THE THEORY AND PRINCIPLES OF ILLUSTRATION.

Here it will probably be well to consider the different classes into which illustrations naturally seem to fall, and this because it is the common custom to regard the contents of an illustrated book as all belonging to one.

Perhaps the simplest and most spontaneous form of illustration is seen when one is describing a position or locality, and takes pencil and paper to draw a rough plan showing this or that road, cross-road, turning, &c. We do this without any forethought, without any artistic ability, and never for a moment considering that we are fulfilling the first theoretical function of the illustrator, and we make this sketch-plan partly because we could not so graphically describe what we wish in words; and, again, the drawing will produce a more lasting impression upon the person appealed to, and that without so great an effort of memory on his part. "Seeing is believing," and to see is also to remember. It is the same with the diagrams which illustrate the problems of Euclid, a tourist's map, an architect's plan; these are all illustrations of a diagrammatic kind.

Only a little higher in the scale are the illustrations in scientific and physiological books. I say higher, because of the difficulties attaching to the photographing of such objects, and their more complex forms, which sometimes necessitate their being drawn from the objects at first hand by one possessing some amount of skill as a draughtsman. But the intention is to explain the text, added to which is perhaps the special office of enabling the student to recognise and identify the particular animal or vegetable structure, or a certain rock formation or crystal, when found; for which purpose it is of primary importance that the essential and specific characters of the particular object are carefully portrayed, and the entire figure be of faultless accuracy.

This same quality must also be secured in topographical views with which the book of travels, with its description of far-distant places and people, is illustrated; it is in this class of drawings that there is most danger of a desire to make a pretty picture—overwhelming the purely descriptive or explanatory function.

The representation of the principal characters in a story, with which it is the custom to illustrate a novel or work of fiction, has often appeared to me to be one of the least successful departments of illustration. Probably this arises from the fact that the artist has no actual models to work from; he creates, out of the author's description, imaginary beings, and portrays them accordingly. Therefore, unless author and artist have been in very close communication, it is as likely as not that the artist may get a conception of certain characters quite remote from the author's intention. At least, it must have occurred to many a reader to find the pictures in a favourite novel often quite fail to realise the ideal which he had himself formed of the hero or heroine, of whom, at the very outset, he had conjured up an image and an environment.

Somewhat lately the experiment has been made of illustrating fiction with actual photograms from life, in which case the illustrator must select with great care individuals answering very exactly to the descriptions given, and use these as models grouped as required.

Obviously this method must be confined to such books whose plot is laid in comparatively recent times and in ordinary scenes of life; for the difficulties, which are in any case great, assume insurmountable proportions when one conceives the idea of illustrating by photograms such books as "Robinson Crusoe," "Pilgrim's Progress," or "Don Quixote."

The ideal condition would be for the author to illustrate his own writings, then indeed should we be sure of getting a glimpse of the character intended; and we can imagine with what care he would fashion the child of his imagination.

Failing this, the author should control to a greater extent the work of the man who is to illustrate his writings, a point far too often overlooked in the making of a book.

It will be seen that in this section of illustration the draughtsman draws upon his imagination, so that, to some extent at least, his art is creative. It must, however, be borne in mind that he is not at liberty to paint or draw his own unaided imaginings; he is merely interpreting another's words into a graphic representation; so that, be he never so fine an artist, his art, like Pegasus in harness, is restrained under the yoke of the illustrator.

We may, however, find illustration ascending a step higher towards the sphere of art proper and creative, and that is in the edition de luxe, in which, with or without printed matter, we have plates which are pictures in the best sense, and appeal chiefly, or exclusively, to the Æsthetic sense. Also in some dramatic works, in poetry, and in some prose, there is a much wider scope for the imagination of the artist, and we have high-class books of a real artistic merit.

One other notable form of illustration remains, and that is the purely decorative. This is seen to advantage in the book-plates in which a device bears the name of the owner and is affixed to each book; to revive which custom an effort has happily been made of late. In allegorical figures and scrollwork on title-pages, at heads of chapters, in borders, in large initial letters, at the termination of a chapter, or a design interspersed with the type on a page, and in many other forms beyond the prescribed shape which its position determines, there is little to restrict the artist. Some examples of designs for book-plates were recently given in that excellent magazine The Studio; and some interesting and wholly praiseworthy "initials," formed on an actual photogram, appeared recently in The Photogram. These are two instances out of the many which may be seen on every hand, and in this connection I have long felt that photograms from nature might be more largely applied to book illustration or decoration.