And no medium expresses line in as pure and unadulterated a fashion as etching. It makes the most of it. Etching is the true worship of linear expression. In all other mediums there is a slight desire to hide line, it merely serves as an accessory. In etching it reigns supreme. There are no obstacles to the etching needle except incompetence. It translates every wish of the artist, the slightest accent or deviation with unerring precision and vitality. The Japanese, no doubt, achieved the greatest mastery of the drawn line that has ever been known to history. Only the line form of the Greek competes with it. The Japanese artists revelled in line expression, and it passed through all possible variations, from the sweep of Tanyu's brush and the classic curve of Harunobu to the angular Dürer-like twist of Hokusai. But even their line, unless made by the brush, cannot rival in virility, delicacy and precision the line of a master etcher.
In his paintings Whistler sacrificed line too much. He felt that he had to find a medium in which he had absolute freedom to satisfy his desire and so he alighted upon etching. A draughtsman so sure of himself, so adroit at realizing by simple contrasts of black and white all the effects of which that austere, monochromatic medium is capable of, did not, one supposes, find himself unprepared to use the needle, and, indeed, at the first attempt, Whistler proved himself a successful etcher. True enough, his earliest work, like "La Vieille aux Loques," "La Marchande de Moutarde," "La Cuisine," and "La Mère Gérard," betrays a keen sense of the beauty of material; but they are, after all, conventional productions and show a slight influence of Rembrandt's etchings and the Little Dutch Masters. They are attempts at realistic picture-making, and, no matter how broadly the objects are conceived and carried out, look spotty. The light and shade division could be more scientific, and the tonality consequently a finer one. Too many little things fill out the pictorial scheme. He still worked for the effect of dignified completeness and had not yet learned to apply his later sense of elimination. The certainty and freedom of his draughtsmanship is always admirable. There is no academic pedantry in his drawing and no laborious effort. The beholder is charmed by its fascinating expressiveness and delightful flexibility. His perspective views and figure subjects convey an impression of unhesitating knowledge of form and contour and of an exact understanding of subtleties of modelling. They show no struggle with difficulties of statement; everything seems to come right, as a matter of course, and to fit together naturally without any deliberate intention on his part.
"LA VIEILLE AUX LOQUES" (ETCHING).
It was in 1855-58, during a trip to Alsace Lorraine with Delonney, an artist friend, when he made his first attempts at etching. A few dated prints like the "Scene in Alsatian Village" and "Street at Saverne" of this period are highly treasured by collectors, and pronounced as good as any that came after. A few years later, in the sixties, he took up the process more seriously and remained its ardent disciple ever afterwards. In the eighties he devoted more time to his etchings, pastels and water colours than to larger paintings. His fastidious love for rare and picturesque subjects made him select a number of favourite sketching grounds. They were the Thames embankments, of which he never tired, the French towns of Tours, Bourges and Loches, also Venice, and the Netherlands. Of course, like every true artist, he etched everything that appealed to him. There are numerous London and Paris sketches, scenes from Ajaccio and Algiers, and many figure compositions, character studies and portraits. But his French, Thames, Belgium, Holland and two Venice series are probably the most interesting from a collector's point of view, as they combine in a more pronounced manner direct Whistlerian methods with the quest of line expression.
STREET IN SAVERNE (ETCHING).
His first designs of the Thames series were made in 1859. Some few themes recur with many variations, such as the battered shop-fronts of Chelsea, "The Pool," the London bridges, the barges on the river, and the wharfs, warehouses and factories, like "Price's Candle Works." A few years later he made a trip through the northern part of France, and one of the finest results was the "learned, spirited" "Hôtel de Ville at Loches."