Etching in England
by
Frederick Wedmore
With 50 Illustrations
London
George Bell and Sons
1895
CHISWICK PRESS:—CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
PREFACE.
I READ, the other day, in a note of Abraham Haywar to his translation of “Faust,” how Schlegel wrote of Gœthe—to M. de Rémusat,—“Il imait guère à donner des explications, et il jamais voulu faire des préfaces.” It would not be seemly, perhaps, that in the present volume of brief historical and critical record, I should endeavour to imitate so august a silence.
Twenty-seven years have passed since one of the most interesting and judicial of English writers upon Fine Art published the book which did amongst us the service of popularising, in some degree at least, the knowledge of Etching. The craft of the aquafortist has, since then, become a medium of expression generally accepted, if not precisely understood; and the half-educated young woman of our period, far from considering the art of whose achievements I treat, as “a form of elegant pen-drawing,” (as she did in Mr. Hamerto first days), is likely perhaps to hold—with “Carry,” in my own little story—that there is “nothing in the world so artistic as a very large etching.” The public, if it has not become properly instructed in the technique of Etching, has at least had the opportunity of becoming so. Hence I have conceived it to be no part of my business to discourse much upon methods. For them the reader may turn now, not only to Mr. Hamerton, but to Sir Seymour Haden, with his great practical experience, his native endowments, and his finely trained taste; to Mr. Herkomer, with his frank and interesting personal record; to M. Maxime Lalanne; to Mr. Frank Short—but the list is too long for me to attempt to exhaust it.
What is done here—and done I think for the first time—is to devote a book to the survey, not of good etched work generally, nor of all etched work—all popular etched work—wrought in England, but of such work as has been wrought in England of the finer and truer kind. That has led to many omissions; for, in the last generation and before it, people were popular—as many are to-day—who were clever draughtsmen, perhaps, but bad etchers. It has led, too, to many inclusions—inclusions not possible to Mr. Hamerton. Much of the best work done in England has been done since he wrote; and a little excellent work, done long before he wrote, he happened to pass over.
This present book, then, is devoted to the best English art. It treats of the foreigner only when he has laboured much in our land, or—I am thinking perhaps of M. Helleu—has at least been much associated with it. It includes necessarily a great American—Mr. Whistler—who was amongst us for more than thirty years—and a man of French birth who has been half his life with us—M. Legros. The art of Etching is not, it may be, like the art of Water-Colour, essentially English; but I suppose that nowhere more than here has it been practised with excellence and with legitimate variety. And this I say with the full knowledge that the achievements of Rembrandt have made Holland classic ground for ever for the lover of Etching, and that the history of that art in France includes two names, at least, which are inevitably illustrious—Méryo name and Jacquemar.
F. W.