Webster. La Rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris
“Closely akin to Rue Brise Miche in restful balance of composition and in fine shadow effect is the Rue de la Parcheminerie—of special value now, for the old street has disappeared largely since the making of the plate.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 11⅛ × 7 inches
It is but natural that an artist of Mr. Webster’s temperament, a devoted admirer of Meryon, should become absorbed in Paris herself and endeavor to put upon copperplate the “poésie profonde et compliqué d’une vaste capitale.” The Bruges and Rouen plates showed Mr. Webster to be keenly susceptible to the magnetism and charm of medieval tradition, but Paris, steeped in sentiment even more than Rouen or Bruges, was to rouse a still greater warmth and feeling. He began by searching out those picturesque streets in the old quarters that have survived the wholesale demolishment of Baron Haussmann, a name hated by artists as that of Granger by lovers of books. The Rue Brise Miche found its way to the Royal Academy, and was also honored by publication in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (July, 1907). Closely akin to it in restful balance of composition and in fine shadow effect is the Rue de la Parcheminerie—of special value now, for the old street has disappeared largely since the making of the plate. La Rue Cardinale has affinity of general treatment, and is not the less interesting for an amazing tour de force in the rendering of color and texture in the striped blind over a shop-front. A fourth plate, perhaps even finer than any of these in its force, directness, and concentrated simplicity, is the Rue Grenier sur l’Eau. There is much of Meryon in its clear, crisp line-work. Some day perhaps these loving studies of the old Paris of Balzac may be gathered in a series illustrating the “Quartier Marais,” and published in an édition de luxe with descriptive text by the etcher. Let us hope that this may come to pass, for the buildings that Mr. Webster depicts are far more than a prosaic record of architectural features. There is a spiritual and human suggestiveness behind the mortar and bricks of his pictures: as a poet of his own nation has it, they are “latent with unseen existences.” He has appreciated the fact that etching—an art hedged in by limitations and depending upon power of suggestion—is the one art that can give at once those delicate lines, those broad shadows, those crumbling bits of texture. The lover of etching can regard his subject with indifference, and take full joy in the soft play of sunlight, the fine choice of line, the effective massing of light and shade.
Another plate of this “Quartier Marais” series is a noble representation of Notre Dame seen from an unusual aspect. It is a drawing from near the Hôtel de Ville and shows the splendid mass of the cathedral rising above the irregular houses that face the Quartier Marais and the Quai aux Fleurs. There is freedom and charm in the treatment of the foreground, where a little tug puffs along the river and the big barges move cumbrously under the lee of the near bank, and in the middle distance where the light plays pleasantly over the old houses; but the roof of the cathedral itself, put in with unpleasing rigidity of line, comes like cold fact in the middle of romance. It is as though Meryon here had imposed his weakness as well as his strength upon Mr. Webster, for in the Morgue, for instance, the one small blemish is the ruled precision of the lines upon a roof. A fitting companion to this vision of Notre Dame is Le Pont Neuf, another of the etcher’s largest and most distinguished plates. The stern solidity of the bridge, with its massive masonry, its corbeled turrets, and its deeply shadowed arches, makes pleasing contrast with the irregular sky-line of the sunlit houses that rise beyond.
It may be said of all Mr. Webster’s etchings—and perhaps there could be no higher praise—that each possesses the faculty of provoking fresh interest. That is certainly the case with four of his most recent plates. One is an interior of St. Saturnin, Toulouse, majestic and stately, full of suggestive mystery in the religious light that falls with soft touch upon the pillars, throws into relief the dark masses of the choir-stalls, and strives to penetrate the dim recesses of the vaulted roof. St. Saturnin will be among the rariora of the collector, for the plate unfortunately broke when twelve proofs only had been printed.
The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draughtsmanship have been used to singular advantage in the Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, 1608. One is grateful to him for his fine record of this domed building that was a little gem of Renaissance art, though there is a note of sadness in the substructure of balks and struts set at its base by the ruthless hand of the destroyer.
Webster. “St. Saturnin, Toulouse”