Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/550

ILLUSTRATION. •176 ILLUSTRATION. judge from tlicni the character of work of the earlier and better times; but those who urge this may forjjet that one art continues to flour- ish while others lapse. In the fourth century t-eulpture had declined; but mosaic was just be- j.'inning its magnitieent development, and the most startling examples of Komuii vaulted con- struction in solid mortar masonry date also from that time. Moreover, the anliiiue look and tha pagan spirit are still to l>e found in the Chris- tian illustratioiLs of the fourth and fifth cen- turies, whereas the Church has had its own way with the niedia'val manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and those of much earlier date, like the Irish and the Anglo-Saxon, are too barbaric to have any relation to this inquiry in their paintings — whatever the illuminated page may have of decorative ctTectiveness. The mediaeval manuscripts combine illustra- tion by me.ins of miniatures with the decoration of the page in a very wonderful way. (See JIan- l scRirrs, Ili-Umination of.) With the revival of learning in Italy, the painting of miniatures became very much more elaborate as an art, and some of these miniatures of early time are fin- ished pictures with background, distance, and everything that a modern landscape or gonro picture has, except ciust shadows. Kvcn the shadows appear toward the close of the fifteenth century, and with tlie shadows comes the end of illumination considered as a separate art. The famous lireviario Grimani is, however, without shadows, and yet is dated at the very close of the fifteenth century: and the borders which Albert Diirer drew for the margins of the printed book calli'd Maximiliiin's I'raycr BooA. and which were executed in 1.515, have their elaborate groups of bu?y little figures drawn without traceable or outlined shadows, although the figures may be partly relieved on a dark shading. With the earliest printed books come the ear- liest wood-engravings, which are of exclusively artistic character. The Ihipnerotomachia of the so-called I'oliphilo (Francisco Colonna), printed in Host, has largo and very open drawings, some- times filling nearly the whole of a small folio page. The Epistles of Saint Jerome, of 1407, bas a great numl)er of small illustrations, not larger than a lady's visiting card, but full of character and containing sometimes a dozen figures boldly drawn and skillfully grouped. The several il- lustrated editions of the Divine Comcdi/ of Dante, of which perhaps the earliest is of 1497, have woodcuts and illustrations also in outline. Dur- ing the next century this same tendency to simple nnd rather formal illustration, in outline except for some arbitrary shading, continues; and it is not to be doubted that the expectation was that hand coloring would be called in to complete these designs. Books, with their pictures elabo- rately colored by hand, remain to us from this epoch. In the National Library in Paris a spe- cial permanent exhibition of these is maintained. The constant reprinting of the early books tended to preserve the abstract and simple character of illustration, and it is not until the middle of the sixteenth century, with the copper engraved plates illustrating the different manuals of sword-plny. and the delicate little woodcuts il- Itistrating the Old Testament, and the "Dance of Death" a.scribed to Holbein, that a freer style is introduced. Entire freedom in draw-in:? for wood - engiaving came slowly; even Albert Dilrer's work is largely confined to outline, and single plates of the "Apocalypse" and the "Life of Mary" are found elaborately painted in water- color, and touched with gold. Itut with the last quarter of the sixteenth century complete light and shade is sought for, as in the woodcuts ascribed to Jost Amman, published by I'eyera- bend of Frankfort, and those of Vecellia, dated 1590. In the seventeenth century were published curious books of history and to|)ogTaphy, some- times adorned with crowded battle pieces, or, like the curious history of the wars between England, France, nnd the United Provinces, with views of sea-fights, minutely engraved on copper, and effective enough in a black and crowded way. One of these pictures shows the great fire of Lon- don in lUGti. the book being printed two j-cara later. The books published by .Matthiius Merian of Frankfort with the admirable views of Ger- man cities are of this time: and Wenceslaus Hol- lar began his wonderful career of simple and perfect work as an engraver in Merian"s employ. Book illustration was, however, feeble during the hundred years from 10.50 to 1750, and the French Livres d Vignette mentioned above are remark- able in spite of their inadequacy as helping to restore the art. Wood-engraving was revived in the course of the eighltvnth century, and as early as 1775 Thomas Bewick produced his il- lustrations of ,-Esop's Fables, and his natural history books, the Quadrupeds and the Ilirds ; the little narrative drawings serving as tail- pieces to the chapters of the quadrupeds forming the most important step in book illustration which had been made for a century. The great modern movement in book illustra- tion begins about 1830 with the woodcuts made for French classics, such as Moli^re and Bernar- din de Saint-Pierre: and in England with the earliest books illustrated by Cruikshank. The work of Kowlandson. ending as Cruikshank be- gan, must have influenced him greatly at first, but Cruikshank soon worked out of the exag- gerated and purely farcical manner which the earlier artist retained to his death, and became an excellent illustrator of books, keeping up his full power until an advanced age. His work ex- ists in great abundance in woodcut, and also in a simnlc kind of etching, in which last process he was followed and surpassed as to technical ex- cellence bj' .John Leech. For the important influence of the humorous journals, see Caricature. The foundation of I'uneh led to the creation of a whole school of illustrators, and Leech, as a draughtsman for wood-engraving, was the chief of Englishmen of his time, keeping up his power till his death in 1S64. Richard Doyle and Hablot K. Browne were his contemporaries; Du ^laurier and Charles Keene. the latter one of the greatest artists in black and white, were his successors. All these men did much work in illustrating separate books. The Frenchmen .Jean Francois, Gigous, Tony .Johannot, Sulpice Chevallier (Ga- varni) were their contemporaries in the French world of books. Adolph Menzel, as being mainly a lithographer, is less obviously an illustrator of books; he is rather a painter who has made many designs to a single general theme, like the J/tfe of Frrdrrieh the Great — design? which have to l>o published in large folios. The book illustrations of the years since 185(> are remarkable for the introduction of photo-