Studio: international art (5.1895)

The Etchings of D. Y. Cameron

can depart widely from the precedent already It would be foolish to introduce Mr. Cameron as
established. a discovery, for his career has been followed closely

It would be pleasant to discuss the work of a by all interested in etching. Yet as the number of
dozen younger etchers, including Messrs. William those who visit the Exhibition of the Painter-
Strang, Goff, Oliver Hall, Holroyd, Percy Thomas, Etchers regularly is small beside the number of
and several less known, but here space only allows those who visit the popular galleries, or keep them-
one to be considered. In Mr. D. Y. Cameron of selves informed in other ways, it may be well to
Glasgow, who has come rapidly to the front in give a slight sketch of his work hitherto. At least
recent years, we find evidence of loyal obedience seven years ago Mr. Cameron, in his St. Marys,
to the most admirable conventions of his art. His Ailsa Craig, Perthshire Village, and Bowden, at-
position has been gained, not by the production of tracted attention ; and afterwards a number of
tours de force, or by any extravagant novelty of etchings, chiefly views of The Clyde, further estab-
treatment, but in ways strictly in accord with pre- lished a reputation which has since grown rapidly,
cedent, yet with no " slavish " imitation of any Nor, although landscape and topographical subjects
single master, past or present. for the most part attract him, can he be ranked as

a landscape etcher only. Several notable
examples of imaginative figures have been
exhibited; his Father Ambrose (1894), Old
Age (1892), A Dutch Damsel, are instances
of this phase of his work. In them we find
a delight in decorative arrangement unusual
in those who devote their chief attention to
landscape. The Dutch Damsel shows also
a feeling for the right placing of lettering,
which is seen even more notably in The
Palace, Stirling Castle, and The Monastery.
That lettering may add to the decorative
effect of an etching, is proved by reference
to these ; even as in photography Mr. T.
Craig Annan has shown its use on portraits
and transcripts of buildings and figure sub-
jects. This, however, is a mere incident,
proving an artistic temperament, but a trifle
which only gains its importance by the con-
text ; good lettering rightly placed may en-
hance the effect of good work, even as bad
lettering wrongly placed may mar it; but no
inscription, however admirably placed, will
turn a feeble drawing to a work of art.

Throughout Mr. D. Y. Cameron's work
there is a frank avowal of the most insistent
line in all the different forms of the graphic
arts, the bitten line of the etcher. From its
modelled surface, its burr which gives a
feeling of shadow cast by the raised line
itself, and its depth of colour owing to the
mass of pigment it employs—this line is the
very soul of etching. Whether dainty as a
spider's web, in Mr. Whistler's hands, or
fine as hair in Mr. Frank Short's, whether
I ■)* HE'P A LACE'S Tl RLI NO' C A 5 TLK* alm< »st unfeeling in its stern purpose as Mr.
' -BV1L1 • BY' kiXG'JAME S'THE'F I FT"H\ Cameron loves to employ it, or broken with
^gradations which reveal the nervous touch
"the palace, stikling castle" by d. y. camerox of the etcher, as much of Sir Francis