DOI Heft:
No. 283 (October 1916)
DOI Artikel:Gibson, Frank: The etchings of Robert Spence, R. E.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24575#0035
The Etchings of Robert Spence, R.E.
THE ETCHINGS OF ROBERT
SPENCE, R.E.
The seventeenth century was a stirring
and picturesque age in English history ; it was a
period that has touched the imagination of several
of her modern artists, and amongst others it has
appealed very closely to Robert Spence, one of
the best of living English etchers of genre. A
Quaker by ancestry and birth, he not unnaturally
has been keenly interested in the sect which sprang
up in the middle of the seventeenth century in
England. And it is George Fox as the founder
of Quakerism, and his doings as related in his
Journal, that have attracted Mr. Spence strongly
and furnished him with many motives for his
plates. Though other subjects have appealed to
him from time to time, namely scenes from early
Northumbrian history, the Wagnerian musical
dramas, and occasionally the modern life of to-
day, he has more often returned to his favourite
period, the seventeenth-century life of England
or Holland. But the doings of George Fox and
another famous diarist, Samuel Pepys, of Oliver
Cromwell and Isaac Walton, figure mostly amongst
the artist's subject-matter for his plates.
The quaint form of lettering which serves as
titles and always accompanies the Fox subjects,
is adopted from the seventeenth-century letter-
press type of a first edition of Fox's Journal, and
thoroughly harmonises with each subject and its
treatment as an etching. In all these, and also
in the plates relating to Pepys and Cromwell,
Mr. Spence's finest qualities as an etcher reveal
themselves. They show much imaginative power,
they are full of quiet, intimate realism, and have
a unique historic sense.
Mr. Spence's life so far has not been eventful.
Porn in 187 1 at Tynemouth, his first etching was
done when he was twelve years of age under the
guidance of his father, himself a keen amateur
etcher. After a course at the Newcastle Art
School he entered the Slade School in London
in 1892, where he worked for three years under
Professor Frederick Brown, and subsequently
completed his art-school training in Paris in the
studio of Cormon. He had, however, no regular
and strict training as an etcher, except the careful
study of the work of the great masters of that art.
In 1898 he joined the Royal Society of Painter-
Etchers, and having gradually, advanced in skill
and proficiency, he has produced some remark-
able plates, which have appeared annually at the
Society's exhibitions. Frank Gibson.
' ISAAC WALTON.
ETCHING BY ROBERT SPENCE, R.E.
THE ETCHINGS OF ROBERT
SPENCE, R.E.
The seventeenth century was a stirring
and picturesque age in English history ; it was a
period that has touched the imagination of several
of her modern artists, and amongst others it has
appealed very closely to Robert Spence, one of
the best of living English etchers of genre. A
Quaker by ancestry and birth, he not unnaturally
has been keenly interested in the sect which sprang
up in the middle of the seventeenth century in
England. And it is George Fox as the founder
of Quakerism, and his doings as related in his
Journal, that have attracted Mr. Spence strongly
and furnished him with many motives for his
plates. Though other subjects have appealed to
him from time to time, namely scenes from early
Northumbrian history, the Wagnerian musical
dramas, and occasionally the modern life of to-
day, he has more often returned to his favourite
period, the seventeenth-century life of England
or Holland. But the doings of George Fox and
another famous diarist, Samuel Pepys, of Oliver
Cromwell and Isaac Walton, figure mostly amongst
the artist's subject-matter for his plates.
The quaint form of lettering which serves as
titles and always accompanies the Fox subjects,
is adopted from the seventeenth-century letter-
press type of a first edition of Fox's Journal, and
thoroughly harmonises with each subject and its
treatment as an etching. In all these, and also
in the plates relating to Pepys and Cromwell,
Mr. Spence's finest qualities as an etcher reveal
themselves. They show much imaginative power,
they are full of quiet, intimate realism, and have
a unique historic sense.
Mr. Spence's life so far has not been eventful.
Porn in 187 1 at Tynemouth, his first etching was
done when he was twelve years of age under the
guidance of his father, himself a keen amateur
etcher. After a course at the Newcastle Art
School he entered the Slade School in London
in 1892, where he worked for three years under
Professor Frederick Brown, and subsequently
completed his art-school training in Paris in the
studio of Cormon. He had, however, no regular
and strict training as an etcher, except the careful
study of the work of the great masters of that art.
In 1898 he joined the Royal Society of Painter-
Etchers, and having gradually, advanced in skill
and proficiency, he has produced some remark-
able plates, which have appeared annually at the
Society's exhibitions. Frank Gibson.
' ISAAC WALTON.
ETCHING BY ROBERT SPENCE, R.E.