Frank Reynolds, R.I. | Page 2

his position is. Other men are as funny as he, perhaps funnier. For when a determined man sets out with a fixed and unshakeable resolve to tickle your fancy, there is no limit to the means he may adopt to catch you unawares, and it shall go hard with him but he extorts from you a laugh, however tardy. Frank Reynolds makes no such desperate efforts. One might say, indeed, that he makes no effort at all. His simple method is to set down--with the most refined and delicate art--just one of those little scenes or incidents which everyone may every day everywhere witness.
[Illustration]
Spectators of such a scene in real life, it is possible--probable, in fact--that we were in no way edified or amused. Not the veriest ghost of a smile, it is likely, flickered across our faces. But reproduced by the subtle humour of the artist, the inherent comedy of the situation stands revealed, and we chuckle. And our enjoyment is the greater for the skill with which the means are concealed by which this magical transformation is effected. We feel that we have discovered the comedy ourselves, not that it has been shown to us. The characters are so perfectly natural, so precisely as we know them and have seen them day after day. The secret lies in the artist's power of restraint. He exaggerates, he caricatures,--he must do so to bring his point home to our dull wits. But he does it with such nicety that the exaggeration and the caricature are unnoticed. Indeed, the terms are misleading. It is better to say that he emphasises.
Frank Reynolds reminds me, if he will forgive my saying so, of a certain profane 'bus-driver whom I have the privilege to number amongst my acquaintance. With this close student of human nature I have had the good fortune to enjoy frequent conversations, and many are the gestures which I recall of the whip-hand towards the pavement, accompanied by the remark (in effect), "Lumme, what funny things a bloke do see!" I confess freely that often I should entirely miss, but for the observant jerk of the whip, the said "funny thing"; and it is just that service which the friendly busman renders to me, as it appears to my mind, that Frank Reynolds performs for the community at large. It is precisely those commonplace "funny things," whether they be persons, scenes, incidents, conversations, or casual remarks, that happen under our very noses, which he excels in depicting; and it is precisely the commonplace familiarity of them that invests them with their peculiar flavour and charm.
[Illustration: THE INTRODUCTION. Time Sketch: London Sketch Club.]
Of the fine qualities of Frank Reynolds' technique the reader can judge for himself from the varied specimens of the artist's work which are reproduced in the present volume. His pencil drawings represent, perhaps, his more familiar style, one reason of the association of his name with this medium in the public mind being the comparative rarity of its use for the purposes of reproduction. Certainly it will be conceded that pencil, soft and amenable, with its opportunities for delicate manipulation, is admirably adapted to the interpretation of those refined shades of meaning and expression which constitute the characteristic charm of Reynolds' drawings, and of his masterly handling of it there can be no two opinions.
[Illustration]
His early drawings for publication were in line, and it was not until his work in the illustrated press had appeared for some time that he began to substitute pencil for pen-and-ink. His first experiments in pencil were made at the Friday evening meetings of the London Sketch Club, and it was at the suggestion of a fellow member of that cheery coterie, his friend John Hassall, that he adopted the softer medium for the purposes of reproduction.
The excellence of his pencil drawings notwithstanding, it is in pen-and-ink that Frank Reynolds appears to me to be at his best. There is a quality about his work in this medium which gives it a peculiar distinction. Always instinct with the most subtle and delicate feeling, there are occasions when his expressive line does more than satisfy. It arrests: revealing in its simple transcription of pose or expression a significance which had previously escaped our shallow observation, but of which the truth is forced upon us. By comparison, one feels that, despite the fine finish of his pencil work, in the latter medium he loses, to a certain extent, the opportunities for that incisive sureness--so suited to his own unerring vision--which pure line affords him. Consider the drawing (on page 32) of the girl singing in a Paris café. There is no dependence on aught extraneous for the achievement of the effect sought. Yet here, if ever, a human soul is laid bare in all its naked