Studio: international art (7.1896)

The Etchings of E. W. Charlton

have been imagined that the photogravure from
Nature would have also achieved popularity.
Curiously enough, it has not done so. One hears
on the best authority that so long as the photo-
gravure is from a painting it is saleable, but once
the intending purchaser learns that it is direct from
Nature he cools down and does not pay it the
highest compliment in his power—that is, hard
cash. This aspect of the case is hopeful so far as it
affects the future of an art peculiarly dear to artists,
who have always shown special favour towards
really fine etchings, no matter whether the method
were in or out of favour with the general public.

Mr. Charlton is emphatically a painter-etcher.
Without imitating the mannerism of any living
master, he works on the lines which they all
believe to be the best. His plates are not large,
nor unduly filled with detail; he selects subjects
which lend themselves happily to the method, and,
although his work varies in degree, it is always
obedient to the same broad principles, and sacri-
fices no essential for the sake of popularity. In
the few years he has devoted to etching he has
produced some notable work. The very fact that
it is unequal in quality is a hopeful sign, for a dead
level, even of excellence, always suggests no further
possibilities of advance.

The plate, The Old Harbour, which is included
in this number, is a hand-printed impression, and
may therefore be taken as a fair example of his
work. Of course the quality of a proof cannot be
expected when any number are executed. But
this equals the average print from a steel-faced
plate, which must needs form the majority of im-
pressions of any etching published in a large
edition. The other subjects reproduced by half-
tone are offered as records of the plates, not as
imperfect facsimiles. A good deal of honest in-
dignation has been wasted lately over the repro-
duction of etchings and mezzotints by process-
blocks. If in any case these were offered as
imitations of the originals, executed in the same
size, and printed with plate-mark, with intent to
deceive, then such righteous wrath were justified.
But to object to a reduced process-block of an
etching, and to accept an oil painting, a statue, or
a drawing in charcoal reproduced by the same
process, is to adopt a perfectly illogical attitude.
The small blocks here will convey certain facts to
a student. The quality of an etching is not there,
any more than the colour of an oil painting would
be—but, as tables of certain statistics of facts, they
are not without distinct reason for existing. Thus
in A Joke, Manning the Pilchard Boats (or Heva—