This is only a portion of a picture by Mr. Melton Prior, the well-known special artist, for which I am indebted to the proprietors of _Sketch_.
The reproduction on the previous page owes its success not only to good process, paper, and printing, but also to _the firm, decisive touch of an experienced illustrator_ like Mr. Melton Prior. A pencil drawing in less skilful hands is apt to "go to pieces" on the press.
Mr. C. G. Harper, in his excellent book on _English Pen Artists_, has treated of other ways in which drawings on prepared papers may be manipulated for the type press; but not always with success. In that interesting publication, _The Studio_, there have appeared during the past year many valuable papers on this subject, but in which the _mechanism_ of illustration is perhaps too much insisted on. Some of the examples of "mixed drawings," and of chalk-and-pencil reproductions, might well deter any artist from adopting such aids to illustration.
The fact is, that the use of grained papers is, at the best, a makeshift and a degradation of the art of illustration, if judged by the old standards. It will be a bad day for the art of England when these mechanical appliances are put into the hands of young students in art schools.
For the purposes of ordinary illustrations we should keep to the simpler method of line. All these contrivances require great care in printing, and the blocks have often to be worked up by an engraver. _The material of the process blocks is unsuited to the purpose._ In a handbook to students of illustration this requires repeating on nearly every page.
As a contrast to the foregoing, let us look at a sketch in pure line by the landscape painter, Mr. M. R. Corbet, who, with little more than a scribble of the pen, can express the feeling of sunrise and the still air amongst the trees.
[Illustration: "SUNRISE IN THE SEVERN VALLEY." (MATTHEW R. CORBET.)]
Amongst the modern inventions for helping the hurried or feeble illustrator, is the system of laying on mechanical dots to give shadow and colour to a pure line drawing, by process. It is a practice always to be regretted; whether applied to a necessarily hasty newspaper sketch, or to one of Daniel Vierge's elaborately printed illustrations in the _Pablo de Segovia_. One cannot condemn too strongly this system, so freely used in continental illustrated sheets, but which, in the most skilful hands, seems a degradation of the art of illustration. These dots and lines, used for shadow, or tone, are laid upon the plate by the maker of the block, the artist indicating, by a blue pencil mark, the parts of a drawing to be so manipulated; and as the illustrator _has not seen the effect on his own line drawing_, the results are often a surprise to everyone concerned. I wish these ingenious contrivances were more worthy of an artist's attention.