DOI issue:
Nr. 245 (August 1913)
DOI article:Salaman, Malcolm C.: The soft-ground etchings of Nelson Dawson
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21159#0217
Soft-Ground Etchings by Nelson Dawson
his Views oj Paris, and one recalls a few soft-
ground plates by John Cozens. Then, of course,
in our own day Sir Frank Short has triumphantly
asserted the claims of the medium in his fine
Gathering the Flock on Maxwell Batik and Wal-
berswick Pier. But few have followed his lead.
That Mr. Nelson Dawson has taken up soft-
ground etching is matter for congratulation, for no
medium is more happily adapted to his bold free
draughtsmanship of sea and shipping. Mr. Dawson
would appear to have in him the “ sense of all the
sea,” for, let him only feel about him the “ sea,
and bright wind, and heaven of ardent air,” with a
boat of any build or rig buoyant upon the waves, or
scudding before a strong breeze, and, with pencil
or etch ing-needle in hand, he will make waters and
craft live upon his paper or his copper.
Mr. Dawson has the intimate knowledge of boats
born of a genuine love for them, and this is not
merely a pictorial knowledge but a real first-hand,
tarry, salt-sea intimacy. There is not much in the
way of shipping and boating on our north-east
coast that he does not know something about;
while from the windows of his Suffolk cottage he
sketches all sorts and conditions of craft in every
kind of weather, and transfers them with the touch
of vitality to his copper-plates through the sympa-
thetic medium of the soft-ground, a singularly
happy medium for suggesting moving waters. Here,
for example, is A Scotch Fishing Boat Ashore: Life-
boat going to assist. How dramatically alive the
scene is, how full of weather and all the turbulence
of the storm-broken sea! It is a thing seen and
transcribed with the vivid spontaneity of the true
sketcher. Then, here, in A North Country Fishing
Village, a typical scene, we see the characteristic
coble of the coast — that craft, found every-
where between Hull and the Tyne, “ sharp forrard,
his Views oj Paris, and one recalls a few soft-
ground plates by John Cozens. Then, of course,
in our own day Sir Frank Short has triumphantly
asserted the claims of the medium in his fine
Gathering the Flock on Maxwell Batik and Wal-
berswick Pier. But few have followed his lead.
That Mr. Nelson Dawson has taken up soft-
ground etching is matter for congratulation, for no
medium is more happily adapted to his bold free
draughtsmanship of sea and shipping. Mr. Dawson
would appear to have in him the “ sense of all the
sea,” for, let him only feel about him the “ sea,
and bright wind, and heaven of ardent air,” with a
boat of any build or rig buoyant upon the waves, or
scudding before a strong breeze, and, with pencil
or etch ing-needle in hand, he will make waters and
craft live upon his paper or his copper.
Mr. Dawson has the intimate knowledge of boats
born of a genuine love for them, and this is not
merely a pictorial knowledge but a real first-hand,
tarry, salt-sea intimacy. There is not much in the
way of shipping and boating on our north-east
coast that he does not know something about;
while from the windows of his Suffolk cottage he
sketches all sorts and conditions of craft in every
kind of weather, and transfers them with the touch
of vitality to his copper-plates through the sympa-
thetic medium of the soft-ground, a singularly
happy medium for suggesting moving waters. Here,
for example, is A Scotch Fishing Boat Ashore: Life-
boat going to assist. How dramatically alive the
scene is, how full of weather and all the turbulence
of the storm-broken sea! It is a thing seen and
transcribed with the vivid spontaneity of the true
sketcher. Then, here, in A North Country Fishing
Village, a typical scene, we see the characteristic
coble of the coast — that craft, found every-
where between Hull and the Tyne, “ sharp forrard,