* ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD BY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN WOOD-ENGRAVERS WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY WILLIAM M. LAFFAN NEW YORK HARPER AND BROTHERS M DCCC LXXXVII Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by Harper & Brothers, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Frank French, F. S. King, G. Kruell, Committee of the Society of American Wood-Engravers. CONTENTS Bernstrom, Victor The Mystery of Eife Engraved from a Painting by Carl Marr Closson, W. B. The Quadroon Girl Engraved from a Painting by George Fuller The Listeners Engraved from a Painting by Wm. M. Hunt Cole, Timothy - - - - - 4 The Entombment Engraved from a Fresco by Giotto Davis, John P. - 6 Among the Old Poets Engraved from a Painting by Walter Shirlaw The Cobblers Engraved from a Painting by Edgar M. Ward French, Frank 8 Lacing the Sandal Engraved from a Painting by F. D. Millet In the Enemy's Country Engraved from a Painting by Gilbert Gaul Johnson, T. 9 Portrait of a Child Engraved from a Painting by J. JV. Alexander King, F. S. 7 he Sibyl Engraved from a Painting by F. S. Church A Difference Engraved from a Painting by E. H. Biashf eld Kingsley, Elbridge A Morning Engraved from a Painting by George Inness The Flying Dutchman Engraved from a Painting by A. P. Ryder I I 1 3 Kruell, G. - -- -- -- - - - 1 5 A Portrait Engraved from a Portrait of himself by Wm. M. Hunt Rent Day Engraved froin a Painting by Alfred Kappes Muller, R. A. - - - - - - - - -16 “I’m Perfectly Happy ” Engraved from a Painting by f. G. Brown Powell, C. A. - - - - - - - - - -18 7 he "Three Marys Engraved from a Painting by John Lafarge The Lady and Horse Engraved from a Painting by A. H. Thayer Putnam, S. G. - - - - - - - - - -20 Identity Engraved from a Painting by Elihu Vedder A Waterfall by Moonlight Engraved from a Painting by R. A. Blake lock Tinkey, John 21 Wellington, F. Wolf, Henry Exchanging Confidences Engraved from a Painting by Francis C. Jones H. --------- 23 One Day in June Engraved from a Painting by W. T. Smedley Miles StandisR s Challenge Engraved from a Drawing by E. A. Abbey 7 he New England Peddler Engraved from a Painting by Eastman Johnson 7 he Roadside Engraved from a Painting by R. Swain Gifford 2 5 INCE illustration became so prominent a feature of our higher periodicals there has been a more marked prog¬ ress in engraving upon wood than in any other branch of art practiced in our country. It has achieved a character more original and pronounced, and more nearly national, than any other. That is to say, an engraving made in America is not to be mistaken for one that has been produced elsewhere, while a painting or an etching made by an American artist does not present qualities essentially different from like works of Euro¬ pean origin. The work of the American wood-engraver has a distinction that is original with itself. The progress which has brought the art to its present condition of development has been made apparent during the last ten or fifteen years. Its primary cause is readily discerned in the growth of the publishing trade. A retrospect of the business of making books and periodicals since the close of the Civil War reveals a degree of expansion of which few people have any adequate idea. Its dimensions are extraordinary, and the appetite has grown with what it has fed on. An immense population, better educated in proportion to its numerical importance than any other, inclined to prod¬ igality in the direction of luxury and cultivation, and keenly sensitive to artistic impressions of every character, furnishes a fertile field for the industries of the arts. Only such a population could make possible the development to which our illustrated periodicals have attained. And only a sound and wholesome development could have imparted to the combination of domestic art and letters that those periodicals disclose the high quality and elevated character that they enjoy. In Europe the largest and the most distinct style of engraving upon wood is that of the French school, of which Charles Baude may be taken to be the foremost exponent of our time. This school began with the elder Pannemaker; and it may be stated with only too little fear of exaggeration, that had there been no Pannemaker, no Pisan, and no Pannemaker fils, there had been no Gustave Dore, or, at least a Dore of comparative insig¬ nificance. The German school is distinct enough, but it is servile and labored in quality and betrays no sense of invention whatever. There is mind in the line of the French engraver, and a splendid audacity in his treatment that fills would-be imitators with dismay, but a German engrav ei has no ideas of his own, and is the slave of his technical limitations. For the rest there is occasion only for silence. England, since W. J. Linton became a resident of America, has had no wood-engravers, only workmen on wood, who cut fac-simile blocks for publishers so timid and conservative that they have not yet wholly overcome their fear of the inno¬ vation of process plates. There are also in England certain painstaking artisans who, with mechanical conscientiousness, turn out tint blocks for magazines and illustrated newspapers. They live in the traditions of Bewick, who invented English wood-engraving, and who, had he lived until our time, would have become, in the modern sense, a really great wood-engraver him¬ self. Much that has been written about Bewick is confusing and misleading. His critics have, for the most part, mistaken his solitude and isolation in the practice of wood-engraving for supreme greatness in that art, and have so satiated themselves with the English tradition of him that they easily persuade themselves into the belief that his work ranks with the etchings of Rembrandt. No other inference can be drawn from the rhapsodies which have accompanied certain of Bewick’s blocks that have appeared in recent periodical and other literature. Bewick, as just stated, was an inventor, and he practiced with great skill and in a most artistic spirit the art which owes so much to his inventive genius. The art of wood-engraving probably owes as much to Bewick as the art of etching does to the first aquafortist; and within the limitations by which he was circumscribed Bewick was undoubtedly a great engraver. His productions to-day possess for engravers an undimimshed charm and interest, and are, many of them, very beautiful in any light in which it is sought to study them. Our engravers, however, do not seek to engrave in the same style, and it is not to be desired that they should. At the same time it should be said that nowhere has there been a more profound regard for Bewick’s work, or a deeper appreciation of its merit, than among the American wood-engravers. It has impressed them, per¬ haps, more than the work of any other engraver, and they have learned from it all that it could teach, just as the great French landscape painters drew their earliest inspirations from the English Constable. The only other wood- engraver that England produced who wielded a like influence was W. J. Linton, and he came to practice his art in this country. A block of wood has possibilities now that were not dreamed of in the days when Bewick practiced white line, nor, indeed, in days more modern yet. The reason is not that new technical resources have been opened up to the engravers. The transformation of the surface of a block is the same to-day as in the time when Durer drew. On the title page of this volume there is a printed device, the seal or bearings of the fraternity of engravers whose work is here contained, and that device represents all the resources of the engraver upon wood. There is black and white, the black line and the white line, the black dot and the white pick. These were as well known to the early German engravers as they are to those of to-day, and they figure more or less in their work. Bewick knew them too; and he explored their possibilities with more intelligence and effect than any engraver that had preceded him. To our engravers belongs the credit of discerning and achieving the results that could be reached by the patient and intelligent adaptation of these limited means to diverse ends. The principal characteristic of American wood-engraving is its simplicity, its sincerity of purpose, and the cheerful self-effacement of the engraver. His endeavor is to reproduce the work of art with which he has to do, be it his own creation or another’s, as faithfully as possible; to adapt as far as possible to that end the means he controls, and to make his reproduction give a maximum of the qualities and characteristics of the original. He is not concerned about his line, does not know that he has a line, and addresses himself solely to the thing in hand—the faithful interpretation into black and white equivalents of the subject before him. We have had engravers of great skill and of much self-concern who projected a line of alleged individuality across the creation of an artist with the effect of substituting therefor their own character or lack of character. The work of a dozen different artists would come from such an engraver’s hands as the work of one, and that one the engraver himself This might be very gratifying to the engraver, and cause him to expand gratefully, but it was interposing another and perhaps monotonous personality between the artist and the light of day. This style of engraving prevailed here, and attained a very considerable vogue, until about 1875, when it gradually gave way to a new and enlightened practice of the art. Designing on wood fell into disuse as the advantages of photographing the subject upon the block became apparent. By this method the engraver always had his subject to refer to as his block progressed, and he held himself to a much greater degree of accountability in consequence. Besides, he found that it brought him rapidly in contact with subjects of a much higher order, and into relations of constantly growing intimacy with the artists themselves. Then, too, the drawing made upon the wood was affected by the limitations of that method, and it had also to be reversed—a very serious consideration with a subject of any importance. The photographic camera, on the other hand, opened all doors to the wood- engraver, and artists of the greatest distinction were only too glad to be brought into relations with an art which so worthily represented them. Artists, too, manifested only a limited interest in drawing on the block. The obliteration of their work by the process of engraving it was alone an insurmountable barrier to progress in black and white drawing. The introduc¬ tion of photography upon wood made it practicable to transfer to the block a drawing in black and white, a water color, or an oil painting. The result was that the reproduction of works of a very much higher class was begun, and a much greater degree of intimacy was established between the work of the engraver and the work of the artist. Nothing could be more natural than that in these circumstances the engravers should rapidly invade new fields and carry their artistic sympathies and instincts to the point of them¬ selves becoming artists. The new school of engraving made its way by sheer perseverance and hard work, and the good that it has accomplished cannot be overestimated. The illustrated books of the last ten years and the growth of our illustrated periodicals are alone a monument to its worth. Add to these the improve¬ ment in the art of printing, of which modern wood-engraving has been primarily the cause, and it will be seen how important has been its achieve¬ ment. With every advance made by the wood-engraver a like step has been required of the printer, the paper maker and the ink manufacturer. Blocks of such exquisite fineness and delicacy could only be printed by the aid of ' . the best materials and the greatest skill at the presses. The best modern printers of Europe would be unable to-day to print the pages of Harper's or the Century. They have not the technical resources and skill which the American wood-engraver requires of his publisher. They do good work of their own after their own fashion, and are sterling printers, but we have, in our own special direction, far surpassed them. French engravers, too, cannot to this day be persuaded that the illustrations in our magazines are bona fide impressions of the engravings as finished by the engravers. It has been difficult to satisfy them that the engravings were not made on a large scale and the effect of delicacy and refinement of workmanship attained by a “process” reduction; that is, a plate of diminished size obtained by the inter¬ position of photography. And in addition to such consideration of the progress of American wood-engraving it should be remembered that our engravers have assisted in the development of some of our best artists, and are in a great degree responsible for them. It is needless to particularize, but a little scrutiny of the subject from the point of view of the recent history of illustrative art in this country will readily show how the growth of the art of wood-engrav¬ ing has affected the art progress of the whole country. The enterprise and the liberal method of the American publisher should have full recognition for the share that they have had in contributing to the development of the art; and there are, among others who have been closely related to its progress, two to whom a special meed of praise and thanks is due from every engraver—Mr. A. W. Drake and Mr. Charles Parsons, the one of the Century , ci-devant Scribner's , and the other of Harper's. These gentlemen, each administering the art department of a great periodical, and bending to its artistic growth the great resources at his command, have had more to do with the improvement in the art of wood¬ engraving than any or all other individual influences that were exerted. To the intelligence and wisdom of their criticism and the fertility of their suggestion and invention it is not possible to ascribe too great an impor¬ tance, a fact conceded by none so eagerly as by the engravers themselves. Illustrative art is just now in a condition of feverish activity and transition. The introduction of chemical processes of reproduction, the manufacture of plates of surprising quality at low prices, the novelty of the effects produced, and the new developments of the plate printer’s resources, all indicate that out of such activity and inventive energy change must ensue. It is a period of innovation and discovery, and it recalls the period when photography became first prevalent, and it began to be debated, What would the tribe of portrait painters do for a livelihood? Many worthy people held that the industry of painting portraits was at an end; but they did not distinguish between the art of portrait painting, which is immortal as well as infrequent, and the art of making likenesses. The real portrait painters are in more demand to-day than ever, and their emoluments are greater; but the trade of likeness making, in all its phases, from life-size canvases to scissored silhouettes, is impaired and shrunken. So, too, it will probably be with wood-engraving. The artists of commanding merit will be more eagerly sought than ever before, while the mere journeymen will be supplanted and set aside by the innovations of science. The art itself will survive, and achieve new and greater triumphs. The present work has been prompted by a creditable and natural desire on the part of the foremost engravers of America to put forth something the responsibility for which should begin and end with themselves. Each wished to give expression to his own particular bent after his own fashion, and to place himself in the best possible light with work of his own choice, adapted to his taste and inclination. It is, therefore, the most ambitious and important work of each that is presented. Apart from the practice of their art, we find among the American wood-engravers the most assiduous students of art that we have. Their work in oil and water color finds ready admission to the regular public exhibitions; they engrave their own subjects, and they are creditably known as workers on copper, both in acid and mezzotint. No better evidence could be afforded of the sincerity of their artistic purpose, or of the earnestness and thoroughness with which they have sought to advance and improve their art. It is not surprising that they command the esteem and confidence of the most intelligent and cultivated lovers of art that we have, who confide to them for reproduction the most prized of their artistic belongings. The Listeners Engraved by IV. B. C/osson The Entombment Engraved by T. Cole Among the Old Poets Engraved by "John P. Davis J^/JR. GUSTAV KRUELL’S principal contribution is an engraving of the late lamented William M. Hunt’s portrait, painted by himself, life size, in oil. And what a fine portrait of Hunt, if it be considered simply as a portrait and not as a wood-engraving! But from the point of view of its merit as an engraving what an admirable reproduction of a work of startling quality and character! Mr. Gustav Kruell is an engraver of portraits whose method is in a great degree that of a painter of portraits. His sensibility to the higher qualities of portraiture is equal to that of the best endowed painter of portraits, and he owes to this fact the intense sympathy with which he interprets the subtle modeling and the elusive denotements of character and vitality that he finds in his subjects. He is not a reproducer of brush marks, or of the texture of thick or thin pigment, but he is the strongest engraver of the portrait in its highest and broadest sense that we have. He could not have chosen a more difficult subject than this of Hunt’s. In a technical sense it presented obstacles that were almost pro¬ hibitory; the coarseness of the impasto, the singular quality of the color and Hunt’s well-known eccentricity of handling combining to resent reproduc¬ tion of any kind. Mr. Kruell has surmounted all difficulties and produced a portrait as beautiful in its technical precision, cleanliness of line and inter¬ pretative value as it is faithful to and significant of the original and of the identity that the original represented. In Mr. Alfred Kappes’s “Rent Day” Mr. Kruell deals with a subject of a different class, and displays his versatile mastery of the technique of his art. It is an exceedingly delicate and faithful translation of bold and difficult color values, and as a truthful and pleasing reproduction of the original is a fine example of wood-engraving and of Mr. Kruell’s best work. In his own special line, however, Mr. Kruell’s engraving of William M. Hunt surpasses anything else that he has done, and may be set down as the best work of its kind that an American wood-engraver has produced. 1\ /TR. WILLIAM B. CLOSSON has engraved “The Listeners,” by the late William M. Hunt, and “The Quadroon Girl,” by the late George Fuller. Mr. Closson is an engraver of the greatest delicacy of technique and of the keenest artistic sympathy. He has done some excel¬ lent work in black and white and in mezzotint and etching; but he is best known by his admirable engravings in the magazines, especially by those in which he has reproduced the works of that great artist, George Fuller. Mr. Closson’s engraving is made public in all its refinement and delicacy for the first time in this work. His style does not lend itself to ordinary methods of printing, to whatever perfection they have been wrought; and beautiful as the illustrations are that have appeared over his name, it will need but a little scrutiny of these proofs to disclose the fact that the real merits of his work have not before been wholly accessible to general appre¬ hension. Both his contributions to the present work are of the rarest beauty, exquisite in the refined and sensitive workmanship which they reveal in every line and in the intelligence with which they are treated with regard to texture. It is difficult to conceive that any other reproductive method should better convey the subtlest qualities of these two dissimilar works to which Mr. Closson has addressed himself; and it is difficult to determine if even the etched line is more remote from the purely mechanical than is the simple and unaffected method of these artistic translations of artistic facts. The claim of the American wood-engraver to consideration for his art as an art in which intelligence, cultivation and artistic sensibility find as full expression as in any other line of distinctly artistic production is seen in such work as that of Mr. Closson and his colleagues to have a broad and wholly tenable foundation. The photograph and the chemical and mechanical reproductive processes present accurate images of facts entrusted to them, but the etcher and the wood-engraver interpose a personality, and for the mere images of things substitute an interpretation of things which has value in the degree in which it is founded in intelligence and in artistic quality. ■jV/TR. FRANK FRENCH has made an engraving of a picture by Mr. F. D. Millet called “The Sandal,” and of one by Mr. Gilbert Gaul entitled “In the Enemy’s Country.” Both these subjects differ radically in quality and character of execution. Mr. Millet paints with a refined and delicate technique; Mr. Gaul with a vigor and aggression - ■ “ ' ':V * . . .. 5 . .• • r \1 ' wy: s v • I amounting almost to coarseness. The quality of each artist is in its way equally estimable, but to the engraver two different problems are presented. The style of each is inseparable from the artistic end that each has attained, and is indispensable in the reproduction. Considered in the light of a school of engraving that is departed, both would be regarded as abstract subjects, and the same routine of execution would govern their reproduction. In the engraving that resulted there would be little of the artist discernible, except in so far as it was inseparable from marked characteristics of style, form or composition. Mr. French, however, has reproduced Mr. Millet’s picture as, were he an engraver, Mr. Millet presumably would reproduce it himself. It is a question of gracious tones of harmonious and delicate color, and of soft and luminous flesh, all bathed in an atmosphere made visible by gentle sunlight. Everything of Mr. Millet is here except the actual pigment, and even that is conveyed by the value attributed to the various textures of black and white. If in the painting an outlined blush betrays the contour beneath diaphanous draperies, it is suggested with equal delicacy and beauty in Mr. French’s reproduction. Fidelity is uppermost in the engraver’s mind. The seductions of alluring line, of effects to which the wood and the graver incline his hand, sway him not. To reproduce as faithfully as possible the thing to which he has addressed himself is his only thought. If, however, a technical student of the art of engraving on wood desires to see wherein pure line may be taken to denote the mind in the work, to reveal the invention of the engraver, let him consider the divergent series of simple radiations that reproduces the drapery of this figure of Mr. Millet’s from the waist to the hem of the tunic. Here is a clean line, bold and unwavering, carrying all the modeling of the drapery and of the flesh under it. It conveys the structure of the whole, its life, its form, and its meaning. The same is equally true of the engraving of Mr. Gaul’s picture, “In the Enemy’s Country,” which presents a greater variety in the treatment. There is invention in the line of the cloud-swept sky, invention in the arbitrary line of the landscape, but it is throughout invention allied to simple interpretation, and it has no meaning that is foreign to its duty of unaffected and direct reproduction. M ISS CAROLINE A. POWELL is the only woman that has been called to membership in the Society of American Wood-Engravers and it is not difficult to discern her title to the honor. What a broad, com¬ prehensive and distinguished style, vigorous, certain and masculine, character izes her work! Admirably in keeping with the fine decorative sense of Mr. Lafarge’s creation, thoroughly in sympathy with his serious harmonies of color, it is a reproduction of the highest intelligence and beaut). The repose and distinction of his figures, the spiritual elevation essential to the expression of religious sentiment, his individuality of treatment, all find adequate interpretation in Miss Powell’s translation, and lose not in the process. Mr. Lafarge’s “Three Marys” is one of his finest achievements, and as a reproduction of it within the limitations of a modest wood-engraving, Miss Powell’s work is entitled to the highest consideration. The reproduction of Mr. Thayer’s “Lady and Horse is equally fine. The equivalent of the color of the painting is maintained with great vigor and certainty of effect, and with all the softness of outline and delicate tran¬ sition of light and shade that distinguish Mr. Thayer’s work. It is a per¬ fectly harmonious and faithful interpretation of the original, and is character¬ ized by technical excellences indicative of the highest skill and intelligence. A TR. ELBRIDGE KINGSLEY has engraved a summer landscape by ^ ^ Mr. George Inness, and a picture by Mr. Albert P. Ryder entitled “The Flying Dutchman.” Mr. Kingsley in his engraving has always shown a distinct sympathy with broad and delicate planes of color. For instance, he is never so confident of himself as when he is reproducing a mass of foliage painted by Corot, and losing detail in re-creating it a thousandfold in the subjective method of that great master. In his treat¬ ment of Mr. Inness’s work he is perfectly sympathetic, and there is extra¬ ordinary truth and wonderfully intelligent fidelity in his interpretation of many passages in the Inness landscape. Take as an example the trees in the left distance behind the nearer white stem. How could the quality of Inness be more happily conveyed than in this one touch? It is as if he himself had guided the steel through the gradations of that mass, which is In the Enemy's Country Engraved by Frank French The Sibyl Engraved by F. S. King si Difference Engraved by F. S. King no longer black and white but the distinctive gray-green of the artist himself But it is the same in all parts of the block. It is not an engraving, a technical exploit; it is the very life and essence of Inness’s picture. Mr. Albert P. Ryder’s “ Flying Dutchman,” a most fantastic, vague and poetical conceit, highly imaginative in arrangement and delightful in the variety and harmony of its color, proved to Mr. Kingsley a subject of irre¬ sistible charm. The furious green breakers, the flying foam and hurrying scud, the dimmed, ominous orb hanging over the whirling tumult, and high on the sea’s angry crest, with great pinions spanning the firmament and speeding into the heart of the gale, the weird spectre of the doomed Hol¬ lander! Here was mystery without limitation of detail, drawing without restriction of form and color without thought of convention. To convey these alluring things in subtleties of black and white was fascination enough and Mr. Kingsley effaced himself. The dullest apprehension is aware of the imagination that is in the picture, and it is impossible to ignore the imagination of the engraver. There is more than intelligence in such work as this interpretation, which technically is beyond praise. j^/JR. S. G. PUTNAM’S engraving of an exceedingly difficult subject, a drawing by Mr. Elihu Vedder, is full of interest, and is technically an admirable piece of work. It is of the same size as the original, which is in the possession of Mr. T. B. Aldrich, who wrote the well-known lines which it illustrates: Somewhere—in desolate, wind-swept space, In Twilight land—in No-man’s land— Two hurrying shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. “And who are you?” cried one, agape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. “I know not,” said the second shape, “I only died last night!” Mr. Aldrich says that both the picture and the idea of the poem are original with Mr. Vedder, which the latter disclaims. The lines are certainly Mr. Aldrich’s in both form and conceit, and the drawing is assuredly a and it loses none of its mysticism and poetry in its treatment at the hands in line, and with a masterful certainty of execution that left nothing to be reconsidered or retouched. The lines as printed beneath are engraved from a panel which is framed as a part of the drawing. Mr. Putnam’s qualities as a conscientious and cultivated artist are, R. A. Blakelock’s “Waterfall by Moonlight,” a very remarkable painting and the masterpiece of the autumn exhibition in the National Academy in 1886. This, for boldness of execution, variety and intelligence of treatment and the general quality and effect of the result, is a piece of engraving upon wood that will repay the most careful study. TV /TR. JOHN P. DAVIS’S engraving of Mr. Walter Shirlaw’s picture, “Among the Old Poets,” is a rich and beautiful reproduction of the original. It could not be more faithful to all the characteristics of Mr. wood. The transition of color from the depth of velvet black to the luminous and transparent color of the face is perfectly harmonious and true, and it is a forceful and effective example of this excellent engraver’s best achievement. Mr. Davis is also represented by an engraving, admirable in fidelity and intelligence of workmanship, of a picture by Mr. Edgar M. Ward. TV /TR. F. S. KING’S line and his whole method as an engraver seem to lend themselves naturally to the reproduction of Mr. Church’s “Sibyl.” It is as if Mr. Church were himself working with a new vehicle The Flying Dutchman Engraved by Elbridge Kingsley A Portrait Engraved by G. Kruell tone that he prefers to adhere to, and all the distinctive qualities of him are present in the engraving. In Mr. King’s other contribution, an engraving of a picture by Mr. E. H. Blashfield, he shows what a wealth of resource there is in his mastery of technique. Nothing could be finer than his method of conveying the vaporous unreality and fantastic suggestion of Mr. Church s color, and nothing could be more exact or complete than his interpretation of the manner and quality of Mr. Blashfield. j^/JR. J. TINKEY’S contribution is a reproduction of Mr. Frank C. Jones’s delightful little picture, “Exchanging Confidences.” Mr. Tinkey’s proof is of exquisite quality, strong and broad of handling where it should be, and refined and delicate as could be desired in the treatment of all passages in which light and subtlety of effect are to be expressed. In texture and planes of color it follows the painting with the closest fidelity and reproduces the whole spirit and illumination of the picture with exact truth. The face of the child is admirable in its fidelity to the original and in the completeness with which it reproduces a very elusive but wholly essential touch of expression. j^/JR. T. JOHNSON has achieved distinction as an engraver of portraits, and his strong, direct and forcible style is revealed in the engraving of Mr. J. W. Alexander’s “ Portrait of a Child.” The composition of the picture is original and decorative, and Mr. Alexander’s broad and simple method of dealing with a canvas of such a character presented to a masterly engraver like Mr. Johnson an exceedingly agreeable problem. He has dealt with it very successfully, as his rich and luminous proof witnesses. The fine modeling of the face and hands, the textures of the light muslin and of the heavier stuff of the dress, and the tiger head and skin—not at all as one would engrave the thing itself, but precisely as Mr. Alexander painted it—all these make up an admirable engraving of a very beautiful picture, remarkable for evenness of execution and for the strength of line with which its most delicate effects are conveyed. M R. HENRY WOLF has engraved Mr. Eastman Johnson’s “New England Peddler” and “A Roadside” by Mr. R. Swain Gifford. Mr. Johnson, whose years would soon be almost venerable were he not in his art, his energies and his sympathies one of the youngest and strongest of American artists, has found a faithful interpreter in Mr. Wolf. His “New England Peddler,” strong in its Americanism, simple and unaffected in its composition and treatment, has been reproduced with great delicacy and fidelity by a most conscientious and careful engraver. Mr. Wolf has also engraved Mr. Gifford’s landscape with a degree of vigor, breadth and effectiveness that is remarkable in its results. Many engravings of his own work as Mr. Gifford has seen, he testifies that he has never had to do with any that conveyed the qualities of it that he himself most prized with such fidelity and charm of effect as this beautiful reproduction of Mr. Wolf’s. A fR. V. BERNSTROM has engraved Mr. Carl Marr’s painting entitled LVJ. “The Mystery of Life,” a powerful and dramatic composition, im¬ pressive in its alternations of light and shadow, and a subject exceedingly difficult of reproduction. Mr. Bernstrom possesses an independent and unconventional style and a touch of great delicacy, and in his translation of this painting he has given play to all his powers. Nothing could be more refined than the modeling of the woman’s figure, the waxen softness of its texture and the grace and beauty of its contour. Whatever in these respects the artist sought in the original is here attained by the engraver and expressed with complete certainty of execution and a subtlety of tech¬ nique that is extraordinary. The same adequate and masterly execution is shown in the strong modeling of the man, in the beautiful line which is made to convey every touch of the artist, in the drawing of the bronzed arms with outstanding veins and sinews, and in the wind-swept gray beard and hair. All the accessories receive equally intelligent and careful trans¬ lation, and show the same exquisite finish and completeness of effect. The color is exceedingly rich, and the transition from the profound gloom of the cavern to the tender illumination of the figure of the drowned woman is The Three Marys Engraved by Miss C. A. Powell The Lady and Horse Engraved by Miss C. A. Powell Engraved by S. G. Putnam si IVaterfall by Moonlight Engraved by S. G. Putnam - charming in its gradation and perfect in its fidelity to the original. It is an engraving of admirable qualities and effect and it is Mr. Bernstrom’s masterpiece. TIMOTHY COLE is the first of American engravers and an artist of rare discernment and poetic sensibility. The sympathetic quality of his work and the power and beauty of his direct and simple style may not be too highly held. Of late years few of his engravings have seen the light. He has been studying in Italy among the old masters, immuring himself m the artistic gloom of their treasure houses and reproducing great works with the most reverent zeal and a patient and unswerving fidelity that knows no moment of relaxation. There is no student more devoted to his art than Timothy Cole, no more sincere and faithful lover of it for its own sake than he, and none whom his fellow-artists hold in higher honor. He is represented by an engraving, executed at Padua last year, of Giotto’s “Entombment.” The early Italian masters are not a sealed book to Cole. He gravitated to them naturally, and there is none more susceptible to their influence. Their moral elevation and dignity, the lofty spirituality which informs their creations, their tone and inspiration, all profoundly move him, and he interprets their qualities accordingly. A /TR. R. A. MULLER has engraved a picture by that well-known and deservedly popular artist, Mr. J. G. Brown, a thoroughly character¬ istic subject in his familiar vein, and bearing the title “I’m Perfectly Happy.” Mr. Muller has reproduced it with excellent effect, and with the scrupulous fidelity and sympathetic intelligence which always mark his work. 1\ /TR. F. H. WELLINGTON has engraved some of the most delightful illustrations that have graced the pages of our magazines. He con¬ tributes to the present work two large and important examples, reproductions of Mr. Edwin A. Abbey’s drawing of “Miles Standish’s Challenge” and Mr. W. T. Smedley’s painting of “One Day in June.” It will be seen that Mr. Wellington’s method lends itself with equal effect to convey the very dissimilar technical qualities of these two pictures, the bold and vigorous drawing in black and white of Mr. Abbey and the sleek and softened textures of Mr. Smedley’s painting. The engraving of “One Day in June” is a very remarkable piece of work, very beautiful as engrav¬ ing and extraordinary in its fidelity to Mr. Smedley’s distinguishing charac¬ teristics. It is not possible to conceive how any form of reproduction should more faithfully reflect the original, and this it does more closely than would be possible by photography. The illusion that it is really Mr. Smedley’s work and not at all the engraver’s is complete; and if such a thing could be it is more nearly the work of the painter than the painting itself. But apart from such considerations it is a beautiful achievement in wood-engraving, and there is no passage of it that will not repay the most attentive study. Indeed both Mr. Wellington’s proofs will do this; they are delightful in every way and reveal him as an engraver of great power and variety of resource. William M. Laffan. New York, July, 1887. Exchanging Confidences 'Engraved by John Einkey One Day in June Engraved by F. H. Wellington Miles Standish's Challenge Engraved by F. H. Wellington 1W1 ‘»r*V The Roadside Engraved by Henry Wolf