Studio: international art (62.1914)

The Etchings of E. S. Lumsden, A.R.E.

whilenot eluding a suggestion of Meryon's inevitable
influence, especially in The Horses—a remarkable
print—show a freshness of eye in the conception
and treatment] of French scaffolding and building
which makes for originality.

Originally intended for the Navy, a break-
down in health interrupted his training on H.M.S.
" Worcester," and then he determined to become a
painter. From the School of Art at Reading,
which was then under the direction of that admir-
able master, Mr. Morley Fletcher, Mr. Lumsden
went for a short time to study painting at Julian's
in Paris. In 1908, however, he became himself a
teacher, going as a lieutenant of Mr. Fletcher to
the Edinburgh College of Art, and teaching drawing,
painting and etching there for three years. His
own etching was self-taught. His Scottish plates, of
which we reproduce the charming Loch Shieldaig,
were done five years ago, and the Loch Torridon, and
Castle Rock, Edinburgh, No 2, show a freer tech-
nique than that of the Paris set, with a no less—
perhaps a still more—notable personal expressive-
ness. Of the plates which he did during his visit
to Victoria, British Columbia, in 1910, we reproduce
The Indian Reserve, an able piece of etching, but
one feels that the atmosphere and aspect of the
country were not quite sympathetic to the artist.
He was not so happy as when later he heard the
East a-calling.

It was Rudyard Kipling's descriptions of Eastern
places in " From Sea to Sea " that first imbued Mr.
Lumsden with a desire for travel in the East, and
an ambition to interpret it with brush and needle
as Kipling had with his pen. Visiting Japan,
China and Corea, he soon began to see and feel
the Oriental glamour, and to select subjects that
inspired his needle to happy interpretation. This
is exemplified in two prints reproduced here:
Peking—The City Wall, with its hot sunlight upon
the thick white dust of the road, emphasised by
the deep shadows cast by the wall; and Seoul—
West Gate, which gives a characteristic and en-
gagingly pictorial glimpse of Corea's capital, seen
in a brilliant grey light.

But it is in India—especially the cities of
Rajputana, that Mr. Lumsden seems to have found
his happiest inspiration. Benares, with its in-
numerable temples and its river of mystic and
sacred significance, has offered him rich subject-
matter, and he has responded with all a true
artist's love. We reproduce here, as typical
examples of his sympathetic suggestiveness of
expression, Benares, No. I, and A Benares Ghat,
though, but for the fact that the very delicacy of the
186

biting of some of their essential lines would have
caused them to lose in reproduction much of their
effect, Benares No. 2 and No. 3, and The Holy River,
would probably have represented still more persua-
sively Mr. Lumsden's attitude as an etcher towards
the problems of light. Light, seen not partially,
but in the verity of its whole effect upon a scene,
would, in much of his later work, seem to be the
primary motive of his etching, design being, as one
may note in such plates as The Holy River and
Udeypore—Morning, of secondary importance ;
nor is his treatment of light consciously influenced
by the popular conventions of contrasting high
lights and deep shadows that make so many
contemporary etchers look like each other.
His pictorial aim is a coup a"ceil, suffusing his
Oriental impressions with the quality of sunlight
peculiar to the country, and the effect is to stamp
his prints with a distinction of their own.

But important as is Mr. Lumsden's artistic pre-
occupation with the significance of light, his
pictorial interest in the human aspect of the
East, with all its diversity and vividness of colour
and character, is steadily growing, and this is
remarkable in most of the twenty-three, as yet
unpublished, plates he wrought during his recent
visit to Benares and Jodhpore, a state of Rajputana
which is still very little affected by European in-
fluences, and offers rich and varied pictorial subject-
matter to the artist.

In these new plates which I have been privileged
to see in trial proofs, Mr. Lumsden shows that his
vision is keen for the actualities and suggestions of
native life and character, and that his touch is
happily vivacious in the presentation of the human
incident in its proper atmosphere. Here are
typical scenes in the Jodhpore bazaars vivid
with their activities : the fruit-shop, the cook-shop
interior, the place of the sword-makers, the narrow
crowded streets, the market-place. Here is a
river palace at Benares, seen in the evening, with
its warm atmospheric effect. Here are characteristic
scenes on the Ganges, where they are loading
stones on barges or house-boats of peculiar build, or
where great umbrellas give a strangely characteristic
look to the shores ; and here, in Jasmine Sellers, a
splendid print, full of life and colour, and individual
character, are the sellers of the pale sweet-smelling
flowers, so full of local significance, attracting the
crowd that passes at the back of the Golden
Temple.

This new series of etchings should certainly
assure to Mr. Lumsden a high place among our
leading etchers.