DOI issue:
No. 159 (June, 1906)
DOI article:Strange, Edward F.: The Mezzotint and etched work of Frank Short, A. R. A.
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0077
Frank Short, A.R.A., R.E.
ably to interpretation by line : as a rule, peaceful,
harmonious, devoid of harsh or theatrical con-
trasts ; and not seldom, as in the Wrought Nails
and the Stourbridge Canal, with more than a touch
of sadness. Direct human interest is generally,
however, subordinated to the more tranquil phases
of Nature. Short does not try to rival the tragedy of
Rembrandt, nor the dainty suggestion of Whistler :
he takes a way of his own, quiet, dignified, carefully
worked out with rare reticence and modesty, and
instinct in every touch with the assurance of truth
in its most poetic phases.
It is to his research that we owe what revival
there has been of the forgotten art of aquatint. In
Short’s hands, its somewhat limited capabilities hav.e
been demonstrated to be capable of exquisite re-
sults, when applied to subjects within their bounds.
Here the dominant note of his work is a fine
harmony of simple tones, broadly and effectively
treated; and this work, entirely different, both in
conception and sentiment, to that of the first
masters of the art, is executed with a technique
that they, at their best, hardly surpassed.
But, of all the manners of working a copper-
plate which he has practised—and he has practised
almost every one—that of mezzotint engraving
should appeal most to the British public in its
present mood. Herein alone, we are able to
measure the man of our day with those of the
greatest period of the most distinctively national
of all the arts of engraving. He would be a bold
critic who maintained that Short has not at least
held his own with Turner’s engravers, in his
splendid completion of the “ Liber Studiorum.”
How he can interpret Reynolds was well seen in
the plate he exhibited at the Royal Academy last
summer; and if his renderings of Constable have
not shown the touch of dramatic force found in those
of David Lucas, they have compensations both in
technique and subtlety. But, mainly, Short has
preferred again his own path, rather than that
imitation of the subjects of the eighteenth-century
engravers which might have gained for him a
wider, if more superficial, popularity. As a trans-
lator of Peter De Wint, he stands, I think, alone;
and that great artist’s method was one eminently
in accord with his own sympathies. His best
powers in this direction have, however, been given
to the reproduction of the noble parables of Watts ;
and when Time has mellowed his great prints of
Love and Death, Diana and Endymion, Orpheus and
Eurydice, and the rest; and has given to them that
inimitable bloom that nothing but a hundred years
of reverend age can confer upon a mezzotint, there
will remain little doubt of his rank as one of the
foremost engravers of the British School. More-
“A SPAN OF OI.D BATTERSEA BRIDGE”
56
FROM THE AQUATINT BY FRANK SHORT
ably to interpretation by line : as a rule, peaceful,
harmonious, devoid of harsh or theatrical con-
trasts ; and not seldom, as in the Wrought Nails
and the Stourbridge Canal, with more than a touch
of sadness. Direct human interest is generally,
however, subordinated to the more tranquil phases
of Nature. Short does not try to rival the tragedy of
Rembrandt, nor the dainty suggestion of Whistler :
he takes a way of his own, quiet, dignified, carefully
worked out with rare reticence and modesty, and
instinct in every touch with the assurance of truth
in its most poetic phases.
It is to his research that we owe what revival
there has been of the forgotten art of aquatint. In
Short’s hands, its somewhat limited capabilities hav.e
been demonstrated to be capable of exquisite re-
sults, when applied to subjects within their bounds.
Here the dominant note of his work is a fine
harmony of simple tones, broadly and effectively
treated; and this work, entirely different, both in
conception and sentiment, to that of the first
masters of the art, is executed with a technique
that they, at their best, hardly surpassed.
But, of all the manners of working a copper-
plate which he has practised—and he has practised
almost every one—that of mezzotint engraving
should appeal most to the British public in its
present mood. Herein alone, we are able to
measure the man of our day with those of the
greatest period of the most distinctively national
of all the arts of engraving. He would be a bold
critic who maintained that Short has not at least
held his own with Turner’s engravers, in his
splendid completion of the “ Liber Studiorum.”
How he can interpret Reynolds was well seen in
the plate he exhibited at the Royal Academy last
summer; and if his renderings of Constable have
not shown the touch of dramatic force found in those
of David Lucas, they have compensations both in
technique and subtlety. But, mainly, Short has
preferred again his own path, rather than that
imitation of the subjects of the eighteenth-century
engravers which might have gained for him a
wider, if more superficial, popularity. As a trans-
lator of Peter De Wint, he stands, I think, alone;
and that great artist’s method was one eminently
in accord with his own sympathies. His best
powers in this direction have, however, been given
to the reproduction of the noble parables of Watts ;
and when Time has mellowed his great prints of
Love and Death, Diana and Endymion, Orpheus and
Eurydice, and the rest; and has given to them that
inimitable bloom that nothing but a hundred years
of reverend age can confer upon a mezzotint, there
will remain little doubt of his rank as one of the
foremost engravers of the British School. More-
“A SPAN OF OI.D BATTERSEA BRIDGE”
56
FROM THE AQUATINT BY FRANK SHORT