Studio: international art (23.1901)

Recent Etching and Engraving

is done not in the least in Meryon's way, but
the plate has a force of its own—it takes you to
Montmartre itself.

My third foreigner is Monsieur Helleu; and
perhaps one has no right to grumble if he does
not extend his range. It is much, of course, to
portray with a sweep of the hand a woman of the
elegant world—her gesture, the poise of her hat,
the wave of her feather.

And Legros ? Is he foreigner now, or English-
man ? He is, in either case, genius and classic.
Mr. D. Y. Cameron is deserving already of far
more detailed analysis than it is possible to afford
him just here. The conviction grows on me that
the best of his work is near, very near, to the work
of the masters, and were I asked to say what, up
to the present time, his best work is, I should find
an example of it in the sombre Siena—a city full
of suggestive subjects for the austere artist; and
other examples I should find in the best numbers
of that London set, which Mr. R. Gutekunst has
issued, and which—I know I am saying much—do
in some measure for London what the noble vision
of Meryon did for Paris. Word has been brought
to me that Mr. Cameron is not conscious of
the influence of Meryon upon his own plates.
That may well enough be; the sources of our
inspiration are not always revealed to us ; and it is
certain, moreover, that Mr. Cameron, whatever he
may derive from Whistler here, from Meryon there,
is far, far more than an imitator. I should not like
his Workshop or his Venetian Print, the Abbazia,
if I saw in these only Whistler ; I should not
consider his London impressive if Newgate brought
me nothing but that which Meryon has brought me
in the Rue des Mauvais Garcons, and if in The
Admiralty there was only a reflection of the
Minisiere de la Marine. Cameron's is a potent
spirit. This artist has observation and pertinacity
and technical excellence. If he did not lay
another line upon a plate, the best of his work—
some thirty pieces out of a hundred and fifty—
would ensure him a place ; but what his place will
be eventually, depends, in part, on his Future.

Mr. Burridge and Mr. Reginald Bush are artists
whose work is engaging. Slightly but vividly does
Mr. Burridge lay hold upon those effects of
shadowed level landscape and watery sky, which
appear to charm him the most, and which are fit
and natural subjects for the art of the etcher. The
most important plate that Mr. Bush has yet done
goes much further than anything I have yet seen
of Mr. Burridge's. It is the one that he calls
the Taj} near Llandajj. Although elaborate, it

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does not lack unity—unity and concentration are
indeed its characteristics. But with its excellent
study of atmospheric effect—of the great spaces of
a wild, grey day—it combines the fascination of
vigorous and interpretative tree-drawing; each tree
on the islet, with long, bare trunk and writhing
bough, has a life of its own.

It is very seldom nowadays that the art of
engraver or etcher is devoted to human drama.
The drama of Nature is considered generally so
much more worthy of pictorial chronicle. But
Mr. Spence, who has shown thus far little care for
landscape, has shown in one series of creations
much of a dramatist's perceptions of human charac-
ter. He makes George Fox live. George Fox lives
strongly enough indeed for all intelligent people
in the pages of his varied Journal, and it is much
to be able to add that the whole spirit of George
Fox, as that Journal reveals it—his profound
earnestness, his steadfastness, his pithiness and
penetration, his amazing and surely not unconscious
humour—is comprehended and rendered in the
series of pictures—not beautiful by any means, but
vivid and faultlessly expressive—which Mr. Spence
has devoted to the first of the Quakers.

The summer exhibition at the New Gallery is
well up to the average of the shows that have been
held there during recent years. It contains few
masterpieces, but it presents quite a considerable
array of canvases that deserve attention as
characteristic examples of the work of men who
have made prominent places for themselves in the
modern art world. The best pictures are Mr. J.
S. Sargent's portrait of Mrs. Garrett-Anderson,
M.D.; Mr. J. J. Shannon's group, The Lady
Carbery and her children; Mr. Alfred East's
September Sunshine, Mr. J Coutts Michie's Autumn
Clouds, Mr Leslie Thomson's Mid-day, Mr. G. H.
Boughton's Diana oj the Goose Pastures, Mr.
George Henry's Gold Fish, and Mr. F. Brangwyn's
Old Kew Bridge ; and among the more interesting
of the other contributions are Mr. Byam Shaw's
L)iana, Mr. Harold Speed's Miss Muriel Fewster,
Mr. W. Llewellyn's Viscountess Parker, Mr.
Bertram Priestman's The Milkmaid, Mr. Edward
Stott's The Year's Youth, Sir J. D. Linton's Casket
Scene from the "Merchant of Venice," Sir George
Reid's Dr. Pagan, and The Slumber of the Ages, and
Greed and Labour by Mr. G. F. Watts. Notable,
too, are Mr. Herbert Draper's The Naiad's Pool,
Mr. Greiffenhagen's portrait of Mrs. Pickford
Waller, Mr. Alfred Hartley's Winter Sunset, and
a portrait by M. Benjamin Constant.