Illustration and Morris' "Ideal Book" Author(s): Allan R. Life Source: Victorian Poetry, Vol. 13, No.

3/4, An Issue Devoted to the Work of William Morris (Fall - Winter, 1975), pp. 131-140 Published by: West Virginia University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40001840 . Accessed: 28/03/2011 03:33
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Illustration "Ideal Book"

and

Morris'

ALLANR. LIFE J&SEwZlSill ILLIAMMORRIS'precise conception of book illustrationis \mmlmwmm surprisingly difficult to determine. Early in his career, his interest in illustrationwas so typically Pre-Raphaelite that he JjSMjgJg intended specific passagesof The EarthlyParadiseto be printed with wood-engravings after EdwardBurne-Jones, he engravedmost of and the completed blocks for this abortive edition himself.1 Unfortunately, Morrisfailed to articulatehis view of illustrationduringthe 1860's, when he probably had the fullest appreciation of the interpretative and creative aspects of this art form. By 1892, when he outlined his criteria for ideal illustration in a lecture to the Society of Arts on "The Woodcuts of Gothic Books," he had committed himself, in theory and in practice, to the principleshe expounded a year later in "The Ideal Book." Significantly, Morris'paper on "The Ideal Book," like his "Note. . .on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press" (1895), largely ignores illustration. "Howeverbare it may be of decoration,"Morris. declares,a book "can still be a work of art, if the type be good and attention be paid to its general arrangement" MS, I, 310). As he proceeds, it becomes clear that "decora(4 tion" in the broadest sense is not only unnecessaryto an artistic book, but often threatens its very existence. In one characteristicpronouncement, Morris declares that "any book in which the page is properly put on the paper, is tolerable to look at, however poor the type may be- always so long as there is no 'ornament'which may spoil the whole thing" (AWS, I, 315). Only true ornament can enhance the ideal book, and to be ornamental a design
must form as much a part of the page as the type itself . . .and. . .it must submit to certainlimitations,and become architectural; mere black and white picture, however a in interestingit may be as a picture,may be far from an ornament a book; while, on the other hand, a book ornamentedwith picturesthat are suitablefor that, and that only, become a work of art secondto none, savea fine buildingduly decorated,or a fine may piece of literature.(AWS,I, 317-318) Joseph R. Dunlapgives a full accountof this projectin TheBook that Never Was William Morris:"TheStory of (New York, 1971). See also A. R. Dufty, "Introduction," "

Cupid and Psyche, with illustrations designed by Edward Burne-Jones, mostly engraved on the wood by WilliamMorris (London, 1974).

131

132 / VICTORIAN POETRY To Morris,that fine buildingduly decorated,that fine piece of literature, together constitute "the one absolutely necessarygift that we should claim of art" (AWS, I, 318). Doubtless this conviction explains his fascination with book production towards the end of his career, for an edition of a literary ideal "work of masterpiececan attain at least some of the qualitiesof Morris' architecture":"a harmonious co-operative work of art, inclusive of all the serious arts" (AWS, I, 266). After describingilluminatedmanuscriptsof the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Morrisconcludes that "the only work of art which surpassesa complete Medievalbook is a complete Medievalbuilding," and he declares that books, being "self-contained things," could become "generallygood in the present day" to a far greater extent than buildings (AWS, I, 321, 337). Hence his insistence that the components of the ideal book must be "architectural,"that the total book must be "architecturally reference to "a mere black good" (AWS, I, 311). Hence, too, his disparaging and white picture," which reflects his impatiencewith any work of visual art that fails to meet his "architectural"expectations. In his paper on "Woodcuts of Gothic Books," Morris emphatically identifies the qualities of his ideal, "organic"art as "the epical and the ornamental;its two functions are the telling of a story and the adornmentof a. space or tangibleobject." Still more emphatically, Morrisadds that "the labour and ingenuity necessaryfor the production of anything that claims our attention as a work of art are wasted, if they are employed on anythingelse than these two aims" (AWS,I, 320). As his comment on book ornament suggests, Morrisoften bends his first criterion to accommodate purely decorative, "unepical" art, but "academic" works that violate the second are denounced in some of his lectureswith messianicvehemence. "Messianic"is not too strong for the spirit in which Morrisadvocates that last best hope of architecturalexcellence, the ideal book. Occasionally, his lectures and essays on printing contain an attempt at humor- in "The Ideal Book," he assureshis audience that the publishersof the Westminster Gazette had lowered "the tone (not the moral tone)" of their paper, by dyeing it green (AWS, I, 312). Generally,however, the orientation of these works is not only moral but ethical: printers of past and present are condemned for "licentious spacing,"2 "infernal abbreviations,"and "gross and vulgar"letters, and even laudatory references to "purity of line" and "decency" of appearancereinforce Morris'argumentthat "artisticmorality" demands the production of beautiful books (AWS, I, 255, 316, 321). Appropriately,his ideal volume is consistently based on works from the first
2 "A

Mote by William Morris on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press," in H. Halliday Sparling, The Kelmscott Press and William Morris, Master-Craftsman (London,

1924), p. 137.

ALLANR. LIFE 1 133 decades of printing: the late "Gothic" period "when written literaturewas still divine, and almost miraculousto men" (AWS, I, 321). Even the size of the perfect book, though ostensibly functional, is basicallymedieval. Morris recommends "a big folio," which "lies quiet and majestic on the table, waiting kindly till you please to come to it, with its leaves flat and peaceful, givingyou no trouble of body, so that your mind is free to enjoy the literature which its beauty enshrines" (AWS, I, 317). Not only an ideal of book design,but an ideal of livinginformsthis passage. Keenly aware of the gulf between his ideals of art and life and those of "our own anti-architectural days" (AWS, I, 273), Morrisdevotes numerous lectures to expounding a few aesthetic premises, radically simplifying historical transitions to inspire a return to "Gothic" virtues. Consequently, his public utterances, like the workshop pronouncementsrecorded by his acolytes, can misrepresenthis true convictions. If he appeared "a petulant veteran wilfully and invincibly ignorant of the latest developments"in art, declaresGeorge BernardShaw, it was because of "a fixed and very sound rule of his that it was no use arguingwith a man who didn't know. . . .You never knew how much Morrishad up his sleeve until he thought you knew enough to understand him."3 Even for those outside this select circle, there is evidence in Morris'comments following the first delivery of "Woodcutsof Gothic Books" that his view of illustrationwas less inflexible than his general papers on book design and printing would suggest. After a talk censuring modern illustratorsfor ignoring ornamentalrequirements,Morris criticized his audience for not advancing"the contrary view to his own. . . , as there was a good deal to be said pro and con " (A WS,I, 335). As this statement indicates, Morriswas awareof the interpretative,"epical"function of illustration, and he might have discussed it more frequently in his lectures if his principlesof book designhad been more widely appreciated. Shaw also emphasizes,however, that "what Morrissaid he meant, sometimes very vehemently" (p. 9), and one can go too far in qualifyinghis public and "organic"principles opinions. His rigorousadherenceto "architectural" is characteristicof his genuine dogmatism,which is most conspicuous in his conception of beauty. Like Ruskin,Morrisregardsbeauty as an absolute, and he explains its rarity (to him) in severalcenturies of Westernart by arguing that "beauty,howeverunconsciously,was no longer an object of attainment" after the "Gothic" period (AWS,1, 281). Accompanyingthis cessation of the aesthetic quest was the virtual disappearance such prerequisitesfor beauty of as the happy artist-craftsman, "the fitness of a piece of craftsmanship and for the use [for] which it is made" (AWS, I, 317). The functional aspect of Morris'aesthetic is representedin his lectures on printing,in which beauty
^William Morris I KnewHim (New York, 1936), pp. 24-25. as

134 / VICTORIAN POETRY and legibility are often equated. However, H. Halliday Sparlingurges that " 'legibility' and 'beauty,' for Morris,meant something other than easy readability for the mass of readers"(p. 17)-a point amply confirmed by Morris types. This fact is also demonstratedby Morris'"strongreservations"concerningthe fourth and fifth articlesof a "tentativestatement"on printingby Talbot Baines Reed, which propose that a type lending "itself most readily to. . .rapid and comprehensive action of the eye" is not only "the most legible," but "the most beautiful." As Sparlingnever wearies of repeating, Morriswas far more impressedwith Reed's first article: "That the eye, after all, is the sovereignjudge of form" (p. 17). Undoubtedly,Morris'enthusiasm for this proposition was increasedby Reed's emphasison the eye's regality, which suggestsboth the intellectual functions and the metaphoricalconnotations of seeing. At times, Morris'moral preoccupationwith external beauty echoes Ruskin's eloquent celebration of the visual faculty, and he also emphasizes the eye's role in transmitting impressions to the intellect: for "reason"and "logic" are invoked throughouthis prescriptions the beautiful book, and the ideal illustration is praised for "giving pleasure to the intellect through the eye" (AWS, I, 331). In one Ruskinian and even Panofsky-like tribute, he describes medieval art as being "not only. . .obviously and simply beautiful as ornament,but its ornament also is vivifiedwith forcible meaning,so that neither in one or the other does the life ever flag, or the sensuous pleasureof the eye ever lack" (AWS, I, 320). Yet Morrisreputedly prided himself on the paucity of emblematicsignificancein his own book initials and borders,4and his lectures dwell more often than he would have conceded on the purely formalaspectsof books. Illustrations,he declares, should be so subordinateto the "harmoniouswhole" of the book, that "a person with a sense of beauty" will derive "real pleasurewhenever and whereverthe book is opened, even before he begins to look closely into the illustrations" (AWS, I, 330). Associated with this concern for the immediatevisual impressionis Morris'contention that "we only occasionally see one page of a book at a time; the two pagesmakingan opening are really the unit of the book" (AWS, I, 315). Those less interested in adorningtheir shelves with "a visible work of art" than in readingliteratureand looking at illustrations are assured that their "interest in books. . is literary only, and not artistic"(AWS,I, 330-331). For "artistic,"to Morris,is synonymous with and "architectural" "organic"values.
decorations"did not Sparling,p. 68, derides the "silly complaint"that Morris' 'fit the text,' or, in other words, were not symbolic of its meaning;to this [Morris] would have retorted, as he did when one of his romanceswas takenfor an allegory,that when he had anythingto say, he said it in so many words and plainly;that his decorations were not intended to be illustrative emblematic,but exactly decorationsand no or more."

ALLAN LIFE/ 135 R.

Unlike some of his disciples,however, Morrisis chiefly concerned with artistic practice, and he often turns from the physical appearanceof ideal books to the ideal men who alone can produce them. Reminiscent of the creatorsof a Gothic cathedral,all the producersof a beautifulbook, from the illustrator to the printer, must be "thoughtful, painstakingartists, and all working in harmonious co-operation for the production of a work of art" (AWS, I, 335). Ideally, an illustration should be produced after the other components of the book have been designed;otherwise,the artist may fail to harmonizehis work with the page- or opening- where it will appear.Just how formidablethis "harmonizing" processcould be is suggestedby four "requirements" that Halliday Sparling regards as "fundamentalfor an illustration intended to go with type." WhetherMorriswould have considered each of them equally fundamentalis questionable- Sparlingevolved his criteriafrom "what Morris wrote as to illustration in conjunction with what may be deduced from his practice"- but this statement is valuableas an unqualified synthesisof his "architectural" pronouncements:
(a) Thereshould be in [the illustration]no line much thinnerthan the thins nor much thicker than the thicks of the body-letter;(b) there should be approximately same the ratio of black to white in any one squareinch of the drawingthat there is in any one square inch of the typography;(c) the characterand tone of the lines used in the or no drawingshouldrepeat or "play up to" those of the type in straightness curvature, less than in colour; (d) it must be confinedwithin a definiteframeor outline. (Sparling, pp. 126-127)

Morrisargues that the artist who wishes to approachstandardsof this sort must adhere to certain proceduralformulae. Ideally a wood-engraver himself, the illustratormust either cut his own design, or provide a fellow with a "sketch" suitable for engraving.Though the engraver artist-craftsman will endeavor to "translate"the drawing "without injuringin any way the due expression of the original design," Morrisemphasizesthat the artist's " 'sketch' should be as slight as possible, i.e., as much as possible should be left to the executant" (AWS, I, 334). Consistentwith Morris' emphasison an almost sacramentalcontact between "the hand" and "the work," this ideal relationshipbetween illustratorand engraverdiffers totally from the actual practice of such Victorian engravingfirms as those headed by the Brothers Dalziel and Joseph Swain. Admittedly, these engraversstrengthenedlinear contours in designs by John Tenniel and other prolific draftsmen, "translated" wash drawings,and made it their primeobjective,accordingto the son of one of the Dalziels, "to interpretfaithfully the intention of the designer."5 Furthermore,several leading illustrators of the '60's were apprenticed to wood-engraversto study the techniques of drawingfor publication, and a spirit of "harmonious co-operation"often existed between the draftsmenand
in Gilbert Dalziel, "Wood-Engraving the 'Sixties' and Some Criticisms of Print Collector'sQuarterly, (January,1928), 82. 15 To-Day,"

POETRY 136/ VICTORIAN the engravers.Yet, though Morrisacknowledgedthe technical skill of these firms- the principalengraverof the Kelmscott Press, W. H. Hooper, was a veteran of the "Sixties"- he was convinced by 1866 that "all wood-cutting" since Bewick had "been wrong in principle,"and in 1877 he denounced the of "manufacturers wood-engraving, e.g. the Dalziels, as big humbugs as any was not within the narrow seas."6 The Dalziels' notion of "interpretation" Morris', for they tried to produce facsimiles of drawings,and were freely censuredby artists whose works they inaccuratelyrendered.Such a situation seemed to Morris doubly objectionable. On the one hand, it encouraged and draftsmento neglect the limitations of wood-engraving, to produce such technicalpuzzles as Rossetti's "The Maidsof Elfen-Mere," sent to the Dalziels as a "many tinted drawing"executed in "wash, pencil, coloured chalk, and to pen and ink."7 On the other, it confined the engraver reproducingdesigns already completed, making both his craft and his work "dead" and "mechanical"(AWS, I, 334). Nor does Morris approve of the books and periodicals where these engravings appeared. To him, these works are epitomized by the CornhillMagazine,where FrederickWalker'sillustrations for Thackeray'sPhilip (Plate 3) are "embedded" in a "mass of utilitarian matter"that is "absolutelyhelpless and dead" (AWS,I, 330). callsWalker's ThoughMorris designs"about the best of suchillustrations" I, 330), he finds them as unsuitable for the ideal book as the typo(AWS, "could nevermake graphythey face. Indeed, he declaresthat such engravings book ornaments,"and even his praisefor them as "excellent black and white pictures" (AWS, I, 332) is probably half-hearted.Dramatizingmomentary fluctuations events with foreshorteningand prominentrepoussoirs,rendering of light with painterly freedom,Walker's designsviolate Morris'aesthetic and even moral preferencefor linear designsthat emphasizethe picture plane. To Morris, the clusters of irregularhatchings through which Walker and his contemporariesachieveimpressionisticeffects are "meremeaninglessscrawl," and he strongly doubts that "any artist will ever make a good book illustrator, unless he is keenly alive to the value of a well-drawnline, crisp and clean. . . .In this art vagueness is quite inadmissible"(AWS, I, 332-333). Besides dissociatingthe designs from adjacent type, "vagueness"contradicts and what Morrisconsiders the essential"conditions"of both engraving printing, at which "the wood-cutter or the artist [has] no more right to grumble.. .than the poet. . .at having to write in rhyme instead of prose" (AWS, I, 336). Significantly, Morrisinterchangesthe terms "wood-cutter"

6William MichaelRossetti, ed., Rossetti Papers:1862 to 1870 (London, 1903), p. 246\Letters,p. 98. [George and EdwardDalziel), The BrothersDalziel: A Record of Fifty Years' Work. .1840-1890 (London, 1901), p. 86. .

ALLANR. LIFE / 137 and "engraver"as readily as "illustrator"and "ornament";to him, the fact that finer detail is possible in a wood-engravingthan in a woodcut simply imposes a greater need for self-restrainton the artist -craftsman,who must rememberthat "the essential characterof a book [is] that it [is] stamped," and that an illustrationshould possess "that absenceof vaguenesswhich you [get] in the stamping of a coin" (AWS, I, 336). Appropriately, Morris' ideal illustrationsare woodcuts from the first decades of printing, and even among these he prefersthe essentiallygraphicdesignsto the more "pictorial" or naturalisticones.8 Morris also finds narrative qualities in these woodcuts that he urges modern illustratorsto emulate. Describingthe cuts in JohannZainer'sedition of De Claris Mulieribus (1473, Plate 4), "a very old friend" which he esteemed as much as Ruskin did the illustrated edition of Rogers' Italy, Morrispraisestheir "epical sincerity and directness":"no story-tellingcould be simplerand more straightforward, less dependenton secondaryhelp" and (AWS,I, 351). Similarly,he commendsmedievalilluminationsfor telling "the written tale again with the most conscientiousdirectnessof design"(AWS,I, 321). Thus, simplicity of form is linked with simplicityof content, and both and art qualitiesare repeatedlycontrastedwith the "rhetorical" "academical" of the Renaissance.Particularly notable is Morris'emphasison the independent narrativequalities of the woodcuts, which enable them to serveas visual equivalentsof accompanyingtexts. It is strangethat Morris,with his abhorrence of "doing the work twice over" (AWSyI, 334), ignoresthe more interpretative capacities of illustration, through which designs can function as visual syntheses and even critiquesof entire literaryworks. It was partly their enthusiasmfor one such illustration,Rossetti's "Maidsof Elfen-Mere," that brought Morrisand Burne-Jonesinto the Pre-Raphaelite circle, which produced numerousillustrationsemployingcomplex allegoricaltechniques.Even Burne-Jones'sdesigns for the abortiveedition of The Earthly Paradise,however, basically mark a return to the traditionalnarrativesequence, in which significantevents in stories are depicted with a minimum of textually irrelevant imagery.9

Discussingthe cuts in "a life of Christ,publishedby GerardLeeuw in 1487," Morrissurmisesthat "thereare certainlytwo artistsin this book, and. . .one. . .appears to be the more pictorialof the two; thoughhis designsaregraceful,he is hardlyas good as the rougher book illustrator"(AWS, I, 327-328). In such comments, Morrisantiof cipatesthe findings,thoughnot the criticalpreferences, ErwinPanofskyand other art historians who havetracedthe development "pictorialism" Northern of in woodcuts. The independent narrativequalities of Burne-Jones's illustrationsfor Morris' "The Story of Cupidand Psyche"can be fully appreciated a recentcatalogue,where in the engravings reproduced sequencewithout the text. See Pre-Raphaelite in are Graphics and "The Earthly Paradise"Woodcutsby Burne-Jones and Morris (London: Hartnoll and Eyre Ltd., March18 to April5, 1974), nos. 42-85.

POETRY 138 / VICTORIAN Perhapsthe thick borders around these and later Burne-Jonesdesigns, corresponding to the "definite frame or outline" specified in Sparling's "requirements,"helped to resolve a basic paradox in Morris'conception of illustration. For Morris was attempting both to "harmonize"pictures and type, and to make the narrativeelement of the pictures independent of its literary source. By using borders, he could clearly delimit the confines of illustrationswithout necessarilyviolatingtheir relationshipwith their physical contexts. In addition, the use of frames accords with Morris'preference for illustrationsclearly related to the picture plane, and to a rectangularformat. Or perhapsone should say Burne-Jones's preference,since on the subject of illustration the two men's opinions are virtually synonymous. Burne-Jones's original "sketches" for The Earthly Paradiseleave as much "interpretation" to the engraveras Morriscould have wished, and the artistavowedly tried to make his designs "fit the ornament and the printing" of the Kelmscott Chaucer.To Burne-Jones,reconciling his Chaucerillustrations with Morris' ornate pages was a joyous and reinforcingtask: "I love to be snugly cased in the bordersand buttressed up by the vast initials- and once or twice when I have no big letter underme, I feel tottery and weak." Even after his drawings were completed, Burne-Joneswas further bolstered by R. Catterson-Smith, who "translated"his "very grey pencil tones" into pure line, and by W. H. Hooper, who engraved the results on wood. As the Chaucertook shape, Burne-Jones eagerly anticipated that "it will be a little like a pocket cathedral-so full of design."10 Burne-Jones'specifically architecturaltribute to the emerging masterpiece shows how much he shared Morris'ideals of book design, which he endorsed to a far greaterdegree than most Victorian artists. As MorrisconSchool" (1891), modern cedes in his lecture on "The EnglishPre-Raphaelite "the work and the expressionof individual artis pre-eminently genius, individtowards a certain end" (AWS,I, 306), and the primary ual capacity, working "end" of most artists' labors was not filling lacunaein "organic"buildingsor books. Consequently, Morris is not merely concerned in his lectures with elevating the craftsman;he is also trying to argue the artist off his stilts. His contribution to combating what he considered creative "egotism" is uncertain, for though many late Victorian painters and draftsmenwere interested in decorative values, the theoretical groundworkfor this preoccupationhad alreadybeen laid by 1877, when Morris'lectures began. Nor, in the field of illustration, was Morris'practical example as important as his acolytes believed. Generally reproduced through the photomechanical processes that

Morrisand .the Kelmscott Press: An Exhibition held in the Libraryof William Brown University,Providence,Rhode Island, from October 9 to December 31, 1959 (Providence, 1960), pp. 19, 20.

ALLAN LIFE1 139 R.

Morrisignored, the designs of Aubrey Beardsley, CharlesRicketts, Charles Shannon, Laurence Housman, Edmund J. Sullivan, and other innovative draftsmen had far more impact than the engravingsin Kelmscott Press publications on the illustrationof the '90's and subsequentperiods. Even in the statements on illustrationby these artists,there is a catholicity of taste, a receptivity to the formal and interpretativetechniquesof variousperiods and cultures, that is conspicuously absent from Morris'pronouncements. After reading Morris'lectures and essays on book design, with their hostility to most of the aesthetic and practical developments of the preceding four centuries, a young illustrator of the '90's might well have recalled the consequencesattributed by Morristo the Renaissance:"Henceforththe past was to be our present, and the blanknessof its dead wall was to shut out the future from us" (,4MS,I, 281). In fairnessto Morris,it should be repeated that his writings can misrepresent his overall conception of illustration, and it should be added that he avowedly advocatesemulation of the past to establisha living traditionin the present. Morrisalso maintainsthat "the practice of any art rathernarrowsthe artist in regardto the theory of it" {Letters, p. 85), and he would probably deny that his prescriptionsfor the ideal book should be treated as critical doctrines. The fact remains, however, that Morrisdelivered and published enough on aspects of book production to fill a substantialvolume, and the if tone of these papersis authoritarian, not messianic.Morriscould not have adopted a manner more capable of attracting dogmatic followers, bent on ignoring his practice and sanctifying their notions of his theory. Consequently, Morrismust bear some responsibility for the travesty of critical illustrationfor several method that dominated the study of post-Renaissance decades. Ignored until recently by art and literary historians alike, these designshave been victimized by writerswho, in WilliamM. Ivins' devastating words, "know books only as means for diversion,"and hold "that illustrations are mere decorations, and that as such no illustrations are 'good' unless. . .they 'harmonize' with the printed text pages." Ivins particularly opposes one "idea loudly expressed by William Morris and some of the ideologues who followed in his train": typographical
that the way to test the designof a book is to look at it two pagesat a time-although no mere human being can read more than one page or see more than one illustrationat a when we think that time. . . .The irony of the doctrine can only be fully appreciated very few of the greatly illustratedbooks conform to the Morrisanian teaching, while books do.1* manyvery poorly illustrated

visualcriteriaby his Ivins' criticismsrelate to the accentuationof Morris' who had little of his practical knowledge and less of his literary disciples,
11Printsand VisualCommunication Univ.Press,1953), pp. 29-30. (Harvard

POETRY 140/ VICTORIAN

unity of Morris'shrinefor greatliterasensitivity. For them, the architectural ture became an end in itself; the "look of the book," the supreme aesthetic consideration;"the page" or "opening," a sacredparagon,whose inviolable two-dimensionalitymust be defended againsthereticalnaturalism.In the process, the distinction between decorationand illustration,alreadyobscuredby Morris, was effaced, along with the objectives and achievements of most modern illustrators. Nor were these issues really clarified by an opposite group of writers, who treated illustrations as isolated pictures, devoid of physical and even literary contexts. The resulting polarization of work on illustration,all too reminiscentof Morris'distinction between "artistic" and inartisticbibliophiles,had two unfortunateresults. First, by confusing further the alreadyuncertainattributesof illustrationand decoration,it impeded the development of flexible criteria for book design, such as those evolved in recent years by Ruari McLean. Second, it ensured that the complex interrelationship between literature and illustration, one of the principal links between two arts, would be either ignored or impressionistically surveyed.It is only during the past two decades that a substantialnumber of literary analyses of illustrationhave appeared,and each of these studies, focusing on interpretativerather than decorativeissues, has demonstratedthe inadequacy of "Morrisanian the teaching." However organic and architectural ideal book the critical consequences of Morris'advocacy of it have been the may be, reverseof ideal.