Studio: international art (3.1894)

Artistic Lithography

especially the house and balcony in the back- __

ground and the delicate gradations in the shading /

of the boat. An objection which may be antici- LITHOGRAPHY,
pated is that the action of light in photography I- By W. Rothenstein.

does not draw in lines but paints, rather, in broad It is a strange thing that, of late years,

oppositions of light and shade, and that therefore lithography should, with but few exceptions, have
we have no right to use methods which appear to chiefly been confined to the production of fashion-
be contrary to the spirit of the art. If the objec- plates and grocers' almanacks; lithography which,
tion is to hold good it will be necessary to find in the early part of the century, was so ably
some term to distinguish this class of work, for used by Delacroix, later by Gavanni and Honore
we can hardly be called upon to abandon a practice Daumier. This art, answering—though not per-
haps at first—so exquisitely to
the touch of its constant lover,
has been even as a galley-slave
in the hands of a base com-
mercialism, and so besmirched
that but few could recognise
its true fairness. Even Manet
only used it as a means to an
end, but little appreciating or
relishing the great scope of its
beauty. Daumier practically
took to the stone as a quick
and convenient method of re-
producing his drawings and
caricatures. But this, indeed,
does not in the least injure his
reputation as a singularly bril-
liant and powerful lithographer,
and one of the greatest, to my
mind, who has practised this
art; nor has any one ever
handled the chalk at once so
dexterously and so firmly, and
no one since Goya has had a
keener sense of the arrange-
ment of masses of black.
Fantin Latour, as those who

A PHOTOGRAPH FROM LIFE BY T. CRAIG ANNAN do nQt Qr rfft nQt appreciate

the beauty of his work must

which gives such latitude to individuality of ex- admit, keenly felt its possibilities and its wonderful

pression and which, after all, is photography when congruity of black and white. But it has been left

no part of the ultimate result is brought about to an otherwise distinguished painter to thoroughly

otherwise than by the action of light. prove the well-nigh inexhaustive beauty of this

The question would appear to resolve itself into material. I mean Mr. Whistler,

this. It is admitted that suppression and modi- Lightly his chalk pirouettes upon the surface

fication are already freely used, to quote no other of the stone, and firmly too, when his subject

examples than ordinary retouching or the much requires it; nor could anything be lovelier than

ill-used system of vignetting. Where, then, is the the delicate gradations of his rarer wash lithos.

line to be drawn ? It is interesting to note also How wonderfully blond is his line; his shadows

that the greatest outcry against what they please to grow upon the paper like moss upon a stone,

call apeing other methods comes generally from Nor has he been less successful with colour,

those who are utterly incapable of producing such hitherto a stumbling-block to other lithographers,

much-to-be-desired resemblances. A. M. All his drawings, as may be noticed in the print
16

OME REMARKS ON ARTISTIC