A Handbook of Illustration. A. Horsley Hinton
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A. Horsley Hinton
A Handbook of Illustration
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664650313
Table of Contents
Authors preface
Increased use of the Photographic Reproduction process and a prevailing ignorance of their nature and application, made desirable a simple practical Handbook of Illustration Methods
Such a book it has been my endeavour to produce
A.H.H.
London November 1894
PEN DRAWING.
(Original 9 x 5⅛.)
A HANDBOOK OF ILLUSTRATION
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION—THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION.
Introduced to this country, in round numbers, some fifty years ago, Photography has progressed beyond its contemporaries of the present century. It has obtained a hold upon the people, entering equally into their work and their amusements; the speed, the reality, the brilliancy of it fit it peculiarly for the age into which it has been born. It has survived, and will survive, amidst the decay of other things, because of its extraordinary adaptability to changing circumstances, its readiness to meet altering tastes and requirements; versatile in aspect, elastic in its application.
Amidst all its adaptations of modern date, in none has it been more successful than in that to which this book is devoted: that wherein photography, directly or indirectly, is employed to introduce into our literature expressions of thought, which are better so conveyed than by written or printed words. Be the language never so rich in words, or the writer's power in using them never so great, a clearer and a more lasting impression may be conveyed, even to the cultivated, and certainly to the popular mind, by the arrangement of lines and markings in such form as may be felt to actually represent the objects, and indicate the relative position and size of other objects or parts of the same.
This may be said to be the primary and normal function of an Illustration. Throughout the pages of this book, and to whatever extent the student may practise the methods herein described, it may be well to keep very clearly in mind the legitimate function of an illustration, namely: to describe, to portray, and to do this chiefly as an auxiliary to written language.
To such a kind belongs the rude scratchings of the primæval man, whose limited powers of speech forbade his adequately describing the forms of those creatures whose pursuit meant life, whose disregard would mean death, and of such kind were the hieroglyphics of the East. Nay, who shall say that the very forms of letters themselves are not the outcome of early effort to convey to the eye of another what might otherwise only have been imperfectly communicated through other senses: a means to an end; a servant, a tool, in the hands of him who would wield it.
But in the beginning there was a making of drawings and designs which had another purpose. The gourd, or rough clay vessel, was graved and marked with devices and forms suggested by the curves and shapes in Nature, but this was merely for decoration; to please the eye, and not to serve any purpose but to give pleasure. A means to an end in this sense perhaps, but note that the end was in the commencement of it, and went no further after completion; it gave pleasure to the beholder and no more, and nothing more was intended or asked. Thus was Art born—not to teach, nor to explain, nor to illustrate.
AN ESSEX LANDSCAPE.
Half-tone from oil sketch in monochrome. (Original 10⅛ x 6½). [See p. 51.]
Nor is this distinction out of place in the present work. The tendency to-day is too often to make a pretty picture rather than a good illustration; to sacrifice accuracy to beauty; to strive rather after the æsthetic pleasure in art, than the truth and fidelity of illustration. The artist is what he is from the possession of certain instinctive attributes which he is powerless to teach to another, whereas the simpler and expressive forms of draughtsmanship may be attained by almost all. From confusing art with illustration we find a man saying "I cannot do this, or that, because I am no artist," and it is with a hope of placing in the hands of such, at least to some extent, a means of graphic expression, that the present book has been undertaken.
Take also such a simple matter as a letter from a friend, and notice how often words alone fail to convey a correct impression, yet a few lines of simple form at once present a graphic description.
Mr. Blackburn gives a capital example of such a case in his "Art of Illustration." He says: "A newspaper correspondent is in a boat on one of the Italian lakes, and wishes to describe the scene on a calm summer day. This is how he proceeds:
