Arts and Letters

Emerson says that nothing great is ever accomplished save when many work together as one. Something akin to this condition appears in the revival of wood-engraving in the United States in the twenty-five years before 1900, when, as a movement, it may be said to have reached its climax of beauty. Led by the Century Magazine (then known as Scribner's Monthly) and inspired and directed by Alexander W. Drake; art-editor of that periodical, rightly called the father of American wood-engraving, more than two score American craftsmen, artists of the burin, were engaged in friendly emulation. It was a veritable epoch of delight. As one of the editors of the magazine it was my fortune to be a witness of the spirit of generous rivalry and comradeship with which this work went on, every engraver hailing with joy each new accomplishment. It was like a Florentine guild of the Renaissance. To the present generation, the value and importance of this movement are a closed book, only to be opened by those who care for beauty as a principle.

The artistic value of the results is not obscured or impaired by the fact that, due to commercial considerations, wood-engraving in America is now virtually a lost art. Years ago the wood block was superseded by the cheaper half-tone processes of reproduction. The skilled engravers held out bravely against the decline of popular interest in the art; a few craftsmen are still at work, but the men of distinction are gone. The last and the greatest of these was Timothy Cole.

While the American public of those days was not lacking in appreciation of these engravings, the most cordial reception came from critics and connoisseurs of France and England. L'Art, then the leading authority in esthetics, reprinted cuts from a portfolio issued by the magazine, adding highly laudatory comment. The distinguished critic of England, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, wrote in his volume Graphic Arts: "The development of delicate and versatile wood-engraving in America is due to the managers of Scribner's Monthly, who worked resolutely with this definite end in view… There can be no question that the Americans have far surpassed all other nations in delicacy of execution. The manual skill displayed in their wood-cuts is a continual marvel… The two superiorities in American wood-engraving are in tone and texture." After speaking of the "almost unlimited ingenuity" with which our engravers vary the tone, he adds, "As for texture they seem able to imitate anything that is set before them."

Against such a background of general achievement the work of Cole stood out in uniform excellence. I remember the sensation that each succeeding block of his created in the offices of the magazine. The editors and publishers were convoked to see the newly arrived proof, which was greeted with enthusiastic expressions of "Well, he has done it again!" Others may have failed now and then; Cole never did: he was a Homer that never nodded. For each commission he seemed to have invented a new method. At one time it would be a long graceful line sweeping across the block, now a black line, now a white, with as much charm of detail as of the resultant mass; again, beautiful effects of shadow would be attained by stippling that fairly danced with motion, or by masterly, well-modulated cross-hatching. But all his methods had for their object the production of tone. This was his distinction—the distinction of all great art—that he had style, but no mannerism. He never fumbled and this resourcefulness never deserted him. To the last, his blocks are marvels of technic directed by fidelity.

Putting aside his method, let us consider the range and content of his work. He was famous long before his magnum opus, the five famous series of the Old Masters. There was no subject which he touched that he did not adorn,—portraiture, landscape, painting, sculpture, everything found its equation of beauty in the divination of his mind and the skill of his hand. And then one day there came one of those rare occasions which are turning-points of fate. Mr. Lewis Fraser, associate of Mr. Drake in the Art Department of the Century, displaying to me one morning a new proof of Cole's, said, "Johnson, it is a crying shame that such ability should be wasted on a subject so unimportant; that man should be sent abroad to engrave the Old Masters." This remark struck my imagination and, pondering it, I said, "Fraser, I want fifteen minutes of your time. Your idea about Cole is a fine one. Come with me and propose it to the publishers and I will second you." We went at once, and when Mr. Drake, who that day had happened to be absent, returned to the office, the suggestion struck fire with him and he threw his whole force behind the project, which, warmly supported by the editor-in-chief, Richard Watson Gilder, was promptly adopted by the publishers, with the result that Cole was sent to Italy in 1884 for a year or two, as we thought, to reproduce examples of the great painters. Who could have fancied that this enterprise would extend to a period of twenty-six years, comprising five series of Old Masters, those of Italy, France, the Low Countries, England, and Spain! The project was a success from the beginning and was accentuated by each succeeding block, printed with admirable subtlety by the DeVinne Press. Cole suffused himself with the personality of each painter and with the individuality of each canvas, sitting before it, first in study and then in execution, verifying everything as he virtually repainted it in black-and-white upon the block on which it had been photographed, and thus corrected the mistakes in "values" which were made by the photographic processes of that day. He caught with equal facility the austere naïveté of the pre-Raphaelites and the mellow suavity of the Venetians. He held the mirror up to Beauty and has left us a supreme and glorious record of those treasures of art. When the work in foreign galleries was finished,—having succeeded Mr. Gilder as editor-in-chief,—I enlisted Cole in a supplementary series of "Old Masters in American Galleries." When I left the Century in 1913 I made a last request that Cole should be retained upon its staff, but commercial considerations prevailed. However, he soon found appreciative hospitality in the Art World ably edited by the sculptor Frederick Ruckstull, to which he contributed larger blocks; after that vigorous and admirable periodical was discontinued, his activity was confined to private commissions. His last block, a portrait of a young woman by Gainsborough in Mr. Widener's gallery, marked the brilliant culmination of an epoch and of a unique personal career.

George Eliot held that the receptive faculty is greater than the creative: Cole possessed both to the degree of genius. Love makes us wise, and if ever a man loved his work it was Timothy Cole. His outstanding personal qualities were sensibility, gentleness and spirituality. He lived a life apart, in the seclusion not of a monastic but of a devotee, and was not affected by the misleading and so often empty activities of urban life. The sweetness of his character played a large part in his achievement. He was not only the simplest but the kindest of men, inexhaustible in his generosity, and without taint of jealousy or envy. He gave to his work, and in turn his work gave to him, the happiness that comes from a deep devotion to any art. I believe—why should I hesitate to say it?—that in the history of Art he deserves to be considered among the great.