Chapter IV

ILLUSTRATION IN GERMANY, SPAIN, AND OTHER COUNTRIES.

In writing upon drawing on the Continent, I have heretofore found it only necessary to classify illustrators under three nationalities. In discussing illustration it seems to me that this question of nationality can be even further simplified. Italy and Spain have not produced a single original illustrated book of real importance. Although several of the foremost illustrators of the day were born in one or the other of these countries and partially educated there, they have left their native land as quickly as possible, for France or for Germany.

In Italy the important publishing house of the Fratelli Trevès, in Milan, has made many attempts to bring out fine books, the works of de Amicis being among their best-known productions, but this importance comes from their literary rather than artistic side; and I am not aware that the Fratelli Trevès have ever done anything to surpass the "C'era una Volta" of Luigi Capuana, illustrated by Montalti, published in 1885, a most extraordinary example of the skilful use of _papier Gillot_, or scratch paper. The Fratelli Trevès issue a large number of magazines and papers, a certain amount of good newsy wood-engraving is seen in these, process having been almost entirely given up, especially in the leading illustrated Italian weekly, "L'Illustrazion Italiana." In Spain I know of no notable illustrated books published of late. I may be labouring under a mistake, but I must frankly admit that I have never heard of, or seen any.[19] If they do exist I should be only too glad to have them brought to my notice. But there are two very good illustrated papers, "Illustracion Espanola y Americana" and "Illustracion Artistica." To both, Fortuny, Rico, Vierge, and Casanova--especially Rico--have contributed important drawings. These journals are now almost entirely using wood-engravings, some of which are very good indeed. They are mainly, however, reproductions of the typical Spanish historical, or story-telling, machine which is turned out with such facility by a large number of Spaniards. But the bulk of the work is made up of _clichés_ from American papers and magazines, in which matter I find that even I have proved a useful mine.

[19] See note p. 78.

Dutch books are not remarkable. Here and there a good drawing may be found in a magazine called "Elsevir." Though in Holland there is an artist, H. J. Icke, who, in his studies from the old masters in pen and ink, evinces a power and brilliancy only equalled by reproductive etchers like Mr. Hole, Mr. Macbeth, or Mr. Short. The same is true of Belgium. Austria and Hungary have little to show, their illustrators, like Myrbach, Marold, and Vogel, coming to Paris, or sending their work to Munich, for the publishers mainly ignore their own artists, and either send abroad for their designs, or borrow and adapt from other men's work with a recklessness which is charming. And yet, the only international black-and-white exhibition was held in Vienna a few years ago; while one of the best photo-engraving firms in the world, Messrs. Anderer and Göschl, are located there. Russia and Scandinavia are equally unfortunate in the matter of illustrated books, all of the artists of these countries being in Paris, London, or New York, and their work only finds its way back to their native countries as _clichés_. Men like Chelminski, Edelfelt, Répine, Pranishnikoff really owe all their reputation, not to their native land, but to the country of their adoption.

There is, however, one little country that deserves more than a word of mention, and this is Denmark. For it can boast an illustrator of individuality and character, Hans Tegner. His drawings for the jubilee edition of "Holberg's Comedies," published in Copenhagen in 1884 to 1888, must be ranked as masterpieces of graphic art. Though evidently based on the style of Menzel and Meissonier, they are quite individual; especially in the rendering of interiors crowded with people he has surpassed any living illustrator. This book is also interesting from the fact that while it was being produced the change was made from _facsimile_ wood-engraving to process, and though the engraving of Hendricksen and Bork is excellent, the process blocks in some ways are even more interesting. The decorations to these volumes, head and tail-pieces, are as atrociously bad as Tegner's illustrations in the text are good. There are also a number of lesser artists, Danes and Norwegians, who have done good work, but to name them would merely be to make a catalogue, as their work is never seen here.

During the last three-quarters of a century German illustration has been absolutely dominated by Menzel. Not only has he been the leading spirit in his own country, whether he was influenced originally by Meissonier or not, but he has himself influenced the entire world of illustrators, his drawings having been received with rapture and applause by artists wherever they have been shown. And, most interesting of all, he is a man who has been perfectly able, throughout his long life, to adapt himself to the various radical changes and developments which have been brought about in reproduction and printing. Commencing with lithography, he produced the amazing series of drawings of the uniforms of Frederick the Great. Next, taking up drawing on wood, he introduced exquisite _facsimile_ work into his own country, educating his own engravers, Unzelmann, Bentworth and the Vogels, in his edition of the "Works of Frederick the Great." Later on he drew much more largely and boldly for the "Cruche Cassée," which was freely interpreted on wood. And now he has so arranged his beautiful drawings in pencil and chalk that they come perfectly by process. He is a man who recognizes fully that we have not got to the end of art, but that unless we are ever pushing onward, and striving for improvements, we may very easily get to the end of ourselves. He looks backward for nothing but design; he looks forward to the perfection of everything.

Following Menzel, and encouraged by "Fliegende Blätter," which started in the early forties, came Wilhelm Dietz, whose studies of armies on the march, and of peasants at work or at play, are inimitable. He, too, has been followed by Robert Haug and Hermann Luders. Dietz was the mainstay for years of "Fliegende Blätter," the only weekly comic paper of which it can be said, that during the half century of its existence it has been not only at the head of its contemporaries, but has on the artistic side left far behind any pretended rival.

Germany has for the last half century, too, possessed a remarkable school of interpretative wood-engravers: men who have been able to take a large picture, which they have either drawn on the wood themselves or had drawn for them, and produce out of it an excellent rendering, which would print perfectly in black and white, under the rapid requirements of a steam-press. The work of these engravers can be seen any week in the "Illustrirte Zeitung," "Uber Land und Meer," and the other weeklies. Wood-engraving has been treated as a serious profession for years in Germany, as a Professorship of the art was held in the Berlin Academy before the beginning of this century by J. F. G. Unger, who died in 1804. Even in Vienna, a Professorship has been established for many years. The trouble with German wood-engravers, however, has been that most of the work, though signed by the name of one man, is produced really by another. From one of these engraving shops, that of Braun and Schneider, issued a year after its establishment "Fliegende Blätter," in 1844. Save for Menzel, most of the work in the middle of the century was of that heavy, pompous, ponderous sort which we call German, and, though good in its way, is now well forgotten. The best-known of all these shops was that of Richard Brend'amour, who since 1856 has been established in Dusseldorf, though he has branches--an artist with branches!--in Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Munich, and Brunswick. Still, as he seems to have been able to get an extremely good set of apprentices and workmen, who were the real artists, a great amount of very interesting work has been turned out, and _clichés_ from his excellent blocks have been used all over the world.

One sort of decorative design, developed by a German, or, I presume, a Pole, Paul Konewka, though his work, was, I believe, first published in Copenhagen, is the silhouette; Konewka has had imitators everywhere, but none of them have surpassed him. His edition of "Faust" is one of the best-known examples. Retche's outline drawings for Shakespeare are also good.

Following the classical tradition of Overbeck and Kaulbach, but changing it rather into mysticism and decadence through the influence of Böcklin, and probably the pre-Raphaelites in England, has been developed a school of mystical decorators who are unequalled, unappreciated and curiously unknown outside of their own country. The chief of these men is Max Klinger. Like his master, Böcklin, and like Schwabe in France, he brings both his mysticism and his drawing up to date, and makes no attempt to bolster up faulty design and incomplete technique by primitiveness, or quaintness, or archaism. For his illustrations Klinger usually makes an elaborate series of pen drawings, and then etches from these. The only example which I know of in England available for study is a copy of the Apuleius which is in South Kensington, and this is not by any means one of his most successful books, as the etchings are hard and tight, and the inharmonious decorations which surround the small prints in the text are crude and unsatisfactory. To know Klinger's work one must visit the Print Rooms in the Museums of Berlin and Dresden. Another group have devoted themselves to lithography. H. Thoma in this has been probably the most successful, but in the exhibition held this year in Vienna he was closely followed by Otto Greiner, W. Steinhausen, and Max Dasio. Their work may be seen in "Neue Lithographem," by Max Lehers, published in Vienna. Whether there are two or three men of the name of Franz Stuck who draw, or whether it is the same Franz Stuck who produces the mystic arrangements and the burlesques of them, the decorative vignettes and the absurd caricatures in "Fliegende Blätter," I do not know. I only do know that it is all very well worth study, and very amusing and interesting.

Busch and Oberländer, Meggendorfer, and Hengler, are names so well known that their mere mention raises a laugh, and that, if anything, is the mission of those artists: while Harburger's and Aller's marvellous studies of character, and René Reinecke's exquisite renderings in wash of fashionable life, marvellously engraved by Stroebel, can be seen every week printed in the pages of "Fliegende Blätter" and other papers. The works of Hackländer, published in Stuttgart, have been illustrated mainly by process by that clever band of artists of whom Schlittgen, Albrecht, Marold, Vogel, and others are so much in evidence. The German monthly magazines, like "Daheim," "Kunst für Alle," "Felz und Meer," "Die Graphischen Kunste," etc., are very notable, especially "Kunst für Alle," which seems to me to be about the best-conducted art magazine in the world. Altogether the arts of illustration and reproduction, and the business of publishing, in Germany are apparently in a most healthy condition. It could scarcely be otherwise, however, when we consider that one of the greatest illustrators in the world is still alive and at work there, as well as the most curious mystics, the most amusing comic draughtsmen, and the most conscientious and clever realists.

_Note._--A recent visit to Spain shows me to be quite
mistaken in this matter. A very fine book has lately been
published in Barcelona by a Seville artist, F. Garcia y
Ramos, "La Tierra di Maria Santissima," and though Señor
Garcia y Ramos is greatly indebted to Fortuny, Rico and
Vierge, he has made a very notable series of designs; he has
also contributed several drawings to a comparatively new
Spanish paper,--"Blanco y Negro"--which has printed very good
work by a group of young men in Madrid, the most
distinguished of whom is Señor Huertas. Another artist on the
staff is Jiminez Lucena; he is realistically decorative. The
most popular man in Spain, after the artists of "La Lidia"
(the organ of the Bull Ring), is Angel Pons, who, however, is
but an echo of Caran d'Ache. "La Lidia" is illustrated
entirely by lithography and in colour; the designs, often
full of go and life, are the work of D. Perea. I find, too,
that the French work of 1830 was seen and known in Spain,
that some books were produced in the style of "Paul and
Virginia," with drawings by Spaniards, though I imagine they
were all engraved either in Paris, or by French engravers who
went to Spain. The work, however, is but a reminiscence of
the French, and simply curious as showing the power of the
Romanticists, but more especially of Meissonier as an
illustrator. The most interesting of these books is "Spanish
Scenes," illustrated by Lameyer, engraved by G. Fernandez,
rather in the manner of Gavarni. But there is one Spaniard
who as an illustrator is unknown, at least to artists--for he
only produced one set of designs for publication--but who is
universally known in almost every other branch of art, F.
Goya. The only widely published and generally circulated
publications, the bank-notes of Spain, are the work of this
artist, and they reflect little credit on him. His etchings
are to be found in all great galleries; but, interesting as
they are, they give no idea of the amazing drawings in chalk,
wash, and ink, in which mediums they were produced. Even in
Madrid the originals are but little known; the greater number
are in the Library of the Prado, the National Museum,
inaccessible to the ordinary visitor: but a small selection,
undescribed, and not even in the catalogue, are placed upon a
revolving screen in the Room of Drawings; but as this is
almost always closed, most people leave Madrid without even
being aware of the existence of the greatest treasures
possessed by the museum after the Velasquez. On this screen
are the designs for the bull-fights, admirably described by
T. Gautier, in his "Voyage en Espagne," from the literary
artist's point of view, but from the artistic stand-point,
they are quite the most uninteresting of all, and do not in
the slightest express the great passion Goya is said to have
always shown for the noblest sport in the world.

It is rather to the exquisite designs in red chalk for the
"Scenes of Invasion," that one sees him at his best. Here he
is the direct descendant of Callot, only there is a power in
his work that Callot never possessed. It is, I am now
certain, from these designs that Vierge obtained many of his
ideas--although they are worked out in an entirely different
fashion. The drawings for the "Caprices" are in pen and wash,
and are as much finer than the aquatints made from them, as
the aquatints are superior to the caricatures of any of his
contemporaries. As Goya passed, an exile, the latter part of
his life in France, his work must have been known to the men
of 1830. He died in 1828, just as the few lithographs he has
left show that he was aware of the work of Delacroix in that
newly invented art.

Still, Goya cannot be called an illustrator, for none of his
work was published as illustration; yet, at the same time, it
is so well adapted to that end that it is perfectly
incomprehensible that these drawings have not only never been
published, but I am informed they have never even been
photographed. The two that are in this book are from the
"Caprices," those of the "Invasion" are too delicate to stand
the necessary reduction. The portrait of Wellington in red
chalk is in the British Museum.