Chapter IV: Mr. a

Q: What is your own opinion on the subject of illustrations in books?

--In what particular do you mean?

--I mean, do you think that illustrations help or hinder the quality of a book?

--The question is too general to be answered easily. May I ask you to be more specific?

--For example, here is a "best-seller" with several--five or six--half-tone illustrations. Do you consider that these pictures make the book a more complete thing as a specimen of book-making?

--Most certainly not.

--Then would you say that illustrations in such books were a detraction?

--Illustrations such as these, yes. Though it would be hard to detract from this particular book.

--It is a standard book--a standard type of book.

--I fear that it is.

--What kind of illustrations would you favour?

--For many books, none at all. In these books of current fiction the pictures are either futile or else detrimental to the development of the plot. They give the game away, so to speak, when the author may wish to hold the story in suspense. The effort to avoid this disaster accounts for the multitude of undramatic pictures you see in books.

--Your theory of no pictures should appeal to the publishers but I doubt if the illustrators will stand with you.

--Illustration is a trade as well as an art.

--True. But we are trying to limit the inquiry to the artistic side at present. When, then, according to your deductions, would illustrations be called for?

--When they can make a stage-setting for the story. When they ornament it or suggest it, perhaps, instead of reveal it. Impressions and "atmosphere" instead of literal diagrams with a cross marking the spot where, etc.

--But perhaps people like the cross marking the spot where.

--We are limiting the discussion to the artistic side, are we not?

--What about the half-tone process of engraving?

--The process is a way of doing a thing that cannot be done cheaply by any other means.

--Do you consider it a process that adds to the artistic possibilities of book printing?

--You mean according to the standards that prevailed in the earlier days of the craft?

--I do. Yes.

--According to those standards it seems to me that half-tones will always have to be considered as necessities forced upon the book-printer. They demand a kind of paper that is never a satisfactory book-paper. In the case of the kind of books we are talking about the relief line methods have always given the most artistic results, because they are so closely related to the character of type.

One regrets, however, to give up the chances for tonal designs that the half-tone process provides. Probably the designers and printers will work out a satisfactory relation between half-tones and type when the craze for photographic detail passes a little. As things stand, I should say that the best results are to be had with uncoated book-papers and with line plates. It is true books are rarely illustrated this way--current fiction, I mean--but the method might be used to produce a very attractive and unusual result.

--Then you would condemn the use of half-tones in this kind of book?

--If you mean the usual kind of half-tones printed separately and inserted, I do. But if you are making a book of travel, for example, the half-tones from photographs explain and justify themselves.

But on this whole subject of book illustration it strikes me that if you are to make the design from the start you might as well make it in harmony with the kind of paper and printing you are planning to use, and get all the artistic advantage of fitting your means to your limitations.

* * * * *

Are you familiar with the Christy-Holbein Test?

--Yes. That is to say, I have heard of your applying it, and remember that the percentages were very much against Holbein.

--Ninety-three to seven, on an average. How do you explain such a crudity of taste in these groups of people otherwise well educated?

--By the deduction that they are not educated. That is to say that these people, cultivated in other ways, react precisely like savages when confronted with pictures or drawings. They "go for" the tinsel and glitter and are opaque to the higher and more civilized values. They get the most pleasure from drawings that they think they could make themselves. This is the basis of the Eight-year-old Formula widely applied in the department of newspaper comics: "Make your drawing so that it can be understood by a child eight years old."

All of this is clearly lack of training, because their taste is good in other matters--music, for example, and house furnishings.

--You would deduce, then, that the periodical and book-publishing industry has failed to train the taste of its public in such matters?

--It has done worse: it has depraved that taste. Because there was, not very long ago, a fine tradition in this country in the line of illustration.

--Why should the publishers find any advantage in depraving the taste of the public--as you say they have done?

--Because they turned their backs on the standards of the publishing business and became merchandisers solely. They had to sell the goods and they had to "sell" a big new public. The quickest way to this public--through flash-and-crash tactics--they adopted. And naturally ran themselves and the public down hill.

--May there not be other sides to it, too? May it not be that the art schools are not now producing draughtsmen of a calibre to support the fine tradition you mention?

--That may have something to do with it. But even that is mixed up with the other. I think that the chief difficulty is with the publishers.

--And the public?

--The public will follow if the publishers lead.