the best cuts of that period with the best of this. Singularly enough, although the engravers greatly outnumbered the draughtsmen, what small range of variety there was was due to the pencil rather than the graver. A dull monotony seems to have settled down upon the blocks of that time, and what germs of individuality it held had not yet grown into distinct styles. Ask any good engraver to show you his proofs of that day and those which he now exhibits at the National Academy, and see how everything that is included in the idea of personality has developed. If he has kept to the more conservative theories of his profession, his touch has been enlivened and quickened by an unconscious sympathy with the pace of the new movement; while if he has shared its experimental spirit and tendencies, his work has taken on a freshness, variety, and vigor which, perhaps, he himself would hardly have anticipated. Moreover, the number has been very small of those who have come out of this movement (as out of all progressive movements men will) warped by pettiness, whimsicality, and worse mannerisms than before, and having wholly lost sight of its larger meaning.

To this general advance public opinion and the best critical judgment have alike been quick to respond-nowhere more generously or more intelligently than in England. Not only such authorities as Mr. Seymour Haden, Mr. Whistler, Mr. Hamerton, the London "Times," Mr. Comyns Carr, but the great body of the English press might be cited on this point in contravention of an opinion which still lingers in the United States, that British criticism is dictated by an "insular" policy. At home also the subject has received a good deal of attention, but with the disadvantage that fewer of those who have written about it have had opportunities to acquire the necessary technical knowledge. Still, there is a good deal of confusion in the public mind, both in England and America, as to wherein the real success of the movement consists, along with a great desire to know what lines its future advances will probably follow. For the consideration of these points, a good text is found in the recent competition for the prizes offered by this magazine for the best specimen blocks to be cut by new engravers during the year 1880-an experiment which, to a notable extent, has revealed and confirmed the characteristics of the newschool type.

It must be noted, first of all, that the supe

riority of American work has been heretofore confined mainly to the compass of small blocks. As yet, the needs of our illustrated journals have called for few engravings of large size, which give such opportunity for the employment of the bold means and the broad conception of method to be found in such publications as the London "News" and "Graphic." American engravers have yet to develop this class of work, and, so far, we have little to show with the majesty of line and movement of, for instance, Mr. Linton's earlier blocks. Our successes have been achieved rather along the line of a sensitive nervous organization. Force we have (often boldness), but not as a school, and chiefly where force is the incidental product of delicacy. This sensitiveness has assumed three distinct phases, which we take to be the commanding characteristics of wood-engraving in the United States at the present time:

1. Originality of style.

2. Individuality and (as a corollary) variety of style.

3, and chiefly-Faithfulness in the reproduction of a wide range of subjects by diverse methods.

As to the first two counts, it is only necessary to compare the same number of wood-cuts by American, English, French, and German engravers. Speaking broadly, and remembering certain noteworthy exceptions, the French work is of a metallic hardness, though usually delicately directed; the German labored, stiff, and mechanical; the English more vigorous and soft than either, but with a narrow range of sympathies, and lacking in delicacy. The American cuts not only show generic and specific differences from the others, but the same differences among themselves. Leaving out of mind, for the nonce, the conservative contingent who do not give in their adhesion to the "experimental school," and who are, many of them, doing able technical work not to be underrated here, we find the body of the craft in this country contributing to the enjoyment of the world a variety of refined, rich, unhackneyed styles which has never before been seen in the history of the art.

That any such variety could exist under the conventions of the old school was not, in the nature of the case, to have been expected. Even Mr. Linton, with all his wonderful freedom with the graver, which he handles as a painter does a brush, and with all the sincerity and downrightness of method which he has inspired in those who

incline to his leadership,-even Mr. Linton has improved the technique of his pupils and adherents at a great expense of their personality. Concerning the desirability of retaining this quality of personality there can hardly be a question; it is what gives greatness to all art, all work above the mechanical. Indeed, the chief points of disagreement between the old school and the new have lain in the different theories of how to make the most of it, some going so far as to regard the engraver's art as creative, and holding that he should learn to intelligently disregard the original, in the supposed interest of a fundamental truth of nature. The new school, too, desires to cultivate the personality of the engraver: not, however, as Mr. Linton does, at the expense of the artistwhose function to create is theoretically beyond doubt, even though his creation. suffer annihilation at the engraver's hands but to develop his individuality as an interpreter. This magazine has held that whatever may be the function of the engraver, it does not argue license to play at will with the personality of the artist, but simply freedom to vary from conventional ways of approaching it. The musician must keep to his score, the actor to his text, the engraver to his original; but within these limitations there is a wide range for the training of expression. It is no insult to wood-engraving to call it a secondary art; so are instrumental and vocal music and the drama. While strictly not creative, all three give range to the imagination and the sensibilities, and in ministry to the life and progress of mankind contribute not less important, if somewhat less original, force than the primary arts. Indeed, no less profound a thinker than George Eliot has gone so far as to rank the receptive faculty above the creative. Certainly, the world at large, to which Beethoven, Shakspere, and Raphael must ever be

"pinnacled dim in the intense inane,"

is not likely to undervalue its obligations to such sympathetic interpreters as Rubinstein, Salvini, and Cole, to name but a few of the many who bring another's message translated in the glow of their own personality.

The growth of the third distinctive feature of American wood-engraving-faithfulness in reproducing a wide range of subjects by diverse methods-has been intimately connected with the history of this magazine. When SCRIBNER was established, in 1870, and for several years after, the native

resources of magazine illustration were limited to a few designers upon the block, who either made original drawings or copies of paintings, in which the quality of the painting was swallowed up (as it could not fail to be) in the pictorial mannerisms of the draughtsman. In the illustration of books from original drawings on the block, two noted instances there were of work done with thorough technical knowledge and true artistic spirit: Mr. W. J. Linton's engravings after drawings by Mr. W. J. Hennessy, and the blocks of Mr. Henry Marsh after drawings by Mr. John LaFarge. In each case the value of the work lay in the co-working of a good block-draughtsman and a good engraver. The second combination is the more interesting, as accomplishing unique results by the co-working of a delicate and original artist with a sympathetic and unconventional engraver of thoroughly artistic sense. Examples in point are the cuts of "The Wolf-Charmer" and "The Spirit of the Water-Lily," reprinted in this magazine for February, 1881. Not less able engraving was done by Mr. Marsh on a series of careful drawings of natural objects for Harris's "Insects Injurious to Vegetation," the most striking specimens of which were reprinted in this magazine for July and August, 1879. These three enterprises had good effect upon American engraving, and both for intrinsic worth and for healthful influence must be accorded prominence in any sketch of woodengraving. When we have made these exceptions, however, there is little left in the achievements of that time to claim particular notice. A collection of paintings, as represented in the illustrated journals, had little of the painters but their topography. By the time the pictures reached the public eye, the skies, foliage, and accessories of one were indistinguishable from those of another, for all were cut by a traditional formula-often conventionally correct, but generally lifeless and without charm. Occasionally portraits were rephotographed upon the block to be cut almost as conventionally. As a consequence, the magazines fell into a rut, with a little more or less of each draughtsman in each issue, while a whole world of art lay at their feet which they could not make available, because demands upon the engravers to approximate more closely the painter's mood were met by the traditional reply, that it was "impossible to cut a block in that way." If not impossible to cut, it was impossible to

print. For it is but fair to many engravers to say that their conventional mannerisms were largely due to the imperfectness of the printing machinery then in general use. Of what use was it to cut blocks finely, to try new textures, to invent new styles, when the press could not print them decently? The wood-cuts which have made many engravers famous would have been rejected ten years ago, by magazines here and abroad, as thoroughly unprintable.

The approach to the desired result was made by a flank movement. Engravers were found who were willing to cut blocks upon which were photographed wash-drawings and pencil-work, and in doing so to retain some of the technique of the artist.

These experiments were extended to charcoal, crayon, pen-and-ink, etc., and before long engravers learned to throw themselves into the spirit of the new work; for, although somewhat similar methods had been tried in England, the experiments were carried further here, and with a finesse before unknown. Painters, pleased with the truthfulness and delicacy of these blocks, gladly assisted in making drawings for the engravers to try, and so grew up an accidental influence which has probably done as much to educate engravers in the art of plastic expression as years of set instruction in drawing could have done. The press and the public have since responded with appreciation of the best of the new work, as seen

44 THE BELLMAN," FROM WASH-DRAWING. ENGRAVER, MISS M. L. OWENS. TIME OF PRACTICE, TEN MONTHS.

fifty dollars, for the best blocks by non-pro- | fessional workmen, to be engraved during the year 1880. To this offer there were responses from thirty-two competitors, covering nearly one hundred blocks. Considering the shortness of the time, and the circumstances under which many of the competitors have worked, the results both in interest and achievement have fully justified the anticipations. In many cases the engraver has been removed from the influences commonly supposed to foster the artistic sense; often he has worked from unusually difficult or inadequate originals. The person to whom the first prize has been awarded (on the merits of his rich and delicate proof) is but sixteen years of age; the successful competitor for the second prize had engraved but six months before touching his most original and promising block; while the engraver of the thirdprize block would have been awarded the first prize had not the lines of the steel engraving from which it was copied suggested a texture more readily followed than either

of the others. To such first work no one of the other competitors need be ashamed to yield precedence, while a large proportion of those who do not receive mention had received but a few months' instruction, or none at all. As a whole, the blocks showed a sincerity, an originality, and a quality of workmanship which before the rise of the new movement it would have been impossible to have got together in the same time and under the same stimulus. Not only the prize-men, but a number of the others, are thus placed at once upon a commercial footing in the profession which they have. chosen. Below we present the details of the awards of the committee, which consisted of Mr. Theodore L. DeVinne, the printer, Mr. T. Cole, the engraver, and Mr. A. W. Drake, Superintendent of the Art Department of SCRIBNER and ST. NICHOLAS.

This committee made the following analysis of the characteristics or qualities of the proofs submitted:

I. Truthfulness in reproduction of artist's design. 2. Originality in line or texture. 3. General effect.

4. Management of color.

The degrees of merit reached in each. quality were marked in numerical order by figures on a scale in which ten stood for the maximum. The first prize went to him who had the most marks.

The length of time spent in practice, the rendering of fac-simile, and the selection of subject were also given some weight.

The first prize ($100) is awarded to

William H. Mackay, pupil of Victor L. Chandler, Boston. Age, sixteen. Time of practice, two years. Characteristics of work: Artistic feeling and faithfulness to spirit of design. Unusual combination of strength with extreme delicacy. Original, photograph from painting.