DOI Heft:
No. 293 (August 1917)
DOI Artikel:The auqatints of C. H. Baskett, A.R.E.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21263#0112
The Aquatints of C. H. Baskett, A.R.E.
THE AQUATINTS OF C. H. BASKETT,
A.R.E.
F">OR the graphic artist who finds his
1 pictorial motives in the subtleties
and contrasts of tone-values there is
no more sympathetic method than
aquatint. In sensitive hands, such as Mr.
C. H. Baskett's, its technical resources will
respond to the pictorial suggestions of light and
atmosphere with a range of tone-gradation
limited only by the artist's vision. Doubtless
it was Mr. Baskett's lifelong love of sailing,
with the consequent habit of eye to watch
the changing aspects of the waters and their
shores under the ever-varying dominance of
light and weather, that influenced his predi-
lection for aquatint. Seven years ago he was
attracted to the medium and began to use it
experimentally together with soft-ground etch-
ing, but, as he became more certain of his
control of the acid-washes, he gradually dis-
carded the aid of line, and depended entirely
upon the acid and the dust-grounds of varying
fineness to give all that his picture needed of
form—definition and tone in infinite gradation.
Thus, while as an art master his interest is
largely in the direction of applied art, and at
the Chelmsford School of Art, which he directs,
the craftsmanship of lithography and etching,
metal-work, enamelling, jewellery, and weaving
claim his particular attention, for his own
pictorial expression aquatint is Mr. Baskett's
favourite medium. Possibly his sensitiveness
to the subtleties of tone was stimulated by his
studies under that master of the tonal capacities
of charcoal, Mr. Frank Mura; but there is no
doubt that his constant intimacy with Nature
in her spacious aspects and atmospheric moods
upon the coasts and the wide waters, as well as
the narrows, has fostered that sincere artistic
expression of personal vision that one recognizes
in his prints.
It was in early boyhood that, together with
his father, Mr. Charles E. Baskett, the head
master of the School of Art in his native town
of Colchester, where he started his artistic
training, Mr. Baskett began that practical
familiarity with the waters that has proved of
such great pictorial value to him. " With my
father," he will tell you in his enthusiasm, " I
have explored every river and creek from
Aldborough to Rochester. First with an
96
open boat and tent, latterly with a barge-yacht,
I have worked and lazed on the flat marshy
estuaries of the Colne, Blackwater, Stour and
Orwell, the Deben, the Aide, and all the fascinat-
ing east-coast rivers with their wonderful misty
beauty. The barge-yacht will sit comfortably
on any kind of bottom, mud or sand, and offers
great advantages to an artist. You can take
the ground on a falling tide, get to work on an
evening effect, retire comfortably for the night
afterwards, and get off again next morning, and
though the yachtsman will never believe that
intentionally you ' got the shore on board,' it
is an advantage to the artist to be able to crawl
up any little creek or ditch."
The river estuaries of Essex, Kent, and
Suffolk have been Mr. Baskett's favourite
sketching-grounds, while Cornwall, Sussex, and
Belgium have also offered him sympathetic
subjects. London's river he has learnt to know
during the many years it has been his custom
to make frequent trips on a small steam trading
vessel running from east-coast ports to a
wharf near the Tower Bridge. He shares the
captain's cabin, takes his turn at the wheel, and,
when the craft is unloading, is free to pull
about in the ship's boat in search of pictorial
matter, thus acquiring a practical intimacy with
river life and its craft. All this real familiarity
with the rivers and the coastal waters we see
expressed with pictorial charm, and the true
open-air lover's affection, in Mr. Baskett's
aquatints. The motive is never primarily topo-
graphical, as it was invariably with the early
aquatinters; but with Mr. Baskett the land-
scape mood is ever artistically alert for the
subtlest passing effect of light or cloud. And
the craft that he loves to draw, be it of
whatever rig or build, will always play its
living part in the picture, whether dozing upon
the flats or the shallows, resting in harbour or
docks, or scudding full sail before the breeze,
as we see in the graceful print, A Light Breeze
in the Lower Hope. Note how, in the tender
light of The Silver Moon, the eye's interest is
carried along the design by the boats, often a
happy feature of Mr. Baskett's composition.
Landermere, Brightlingsea, and the beautiful
St. Ives exemplify this also. But, so long as
there is any water in the foreground, Mr.
Baskett can be pictorially happy even without
his beloved boats, as one may see in the
spacious Wareham Marshes.
THE AQUATINTS OF C. H. BASKETT,
A.R.E.
F">OR the graphic artist who finds his
1 pictorial motives in the subtleties
and contrasts of tone-values there is
no more sympathetic method than
aquatint. In sensitive hands, such as Mr.
C. H. Baskett's, its technical resources will
respond to the pictorial suggestions of light and
atmosphere with a range of tone-gradation
limited only by the artist's vision. Doubtless
it was Mr. Baskett's lifelong love of sailing,
with the consequent habit of eye to watch
the changing aspects of the waters and their
shores under the ever-varying dominance of
light and weather, that influenced his predi-
lection for aquatint. Seven years ago he was
attracted to the medium and began to use it
experimentally together with soft-ground etch-
ing, but, as he became more certain of his
control of the acid-washes, he gradually dis-
carded the aid of line, and depended entirely
upon the acid and the dust-grounds of varying
fineness to give all that his picture needed of
form—definition and tone in infinite gradation.
Thus, while as an art master his interest is
largely in the direction of applied art, and at
the Chelmsford School of Art, which he directs,
the craftsmanship of lithography and etching,
metal-work, enamelling, jewellery, and weaving
claim his particular attention, for his own
pictorial expression aquatint is Mr. Baskett's
favourite medium. Possibly his sensitiveness
to the subtleties of tone was stimulated by his
studies under that master of the tonal capacities
of charcoal, Mr. Frank Mura; but there is no
doubt that his constant intimacy with Nature
in her spacious aspects and atmospheric moods
upon the coasts and the wide waters, as well as
the narrows, has fostered that sincere artistic
expression of personal vision that one recognizes
in his prints.
It was in early boyhood that, together with
his father, Mr. Charles E. Baskett, the head
master of the School of Art in his native town
of Colchester, where he started his artistic
training, Mr. Baskett began that practical
familiarity with the waters that has proved of
such great pictorial value to him. " With my
father," he will tell you in his enthusiasm, " I
have explored every river and creek from
Aldborough to Rochester. First with an
96
open boat and tent, latterly with a barge-yacht,
I have worked and lazed on the flat marshy
estuaries of the Colne, Blackwater, Stour and
Orwell, the Deben, the Aide, and all the fascinat-
ing east-coast rivers with their wonderful misty
beauty. The barge-yacht will sit comfortably
on any kind of bottom, mud or sand, and offers
great advantages to an artist. You can take
the ground on a falling tide, get to work on an
evening effect, retire comfortably for the night
afterwards, and get off again next morning, and
though the yachtsman will never believe that
intentionally you ' got the shore on board,' it
is an advantage to the artist to be able to crawl
up any little creek or ditch."
The river estuaries of Essex, Kent, and
Suffolk have been Mr. Baskett's favourite
sketching-grounds, while Cornwall, Sussex, and
Belgium have also offered him sympathetic
subjects. London's river he has learnt to know
during the many years it has been his custom
to make frequent trips on a small steam trading
vessel running from east-coast ports to a
wharf near the Tower Bridge. He shares the
captain's cabin, takes his turn at the wheel, and,
when the craft is unloading, is free to pull
about in the ship's boat in search of pictorial
matter, thus acquiring a practical intimacy with
river life and its craft. All this real familiarity
with the rivers and the coastal waters we see
expressed with pictorial charm, and the true
open-air lover's affection, in Mr. Baskett's
aquatints. The motive is never primarily topo-
graphical, as it was invariably with the early
aquatinters; but with Mr. Baskett the land-
scape mood is ever artistically alert for the
subtlest passing effect of light or cloud. And
the craft that he loves to draw, be it of
whatever rig or build, will always play its
living part in the picture, whether dozing upon
the flats or the shallows, resting in harbour or
docks, or scudding full sail before the breeze,
as we see in the graceful print, A Light Breeze
in the Lower Hope. Note how, in the tender
light of The Silver Moon, the eye's interest is
carried along the design by the boats, often a
happy feature of Mr. Baskett's composition.
Landermere, Brightlingsea, and the beautiful
St. Ives exemplify this also. But, so long as
there is any water in the foreground, Mr.
Baskett can be pictorially happy even without
his beloved boats, as one may see in the
spacious Wareham Marshes.