PAGE 4
Two Modern Book Illustrators
by
By this date, as will be gathered from what has preceded, Miss Greenaway had made her mark as a producer of children’s books, since, in addition to the volumes already specially mentioned, she had issued Under the Window (her earliest success), The Language of Flowers, Kate Greenaway’s Painting Book, The Book of Games, King Pepito and other works. Her last “Almanack,” which was published by Messrs Dent and Co., appeared in 1897. In 1891, the Fine Arts Society exhibited some 150 of her original drawings–an exhibition which was deservedly successful, and was followed by others.[3] As Slade Professor at Oxford, Ruskin, always her fervent admirer, gave her unstinted eulogium; and in France her designs aroused the greatest admiration. The Debats had a leading article on her death; and the clever author of L’Art du Rire, M. Arsene Alexandre, who had already written appreciatively of her gifts as a ” paysagiste,” and as a ” maitresse en l’art du sourire, du jolt sourire d’enfant inginu et gaiement candide ” devoted a column in the Figaro to her merits.
[Note:
3: Among other things these exhibitions revealed the great superiority of the original designs to the reproductions with which the public are familiar–excellent as these are in their way. Probably, if Miss Greenaway’s work were now repeated by the latest form of three-colour process, she would be less an “inheritor”–in this respect–“of unfulfilled renown.”]
It has been noted that, in her later years, Miss Greenaway’s popularity was scarcely maintained. It would perhaps be more exact to say that it somewhat fell off with the fickle crowd who follow a reigning fashion, and who unfortunately help to swell the units of a paying community. To the last she gave of her best; but it is the misfortune of distinctive and original work, that, while the public resents versatility in its favourites, it wearies unreasonably of what had pleased it at first–especially if the note be made tedious by imitation. Miss Greenaway’s old vogue was in some measure revived by her too-early death on the 6th November 1901; but, in any case, she is sure of attention from the connoisseur of the future. Those who collect Stothard and Caldecott (and they are many!) cannot afford to neglect either Marigold Garden or Mother Goose.[4]
[Note:
4: Since the above article appeared in the Art Journal, from which it is here substantially reproduced, Messrs. M.H, Spieimann and G.S. Layard have (1905) devoted a sumptuous and exhaustive volume to Miss Greenaway and her art. To this truly beautiful and sympathetic book I can but refer those of her admirers who are not yet acquainted with it.]
II. MR HUGH THOMSON
In virtue of certain gentle and caressing qualities of style, Douglas Jerrold conferred on one of his contributors–Miss Eliza Meteyard–the pseudonym of “Silverpen.” It is in the silver-pensive key that one would wish to write of Mr. HUGH THOMSON. There is nothing in his work of elemental strife,–of social problem,–of passion torn to tatters. He leads you by no terribile via,–over no “burning Marle.” You cannot conceive him as the illustrator of Paradise Lost, of Dante’s Inferno –even of Dore’s Wandering Jew. But when, after turning over some dozens of his designs, you take stock of your impressions, you discover that your memory is packed with pleasant fancies. You have been among “blown fields” and “flowerful closes”; you have passed quaint roadside-inns and picturesque cottages; you are familiar with the cheery, ever-changing idyll of the highway and the bustle of animal life; with horses that really gallop, and dogs that really bark; with charming male and female figures in the most attractive old-world attire; with happy laughter and artless waggeries; with a hundred intimate details of English domesticity that are pushed just far enough back to lose the hardness of their outline in a softening haze of retrospect. There has been nothing more tragic in your travels than a sprained ankle or an interrupted affair of honour; nothing more blood-curdling than a dream of a dragoon officer knocked out of his saddle by a brickbat. Your flesh has never been made to creep: but the cockles of your heart have been warmed. Mechanically, you raise your hand to lift away your optimistic spectacles. But they are not there. The optimism is in the pictures.