Dickens and His Illustrators
9781465542984
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In the matter of pictorial embellishment, the writings of Charles Dickens may be regarded as occupying a unique position. The original issues alone present a remarkable array of illustrations; and when we remember the innumerable engravings specially prepared for subsequent editions, as well as for independent publication, we are fain to confess that, in this respect at least, the works of Boz take precedence of those of any other novelist. These designs, too, are of particular interest, inasmuch as they are representative of nearly every branch of the art of the book-illustrator; both the pencil of the draughtsman and the needle of the etcher have been requisitioned, while the brush of the painter has depicted for us many striking scenes culled from the pages of Dickens. The evolution of a successful picture, as exhibited by means of preparatory sketches, is eminently instructive to the student of Art. The present volume should therefore appeal not merely to the Dickens Collector, but to all who appreciate the artistic value of tentative studies wrought for a special purpose. The absolute facsimiles, here given for the first time, enable us to obtain an insight into the methods adopted by the designers in developing their conceptions, those methods being further manifested by the aid of correspondence which, happily, is still extant. Referring to Dickens’s intercourse with his Illustrators, Forster significantly observes that the artists certainly had not an easy time with him. The Novelist’s requirements were exacting even beyond what is ordinary between author and illustrator; for he was apt (as he himself admitted) to build up temples in his mind not always makeable with hands. While resenting the notion that Dickens ever received from any artist the inspiration he was always striving to give, his biographer assures us that, so far as the illustrations are concerned, he had rarely anything but disappointments,—a declaration which apparently substantiates the statement (made on good authority) that the Novelist would have preferred his books to remain unadorned by the artist’s pencil. That the vast majority of his readers approved of such embellishment cannot be questioned, for the genius of Cruikshank and Phiz has done much to impart reality to the persons imagined by Dickens. We are perhaps even more indebted to the excellent illustrations than to the Author’s descriptions for the ability to realise the outward presentments of Pickwick, Fagin, Micawber, and a host of other characters, simply because the material eye absorbs impressions more readily than the mental eye. That Dickens’s association with his Illustrators was something more than mere coadjutorship is evidenced both in Forster’s Life and in the published Letters. From these sources we derive much information tending to prove the existence of a warm friendship subsisting between Author and Artists; indeed, the latter (with two or three exceptions) were privileged to enjoy the close personal intimacy of Dickens and his family circle. Recalling the fact that the Novelist not unfrequently availed himself of the traits and idiosyncrasies of his familiars, it seems somewhat strange that in the whole range of his creations we fail to discover a single attempt at the portraiture of an artist; for those dilettanti wielders of the brush, Miss La Creevy and Henry Gowan, can scarcely be included under that denomination
