DOI Heft:
Nr. 157 (March 1910)
DOI Artikel:Hardie, Martin: The etchings of Herman A. Webster
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19866#0024
Etchings of Herman A. Webster
some copper plates went with him on his autumn jects, to the year 1906—the Cour, Normandie
holiday at Grez, that " pretty and very melancholy and Les Blanchissenses. In both we find the ar-
village" in the Forest of Fontainebleau where tist becoming more adept in using broad and bal-
Robert Louis Stevenson met the romance of his anced disposition of light and shade to give not
life. A pilgrimage to Spain in the spring of 1905 merely chiaroscuro but the suggestion of actual
was the source of several spontaneous and effective color, and more skilled in adding exquisiteness of
plates, among them St. Martin's Bridge, Toledo detail to refined truth of visual impression. Les
and Mirada de las Reinas, Alhambra. Up to this Blanchisseuses, in particular, with its rich mystery
point Mr. Webster's work may be considered, in a of shadow, with its sunshine falling on white walls
large measure, tentative and experi-
mental, but from 1906 onward he has
found in Normandy—at Pont de
l'Arche and Rouen—at Bruges, and, 1 ^
above all, in Paris, the inspiration for ■ <
a series of plates noteworthy for their l|i 1
fine craftsmanship and their expression
of individuality. They have won him
the recognition of connoisseurs and HI1
public without his passing through
any period of undeserved obscurity.
At the Paris Salon, at the Royal Acad-
emy and in his native land his etch- yil
ings have constantly been exhibited vH
and admired. Nor must I forget to
add that in 1908 he was elected an |\
Associate of the Royal Society of \\
Painter-Etchers, which under the ; \
presidency of its veteran founder, Sir
Francis Seymour Haden, has done so j
much to foster the revived art of |
etching.
It is of some of the chief works pro-
duced and exhibited during the last
three years that I have now to speak,
and in doing so may, perhaps, indicate
a few leading characteristics of the
etcher's work. His chief delight is in
the nooks and corners of Old-World
thoroughfares and culs-de-sac, where
deep shadows lurk in the angles of
time-worn buildings and sunlight rip-
ples over crumbling walls, seamy gables
and irregular tiled roofs. Of such is
a series of subjects found in old Rouen
—the St. Ouen, the Rue du Hallage, ■ 'jK-'- -- '.HiiJflB. A jW^^W^^^LS'
where the cathedral spire towers high
above old timbered houses, and that : " " ^Cf 3
charming plate with the < ' -ifck ^^^Hj
Houses, Rouen, a quaint corner of
tenements whose high-pitched roofs " ^"t,
stand propped against one another for
all the world like a castle of cards.
And so we pass to two courtyard old houses by Herman a.
scenes—belonging, like the Rouen sub- rue hautefeuille webster
vii
some copper plates went with him on his autumn jects, to the year 1906—the Cour, Normandie
holiday at Grez, that " pretty and very melancholy and Les Blanchissenses. In both we find the ar-
village" in the Forest of Fontainebleau where tist becoming more adept in using broad and bal-
Robert Louis Stevenson met the romance of his anced disposition of light and shade to give not
life. A pilgrimage to Spain in the spring of 1905 merely chiaroscuro but the suggestion of actual
was the source of several spontaneous and effective color, and more skilled in adding exquisiteness of
plates, among them St. Martin's Bridge, Toledo detail to refined truth of visual impression. Les
and Mirada de las Reinas, Alhambra. Up to this Blanchisseuses, in particular, with its rich mystery
point Mr. Webster's work may be considered, in a of shadow, with its sunshine falling on white walls
large measure, tentative and experi-
mental, but from 1906 onward he has
found in Normandy—at Pont de
l'Arche and Rouen—at Bruges, and, 1 ^
above all, in Paris, the inspiration for ■ <
a series of plates noteworthy for their l|i 1
fine craftsmanship and their expression
of individuality. They have won him
the recognition of connoisseurs and HI1
public without his passing through
any period of undeserved obscurity.
At the Paris Salon, at the Royal Acad-
emy and in his native land his etch- yil
ings have constantly been exhibited vH
and admired. Nor must I forget to
add that in 1908 he was elected an |\
Associate of the Royal Society of \\
Painter-Etchers, which under the ; \
presidency of its veteran founder, Sir
Francis Seymour Haden, has done so j
much to foster the revived art of |
etching.
It is of some of the chief works pro-
duced and exhibited during the last
three years that I have now to speak,
and in doing so may, perhaps, indicate
a few leading characteristics of the
etcher's work. His chief delight is in
the nooks and corners of Old-World
thoroughfares and culs-de-sac, where
deep shadows lurk in the angles of
time-worn buildings and sunlight rip-
ples over crumbling walls, seamy gables
and irregular tiled roofs. Of such is
a series of subjects found in old Rouen
—the St. Ouen, the Rue du Hallage, ■ 'jK-'- -- '.HiiJflB. A jW^^W^^^LS'
where the cathedral spire towers high
above old timbered houses, and that : " " ^Cf 3
charming plate with the < ' -ifck ^^^Hj
Houses, Rouen, a quaint corner of
tenements whose high-pitched roofs " ^"t,
stand propped against one another for
all the world like a castle of cards.
And so we pass to two courtyard old houses by Herman a.
scenes—belonging, like the Rouen sub- rue hautefeuille webster
vii