I was quite young, and had just left college, when accident threw into my hands the Traité des manières de graver en taille douce sur l'airain par le moyen des eaux fortes et des vernis durs et mols. Perhaps I might have paid no attention to this book, if I had not previously noticed on the stands on the Quai Voltaire some etchings by Rembrandt, which had opened to me an entirely new world of poetry and of dreams. These prints had taken such hold upon my imagination that I desired to learn, from Bosse's “Treatise,” how the Dutch painter had managed to produce his strange and startling effects and his mysterious tones, the fantastic play of his lights and the silence of his shadows. Rembrandt's etchings on the one hand, and Bosse's book on the other, were the causes of my resolution to learn the art of engraving, and of my subsequent entry into the studio of Calamatta and Mercuri.
As soon as I knew how to hold the burin and the point, these grave and illustrious masters placed before me an allegorical figure engraved by Edelinck, whose drapery was executed in waving and winding lines, incomparable in their correctness and beauty. To break my hand to the work, it was necessary to copy on my plate these solemnly classical and majestically disposed lines. But while I cut into the copper with restrained impatience, my attention was secretly turned towards Rembrandt's celebrated portrait of Janus Lutma, a good impression of which I owned, and which I thought of copying.
To make my début in this severe school—in which we were allowed to admire only Marc Antonio, the Ghisis, the Audrans, and Nanteuil—with an etching by Rembrandt, would have been a heresy of the worst sort. Hence to be able to risk this infraction of discipline, I took very good care to keep my project to myself. Secretly I bought ground, wax, and a plate, and profited of the absence of my teachers to attempt, with fevered hands, to make a fac-simile of the Lutma. I had followed the instructions of Abraham Bosse with regard to the ground, and I proceeded to bite in my plate with the assistance of a comrade, Charles Nördlinger, at present engraver to the king of Wurtemburg, at Stuttgart, whom I had admitted as my accomplice in this delightful expedition.
You may well imagine, my dear Monsieur Lalanne, that I met with all sorts of accidents, such as are likely to befall a novice, and all of which you describe so carefully, while at the same time you indicate fully and lucidly the remedies that may be applied. The ground cracked in several places,—happily in the dark parts. My wax border had been hastily constructed, and I did not know then, although Bosse says so, that it is the rule to pass a heated key along the lower line of the border, so as to melt the wax, and thus render all escape impossible. Consequently the acid filtered through under the wax, and in trying to arrest the flow, I burned my fingers. Furthermore, when it came to the biting in of the shadows in the portrait of Lutma, the greenish and then whitish ebullition produced by the long-continued biting so frightened me, that I hastened to empty the acid into a pail, not, however, without having spattered a few drops on a proof of the Vow of Louis XIII., which had been scratched in the printing, and which we were about to repair. At last I removed the ground, and, trembling all over, went to have a proof taken, but not to the printer regularly employed by Calamatta.
What a disappointment! I believed my etching to have been sufficiently, nay, even over-bitten, and in reality I had stopped half-way. The color of the copper had deceived me. I had seen my portrait on the fine red ground of the metal, and now I saw it on the crude white of the paper. I hardly knew it again. It lacked the profundity, the mystery, the harmony in the shadows, which were precisely what I had striven for. The plate was only roughly cut up by lines crossing in all directions, through the network of which shone the ground which Rembrandt had subdued, so as to give all the more brilliancy to the window with its leaded panes, to the lights in the foreground, and to the cheek of the pensive head of Lutma. As luck would have it, all the light part in the upper half of the print came out pretty well; the expression of the face was satisfactory, and the grimaces of the two small heads of monsters which surmount the back of the chair were perfectly imitated. I had to strengthen the shadows by means of the roulette, and to go over the most prominent folds of the coat with the graver; for I had not the knowledge necessary to enable me to undertake a second biting. Bosse says a few words on this subject, which, as they are wanting in clearness, are apt to lead a beginner into error. He speaks of smoked ground, while, as you have so admirably shown, white ground must be used for retouching. I therefore finished my plate by patching and cross-hatching and stippling, and finally obtained a passable copy, which, at a little distance, looked something like the original, although, to a practised eye, it was really nothing but a very rude imitation. It is needless to say that we carefully obliterated all evidence of our proceedings, and that, my teachers having returned, I went to work again, with hypocritical compunction, upon what I called the military lines of Gerard Edelinck. But we were betrayed by some incautious words of the chamber-woman, and M. Calamatta, having discovered “the rose-pot,” scolded Charles Nördlinger and myself roundly for this romantic escapade. If my plate had been worse,——the good Lord only knows what might have happened!
All this, my dear M. Lalanne, is simply intended to show to you how greatly I esteem the excellent advice which you give to the young etcher, or aqua-fortiste (as the phrase goes now-a-days, according to a neologism which is hardly less barbaric than the word artistic). When I recall the efforts of my youth, the ardor with which I deceived myself, the hot haste with which I fell into the very errors which you point out, I understand that your book is an absolute necessity; and that the artist or the amateur, who, hidden away in some obscure province, desires to enjoy the agreeable pastime of etching, need only follow, step by step, the intelligent and methodical order of your precepts, to be enabled to carry the most complicated plate to a satisfactory end, whether he chooses to employ the soft ground used by Decamps, Masson, and Marvy, or whether he confines himself to the ordinary processes which you make sensible even to the touch with a lucidity, a familiarity with details, and a certainty of judgment, not to be sufficiently commended.
Having read your “Treatise,” I admit, not only that you have surpassed your worthy predecessor, Abraham Bosse, but that you have absolutely superseded his book by making your own indispensable. If only the amateurs, whose time hangs heavily upon them; if the artists, who wish to fix a fleeting impression; if the rich, who are sated with the pleasures of photography,—had an idea of the great charm inherent in etching, your little work would have a marvellous success! Even our elegant ladies and literary women, tired of their do-nothing lives and their nick-nacks, might find a relaxation full of attractions in the art of drawing on the ground and biting-in their passing fancies. Madame de Pompadour, when she had ceased to govern, although she continued to reign, took upon herself a colossal enterprise,—to amuse the king and to divert herself. You know the sixty-three pieces executed by this charming engraver (note, if you please, that I do not say engraveress!). Her etchings after Eisen and Boucher are exquisite. The pulsation of life, the fulness of the carnations, are expressed in them by delicately trembling lines; and I do think that Madame de Pompadour could not have done better, even if she had been your pupil.
At present, moreover, etching has, in some measure, become the fashion again as a substitute for lithography, an art which developed charm as well as strength under the crayon of Charlet, of Géricault, of Gigoux, and of Gavarni. The Société des Aqua-fortistes is the fruit of this renaissance. The art, which, in our own day, has been rendered illustrious by the inimitable Jacque, now has its adepts in all countries, and in all imaginable spheres of society. Etchings come to us from all points of the compass: the Hague sends those of M. Cornet, conservator of the Museum; Poland, those which form the interesting album of M. Bronislas Zaleski, the Life of the Kirghise Steppes; London, those of M. Seymour Haden, so original and full of life, and so well described in the catalogue of our friend Burty; Lisbon, those of King Ferdinand of Portugal, who etches as Grandville drew, but with more suppleness and freedom. But after all Paris is the place where the best etchings appear, more especially in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, and in the publications of the Société des Aqua-fortistes. Do you desire to press this capricious process into your service for the translation of the old or modern masters? Hédouin, Flameng, Bracquemont, will do wonders for you. You have told me yourself that, in my Œuvre de Rembrandt, Flameng has so well imitated this great man, that he himself would be deceived if he should come to life again. As to Jules Jacquemart, he is perfectly unique of his kind; he compels etching to say what it never before was able to say. With the point of his needle he expresses the density of porphyry; the coldness of porcelain; the insinuating surface of Chinese lacquer; the transparent and imponderable finesse of Venetian glassware; the reliefs and the chased lines of the most delicate works of the goldsmith, almost imperceptible in their slightness; the polish of iron and steel; the glitter, the reflections, and even the sonority of bronze; the color of silver and of gold, as well as all the lustre of the diamond and all the appreciable shades of the emerald, the turquoise, and the ruby. I shall not speak of you, my dear monsieur, nor of your etchings, in which the style of Claude is so well united to the grace of Karel Dujardin. You preach by practising; and if one had only seen the plates with which you have illustrated your excellent lessons, one would recognize not only the instructor but the master. Hence, be without fear or hesitation; put forth confidently your little book; it is just in time to help regenerate the art of etching, and to direct its renaissance. For these reasons—mark my prediction!—its success will be brilliant and lasting.
CHARLES BLANC.