when he was twenty-nine years old. They were the preparations for his aquatinted plates of Paris, against which in their completed form there is only this to be said—that the avoidance, generally, of any attempt at atmospheric effects, involves a seeming monotony of treatment, though as dignified visions of old Parisian architecture, of Parisian landscape, so to speak, in its habitual setting of wide sky and noble river, they have never been surpassed, and very seldom equalled.
The vision of Girtin, it must always be remembered—whatever be his work—is not emphatically personal. With all his charm and breadth and dignity, something of the pure architectural draughtsman lingered to the end, in his labour. He had no parti pris about the facts: no bias we forgive, no prejudice we welcome. He sought to represent simply the “view,” although no doubt the “view” was generally bettered by his artistry.
IV.
WILKIE.
A FAMOUS Scotchman, David Wilkie, and his very distinguished friend and fellow-countryman, Andrew Geddes, wrought, each of them, in the middle period of Turne life, a certain number of etchings of independent merit. Those of Sir David Wilkie, which were but few, happen to be the best known, because Wilkie, much more than Geddes, was a leader of painting. But, meritorious as are the etchings of Wilkie, in their faithful record of character and picturesque effect, they are seldom as admirable as the prints of his less eminent brother. They have, generally, not so much freedom; and, while they follow great traditions less, they are at the same time less individual. “Pope Examining a Censer” has the dignity of the designer and the draughtsman, but not much of the etche particular gift. “The Receipt”—or “A Gentleman Searching in a Bureau,”
for this second title explains the subject better—is the most successful of Wilki. It is characteristic of his simpler and less ambitious genre, and is indeed faultless, and more than faultless—charming.
V.
GEDDES.
ANDREW GEDDES etched four or five times as many plates as Wilkie. He issued ten from Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, in 1826. The dates on some of them are 1812, 1816, and 1822; and, besides these ten that were published, about thirty more, which there was no attempt to issue to the world, have to be taken account of. Some, like the excellent “Portrait of the Painte Mother”—which is so fine in illumination, in drawing, and in character—are directly suggested by the artis paintings. Others—including all the landscapes—are, apparently, studies from Nature, done with a singular appreciation of the ripest art of Rembrandt.
Geddes was very sensible of the charm of dry-point—of its peculiar quality of giving individuality to each one of the few impressions which you may safely produce from it, and of its unique capacity for rendering broad effects of light and shade.