The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-08-23

Why Etchings Suddenly Ceased to he
I'm Demand.
Boston Transcript.

Boston Transcript.
In a conversation which took place I'm
studio the other day. Whistler and his
etchings were the natural subjects. and one
of the men there said, After all. nobody
ever has made an etching worth ten cents
unless he knew how to draw; that's about
all there Is TO the thing. And any one that
can make a good pencil sketch, can make
a good etching" This was agreed to readi-
~, and an artist remarked. when j was
doing good deal of etching, some years
ago, wealthy lady came to me and want
ed me to give her lessons i'm etching. 1
asked her If she knew anything about
drawing, and found that she had never
even taken a drawing lesson but she
thought that by scratching bit of copper
she might by accident produce something
that would have merit as an etching"
why is It," said another man, that
the fashion of etching died out so utterly
in this country a few years ago, and every
body dropped 1T so suddenly?'' The etcher
answered: ut was killed, believe. by
commercialism. The prnt-sellers. reflect
Ing the wishes of their clients. urged us to
make big etchings. as large twenty
| inches by thirty, suitable for framing; you
remember the sort of huge plates that were
produced so freely about twenty-five years
ago; moreover, they wanted them done
with an eye to fnish'-none of your loosely
drawn vignettes, but a sort of proper sub
stitute for the Od-time steel engraving. In
fact, ii was not etching at all I'm the real
sense that they wanted, but engraving, and
they got 1t, but that's what killed off the
process.
Perhaps too" suggested the first speak
er, "the fashion died out because it was a
fashion. 1T was cooked-up movement,
not i'm response to real demand, but
worked up artificialy, because somebody
said etching was a real nice thing. don't
you know-and of course that sort of a
boom does not last long. But Whistler
what a draughtsman that man was! Look
at the little boat in the foreground of al
most any of the Thames set; it's drawn
with three or four dry point lines, but gee.
how 1t is drawn! Then he had stunning
printer, who was an artist himself. that
fellow in Paris-never had a bad impression
made from any of his plates. If you a
bad impression of a Whistler etching. it's
not so. Wonder If there won't be a flood of
counterfeit MINISTER'S going about now that
the prices have doubled, 1t would be easy
to- make pretty plausible counterfeit
Yes, forgeries will be made if 1t pays to
make them. The only guarantee you can
have against being buncoed nowadays is to
own something cheap that it don't pay
bought Whistler's etchings when he was
making his Thames set, or just after that,
you may be sure you've got the real thing.
You cannot buy Rembrandt etchings with
the same confidence. / went into a big
place i'm The Hague the last time i was
there. and l. was offered what looked like
stunning impressions of Rembrandts for
about dollar apiece. / looked at the etch-
ings then / looked at the salesman: and he
winl<ed. why, when Mr.. Koehler alive.
IL was n cold day when some one did not
Walk INTO the MusSUIi vi ffIle ATtS WIN
some goods of that kind for him to look
over and L tell you he had to break it to
the owners gently often enough: he could
tell 'eEn at a glance
abroad, is an easy mark. But l notice that
when Mrs. Gardner wants anything she
goes to headquarters, pays the price and
gets the right thing every time. Say, that
little scrap of pencil sketch by Jimmy
Whistler, i'm the first room you go into in
the Gardner Museum. Is one of the greatest
of the smaller things i'm the whole house.
You often hear of draughtsman so capa-
BILE that he makes every line tell; that de-
scribes this drawing well enough as far az
it goes. but IL does not do justice to it's
expression. Whistler is wonderfully COM
pact. Look at the little painting owned by
Denman Ross. in the Museum of Fine Arts
the street in Chelsea it's very small. but
what lot there is in it, and how ii is
made, That little marine piece, too, i'm the
Museum, owned by Mrs. Brimmer-what a
vision of waves. condensed into few
inches; nothing but the right forms, the
right values: nothing but what is just
right, in fact. and not too much of that
oh, it's a great thing to know where to
STOP"
Its a great thing to know anything
thoroughly. Now. Jimmy could afford to
be saucy, because he knew how TO draw