The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1884-08-07
ETCHING.
What 1t is--What 1t Ought Not to be.

Etching threatens to become an
abuse, and is indulged in even by men
who cannot draw q firm, clear line with
pen and ink. This will inevitably pro-
duce reaction, and will bring line en-
craving to the front again, perhaps
with q larger element Of etching in it
than was habitual in the halcyon days
OF the line engravers. But there will
always be use for etching and de-
mand for it-not perhaps in the reck-
less and eccentric form in which it has
lately appeared, but in a trmer and
soberer practice. like that of Rem
brandt Van Dyck, Schmidt and the
elder school and the best French and
English etchers of to-day. The Eng
lish school, of which Haden assumes
the lead, seems, in practice, to be
rather vagary than the result of an
idea-if Haden and Whistler are mas
ters in etching, then Rembrandt was
all wrong. The etchers whom time
has accepted as best, the most gener
ally admitted modern masters, and
Turner, Millet, etc, invariably observe
certain rules in their etched work.
The leading lines are all made clear
and distinct throughout the work. and
are those dictated by the principal
forms in the subject; no line is drawn
without reference to the form of the
object which it assists to render, the
light and shade lines following always
ths forms in which they are employed;
20 useless or reckless or meaningless
line is ever employed, nor is any used
for mere display of the de1terity of the
etcher. An atfectation in art is per-
petuated impertinence, worse in the
degree of the artists cleverness, and
the affectation of display of executive
ability is the worst vice with which an
artist can be attacked. When, how
ever, an etcher, in his contempt for
rule, allows himself TO work in a man
ner which is counterindicated by the
practice of all the ablest men of the
psst-as do Haden, Whistler, and
many of their followers in their def
ance of the rules that lines should fol-
low form, and that no line should be
given without definite and precise
neaning-they do not show themselves
masters. but violators of good practice
individuality which must violate the
law to show itself, had better be put
under bonds. The tendency of most.
or perhaps the most conspicuous, mod
ern art is to this disorderliness-law-
lessness in fact-and the recklessness
of the Bohemian in conduct is the too
common prototype of the art work of
the day. and, like all lawlessness, will
bring about its punishment by reaction.
'And the eternal law,
Which makes the wrong its own blindfold re-
dresser"
The flood of etching which now op-
presses US, with no quality but the au-
tographic, with neither power of draw
ing or distinctness of purpose-only
the reduplication of what would be bad
pen and ink drawing-wiu weary the
public, and it will happen, as happened
in early engraving, that specialists,
etchers as such, viii be called on to do
the Interpretation or the works of art
which 49, c.t-a B. .l-t po.F0So, ond
l confidently expect a revival of the
taste for pure line engraving. as the
other member Of the antithesis. 1t is
very easy to exaggerate the auto
graphic value in etching as the indi-
vidual in painting. a man must be q
measurably great painter that his work
should be worth reproducing in etch-
ing. and if it is really great, it is more
likely to be faithfully reproduced by a
skillful etcher than by himself; and
this will establish the practice of en-
ploy!ng professional etchers, while the
men who are not artists of distinct
power and individuality will not find
their original work in a good market,
be their technical ability what it may.
am obliged to consider the rage for
etched work like Haden's, and even
Whistler's and Herkomer's, an indica-
ton that eccentricity has prevailed
over all the better qualities of art. For
my own part l prefer among original
English etchers the works of Samuel
Palmer to any other, and we have sew
eral among US whose work is more val
uable than Haden's, whose best work
take to be that after Turner, where
the drawing and greater qualities are
supplied. A man can only be a great
etcher as he is great artist; the clev-
crest Interpretation Of small notions
will not even in the multitude make a
great idea, and without great inaas
there is no great art. Etehir1 is onIy
an interpreter, whose sffice we must
not confound with mat of the thinker
Tnvurv Of Dv{roo