Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/277

Rh picture is placed on the wall, because it has a beauty in itself. An illustrated book is more attractive to casual inspection than one which lacks such an adjunct. One likes to look at pictures even when dissociated from sustained interest and lacking a common thread of connection. The occupation makes little demand upon mental energy and is accompanied by a sense of ease, while the vivid or novel aspects of the world which are passed in review give rise to a pleasurable state of consciousness through the mild and equitable stimulation which they afford.

The picture thus becomes in a way correlative with the text, each adding an independent element of value to the whole. Within its own field each then seeks a characteristic excellence, and a set of canons is developed in regard to the making of such illustrations. In the first place, they are enriched in their positive values as pictures. They must be well composed and correctly drawn; they must have vigor and refinement in their execution; if colored, the tones must have splendor and harmony; and so on. In the second place, as in literary art dignity in the surroundings, noble birth, beauty and virtue in the characters are invoked to deepen the impression, so in this use of book-illustration the backgrounds must be rich, the scenery beautiful, the figures of either dignified age or noble youth. The men are all handsome, according to the illustrator's individual conception of good looks, the women in a like manner beautiful; the dress worn is irreproachable in fit and of the latest pattern. All the accessories of success, luxury and style reinforce the more direct values of health, vigorous action and beauty. Or, if this special class of effects be not involved, the esthetic appeal is still to some equally general and elementary sense, such as that of romantic pity in which a certain stereotyped pathos affords the underlying motive of treatment.

The illustrations, in such a case, become a gallery of pictures by a single artist who commonly emphasizes, in a highly conventional way, a particular style of treatment or specific human type. When such an illustrator has achieved a vogue his work is likely to be sought by publishers for the meretricious excellence of these features, however poor his illustrative capacity may be.

The high degree of mechanical development which process reproduction has attained tends to foster this use of illustration. One can not imagine a book overloaded with mere diagrams which in no way help in the elucidation of the text, for such drawings have no other value which can be substituted for this primary service. So long also as the illustrator's art is crude, or the process of reproduction difficult and expensive, pictures will be introduced only where there is an evident purpose to be served, and little abuse of illustration will arise. Photographic, chromo-lithographic and other processes, however, have made possible such a high degree of success in transferring to a prepared surface of