes or buildings are referred to in the verse, an attempt is made to delineate these ; the divisions of the poem are marked by ornamental devices ; there are head-pieces and tail-pieces, and sometimes initial letters. The book is printed on paper which is well calendered and tinted, is generally small quarto in form, and is furnished with a cover of temperate richness in decoration.

The fashion being a well-established one, the opportunity for excellence lies not in the variation here and there from the accepted form, but in the thoroughness and general excellence with which the design is carried out. One asks if the printing is even ; if the engraving is uniformly good ; if the designs, all three or four inches square, are hack work, or genuine, fresh studies by artists who do not count the cost, but give the best they have. It is this last test which is the crucial one. The fact is, the whole system of giving out books for illustration is an artificial one, which is not calculated to bring out a high order of work. Suppose the reverse method were adopted, and the company of poets whom Mr. Stedman invited to his recent reception were called upon to furnish verses which would serve as mottoes to one of the exhibitions of the National Academy. They could do it, and there is enough cleverness among them to insure some happy turns in thus matching poetry with art; but one sees, without trying the experiment, that the process is essentially mechanical.

On the other hand, there have been fortunate hits under this general system of book illustration. An artist has worked in a vein which naturally suggests a certain poet, or he has made, out of his own interest, studies in the very art of interpretation of this writer. Then the task of the publisher who is ordering an illustration is an easy one, and the danger of getting a piece of perfunctory work is removed. The secret, we suspect, of success, when one of these formal picture-books is lifted into a real exhibition of good art, lies in the tact and experience of the manager of the enterprise. If he knows thoroughly the aptitude of artists, and avails himself of their interest and enthusiasm rather than attempts to force inspiration upon them, he is likely to be rewarded with at least occasional pictures of spontaneous worth.

We are not preparing by this accidental excursus for swooping down upon the illustraled Byron. It is an excellent specimen of its class. The page is a fair one, printing and paper are commendable, there is an evenness of execution which implies good oversight, and after one has accepted easily the trim, agreeable cuts which occur at pretty regular intervals he turns back to a few which invite more than a passing glance.

Such are those illustrating the lines

and the subjects of The Field of Waterloo, and Pathless Woods. Some of the decorative head-pieces, again, notably those to Cantos I. and IV., are rich and extremely effective. It seems a pity, since the designs are all of much the same order of treatment, that there could not have been a corresponding agreement between the various decorative designs. Had these all been in the manner and of the vigor of those which we have noted, the contrast between the decorative and pictorial portions would have been heightened, to the manifest advantage of each. The eye is relieved by the occasional appearance of these sculpturesque forms, but takes little interest in the incidental posies, caps and spears, and the like which serve as flourishes.

It is quite another affair when an artist takes some short poem for a theme, and plays variations upon it. No judicious publisher, laying out a holiday book, could call into being so ingenious and efflorescent a trifle as is spun by the wit of two artists working, the one as a complement of the other, upon the material offered by Dr. Holmes’s The Last Leaf.1 Mr. Edwards has supplied the figures and the lettering and devices, Mr. Smith the landscapes. The innocent reader, familiar with the airy little poem, may ask, What landscapes ? and while reflecting upon the opportunities for figure work may puzzle himself to discover more than one. Little he knows of the nimble fancy by which these clever artists have tossed the poem back and forth between them, seeing a whole story in a word and a life history in a line. Nor is the ingenuity idle or strained. There is reason for each of the well-studied drawings, and what especially pleases us is the seriousness with which Messrs. Edwards and Smith have taken their pictures as soon as they have slipped away from the suggestion so deftly caught from the text. Once given a clue to a picture, and the picture itself occupies the attention altogether. The only case where we observe a somewhat idle importation of the poem into the picture is in the charming design of the old fellow out on his walk, leaning over the bars by a field. The sketch is quite sufficient by itself without the very obvious moral of a single leaf upon the bare branches of the tree by the roadside.

Occasionally the reference in the picture is allusive, as in the illustration of the lines

where there is an interior just ready for an old body: rocking-chair set with slippers in front of it, rose-bushes on the window-seat, and frost and snow without,— a somewhat far-fetched sentiment, but adding a little variety to the treatment. Usually the reference is direct enough, but the picture is full with its own purpose.

The tints used in printing and the graceful variety of the embroidery of the text suit well the light, playful character of the verse ; the strength of the picture again responds to that lingering note of gravity which makes this poem a marvel among its kind. Mr. Smith, with his free, forcible charcoal drawings, so admirably reproduced by the phototype process, is not more serious than Dr. Holmes himself, only the seriousness in both cases is the bass in a perfect harmony. The artists may be congratulated that they have found to their purpose a mechanical process which answers easily both to their light and to their heavy touch, and the general effect produced in this well-conceived and well-executed volume is so harmonious as almost to have the value of a new artistic invention. It can hardly set an example to be followed, but we think it will encourage artists to believe that there are more ways open than they had supposed to a satisfactory reproduction of their happy thoughts in art.