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JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES OF THE WONDER OF WORK
REPRODUCTIONS OF A SERIES OF DRAWINGS, ETCHINGS, LITHOGRAPHS, MADE BY HIM ABOUT THE WORLD, 1881-1915, WITH IMPRESSIONS AND NOTES BY THE ARTIST
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1916
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1915 REPRINTED OCTOBER, 1916
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
I WISH IN THIS BOOK TO HONOR CONSTANTIN MEUNIER
THE PROPHET AND EXPONENT OF THE WONDER OF WORK
Work to-day is the greatest thing in the world, and the artist who best records it will be best remembered. Work has always been an inspiration to artists, from the time when we were told to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, till now, when most of us are trying to forget the command, and act like "ladies and gentlemen."
Under the Church, work—the building of the Tower of Babel and the Temple—was the subject of endless imaginings by painters, sculptors and gravers who never assisted at the functions they illustrated. Painters, who sat in their studios hundreds of years after the towers and temples were designed and destroyed, have showed what they imagined the towers and the temples looked like. This—this sort of creation or invention—we art students in America called "genius work" because it was "done out of our heads." In Europe it is called "scholarly," and is concocted from a classical dictionary; a trip for a few weeks to Greece or Italy is useful but not necessary, and adds to the expense; illustrated post cards may be used instead.
Now educated people, cultured people, take such painters seriously—and pay to sit in darkened chambers and brood. These are carefully but sadly illuminated, and the spectators pursue with diligence, scarce looking at the exhibits, the remarks of critics who prove conclusively that these painters show exactly what the world was like, what buildings were like and how they were built, and how the builders worked according to the bookman and archæologist, and the critic.