SO far, in writing of decorative illustrators and of open-air
illustrators, the difference in scheme between a study of
book-illustration and of 'black-and-white' art has not greatly affected
the scale and order of facts. The intellectual idea of illustration, as
a personal interpretation of the spirit of the text, finds expression,
formally at least, in the drawings of most decorative black-and-white
artists. The deliberate and inventive character of their art, the fact
that such qualities are non-journalistic, and ineffective in the
treatment of 'day by day' matters, keeps the interpretative ideal,
brought into English illustration by Rossetti, and the artists whose
spirits he kindled, among working ideals for these illustrators. For
that reason, with the exception of page-decorations such as those of
Mr. Edgar Wilson, the subject of decorative illustration is almost
co-extensive with the subject of decorative black-and-white. The
open-air illustrator represents another aspect of illustration. To
interpret the spirit of the text would, frequently, allow his art no
exercise. Much of his text is itinerary. His subject is before his
eyes in actuality, or in photographs, and not in some phrase of words,
magical with suggested forms, creating by its gift of delight desire to
celebrate its beauty. Still, if the artist be independent of the
intellectual and imaginative qualities of the book, his is no
independent form of black and white. It is illustration; the author's
subject is the subject of the artist. Open-air facts, those that are
beautiful and pleasurable, are too uneventful to make 'news
illustration.' Unless as background for some event, they have, for most
people, no immediate interest. So it happens that open-air drawings are
usually illustrations of text, text of a practical guide-book
character, or of archaeological interest, or of the gossiping, intimate
kind that tells of possessions, of journeys and pleasurings, or, again,
illustrations of the open-air classics in prose and verse.