BOOKS.
ETCHING AND ETCHERS.*
EIGHT years have passed since the first edition of this book drew- public attention in England to the excellent art of etching and its attempted revival across the Channel. During this period some change has taken place in the position of that art in public know- ledge and estimation, and Mr. Hamerton's work now comes before• us in a somewhat modified form, better adapted to present con- ditions. The new edition is more systematic in its arrange- ment, and the text, instead of being, in the main, illustrative of a small collection of specimens of the works of distinguished etchers, rises in importance by reason of their withdrawal, and reads more like a complete treatise on a recognised theme. As before, the author treats the subject in its several relations of theory, history, and practice. Mr. Hamerton has a distinct and decided theory on the true scope of etching, and this it is necessary to master before his estimate of the work of different artists can be duly appreciated.
It is seldom that a writer on art approaches his subject in-so scientific a spirit of inquiry. He first weighs the capabilities of this particular method of limning separately against all others that are in use, in various kinds of marking and expression, and having ascertained what special classes of effects can be better produced by it than by any other process, he fairly argues that the artist who applies it with success to these is entitled, as an etcher, to a distinctly higher rank than that of him who only obtains from it such effects as can be produced equally well or better by other means. Thus Mr. Hamerton's inquiry is twofold, its object being not only to determine the position of an etcher among etchers, but also that of etching itself among the graphic arts. Before, however, we can accompany him in either inquiry, we must come to some definite agreement as to the meaning of terms. Now, the verb " to etch " is used in various senses. In vulgar parlance, it often means drawing in ink with a steel pen, though never so in the mouths of artists or oonnoiaseurs, insomuch that Mr. Hamerton would not hesitate to designate a person who so used it by his favourite epithet of "Philistine." But this use of the verd is really less inapproprite than it may appear to be to the purist in art phraseology. Generically, as regards process, etching is the art of engraving lines by the corrosive action of acid; though it is only in relation to the printed impression from a plate so prepared that the process is here dealt with, and apart from its -technique, it is, in all its essentials as a graphic art, simply drawing in lines. The great principles of artistic interpre- tation which should govern the practice of drawing with a pen and ink or with a lead-pencil (when used for making lines only) have a like relation to drawing with the etching-needle. The superiority of the printed etching over these other drawings lies partly in the rich quality of the ink, and partly in the delicacy and purity of the etched lines. Its chief superiority to an engraving with the burin lies in their greater freedom. Now there is no medium of artistic expression so powerful, so simple, and yet so versatile as the line, when it can be drawn with perfect freedom. And paradoxical as it may appear, its chief value in art seems to arise from the fact that no such thing as a line is to be seen in nature. Lines in graphic art are purely abstract expressions. They indi- cate, they define, and they suggest form, texture, movement, and direction. They lead the eye from point to point, or continuously in varied courses. But taken individually, they imitate nothing except one another. When lines pre used for the purpose of imi- tation, they have to be combined and packed together so as to merge in a general shade or mass. Separate them with a magnifying - glass or by near inspection, and the shade resolves itself into a gridiron or a net, and the mass into a medley of unmeaning strokes. Now it is the great • Etching and Etchers. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. A New Edition, Illustrated. London : Macmillan and CO. 1876. adaptability of etching as a branch of line - drawing to the suggestive interpretation of nature, rather than to direct imitation, that gives it in Mr. Hamerton's view its high artistic value ; and it follows that in the comparative estimate of etchers, those who use the line for the former purpose should take a higher rank than those who use it for the latter. " An etching," he says, "should always be conceived purely as a sketch, and what people call a 'finished' etching ought to be nothing more than a sketch carried further," and his criticism is based on the sound principle that in all really masterly sketching, there is thoughtful and intelligent art, in comparison with which the most elaborate imitation is but a mindless industry. A large portion, therefore, of Mr. Hamerton's treatise is devoted to the advocacy of this higher view of the province of art, and it thus contains both primarily and incidentally a great deal of valuable and thoughtful disquisition of much wider application than to the special branch of art named in the title. In their practical bearing on the art of etching, his principles lead him to assign, as a main characteristic of the true etcher, the free and undisguised use of the etched line. But he is at the same time fully.alive to the fact that etching is capable of other and varied utilisation. While contending for the existence of a peculiar and 'exclusive field belongilg to the art, a kind of etcher's paradise, to be cultivated by the elect of the true faith, he claims for it a wide power of competition with other, and lower, arts in their respec- tive domains ; and while recognising an orthodox distinction between true etchers and all other kinds of etchers, he is ready -to accord even enthusiastic praise to good work not precisely justified by his faith. Thus, Jacquemart, the great imitative etcher of still life, is acknowledged as " a true king in his art," though " a king of a minor realm ; " and Samuel Palmer receives some pages of laudation, for effects pro-
• duced by an eclectic union of methods which a purist in etch- ing would repudiate as being derived from other arts. More- over, our author does not hesitate to admit that the process of etching imposes certain limitations of power which seriously cur- tail the artist's range of subjects, and which sometimes reduce his means of expression to a kind of conventional shorthand, that makes a large demand upon the spectator's imagination. "The accurate division of delicate tones " he allows to be " very diffi- cult in etching, so that perfect modelling is very rare in the art, and the true representation of skies, which depends on the most delicate discrimination of these values, still rarer." To overcome these difficulties entails more time and labour than are consistent with the freshness or rapid execution of a sketch, and to compen- sate for them often demands a cunning economy of resource on the part of the etcher. Lines, for example, are frequently made
to do double duty, as where they suggest at the same in the detail of a surface and the fact of that surface being in shadow. Mr. Hamerton points out a very skilful employment of this de- Tice in Mr. Seymour Haden's celebrated etching of the " Aga- memnon," where a vivid impression of strong light and shade is given without any actual shading.
A key to some of these difficulties will be found in the fact that the process of etching consists of two distinct operations ; first, drawing a line on the surface ; and secondly, eating away the -copper or other metal to the proper depth thereunder by means et acid. In their results, the two operations correspond, the one to form, the other to tone, or depth of colour; and, as M. Lalanne observes, in his excellent little TraitI de la Gravure a C Eau-forte, the establishment of " rapports directs entre la points qui dessine et la morsure qui colors" constitutes the whole of the etcher's science, It must happen, however, from their different pro- clivities, that some artists will rely more on definition by line and others on tonic relation for their effect. Now the operator has much less control over the last part of the process than he has over the first. The action of the acid is as uncertain as the point- work is precise. Hence the process under review recommends itself more to the first class of artists than to the second, and it is right to give the higher place, as Mr. Hamerton does, to etchings which rely more on line than on tone. It must not, however, be inferred from what we have said, or from Mr. Hamerton's constant advocacy of the use of the frankly etched line, that he forbids the practice of shading, or still less that he approves of mere outline-drawing. Line and outline are two very distinct things, and organic markings and lines of strong expression scarcely ever coincide with the boundaries of objects. Nor, to help out the needle and the mordant when they are not up to their work, does he condemn the use of the dry point, or even the burin, or in particular oppose the combination of etching with mezzotint, a method of engraving which, as Turner amply proved in his Liber Studiorum, is the natural complement of etching, each art exactly supplying the deficiencies of the other. This combination, as well as that of etching and aquatint (as in Girtin's Paris views, which, by the way, are not mentioned, as they certainly should have been, by Mr. Hamerton), appears unfortunately to have been lost sight of since the decline of landscape art in England.
We have no space left to do justice to the historical portion of Mr. Hamerton's treatise. He reviews in detail no less than 384 plates, by 91 masters, and so far as we are acquainted with the etchings, his criticisms appear to us to be sound and just, as they are always intelligent and discriminating. Those of his readers whom his lucid and attractive writing may convert into students will find in him a safe artistic guide, and in this book a very useful work of reference. Some of the notices in this edition are much ex- panded, and the account of the modern French revival is rewritten and continued to the present time. Writing in 1868, Mr. Hamerton could only say of the works of the French Etching Club that they were " not, on the whole, better than our own, or than those of the German Radirverein ; their distinguishing merit," ho added, " is not to have succeeded, but to have stumbled and fallen in the mire with their faces Zionward." Now he says, " Few move- ments in art have been, on the whole, so decidedly successful as this revival of etching in France. It will occupy a very important place in the artistio history of the nineteenth century. The chiefs of the revival have not only made etching quite truly a living art again, but they have pursued a course of study so wisely chosen that it has led them to an absolute executive equality with the very greatest etchers of the past. Never, indeed, in the history of the fine arts have so many thoroughly accomplished etchers been gathered together within the walls of a single city as there are at this hour in Paris."
Nevertheless, he is fain to confess that in the region of pure art, the practice of etching has not made the progress he desired. In mercantile England, notwithstanding his own efforts in this book and his excellent art magazine the Portfolio, and we may add, the more questionable influence of " black and white " exhibitions, scarcely any good artists have been found willing to lay aside the paint-brush for so (generally) unpaying an implement as the etching-point, and even by Continental etchers " the art is now mainly employed for a purpose not generally foreseen at its re- vival, and quite outside of its earliest uses in the hands of the greatest old masters," namely, as a means of engraving from painted pictures. We cannot here follow the author into his remarks on the peculiar adaptability of the art to this purpose, but we are ready to indorse his conclusion that one result of its employment in this way is to assimilate the methods of different etchers, and deprive them of much of their personality.
Of the technical notes we can say still less. Though less pro- minent than before, they are more compendious, and will be found replete with valuable information for the practical etcher, including an account of modern processes and improvements. It is chiefly from their relation to this part of the subject that the illustrative etchings now introduced in the body of the work derive interest. They are (with one exception) copies by the author, not always successful, from the works of known masters, and are accom- panied by notes of the successive processes which the plates have undergone.
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