BOOK ILLUSTRATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 141, 16 June 1936, Page 4

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

MODERN ARTISTS' PROBLEMS

Some of the problems of the modern book illustrator were considered by Mr. E. C. Simpson, 8.A., last Wednesday evening in his W.E.A. course on "The Art of Book Illustration."

Mr. Simpson stated that book illustration today was no longer a pretty complement to the author's work, -but was in itself a branch of aesthetics. The modern illustrator did not simply draw a place or person, or compose a set scene, but tried by his line or his colour to present the timeless essence of what inspired the author. He endeavoured to depict the authors' conception of mankind and the world rather than the form in which it was expressed, and he had all the wealth of mechanical equipment for the presentation of copies of his works. He knew that his designs could appear exactly as he made them, and he desired to illustrate by adding his genius to that of the author. The next decade of book illustration, said Mr. Simpson, ought to show something even larger than books— the human mind; and he thought the artist, Masereel, was the precursor of this. His art expressed ideas, and he used it to show the thoughts and emotions that modern humanity had aroused in him. He defended the weak, the submerged, and the poor, and from a love of truth and justice attacked profiteers, industrial magnates, and war-mongers. Masereel was born in Flanders in 1889 and dealt with all classes and all countries. He has a dynamic force only akin to the cinema film to which he is devoted. There are two main classes of illustrators today, continued the lecturer, those who retained the old idea of the function of the illustrate and threw themselves into the spirit of the author, trying to provide a pictorial counterpart to the text. They used every medium from line and half tone to original lithography and aquatint, and their Work could be full of dash and spirit. The second class of modern illustrators did typographic drawing and preserved the integrity of the printed page. Their figures were , naked, cold abstractions, stripped of time and place. The contemporary fashion was for abstract, as opposed to descriptive illustration, and there was a widespread belief that woodcuts were the ideal accompaniment of types. There was, however, a world of difference between the simple black line siits of the old blocks, and the white line cuts which passed as book decorations today, and most of the modern woodcuts were too crude in quality and too black in colour to accompany type. In order to obtain harmony it was necessary to design types heavy enough to carry the weight in colour of the average modern woodcut, and this obliged the eni graver to design specifically for the type to be illustrated. Mr. Simpson stressed the importance of engravers considering the texture of the type which their blocks' were required to illustrate. The problem of the illustrated book was a difficult one, but it could be solved if they were careful to harmonise the text of both type and woodcut. Tomorrow Mr. Simpson will speak about the work 'of William Blake.