The Project Gutenberg EBook of Picture and Text, by Henry James

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Title: Picture and Text
1893

Author: Henry James

Release Date: June 12, 2008 [EBook #25767]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICTURE AND TEXT ***

Produced by David Widger

PICTURE AND TEXT

By Henry James

Harper And Brothers - MDCCCXCIII

NOTE

Two of the following papers were originally published, with
illustrations, in Harper's Magazine and the title of one of them--the
first of titles has been altered from "Our Artists in Europe." The
other, the article on Mr. Sargent, was accompanied by reproductions
of several of his portraits. The notice of Mr. Abbey and that of Mr.
Reinhart appeared in Harper's Weekly. That of Mr. Alfred Parsons figured
as an introduction to the catalogue of an exhibition of his pictures.
The sketch of Daumier was first contributed to _The Century_, and "After
the Play" to _The New Review_.

BLACK AND WHITE

[Illustration: Black and White Page Image]

If there be nothing new under the sun there are some things a good
deal less old than others. The illustration of books, and even more of
magazines, may be said to have been born in our time, so far as
variety and abundance are the signs of it; or born, at any rate, the
comprehensive, ingenious, sympathetic spirit in which we conceive and
practise it.

If the centuries are ever arraigned at some bar of justice to answer
in regard to what they have given, of good or of bad, to humanity, our
interesting age (which certainly is not open to the charge of having
stood with its hands in its pockets) might perhaps do worse than put
forth the plea of having contributed a fresh interest in "black and
white." The claim may now be made with the more confidence from the very
evident circumstance that this interest is far from exhausted. These
pages are an excellent place for such an assumption. In Harper they have
again and again, as it were, illustrated the illustration, and they
constitute for the artist a series of invitations, provocations and
opportunities. They may be referred to without arrogance in support of
the contentio