Picture and Text

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Picture and Text
PictureAndText.jpg
First edition
Author Henry James
Country United States
Language English
Genre Art criticism
PublisherHarper and Brothers, New York City
Publication date
2-June-1893
Media typePrint
Pages175

Picture and Text is a collection of essays by Henry James on the art of illustration, published in 1893. The essays are brief profiles of the principal illustrators for Harper and Brothers books and magazines, and has been remembered for extensive and perceptive essays on John Singer Sargent and Honoré Daumier. Included with the essays on black-and-white illustration of texts is a discussion in dialogue form about the similar relation between scenery and play in the theater.

Henry James American writer and literary critic

Henry James was an American-British author regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of renowned philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

John Singer Sargent 19th and 20th-century American painter

John Singer Sargent was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

Honoré Daumier French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor

Honoré-Victorin Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century.

Contents

Summary and themes

Although originally conceived as an extended puff for Harper artists, who were also personal friends, the book presents some general ideas about the relation between author and illustration, picture and text, as well as the advancing technology of illustration. Both in print and in the theater, James welcomes advances in the technology of realism, but complains if the visual dominates author and actor. He praises the black-and-white engravings of the illustrators for their tact and their illumination of settings, but criticizes elaborate modern stage scenery that overwhelms the actor's art. These essays, although slight, are illustrated with drawings of each other by the artist subjects, and is itself an example of what James extols, as well as being a rare extended essay by James on the unity of the arts.

The illustrators of whom he wrote were an Anglo-American group, all personal friends, at a time when Harper was his principal publisher. They were known in the day for their summer gatherings at the village of Broadway in the Cotswolds, where for several years James joined them, and where Sargent gained his first footing among British artists. Among the artists in the group, Charles Reinhart illustrated some of James' own fiction, Alfred Parsons designed James's gardens at Lamb House, and the sets for James' play Guy Domville whose first, raucous performance he attended. Edwin Abbey and Sargent later collaborated on the enormous wall paintings for the Boston Public Library, and were among the leading artists of their day.

Alfred Parsons (artist) painter from Great Britain

Alfred William Parsons RA was an English artist: illustrator, landscape painter and garden designer.

Lamb House

Lamb House is a Grade II* listed 18th-century house situated in Rye, East Sussex, England, and in the ownership of the National Trust.

<i>Guy Domville</i> book by Henry James

Guy Domville is a play by Henry James first staged in London in 1895. The première performance ended with the author being jeered by a section of the audience as he bowed onstage at the end of the play. This failure largely marked the end of James' attempt to conquer the theater. He returned to his narrative fiction and recorded this memorable pledge in his Notebooks on 23 January 1895: "I take up my own old pen again – the pen of all my old unforgettable efforts and sacred struggles. To myself – today – I need say no more. Large and full and high the future still opens. It is now indeed that I may do the work of my life. And I will."

James' treatment of his friend Honore de Daumier was a welcome effort on behalf of an artist many considered little more than a political cartoonist. James found an "impressive depth" in Daumier's portrayal of the peculiar and the (sometimes) ugly. Many of Daumier's subjects are now remembered only in his often slashing work, but that's appropriate because all art "prolongs...preserves...consecrates...raises from the dead."

A political cartoon, a type of editorial cartoon, is a graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine artistic skill, hyperbole and satire in order to question authority and draw attention to corruption, political violence and other social ills.

In his essay on his protégé John Singer Sargent, James marvels at the painter's complete knowledge of his art and his unfailing technical proficiency. James particularly admires Sargent's portraits of women, such as Miss Burckhardt (not identified by name but illustrated in the magazine text of the article) and Madame X (called Madame G in the essay). "There is no greater work of art than a great portrait," James concludes, and Sargent's portraits combine "quick perception" and "lingering reflection."

<i>Portrait of Madame X</i> portrait painting by John Singer Sargent

Madame X or Portrait of Madame X is the title of a portrait painting by John Singer Sargent of a young socialite, Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of the French banker Pierre Gautreau. Madame X was painted not as a commission, but at the request of Sargent. It is a study in opposition. Sargent shows a woman posing in a black satin dress with jeweled straps, a dress that reveals and hides at the same time. The portrait is characterized by the pale flesh tone of the subject contrasted against a dark colored dress and background.

The essays on Daumier and Sargent have frequently been reprinted, but the book as a whole has been out of print since its first edition, in part because the black-and-white engravings that are its principal subject were so soon to be displaced by photographs and colored illustrations.

Table of contents

Critical evaluation

The book has not attracted much attention. In the 1950s some critics held James' enthusiasm for Sargent against him. When Sargent's own critical position improved, James' appreciation of his fellow expatriate seemed more perceptive and praiseworthy.

Critic professional who makes a living communicating their opinions and assessments of various forms of creative work

A critic is a professional who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theatre, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or government policy. Critical judgments, whether derived from critical thinking or not, weigh up a range of factors, including an assessment of the extent to which the item under review achieves its purpose and its creator's intention and a knowledge of its context. They may also include a positive or negative personal response.

Many critics have lauded James for his warm and humorous essay on Daumier, which helped establish the caricaturist as a serious artist. James' essays on the other artists in the book have sometimes been dismissed as little more than cheerful compliments for professional acquaintances. In the second volume of his biography of James, Sheldon Novick has noted the importance of the Broadway group of artists to James personally, reproduced some of their portraits and discussed the broader ideas visible in these slight essays.

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References

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.