DOCSLIB.ORG

Review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: the Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: the Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015) Review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015) Thomas Smits Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2.1 (Summer 2017) ISSN 2506-6587 Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence The Journal of European Periodical Studies is hosted by Ghent University Website: ojs.ugent.be/jeps To cite this review: Thomas Smits, review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015), Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2.1 (Summer 2017), 56–57 Reviews Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015). 205 pp. ISBN 978-1-4724-3298-8 In her book Printing and Painting the dichotomy, famously posited by Glement News in Victorian London (2015) Andrea Greenberg in his Art and Culture (1989), Korda examines the work of three painters between the ‘modern’ image and the — Frank Holl, Luke Fildes, and Hubert ‘modernist’ artwork: the first being an Herkomer — to answer a longstanding easily digestible and commercialised visual question: what happened to the work of opiate for the people, while the latter art in the age of mechanical reproduction? necessarily incites viewers to question the The three ‘social realist’ painters — not status quo.2 Theorists of visual culture such to be confused with the ‘socialist realism’ as Jonathan Crary,3 have broadened this of the Soviet Union — make fine case opposition by claiming that modernist studies because they were closely tied to artists invite spectators to see the world in the Royal Academy, but also worked as a new light, while objective modern image illustrators for William Luson Thomas’s makers, like the scientist, the doctor, the Graphic, a successful illustrated journal and the photographer, press towards an that distributed mechanically reproduced increasing standardization and regulation illustrations of news events on a massive of the observer. scale. Besides these obvious connections, Korda argues that the work of Korda contends that the three artists Holl, Fildes, and Herkomer reveals shared a unique response to the age of important aspects of modern life — mechanical reproduction: ‘tells us something about modernity’4 — without intentionally challenging its Rather than spurning mechanical commercialized visual culture. She uses a reproductions as the products media-archaeological approach, based on of commerce and industry, […] the work of Michel Foucault, to ‘excavate’ they adopted the strategies of a the logic of social realism. Social realism commercial and mechanical mass ‘offered an alternative response to the culture as a means of revitalizing high conditions of modernity, one that engaged art, looking specifically to the new with both modern problems and modern medium of the illustrated newspaper media, but that has since been purged as their model.1 from teleological histories of modern art’.5 It is precisely this point — the appropriation In order to demonstrate her central of mass-culture by the three painters in thesis, Korda compares the visual regimes order to revitalize high art — that makes of the two most famous British illustrated Korda’s book so interesting. She positions newspapers: the Illustrated London News their work as a counter-narrative to the and the Graphic. Building on the work 1 Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), p. 2. 2 Clement Greenberg, Art and Culture: Critical Essays (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1989). 3 Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990); Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000). 4 Korda, p. 7. 5 Korda, p. 11. 56 Journal of European Periodical Studies 2.1 of media historian Jean Chalaby,6 who priced at six pence, while the Illustrated describes the shift from a partisan press London News sold for five pence). The financed by political factions in the early success of the Graphic, selling around nineteenth century, to a commercialized 70,000 copies in 1870, attests to both his and ‘objective’ press financed by artistic sensibility and his business sense. advertisements, Korda claims that the To conclude: Printing and Painting regime of the Illustrated London News the News in Victorian London sheds a new can be characterized by its accessibility, and well-deserved light on the artistic objectivity, and instant legibility. In other value of the work of Holl, Fildes, and words: by its commercialized nature. Herkomer and the illustrations of the The images of William Luson Thomas’s Graphic, while rightly trying to excavate Graphic, on the other hand, encouraged both the medium of the illustrated a ‘renewed sense of immediacy’, inviting newspaper and the style of social realism readers not only to see an event but also to from their graves in teleological accounts experience it through the image.7 of (art) history. However, Korda is less The social realism of Korda’s painters successful in untying the theoretical knot developed in relation to the visual regime of between modern images and modernist the Graphic. According to the author, this works of art. Instead, she seems to mainly regime can almost be viewed as modernist, redraw the borders between the two because of its challenging and de-regulatory categories, claiming artistic avant-gardism nature. In order to substantiate her point, for the Graphic, while dismissing the she describes Thomas and his ‘fellow commercialized Illustrated London News. workmen’ as true modernist artists, who The frequently cited admiration of Vincent in starting the Graphic ‘were motivated by a van Gogh for the Graphic, who as the dedication to their art and their labour, not modernist painter par excellence is made by profit’.8 Conversely, Herbert Ingram, to serve as its expert witness, illustrates the founder of the Illustrated London News, this point. The taste of the famous is portrayed as a money-hungry capitalist, painter was, however, broader than Korda without any interest in the artistic value of suggests: he was also a fervent admirer of his paper, or the human value of his artists. many illustrations in the ‘commercialized’ These sharply drawn differences between Illustrated London News. the motivation of Ingram and Thomas In the end the reader is left are essential to Korda’s argument: in the wondering if the opposition between classic dichotomy, modern image-makers modern image-makers and modernist reinforce commercialized society, while artists is useful in explaining the modernist artists critique it. significance of the work of Holl, Fildes, It is well accepted among Victorian and Herkomer and influential publications periodical scholars that the Graphic paid like the Graphic and Illustrated London more attention to the quality of its News, which can easily be characterized illustrations than the Illustrated London as being part of both trends. Maybe it is News. However, it is the question what precisely the ambivalence of the artists motivated this: artistic inclination, and these kinds of enterprises that tells us commercial gain, or maybe both? To something about modernity; the fact that answer this somewhat rhetorical question: they thrived at a point were mass-culture Thomas was an inspired artist who saw and artistic sensibility met in the middle. an interesting niche for a high-quality magazine that targeted the upper-regions Thomas Smits of the British public (the Graphic was Radboud University, Nijmegen 6 Jean K. Chalaby, The Invention of Journalism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998). 7 Korda, p. 174. 7 Korda, p. 53. 57.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015)
    PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/184357 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-27 and may be subject to change. Review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015) Thomas Smits Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2.1 (Summer 2017) ISSN 2506-6587 Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence The Journal of European Periodical Studies is hosted by Ghent University Website: ojs.ugent.be/jeps To cite this review: Thomas Smits, review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015), Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2.1 (Summer 2017), 56–57 Reviews Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015). 205 pp. ISBN 978-1-4724-3298-8 In her book Printing and Painting the dichotomy, famously posited by Glement News in Victorian London (2015) Andrea Greenberg in his Art and Culture (1989), Korda examines the work of three painters between the ‘modern’ image and the — Frank Holl, Luke Fildes, and Hubert ‘modernist’ artwork: the first being an Herkomer — to answer a longstanding easily digestible and commercialised visual question: what happened to the work of opiate for the people, while
    [Show full text]
  • Late-Victorian Artists Presented As Strand Celebrities Type Article
    Title "Peeps" or "Smatter and Chatter": Late-Victorian Artists Presented as Strand Celebrities Type Article URL https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/14210/ Dat e 2 0 1 9 Citation Dakers, Caroline (2019) "Peeps" or "Smatter and Chatter": Late-Victorian Artists Presented as Strand Celebrities. Victorian Periodicals Review. pp. 311-338. ISSN 0709-4698 Cr e a to rs Dakers, Caroline Usage Guidelines Please refer to usage guidelines at http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/policies.html or alternatively contact [email protected] . License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Unless otherwise stated, copyright owned by the author “Peeps,” or “Smatter and Chatter”: Late-Victorian Artists Presented as Strand Celebrities CAROLINE DAKERS I had not been at the hotel [in Switzerland] two hours before the parson put it [the Strand] into my hands. Certainly every person in the hotel had read it. It is true that some parts have a sickly flavour, perhaps only to us! I heard many remarks such as, “Oh! How interesting!” The rapture was general concerning your house. Such a house could scarcely have been imagined in London.1 Harry How’s “Illustrated Interview” with the Royal Academician Luke Fildes in his luxurious studio house in London’s Holland Park may have seemed a little “sickly” to Fildes and his brother-in-law Henry Woods, but such publicity was always welcome in an age when celebrity sold paintings. As Julie Codell demonstrates in The Victorian Artist: Artists’ Lifewritings in Britain ca. 1870–1910, late nineteenth-century art periodicals played an important role in building and maintaining the public’s interest in living artists.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nineteenth Century British Workhouse: Mission Not Accomplished Brenda Derin Dominican University of California
    Dominican Scholar Senior Theses and Capstone Projects Student Scholarship 2019 The Nineteenth Century British Workhouse: Mission Not Accomplished Brenda Derin Dominican University of California Survey: Let us know how this paper benefits you. Recommended Citation Derin, Brenda, "The Nineteenth Century British Workhouse: Mission Not Accomplished" (2019). Senior Theses and Capstone Projects. 116. https://scholar.dominican.edu/senior-theses/116 This Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at Dominican Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Theses and Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of Dominican Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH WORKHOUSE: MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED A culminating thesis submitted to the faculty of Dominican University of California in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Bachelor of Arts in Humanities and Cultural Studies. By Brenda Derin San Rafael, CA May, 2019 Readers: Patricia Dougherty, OP, PhD Professor Emerita of History Chase Clow, PhD Chair, Humanities Division ii This thesis, written under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor and approved by the Chair of the undergraduate program, has been presented to and accepted by the (Faculty of the Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts?) The content and research methodologies presented in this work represent the work of the candidate alone. ___________________________________ ____________________ Brenda Derin, Candidate Date _____________________________ _________________ Dr. Chase Clow, Chair Date _______________________________ _________________ Patricia Dougherty, OP, PhD, Date Professor Emerita of History iii Copyright © 2018 by Brenda Derin All rights reserved iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract.……………………………………………………………………………….......
    [Show full text]
  • The Nineteenth Century British Workhouse: Mission Not Accomplished
    Dominican Scholar Scholarly and Creative Works Scholarly and Creative Works Conference 2020 Conference 2019 Apr 17th, 6:40 PM The Nineteenth Century British Workhouse: Mission Not Accomplished Brenda Derin Dominican University of California Survey: Let us know how this paper benefits you. Derin, Brenda, "The Nineteenth Century British Workhouse: Mission Not Accomplished" (2019). Scholarly and Creative Works Conference 2020. 64. https://scholar.dominican.edu/scw/SCW2019/conference-presentations-exhibits-and- performances/64 This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at Dominican Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly and Creative Works Conference 2020 by an authorized administrator of Dominican Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH WORKHOUSE: MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED Brenda Derin Major: Humanities and Cultural Studies Dominican University of California April 17, 2019 CHILDREN WHO WORKED WERE SUBJECT TO APPALLING CONDITIONS. MANY DIED BEFORE THEY REACHED 25. ANNABEL VENNING, “BRITAIN’S CHILD SLAVES,” THE DAILY MAIL, SEPTEMBER 17, 2010. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312764/Britains-child-slaves-New-book-says-misery-helped-forge-Britain.html. RESEARCH METHODOLGY • Primary source documents • British Parliamentary debates • United Kingdom National Archives • Medical journals • Books and novels written about the workhouse • Websites detailing workhouse culture • Letters and journals by workhouse inhabitants WAITING… Sir Luke Fildes, Houseless and Hungry, The Graphic, 1869. Square plan - Workhouse architecture Sampson Kempthorne, “Kempthorne’s 1835 Square Plan in perspective,” workhouse.org BEGGARS Scott Campbell, “Cinderella,” The Daily Mail, August 21, 2017, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article- 4809114/Harrowing-images-Victorian-beggars- reveal-1800s-poverty.html.
    [Show full text]
  • 09/2007 1 Van Gogh's Favourites I Hubert
    www.meltonpriorinstitut.org 09/2007 Van Gogh’s Favourites I Hubert Herkomer and the School of English Social Realism “There is something virile in it - something rugged - which attracts me strongly (...) In all these fellows I see an energy, a determination and a free, healthy, cheerful spirit that animate me. And in their work there is something lofty and dignified - even when they draw a dunghill.” Vincent van Gogh, October 1882 (Letter R 16) Unlike the already deceased Jean-Francois Millet, Van Gogh’s second great artistic model, Hubert Herkomer, belonged to his own generation. Herkomer’s career offered a concrete projection screen for the late entrant who was eager to learn. Only three years his senior, Herkomer, at the time during which Van Gogh just decided to start a career as an artist, had already undergone a remarkable development, from a London-based illustrated journal draughtsman to an internationally successful star painter. Until his early death in 1890, Van Gogh follo- wed the success story of his model with great interest. He envied the social acceptance Herkomer had gained and even thought of visiting him in England to seek his patronage on his quest for a position as a social repor- tage draughtsman. In a biographical note that the gifted self-impersonator had launched in an issue of “The Graphic” from 10/26/1876, he gave an account of the difficult times he had experienced as the child of emigrants in Victorian England, where, after a failed new beginning in America in the mid-1850s, his family, who originally came from Waal near Landsberg, Germany, wound up.
    [Show full text]
  • John Forster As Biographer: a Case Study in Nineteenth-Century Biography
    1 John Forster as Biographer: A Case Study in Nineteenth-Century Biography Ph. D. Dissertation by Helena Langford September 2010 Department of English Language and Literature University College London Supervisor, Rosemary Ashton UCL 2 3 Abstract John Forster as Biographer: A Case Study in Nineteenth-Century Biography John Forster (1812-1876) has traditionally been glimpsed almost exclusively via his relationships with key nineteenth-century figures such as Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens. His biographical works can be seen as a nexus between the often conflicting positions which he occupied as a journalist, editor, literary agent and advisor, barrister, philanthropist, husband and government secretary. Forster’s biographical career is roughly divided into three periods; the early biographies (1830-1864) constituted several historiographies of key figures in the history of the long parliament, concluding in the two-volume Sir John Eliot (1864). The years 1848 to 1875 were occupied with biographies of eighteenth-century poets, novelists and dramatists, in particular Oliver Goldsmith (1848) and Jonathan Swift (1875). In the last decade of his life, Forster was diverted from these two passions by the memoirs of his friends, Walter Savage Landor (1869) and Charles Dickens (1872-4). Arising out of collaborative work with UCL and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this study centres on the National Art Library's Forster bequest. Examining and documenting in detail the materials which Forster collected and exploited to write his biographies, it explores the nature, both physical and intellectual, of Forster's library, and its importance in analysing his research and writing interests. The works are situated within the development of biography as a genre, and alongside the emerging ethos of unrestricted education and the new printing and binding technologies and techniques which were becoming available.
    [Show full text]
  • PDF Hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Radboud Repository PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/184357 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2018-04-11 and may be subject to change. Review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015) Thomas Smits Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2.1 (Summer 2017) ISSN 2506-6587 Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence The Journal of European Periodical Studies is hosted by Ghent University Website: ojs.ugent.be/jeps To cite this review: Thomas Smits, review of Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (2015), Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2.1 (Summer 2017), 56–57 Reviews Andrea Korda, Printing and Painting the News in Victorian London: The Graphic and Social Realism, 1869–1891 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015). 205 pp. ISBN 978-1-4724-3298-8 In her book Printing and Painting the dichotomy, famously posited by Glement News in Victorian London (2015) Andrea Greenberg in his Art and Culture (1989), Korda examines the work of three painters between the ‘modern’ image and the — Frank Holl, Luke Fildes, and Hubert ‘modernist’ artwork: the first being an Herkomer — to answer a longstanding easily
    [Show full text]
  • The Photographic Portrait
    THE PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT RARE FEMALE SUBJECTS BY HILL & ADAMSON HILL & ADAMSON AND THE ANNAN FAMILY JULIA MARGARET CAMERON WOMEN AT LEISURE HAND-TINTING PHOTO-COLLAGE QUEENS, PRINCES, PRINCESSES ARISTOCRACY AND CELEBRITIES UNWILLING MODELS, CHILDREN FAMOUS MEN, CAMBRIDGE STUDENTS BERNARD QUARITCH LTD 40 South Audley St, London W1K 2PR Tel.: +44 (0)20 7297 4888 Fax: +44 (0)20 7297 4866 E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] Mastercard and Visa accepted. If required, postage and insurance will be charged at cost. Other titles from our stock can be browsed at www.quaritch.com Bankers: Barclays Bank PLC, 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP Sort code: 20-65-82 Swift code: BARCGB22 Sterling account IBAN: GB98 BARC 206582 10511722 Euro account IBAN: GB30 BARC 206582 45447011 US Dollar account IBAN: GB46 BARC 206582 63992444 VAT number: GB 840 1358 54 © Bernard Quaritch Ltd 2017 RARE FEMALE SUBJECTS BY THE EARLIEST MASTERS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT 1. HILL, David Octavius and Robert Adamson. ‘Prayer’. 1843–47. Salted paper print from a calotype negative, 8⅜ x 6 inches (21.3 x 15.2 cm.), mounted on album leaf, titled in a later hand on mount. £15,000 A most unusual and intimate portrait of a woman from an era when it was rare to display one’s hair loose in such an informal manner. The sitter’s modesty has been protected by the anonymity of turning her face away from the camera, displaying her splendidly long hair to full advantage. Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 40 South Audley Street, London W1K 2PR 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Françoise BAILLET Drawing the Line. Visual Representations of The
    Françoise BAILLET Drawing the Line. Visual Representations of the Labouring and Lower Classes in the Mid-Victorian Illustrated Press. As part of their commitment to topicality, one of the fundamental premises of the Victorian illustrated press, The Graphic (1869-1932) and The Illustrated London News (1842-2003) devoted significant space to the representation of urban poverty. At a time when the discussions around the extension of the franchise provided a tribune for latent tensions between bourgeois power and working-class rise, citizenship came to be defined in terms of social and cultural identities, prompting an exclusive discourse which pervaded the whole political spectrum. Concentrating on a selection of illustrations published between the mid-1860s to the late 1870s, this article purports to examine the way in which this exclusive discourse was articulated by the Illustrated London News and the Graphic, illuminating the conflict between the newspapers’ stated aim of providing a truthful record of everyday events and the images produced. Its central assertion is that the artistic, satirical and technical filters used by the draughtsmen in these representations helped to establish a distinction between “deserving” and “undeserving” poverty. By drawing a literal line between suitable and unsuitable citizens, these periodicals articulated a reassuring visual discourse relying on a shared set of assumptions between artists, editors and readers about what the political nation should become. ————————— Engagés dans une démarche de fidélité à l’actualité, l’une des principales ambitions de la presse illustrée victorienne, The Graphic (1869-1932) et The Illustrated London News (1842-2003) ont consacré une part significative de leurs publications à la représentation de la pauvreté urbaine.
    [Show full text]
  • William James Linton − a Life in the Collections Ii the Brantwood Years
    William James Linton Archive, Düsseldorf 2012 WILLIAM JAMES LINTON − A LIFE IN THE COLLECTIONS On the Formations of Political Art and Wood Engraving “Linton − A Life in the collections” can count as the probably most comprehensive monographic source related to the history of political art in the 19th century. She comprises more than two hundred articles and commentaries divided into four parts. II THE BRANTWOOD YEARS In 1849 Linton moved to the picturesque Lake District. His ramshackle house in Brantwood not only accommodated his large family − the seven children were educated in an anti-authoritarian, Rousseauian manner – but also a number of varying Republican refugees. In 1854 he established his first private press there with the help of a small group of enthusiastic allies. A few month after the death of his second partner Emily Wade in December 1856, he left this residency, partly staying with his new spouse Eliza Lynn in Hastings, but most of the time in London. After having met increasing problems to find work, he emigrated in 1866 to North America. Temporarily, the Brantwood estate had been rented to the Chartist poet Gerald Massey, but finally Linton sold it to John Ruskin in order to finance his new American private press. The famous art historian made extensive alternations, which turned the neat proportions of the feral house into an awe-inspiring manor. The republican mottoes God and the people and Ora e Sempre which had decorated the walls were erased during these renovations. Ruskin had projected that Brantwood should become a museum after his death, a plan that could only be realised as late as in 1951.
    [Show full text]
  • The Plot Thickens Contents
    The Plot Thickens Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments xiii Abbreviations xv Introduction. Material Matters: The Illustrated Victorian Serial Novel 1 one Imagining the Self Illustration and the Technology of Selfhood in David Copperfield and Cousin Phillis 51 two Picturing the Past Illustration and the Making of History in The Tower of London, Vanity Fair, and A Tale of Two Cities 88 three Hallowing the Everyday Illustration and Realism in Wives and Daughters, Mistress and Maid, and The Small House at Allington 157 four Arousing the Nerves Illustration and Sensation in The Notting Hill Mystery, Griffith Gaunt, and The Law and the Lady 204 five From Peter Ibbetson to Pickwick and Back The Lives and Afterlives of Illustrated Victorian Serials 249 Notes 279 Bibliography 303 Index 319 q v introduction Material Matters The Illustrated Victorian Serial Novel his book starts with two pictures. The first, the cover image, is a paint- Ting of a Victorian woman holding a slim orange-gold volume in her lap. The year is 1873. The woman is Effie Millais, wife of the famous painter John Everett Millais.1 The volume is the Cornhill Magazine, an illustrated monthly journal launched by Smith, Elder in January 1860, which, from its first issue, became a major venue for her husband’s illustrations for fiction and poetry. The Cornhill’s wood-engraved wrapper (fig. 0.1) depicts scenes of plowing, sowing, threshing, and harvesting—a visual pun on the publish- er’s original location at 65 Cornhill Street in London and a metaphor for the magazine’s ambition to harvest the best of contemporary literature for its readers.
    [Show full text]
  • William James Linton Archive, Düsseldorf 2012
    William James Linton Archive, Düsseldorf 2012 WILLIAM JAMES LINTON − A LIFE IN THE COLLECTIONS On the Formations of Political Art and Wood Engraving “Linton − A Life in the collections” can count as the probably most comprehensive monographic source related to the history of political art in the 19th century. She comprises more than two hundred articles and commentaries divided into four parts. III. THE NORTH AMERICAN YEARS “In 1866 I had little occupation in England, and thought the opportunity good to see the new country, with no fixed intention of remaining. So in November of that year I crossed the ocean to New York, with nothing before me except a commission to write some letters of my American impressions for the Manchester Examiner, and with a few introductions from Dr. Wilkinson, Miss Cushman, my old friend Wehnert, and Mazzini. (...) Wehnert’s letter took me to Dr. Rimmer, the master of the School of Design at the Cooper Institute. This brought me to acquaintance with Mr. Cooper, the philanthropic and venerable founder of the Institute, and with his son-in-law, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, whose goodness I gratefully remember. They induced me to undertake for a time the teaching of the Wood Engraving Class at the Institute. Thought kindly of by the men of my profession, I had a supper given me by the Society of Wood Engravers, and was almost immediately taken hold of by Frank Leslie to work for his Illustrated News, and afterwards engaged by him to conduct the pictorial portion.” In the spring of 1870, four years after having emigrated to America, Linton left New York and moved to a farmhouse called The Curtis Place, which he renamed Appledore, in the village of Hamden outside New Haven/Connecticut.
    [Show full text]