Studio: international art (6.1896)

Some Younger Etchers

indeed for a really great painter to achieve anything To him, as to another, stray guineas come as

approaching universal recognition during his life- comfortable things, and are they not most naturally

time. Until a man is dead—until, indeed, he has to be acquired by showing prints on Exhibition

been dead long enough to have become a name walls, and courting for them the critical notice

rather than a personality—it is impossible to deter- which, at the best, does much for their fame,

mine what is his proper place in the realm of art. and, even at the worst, extends their notoriety ?

The personal element must be non-existent before Yet though one cannot expect that diligent search

the world can pass judgment on a painter's art. shall discover much good new work outside the

The true artist comes to recognise this great fact, Painter-Etchers' boundaries, it does discover sorne-

and he possesses his soul in patience. In the thing. It discovers, for example, in Mr. Edgar

years of his adolescence, dreams of fame hold him Wilson an artist inspired by good men's labours,

up buoyantly. The natural desire to treat life as a and adding something of his own to the heritage

playground can only be stifled by a keener desire he has received. It discovers in Mr. Raven-Hill

—that of self-aggrandisement. But presently this an artist who has not as yet etched much, but to

desire, too, becomes attenuated, and the work whom it has been given—somewhat suddenly as it

itself, not the reward it will bring, is now his mis- appears—to etch excellently. Until I went, one

tress. In his secret soul he knows where he will day in July, to see Mr. Raven-Hill's drawings at a

be found ; he may admit that accident may ex- place hard by Marlborough House, I was ignorant

elude him from his proper place; but if so, what of the fact that this so brilliant pen-draughtsman

matter? He has done the work. He has been of common life had etched at all. I beheld there

faithful to his high calling—he may leave the rest six etchings. Not one was commonplace; not one

to posterity. And Edward Stott may safely leave was executed with technique palpably insufficient;
the rest to posterity.

James Stanley Little.

OME YOUNGER
ETCHERS. BY
FREDERICK WED-
MORE.

Though the Exhibitions of the
Royal Society of Painter-Etchers
affords a public and indeed nearly
the only public opportunity for esti-
mating the course of English etching,
as the art proceeds from year to year,
it may be that there is being executed
in silence, and in voluntary obscurity,
a fair proportion of excellent work of
which the amateur has scarcely the
chance of taking cognisance. As
painters do not all of them elect to
paint up to " exhibition-pitch," so it
may be that certain etchers are con-
tent to do their work, and not to
display it. I cannot honestly suppose
that there is much of this; for, even
putting the matter of professional
prestige (which an artist rightly
cherishes) out of the question, it is
not likely that "the eternal want of
pence which vexes public men,"
leaves the etcher entirely unvisited. from an etching by charles holroyd

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