Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Ex library but not many stamps or markings. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> A SELECTION of some of the best illustration now being done appears in the editorial pages of Penrose’s Annual. Some of the worst is in its technical- advertisement pages. It seems that few printers and blockmakers will see eye to eye with artists and authors about what is worth reproducing. Moreover many artists are afraid that drawing for reproduction will ruin their work or else that their work will be ruined in reproduction. The first at any rate is unlikely. It is usually one’s own fault if one draws badly whether for reproduction or not. In fact one can learn a lot about drawing from seeing one’s work in print. Even Ingres said: It is through prints that we can judge paintings and their merit. Since we can examine them more easily and more readily than we can the originals we come to realize any weaknesses of style or of composition. At greater leisure we grasp each meaning more firmly. So the painter must be very particular about his work when he is thinking of reproduction. (Il faut donc que le peintre regarde de bien pr?s ? son c?uvre en vue de la gravure.) He must be fully equipped before he submits to this test. If he emerges a winner he undoubtedly deserves victory. Ingres was thinking about reproductions that fully render the values of the original. These ‘values’ consist in a successful all-over relationship that is immediately recognizable to the informed eye. A simple line-block on a printed page can hold this trueness of note as clearly as a bell. But the mere choice of unsuitable printing paper can obliterate it with the effect of sun- light going off a landscape or of life passing from a human face. For artists to know ‘how to draw for reproduction’ is only part of the business. They are often capable of the most agile adaptation to precise ends just as printers can make the most exquisite interpretations if they are ‘put in the picture’. But a lot can go on in between to blur the view. Artists who work regularly for standard prints can successfully standardize their methods. But experience of one job will not necessarily help with another since the many channels through which work can pass often make close adaptation to a particular end impracticable. (SP)