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or  the  Royal  Academy.  One  of  the  minor  activities  of  this  group  of
artists  was  the  designing  of  illustrations  to  be  engraved  on  wood
for  books  and  magazines,  an  art  which  was  carried  to  a  high  pitch
of  perfection  in  the  period  known  as  "the  sixties",  but  actually  extending
  from  about  1855—1875.  The  principal  engravers  of  these
designs  by  the  Pre-Raphaelites  and  others  were  the  brothers
Daiziel,  by  whom  a  fine  group  of  engravers'  proofs  is  exhibited.
These  illustrations,  perhaps,  even  more  than  the  original  drawings
  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  had  a  great  influence  on  the  early  art
of  Charles  Ricketts,  who,  thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  was  the  leading
spirif,  with  his  lifelong  friend  Charles  Shannon,  of  another  group  of
romanfic  painters,  draughtsmen  and  engravers,  the  arfists  of  "The
Dial"  and  the  Vale  Press.
Other  tendencies  and  movements  of  English  arf  in  the  19th
Century  too  numerous  to  menfion,  will  be  found  exemplified  among
the  drawings.  It  must  never  be  supposed  that  art  was  confined  to
London.  Most  notable  of  the  provincial  schools,  in  the  first  half  of
the  Century,  was  fhat  of  East  Anglia,  with  Norwich  as  its  centre,  and
Crome  and  Cotman,  both  etchers  as  well  al  painters,  as  its  leading
artists.  Constable  (1776—1837)  and  Bonington  (1801—1828)  were
probably  the  only  artists  of  their  time  whose  work  was  known
across  the  Channel  and  who  exerted  a  real  influence  on  landscape
painfing  in  France.  Among  fhe  later  water  colour  artists  De  Wint
(1784—1849)  and  Cox  (1783—1859)  are  eminent,  though  both
are  overshadowed  by  the  genius  of  their  Contemporary  Turner
(1775—1851).
Charles  Keene  (1823—1891)  must  be  mentioned  among  the
black  and  white  artists  for  his  masterly  handling  of  the  pen.  He
was,  and  remained,  English  to  the  core,  and  the  influence  of  his
exampie  has  not  been  feit,  as  was  that  of  the  much  younger  Aubrey
Beardsley  (1872—1898),  on  the  Continent.
For  more  than  half  a  cenfury  the  Slade  School  of  Arf  in  London,
has  atfached  great  importance  to  good  drawing.  Among  the  many
young  artists  who  were  working  fhere  shortly  before  1900,  were
Augustus  John  (b.  1879),  William  Orpen  (1878—1931)  and  Ambrose
McEvoy  (1878—1927)  of  whom  the  first  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant
of  modern  draughfsmen.  In  the  work  of  their  juniors  it  is  probable
that  contacts  with  Continental  art  will  be  observed,  though  I  think
thaf  the  Selection  Committee  has,  consciously  or  unconsciously,