Studio: international art (44.1908)

The Etchings of Dr. Otto Gampert

“STORM ON THE ISLAND OF REICHENAU ” (SOFT GROUND ETCHING) BY OTTO GAMPERT

Mr. Hall wrote the above letter, Mr. Brangwyn,
Mr. East, Mr. Hankey, and others who have, intro-
duced tone methods into English painter-etching
had hardly begun to work. But—to name only
two artists—Felicien Rops had already exploited
“ soft ground ” in France, and Dr. Otto Gampert
had done so in Germany.

Dr. Gampert was born in the Canton Zurich, in
1842. He followed the medical profession until his
forty-second year, in which his health failed. He
then migrated to Munich, taking up painting—and
later etching—where he found his compatriot O.
Frolicher, whose pupil he became, and Stabli, both
of whom stirred up an enthusiasm for landscape
painting in him. Dr. Gampert chooses his themes
from the South German hills and plains, very
frequently from the vicinity of Lake Constance.

In etching he began with line, but soon looked
about for a method that would allow of broader,
softer, or, as the majority have it, more picturesque
qualities. His way of proceeding would be to
elaborate a nature-drawing taken from his sketch-
book into a crayon or charcoal design, and this is
translated on to the copper by means of the “ soft
ground ” process, employing several rebitings and
workings up of the subject. Work of this kind

possesses an enjoyable robustness and vigour, as
contrasted with the delicacy, verging upon over-
finish, which even the best mezzotint plates display.
There is a certain irregularity in the grain which
entails suggestiveness of itself.

Gampert’s plates show that the process, while
it certainly inclines towards certain effects, lends
itself to more different ones than one would at first
have expected. The heat of a summer midday is
as well expressed as the heavy twilight of a moist
evening. The glistening reflections of water come
out quite as well as in rocked mezzotint, and there
is a depth in the shadow of a cluster of trees which
is rather stronger than what one can attain by means
of mezzotint Above all, the treatment of the sky,
with magnificent formations of clouds, is excellent,
especially in the Storm on the Island of Reichenau.

Whatever the mood may be, whatever the forms
of nature which are reproduced, in all cases there is
apparent a certain largeness of artistic vision, and
this happy result too is one which is compelled by
the process. “ Soft ground,” as handled by Dr.
Gampert, makes it impossible for an artist to
get lost in details, and whatever the fault may be
into which he drops it certainly will not be the
commonplace. H. W. S.

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