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Robert Anning Bell. A midsummer night's dream / William Shakespeare. London: J. M. Dent, 1895
“We might wonder why Bell was Riquer's favour British artist. Riquer himself here supplies the answer: We can recall our surprise... on seeing accomplished something about which we had privately dreamed and which we could not quite define; a great correctness of manner, reminiscent of the masters of the Italian Renaissance, revealed through Japanese-style shading, so starkly simple that it can be called classical. In other words, it was the two-dimensional stylised compositions favoured by Bell that so appealed to Riquer's sensibility. The English artist was, moreover, one of the principal exponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement, specialising in book-illustration and in the design of book-plates, for which Riquer frequently expressed admiration (...) The parallel he traces between
Beardsley and Bell is interesting, and it supplies a good definition of his subject's art: The type of neurosis which characterises Aubrey Beardsley does not overwhelm Bell; the latter sees things simply and in a clear light, being less attracted by the representation of modern life; the former surprises and disconcerts, the latter enchants and seduces.”
Eliseu Trenc Ballester, Alan Yates. Alexandre de Riquer (1856 - 1920): the British connection in Catalan Modernisme. Glasgow: The Anglo-Catalan Society, 1988 (p. 115)