Studio: international art (64.1915)

Alfred Hartley, Painter and Etcher

We will now turn our attention to some of the
reproductions of his etchings and aquatints that
accompany this article.

Monte Grappa. When I first saw this aquatint
it at once recalled those lines of Byron’s in “ Childe
Harold.”

“ To me

High mountains are a feeling, but the hum

Of human cities torture.”

What perfect sympathy with his subject does
this simple sketch portray. What detachment from
the va et vient of everyday life must have been his
to have enabled our artist thus to convey to our
minds, in a few lines and tones, something of the
majesty of the mountain and the dignity of the
vast silences that surround its untrodden snows.
Obviously he did not see in this view merely a
good subject to be etched. The joy which the
skilful craftsman feels in the exercise of his craft
was not the only, or even the chief, joy that stirred
his pulses as he transferred this view to paper.
What really thrilled him was the possibility of
capturing something of
the God-like spirit of the
heights, and of the almost
prayerful stillness of the
intervening plain. Thus
this little print affords us
an eloquent testimony to
the value of the artist’s
vision in relation to his
technical skill. It is the
difference between Art
and Craft, and that is all
the difference in the
world. The latter can
stimulate the brain, but
only the former can stir
the soul.

The Chapel Stairs,

Eton College. Only a
winding staircase, a stone
portal and a half-open
door, but how well seen,
and how truthfully and
lovingly rendered ! Even
here, simple as the sub-
ject is, the human equa-
tion reveals itself. The
soul of the artist whispers
to us as we gaze, that
here is something more

than wood and stone, “ in the forest

something sacrosanct with memories, something
consecrated for all time by the use and wont of
the gay young spirits of the illustrious dead.

At the Boatbuildeds. In the reduced scale of
this reproduction the technical skill of the artist is
not so apparent as in the original drawing. The
rendering of reflected lights in even the darkest
shadows is most skilfully managed; and the whole
chiaroscuro of the shed, lit up as it is by the con-
flicting lights of many windows, has been most
cleverly portrayed. No detail has been shirked
and yet the general effect has not been allowed
to suffer.

The Bridge. Here Hartley’s love of natural
beauty has been able to hold high festival. This is
a subject that must have especially appealed, not
only to his sense of form but of colour, which latter
on this occasion he was, of course, unable to inter-
pret. It is a bridge spanning a ravine in Northern
Italy, in the vicinity of Asolo, so beloved by
Browning. One can imagine how the dainty grace
of the young birches, chequering with shadows the
sunlit bridge, with the laughing stream below and

FROM THE PAINTING BY ALFRED HARTLEY, R.B.A., R.E.

IO4