International studio (30.1906/1907(1907))

Mr. Joseph Pennell's Recent Etchings

and does not in any way condemn him to the
uninteresting and the commonplace.
Mr. Pennell prints almost all, if not all, his
etchings with his own hands. One may easily
grant the possibility of the artist’s best printing, if
he has a talent given that way, being superior to
the best of the professional man’s printing, though,
as a matter of fact, some artists even deny it. But it
also stands to reason that an artist’s average print-
ing will not be as good as the professional man’s.
For even the printing of a small edition, say twenty-
five or forty copies, must be a sore trial to a creative
man’s patience and temper, in a fashion altogether
incomprehensible to the man whose life duty con-
sists of this sort of work and no other. I have
interpolated this short digression even at the risk
of exciting Mr. Pennell’s opposition, for I have
seen most varying copies of many of his etchings,
and some of them seemed to me much less charm-
ing than others. In my subsequent remarks I
have only those impressions in mind which appear
to me altogether successful, and I cannot imagine
otherwise than that people who seem to have
failed to grasp the beauty of Pennell’s work did
not see it in its proper colours, so to speak.

Few things seem to me to prove the immensely
superior power of art over nature, as a stimulator to
the imagination, better than the New York set of
sky-scrapers ! One has seen these huge piles in
the natural, and people who have not can easily
procure the Photoglobe Company’s coloured views.
How flat and tame do the buildings upon them
appear compared to what they look like upon
the etchings ! I do not only refer to the prosaic
character of reality as compared with the nerve
and soul of art. I also mean to say that the actual
buildings, let alone the photos, do not give us
nearly the convincing and overawing impression
of height and immensity which we gain from the
etchings ! The power to suggest material for our
fancy to expand and supplement is the main
province of etching as an art. Never has it been
brought out with more telling effect than here.
This feature, the commandingly intelligent way in
which style—the power to turn the elements of an
art to their best account—-has been attained, seems
to me to be the finest claim of these plates to fame.
The second best claim is probably the marvellous
fine feeling displayed in the selection of each point
of view. Every plate, besides describing some


“ SOMERSET HOUSE ” FROM AN ORIGINAL ETCHING BY JOSEPH PENNELL
315