Our classification of Cruikshank's works has enabled us to see the
objective range of his artistic personality. A few words must now be
said of the media in which he worked. Of these media the principal was
etching.
"O! I've seen Etching!" exclaims Cruikshank in 1859; "it's easy enough,
you only rub some black stuff over the copper plate, and then take a[n]
etching needle, and scratch away a bit--and then clap on some a-ke-ta-ke
(otherwise aquafortis)--and there you are!" "Wash the _steel_," he says
in another of his quaint revelations, "with a solution of _copper_ in
_Nitro[u]s acid_--to _tarnish_ the _tarnation Bright steel_ before
Etching, to save the eyes."
[Illustration: NORNA DESPATCHING THE PROVISIONS. Illustrates "The
Pirate," by Sir Walter Scott, in "Landscape-Historical Illustrations of
Scotland, and the Waverley Novels," 1838.]
In his 77th year he says: "I am working away as hard as ever at water
color drawings and paintings in oil, doing as little Etching as possible
as that is very slavish work."
As he had etched about 2700 designs when he made this statement, it
is impossible not to sympathise with his recreative change of medium. It
must be remembered that, except in dry-point etching, the bite of the
acid is trusted to engrave the design of the needle and that, when the
stronger lines are obtained "by allowing the acid to act for a longer
time" on a particular part or parts of the etched plate, the mechanical
work, and work of calculation, imposed upon the etcher is formidable.
Until, in the late seventies of the nineteenth century, the invasion of
the process-block gave manual freedom to the bookseller's artist, that
individual was continually sighing over the complexity of the method by
which he paid the tribute of his imagination to Mammon. In the hands of
the wood-engraver an artist's unengraved work was apparently always
liable to the danger of misrepresentation unless the artist engraved it
himself. Even the great John Thompson is not free from the suspicion of
having unconsciously assisted "demon printers" in transforming into
"little dirty scratches" some designs by Daniel Maclise, whose
expressions are preserved in this sentence. Cruikshank who, if we add
his woodcuts to his etchings, saw upwards of 4000 designs by him given
with laborious indirectness to the world, would have been more than
human if he had considered his unskilfulness in the art of producing and
employing the colours between black and white as a reason for refraining
from painting in oils. In 1853 "he entered as a student at the Royal
Academy"; but his industry, in the role of a pupil of 60, was, it seems,
less than his humility, for "he made very few drawings in the
_Antique_," says Mr Charles Landseer, "and never got into the _Life_."
Cruikshank, however, had exhibited in the Royal Academy as early as
1830, and in 1848 he dared to paint for the Prince Consort the picture
entitled _Disturbing the Congregation_. This picture of a boy in church
looking passionately unconscious of the fact that his sacrilegious
pegtop is lying on the grave of a knight in full view of the beadle, is
an anecdote painted more for God to laugh at than for Christians of the
"so-called nineteenth century," but a philosophic sightseer like myself
rejoices in it. This picture and _The Fairy Ring_, already praised,
reveal Cruikshank's talent sufficiently to prevent one from
regretting that he ultimately preferred covering canvases to furrowing
plates.
[Illustration: (_a_) CRUSOE'S FARMHOUSE.
(_b_) CRUSOE IN HIS ISLAND HOME.