In
some kinds, indeed, of black and white work the present age is
strong. The illustrations to "Punch," for example, are often as
good as anything that can be imagined. We know of nothing like
them in any past age or country. This is the one kind of art--and
it is a very good one--in which we excel as distinctly as the age
of Phidias excelled in sculpture. Leonardo da Vinci would never
have succeeded in getting his drawings accepted at 85 Fleet Street,
any more than one of the artists on the staff of "Punch" could
paint a fresco which should hold its own against Da Vinci's Last
Supper. Michael Angelo again and Titian would have failed
disastrously at modern illustration. They had no more sense of
humour than a Hebrew prophet; they had no eye for the more trivial
side of anything round about them. This aspect went in at one eye
and out at the other--and they lost more than ever poor Peter Bell
lost in the matter of primroses. I never can see what there was to
find fault with in that young man.
Fancy a street-Arab by Michael Angelo. Fancy even the result which
would have ensued if he had tried to put the figures into the
illustrations of this book. I should have been very sorry to let
him try his hand at it. To him a priest chucking a small boy under
the chin was simply non-existent. He did not care for it, and had
therefore no eye for it. If the reader will turn to the copy of a
fresco of St.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136