Book Talk

To the left, Hilton's book; On the right, Mindheim's

I recently discovered there was a new book out called The Art of Railway Modelling by James Hilton. I found the title provocative, what with starting off with ‘The’ and all. To my ear it sounded as if this book was aiming to be the definitive work about art and model railways. This implied assertion piqued my curiosity. 

The question as to whether model railroading is an art, or can be approached as an artistic discipline, seems to come up periodically in forums and blogs. I find these discussions to be rambling, somewhat tiresome, and they usually wind up going nowhere. Even so, I’m interested in the subject because I consider model railroading a hybrid of a fannish consumer activity and art, well, at minimum a folk art. The proportions of each seem to vary from person to person and era to era. 

As well as Hilton’s book, Lance Mindheim also published one back in 2018 ostensibly dealing with art and model railroading called Model Railroading As Art. I didn’t buy it at the time because I thought it was going to tread the same ground as those aforementioned forum and blog postings - it turns out I was wrong about my preconception, but more on that later. Now with what looked like two major new books on the subject in circulation I thought I’d buy both and see for myself what was going on. 

Books like these don’t exist in a vacuum, even if their main topic is relatively new. When I read any book dealing in some way with models and miniatures I’m usually in one way or another comparing it to others in the field. When it comes to models and art, Smith and Ellison’s Elgin Park: Visual Memories of Midcentury America at 1/24th Scale from 2015 is my favourite. It focuses on the works of Michael Paul Smith, so it doesn’t look at an entire field, but it’s especially appropriate to me as Smith’s work could also be viewed as a hybrid of a consumer activity (collecting large scale diecast model cars) and folk art (communicating his impressions of small town, mid 20th century America where he grew up). Also, like Mindheim and Hilton he was a professional model maker, at least for a time. The book focuses on the artist, his background, hopes, messages, inspirations, and goals, with just a smattering of how-to for the interested reader who is also a model maker or miniature photographer, or would like to be. So, it does lean toward art as opposed to craft. And most importantly, it’s full of beautiful photographs that powerfully make the case for art that the text alone can’t do.

When it comes to model railroading my goto art oriented book is A Treasury of Model Railroad Photos by Dave Frary, Malcolm Furlow, John Olson, and Paul Scoles that was published in 1991. It’s light on text, but it’s full of excellent colour photos by its four distinguished authors that illustrate what model railroading could be. It does have how-to on the creation of photos like those shown in the book, but the photographic technology it discusses is somewhat dated now even though the general principles applied and results shown are not.

No doubt there are readers out there who could note many books and articles I’ve failed to mention that would be excellent examples of artful approaches to model making in general, and model railroading in particular. I do apologize for those omissions, but in a way that helps shore up an important point: since the beginning of model railroading there have been many contributions by many individuals to the artistic aspect of the activity. These include the works of Aldo Cosomati, John Ahern, John Allen, Francis Lee Jaques, George Illich Stokes, George Allen, Frank Ellison, E. L. Moore, Ben King, John Olson, Malcolm Furlow, Paul Scoles, Mark Henley, Jack Burgess, Dave Frary, Bob Hayden, and on and on from people from many eras and many countries who have made contributions large and small. An overview book on the subject doesn’t exist, and probably never will, but, again, it’s important to note that so far no particular book or article has yet to be a definitive work on the subject.

Ok, well, fine, look, I bought Hilton's and Mindheim’s books to learn from them. I consider myself a student on some sort of self-directed path to learn whatever it is I need to learn to be more effective at communicating what I want to communicate. I feel there is something beyond craft techniques I need to learn - ok, my model making techniques need improvement of course, but I’ll set that aside for now - to get closer to what I want to create. In my clipping file I have this quote, which I unfortunately can’t find who to attribute it to: “Someone once said of Magritte, that it was a blessing that he was not a better painter, since then he would have been a much worse artist - another Dali, all effects and virtuoso fakery, shallow rather than haunting.” I think haunting is what I’m after.

Hilton’s book showed up first in the mail, so I started with it. It’s a calm work that makes its case with brief chapters about a few key artistic principles that are beneficial when applied to model railways, and provides many photographs of layout scenes that illustrate those points. There’s also a collection of small layout plans, sketches, and notes to further illustrate the principles. There’s nothing how-to or prescriptive in this book, which I think is a plus as it helps push down how-to noise that might distract from the larger point Hilton’s trying to make: that the careful application of some artistic principles will vastly improve the look of your model railway, and allow you to get closer to expressing what you want to express.

The principles Hilton presents are the bedrock of traditional artistic practices, but one rather unusual one - well, maybe just unusual in the context of today’s model railroading scene - is the use of creative writing to further one’s imagining about how a layout could develop and what to incorporate. Creative writing as a modelling ‘tool’, especially in the form of fictional stories, has ebbed and flowed throughout model railroading’s history, but seems to have run aground in today’s very pragmatic scene. Seeing it revived in the book is encouraging, and I should add that the 2-page photo opening its chapter is particularly haunting.

Design-wise the book is thoughtfully laid out on high quality paper with lots of white space and large, clear photos, which I think helps implicitly strengthen its argument. I like the classic horizontal formatting and clean, spacious design. My only quibble is I’m never too thrilled to see business-school-speak creep into general use, especially into my hobby reading, so stumbling over phrases like ‘case study’ and ‘worked examples’ is irritating. 

Although I’ve gone through the entire book a few times I can see myself coming back to it often because I don’t think one can appreciate all its visual messages in just a few sittings. I’ll see what the coming year has in store. 

Mindheim’s book arrived the day after Hilton’s. After a few go throughs I think the book might have been better served if it had been titled something along the lines of Advanced Scene Creation Techniques for Model Railroads as it’s mainly a how-to on creating a better scenicked model railroad using concepts and methods from the world of visual arts. This is a good thing as it provides a fresh perspective on an old subject for people actually building layouts. I expect I’ll be dipping into this book for practical advice often in the months and years ahead. 

The examples and model railroad photos are from Mindheim’s own practice and appear to focus on layouts that have a modern day urban theme located in southern parts of the USA, although there are a few examples from other sites and eras of American railroading. Hilton’s book includes photos from a few modellers, and several eras of British railroading. Surprisingly, there are also some examples based on the Canadian west! That’s nice to see. 

The layout of Mindheim’s book leans more towards business-school-speak than Hilton’s with many page layouts looking a lot like Powerpoint slides and bulleted lists. I know my distaste for these artifacts of the corporate world is just my own personal quirk, but I thought I’d let you know in case they’re yours too - it turns out I like to use lists, but not in a Powerpoint way.

I was glad to see that both works encourage their readers to express what they need to express and not focus on contests, peer pressure, doing the ‘accepted’ thing, tradition, appearing in magazines and shows, and so forth. I can imagine James Carse referring to this focus as being engaged in the infinite game approach to model railroading. Each author pursues this in his own way: Hilton through visual inspiration and Mindheim through instruction. The infinite game focus is very folk art in nature.

Some books to start a comparison

Both books are worthwhile buying for those looking to improve their work. I hesitate when I say ‘improve’, because I think maybe the word I’m looking for has something to do with ‘looking for a path to better expression of whatever it is you want to express’ not the ‘your work will impress friends, editors, and judges’ type of ‘improve’.

Both books are also good contributions to the ongoing discussion about model railroading practice and its relation to art; however, neither is a definitive statement on the subject. Now, you might ask me if I would know such a statement if I saw one? Well, I’m not quite sure, but I think I’d like to see a serious inquiry begin with looking at photos of layouts or layout scenes, or layouts themselves if possible, from the entire history of the hobby to the present that people think are artful and mean something to them in some way - haunt them maybe ? -  and discuss those images. This would be a big task as there would a lot of images to study given that they would span all eras of the hobby. For now I’ll leave ‘artful’ undefined so as not to limit the investigation early on. So, there it is: start with meaningful images, lots and lots of images from the present to the beginning of the hobby, and discuss them. And while you’re at it try to deepen the discussion by comparing those images to ones found in other arts that make use of miniatures. It’s a beginning. Where this will lead I have no idea right now, you'd just have to see what the images might suggest.

Before I call it a day and go get coffee let me leave you with these thoughts on what art is with respect to Aestheticism according to Mark Greif’s essay The Concept of Experience that appeared in his 2017 book, Against Everything. If you’re stubborn and of the opinion that you absolutely must firm up a definition of art or artful before embarking on an image quest, Greif’s essay might get you going beyond thoughts of merely considering art to be something that you like (italics are Greif’s):

“Aestheticism asks you to view every object as you would a work of art. It believes that art is essentially an occasion for the arousal of emotions and passions. You experience a work of art. You go into it. Not just a calm onlooker, you imagine the figures in the painting, and relish the colors and forms, the style becoming as much an object of experience as the content; you feel or taste everything; you lust for it, let it overwhelm you, amplify it to titillate or satisfy or disgust you; you mentally twist the canvas to wring it dry.”