BOOK ILLUSTRATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 130, 3 June 1936, Page 16

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

NINETEENTH CENTURY ART

An interesting address on "Book Illustration in the 19th Century" was given in the W.E.A. room at the Trades Hall by Mr. E. C. Simpson, 8.A., in the course of his series of lectures on "The ■work of the artist in books, old and new" —for the Workers' Educational Association. Mr. Simpson dealt first with the work of Bewick, who was born in Newcastle in 1753, and whose life work was to raise the standard and adorn the art of wood-cutting and engraving. He was the first great ex-! ponerit of white line engraving, and was a designer as well as an engraver. He not only preferred feats of delicate engraving in advance of his generation, but he trained pressmen to print them, and it was to his personal supervision of the printing of his books that ;ve owed his admirable impressions* Mr. Simpson referred to the work of the Dalziel Brothers, who illustrated the "London News" and used large blocks. They helped to spread knowledge upon which our present achievements in nearly all branches of knowledge were based. Their occupation, was gone when Bewick's practice of light-engraving became possible by photography. In considering the work of William Morris, Mr. Simpson said that Morris was the greatest figure of the transitional age, and was a constant witness against the shams and veneer of Victorianism. The question which challenged William Morris was, "How ought a man to live?" and his whole life was guided by a central idea and purpose— L the reconstitution of art as a function of life, and the devitalisation of life through art. He helped to found the Velm-Scott Press in 1891, and in a few years he and his friends brought out the most gorgeous books seen since the decline of Venetian printing. ~ , Mr. Simpson next dealt with the art of Aubrey Beardsley, who interviewed William Morris in 1892, but whose drawings appeared immature and failed to make a favourable impression upon Morris. The publisher Dent decided to compete against the VelmScott books, and he. illustrated X>e Morte d'Arthur" with Beardsley s drawings. His borders were far more inventive in variety than those of Morris, whose work he caused to look tricky and meretricious. Beardsley pricked the bubble of medieval "fake," and the tragedy of his genius lay in the fact that he either had to sink his powers in the art '.'fake," or pursue the true art of uttering what emotions life most intensely revealed to him. Mr. Simpson illustrated his lecture with a number of fine lantern slides, and this evening his subject will be • "Woodcuts and Woodcutting."