3-017-035 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Swing," by W. L. Thomas, in the Exhibition of the Society of British Artists, 1864. 'Mr. Thomas has rendered his drawing on wood too well for it to stand in need of verbal illustration. Of course the reader will see from the mallet and balls that the little lady has come into the garden to play croquet. Very likely she has already been roqueting and croqueting most successfully, and, having made the whole circuit of the hoops, has come to pass the interval till another game shall be commenced on the garden trapeze, on which, you see, she performs as fearlessly as a female Blondin...It is not easy to paint a figure being thus rapidly whisked through the air. To represent, for instance, drapery in motion, or, as it is called, "flying drapery," has always been recognised as a great difficulty in art...It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose that many artists who work on wood are not also painters. We need not refer to the number of Dutch masters who have left works on wood, seeing that a large proportion of the most eminent painters of the day are, or have been, employed as draughtsmen, and many of them as engravers of illustrations on wood for books and periodicals'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.