IN QUEST OF LINE EXPRESSION
"Artist, thou art king! Art is the true empire! When thy hand has drawn
a perfect line, the cherubims themselves descend to delight themselves
in it as in a mirror," wrote Mérodack Peladan, in his preface to the
Catalogue of the Salon de la Rose-Croix (1892). He expressed a great
truth, that macabre and cabalistic poet-artist.
There is nothing more exquisite, more enjoyable, perhaps, to the art
lovers than a perfect line. Pure line expression, as it is found in
Dürer, Harunobu, Raphael, and Ingres, is a pleasure apart from all other
pictorial representations. It is more intellectual and more remote from
all sensuous pleasure than colour, tone, light or shade. It is a
language of itself which enables the artist to convey an abstract
impression of his individuality.
And no medium expresses line in as pure and unadulterated a fashion as
etching. It makes the most of it. Etching is the true worship of linear
expression. In all other mediums there is a slight desire to hide line,
it merely serves as an accessory. In etching it reigns supreme. There
are no obstacles to the etching needle except incompetence. It
translates every wish of the artist, the slightest accent or deviation
with unerring precision and vitality. The Japanese, no doubt, achieved
the greatest mastery of the _drawn_ line that has ever been known to
history. Only the line form of the Greek competes with it. The Japanese
artists revelled in line expression, and it passed through all possible
variations, from the sweep of Tanyu's brush and the classic curve of
Harunobu to the angular Dürer-like twist of Hokusai. But even their
line, unless made by the brush, cannot rival in virility, delicacy and
precision the line of a master etcher.
In his paintings Whistler sacrificed line too much. He felt that he had
to find a medium in which he had absolute freedom to satisfy his desire
and so he alighted upon etching. A draughtsman so sure of himself, so
adroit at realizing by simple contrasts of black and white all the
effects of which that austere, monochromatic medium is capable of, did
not, one supposes, find himself unprepared to use the needle, and,
indeed, at the first attempt, Whistler proved himself a successful
etcher. True enough, his earliest work, like "La Vieille aux Loques,"
"La Marchande de Moutarde," "La Cuisine," and "La Mère Gérard," betrays
a keen sense of the beauty of material; but they are, after all,
conventional productions and show a slight influence of Rembrandt's
etchings and the Little Dutch Masters. They are attempts at realistic
picture-making, and, no matter how broadly the objects are conceived and
carried out, look spotty. The light and shade division could be more
scientific, and the tonality consequently a finer one. Too many little
things fill out the pictorial scheme. He still worked for the effect of
dignified completeness and had not yet learned to apply his later sense
of elimination. The certainty and freedom of his draughtsmanship is
always admirable. There is no academic pedantry in his drawing and no
laborious effort. The beholder is charmed by its fascinating
expressiveness and delightful flexibility. His perspective views and
figure subjects convey an impression of unhesitating knowledge of form
and contour and of an exact understanding of subtleties of modelling.
They show no struggle with difficulties of statement; everything seems
to come right, as a matter of course, and to fit together naturally
without any deliberate intention on his part.
[Illustration: "LA VIEILLE AUX LOQUES" (ETCHING).]
It was in 1855-58, during a trip to Alsace Lorraine with Delonney, an
artist friend, when he made his first attempts at etching. A few dated
prints like the "Scene in Alsatian Village" and "Street at Saverne" of
this period are highly treasured by collectors, and pronounced as good
as any that came after. A few years later, in the sixties, he took up
the process more seriously and remained its ardent disciple ever
afterwards. In the eighties he devoted more time to his etchings,
pastels and water colours than to larger paintings. His fastidious love
for rare and picturesque subjects made him select a number of favourite
sketching grounds. They were the Thames embankments, of which he never
tired, the French towns of Tours, Bourges and Loches, also Venice, and
the Netherlands. Of course, like every true artist, he etched everything
that appealed to him. There are numerous London and Paris sketches,
scenes from Ajaccio and Algiers, and many figure compositions, character
studies and portraits. But his French, Thames, Belgium, Holland and two
Venice series are probably the most interesting from a collector's point
of view, as they combine in a more pronounced manner direct
Whistlerian methods with the quest of line expression.
[Illustration: STREET IN SAVERNE (ETCHING).]
His first designs of the Thames series were made in 1859. Some few
themes recur with many variations, such as the battered shop-fronts of
Chelsea, "The Pool," the London bridges, the barges on the river, and
the wharfs, warehouses and factories, like "Price's Candle Works." A few
years later he made a trip through the northern part of France, and one
of the finest results was the "learned, spirited" "Hôtel de Ville at
Loches."
In 1879 he made his first trip to Venice, stayed fourteen months and
made forty-four etchings during the time, including "Little Venice,"
"San Biagio," and "The Garden." In later years Holland attracted him
almost as much as the city of the Adriatic. It is interesting to note
his absolute disdain of literary associations. To him Venice was not, as
to Heine, the city of Shakespeare. When he crossed the Rialto and
Piazzetta he did not hear the voice of Shylock lamenting for his
daughter, nor did he conjure up splendid visions of decayed power, as
did Ruskin in his "Stones of Venice." The Venice of Claude Lorraine and
Turner existed for him as little as the panoramic suavity of a
Canaletto. He was satisfied with sitting at a little trattoria near the
old Post Office, at Florian's, or in his simple sitting room at San
Barnaba, dreaming of some linear expression of an old bridge or archway,
of some enchanted fragment of vision, or a peculiar flush of colour over
the Grand Canal. To him Venice was a modern city. He only saw what was
actually there, and when it fascinated him, he seized his burin or
crayon and endeavoured, with frank directness, to record the pictorial
event. He invariably chose subjects that appealed to the experienced
collector rather than the general public. He never idealized or
conventionalized, nor did he belong to those who only see the ugly side
of life, its squalor and unpicturesqueness.
Some of Whistler's admirers have pronounced him not only the greatest
etcher of the day, but of all times, and compared him to Rembrandt. This
comparison is not without justification, inasmuch as Whistler was not a
professional etcher but a great artist who, like Rembrandt, took up the
etching point as an instrument for new expression. They both sketched
with wonderful freedom. They were no mechanics; under their hands the
point lost the engraving look and became wonderfully free. Still, to say
that Whistler was the best etcher of the day is rather a sweeping
expression. Lalanne, Jacquemart, Appian, Veyrasset, Meyrion, Zorn,
Pennell, Raffaelli, Rops and Klinger are all wonderful etchers. In
painting, his mastership is indisputable. In etching I do not feel it
quite as keenly. There is not the slightest doubt that etchings like
"Jo," "The Adam and Eve Tavern," "Chelsea," "Soupe à Trois Sous," "The
Lion's Wharf," the beautiful little still life "The Wine Glass," the
portrait of "Becquet," "Unsafe Tenement," the "Battersea Bridge" of
1879--"a masterpiece of masterpieces"--show uncommon ability, which
gives up everything to the right point and never beyond it. One of the
most ravishing designs is his "Girl on a Couch." "The Model Resting,"
quite different in execution, is scarcely less captivating. But much of
his work seems to be a little too elaborate, too overcrowded with line
work. I do not particularly admire prints like his "Southampton Docks,"
"Portrait of Drouet" or "The Silent Canal." This is more astonishing
when one compares them with the frugal technique of his paintings.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DROUET (ETCHING).]
A rather just, though somewhat pedantic, criticism came from the pen of
Hamerton in 1881:
"Amongst living men Whistler may be cited as an etcher of rare quality
in one important respect, the management of lines, but his etchings owe
much of strange charm which they possess to Chinese disdain of tonal
values, and to wayward caprice, loving it here and scorning it there,
which, being strictly personal, can only be of use as an example in one
sense, that it shows how valuable in art is genuine personal feeling.
Whistler is an admirably delicate draughtsman when he likes; there are
passages in his etchings which are as striking in their way as feats of
execution, as the most wonderful passages of Meyrion."
There can be little fault found with this statement. I take objection
only to the "wayward caprice" and the "Chinese disdain." I think that
Whistler learned "loving detail here and scorning it there" only in his
later works. It came out strongly in compositions like "The Balcony,"
"Doorway," and "Palace" and obtained full mastery in his "Dutch" series,
above all the fascinating "Amsterdam Canal" piece, when the lines were
so vague and subtle that deep biting was impossible and a few
impressions would efface the design. As for the Chinese disdain of tonal
values, I think it is Whistler's particular merit that he gradually
abolished tonality altogether, and, in his later work, rarely resorted
to cross-hatching. He laid more stress upon the simplification of line.
Etchings can produce tonal sensations, but it is surely not the main
object to strive for. Whistler followed Haden's doctrine that the line
ought to be preserved as much as possible, and made the most of it. If
the linear expression is sacrificed in etching there is no executive
expression left; there is no brushwork to take its place; the etcher is
working with a point and not with a brush, and there must be primarily
_point expression_, that is line expression, or none.
[Illustration: BLACK LION WHARF (ETCHING).]
Otto H. Bacher has written a few analytical notes of Whistler's line
work. "Where it required accuracy he was minute. He used his needle with
the ease of a draughtsman with a pen. He grouped his lines in an easy,
playful way that was fascinating. They would often group themselves as
tones, a difficult thing to get in an etching. He used line and dot in
all its phases with certainty. Sometimes the lines formed a dark shadow
of a passage through a house, with figures in the darkness so
beautifully drawn that they looked far away from the spectator. These
shadows which so beautifully defined darkness were made only by many
lines carefully welded together and made vague as the shadows became
faint in the distance or contrasted with some light object. He made his
etched lines feel like air against solids.... If he etched a doorway, he
played with the lines and allowed them to jumble themselves into
beautiful forms and contrasts, but was always very careful of the
general direction they should run as a whole." Bacher saw a good deal of
Whistler in Venice, perhaps more so than any one else, and his
observations on Whistler's etching tools, how he ground and bit his
plates, are extremely interesting. "In grounding plates Whistler used
the old-fashioned ground, composed of white wax, bitumen, pitch and
rosin. He heated the plates with an ordinary alcohol flame, holding the
plate in a small hand vise. The silk covered dabber that spread the
ground over the plate was fascinatingly managed by Whistler.... When he
came to smoking the plate he preferred the old wax taper made for that
purpose. He kept his two etching needles, very sharp ordinary dentist
tools, in cork, to preserve their fine points. Whistler always had his
stopping-out varnish with him in a small bottle, applying it with a
brush in a most delicate manner. He did not make use of any mirror but
preferred the old negative process. When he bit a plate he put it on the
corner of a kitchen table, with his retouching varnish, etching needle,
feather and bottle of nitric acid, at hand, ready for instant use.
Taking a feather, he would place it at the mouth of the bottle of acid,
tipping bottle and allowing acid to run down the feather and drip on
plate. He moved bottle and feather always in the same position around
the edges until plate was covered,--would use feather continually to
wash acid backward and forward upon the plate, keeping parts equally
covered, and blowing away air bubbles."
Frequently Whistler sketched directly on copper plates. He carried the
prepared plates in his pockets or in a book and when he found a motif
sketched it in _improvisatore_ fashion. His sketches of the "Annual
Review at Spithead," in 1887, show his uncommon facility as a sketch
artist. He was the champion of dry point. Already during the Leyland
period he selected dry point as a favourite medium. And in this, to my
notion, lies the strength of Whistler as an etcher. "Whistler added," as
Joseph Pennell has so beautifully said, "a new scientific method to the
art of etching--that of painting on the copper plate with the needle."
As a printer of his own plates he seems to have been quite an expert.
He, no doubt, allowed himself great latitude and experimented with each
plate, so that few impressions resemble each other. Although he had
abolished blacks and dark tonal passages at an early date, he
frequently painted on the plate with printer's ink, and went through an
elaborate process of wiping. Of course this makes the excellence of the
impression uneven, but also makes a particularly good one a more
valuable possession.
The intention was always the same. From the very start he sought for the
same arrangement of lines and spaces, the same effect as in his Venetian
plates. He wanted breadth--not breadth of line itself, but breadth of
expression. After all it was a growth and slow development. He became
simpler and simpler, and well nigh reached perfection in his Parisian
series of 1892-93, of little shops, boulevard scenes, and public
gardens, and in prints like "The Little Mast," "The Riva," "The Barber,"
and "Zaandam" he acquired his wonderful sense for right workmanship on a
small scale. Some of his etchings of fragments of architecture have
never been surpassed in sketchy treatment; most noticeable perhaps in
the exaggerated simplicity of the "London Bridge" and in the Holland
series of the nineties. There we realize that great simplicity of motif
is dependent on great simplicity of genius. The effects are so
spontaneous and subdued that their value might well escape common
observation. The extreme sensibility is a matter of both touch and
vision. His plates look as if the rapidity of execution had been
extraordinary, and yet his line, as delicate at times as in silver point
drawings, is not exactly what we could call nervous, but of remarkable
freedom and unerring precision. It is piquant and sprightly, subtle and
alert.
The lines can almost be counted in some of his later etchings. He had
learned the truth of the proverb "Wise economy is everything." It was
even more than wise economy. It was the highest expression of artistic
wisdom, which had almost disappeared since the surface decorations of
Greek vases, in which mood, character and incident were reduced to a few
details, strong enough to incite in the imagination of the beholder all
that was eliminated.
Every art is at its best when it is most itself. Nobody realized this
more than Whistler, who invariably emphasized this. He had an absolutely
clear idea of what every medium could do. In his larger paintings it was
the exploitation of a few dull colours, of a silhouette in space
combined with psychological research; in his nocturnes, a play of
slightly differentiated tones; in his water-colours a mere suggestion of
reality; and in his pastels a certain joyousness of expression. Pure
line, caprice of detail, distance and atmosphere, he reserved for his
etchings; and a subtle expression of values of "moss-like gradations"
for his lithographs. His decision may not always appear right to others,
but it was right to him. How carefully he thought out these technical
problems is shown in his "Propositions," which he addressed to an
American etching club that had invited him to take part in a competition
of large plates. He wrote the following series of maxims that should be
posted on the wall of every studio:
"That art is criminal to go beyond the means used in its exercise."
"That the space to be covered should always be in proper relation to the
means used for covering it."
"That in etching, the means used, or instruments employed, being the
finest possible point, the space to be covered should be small in
proportion."
"That all attempts to overstep the limits insisted upon such proportions
are inartistic thoroughly, and tend to reveal the paucity of the means
used, instead of concealing the same, as required by art in its
refinement."
"That the huge plate, therefore, is an offence--its undertaking an
unbecoming display of determination and ignorance--in accomplishment
a triumph of unthinking earnestness and uncontrolled energy--both
endowments of the 'duffer.'"
[Illustration: WAPPING, ON THE THAMES (ETCHING).]
"That the custom of 'Remarque' emanates from the amateur and reflects
his foolish facility beyond the border of his picture, thus testifying
to his unscientific sense of its dignity."
"That it is odious."
"That, indeed, there should be no margin on the proof to receive such
'Remarque.'"
"That the habit of the margin, again, dates from the outsider, and
continues with the collector in his unreasoning connoisseurship--taking
curious pleasure in the quantity of the paper."
"That the picture ending where the frame begins, and in the case of
etchings, the white mount, being inevitably, because of its colour, the
frame, the picture thus extends itself irrelevantly through the margin
of the mount."
"That wit of this kind would leave six inches of raw canvas between the
painting and its gold frame, to delight the purchaser with the quality
of the cloth."
We may not agree with his conclusion on the margin and remarque. The
latter, no doubt, was introduced by the artist to please the purchaser.
It is therefore, if a fault at all, that of the artist as much as of the
collector. The question of margin is an individual one. There is little
difference between a mat and a margin, and the Japanese print and the
framing of black and whites in general have taught us the utility of
uneven spacing around the picture. The remainder of the argument is
excellent, theoretically as well as æsthetically.
Whistler's composition, excepting the French set, was strictly
impressionistic. One merely has to look at the "Cadogan Pier," "The
Little Pool," "Old Hungerford Bridge," "Little Wapping," "The Velvet
Dress," "The Dam Wood," "The Long Lagoon," etc., to come to this
conclusion.
[Illustration: OLD HUNGERFORD BRIDGE (ETCHING).]
The word impressionism is rather difficult to explain. It is on the
tongue of everybody, and yet few mean exactly the same thing when they
make use of it. The term applied formerly to every art expression--as
every artist endeavoured to render an impression--has been specialized
in the latter half of the last century. It has become the nickname of a
definite number of painters, who have adopted a new palette (as
suggested by scientific researches) and introduced a new method of
laying colours on the canvas. In recent years the term has undergone
another change--it has become a general claim for individuality of
subject and treatment.
First of all, let us determine what difference there really is between
the old and the new style of impressionism. The artist of the old school
received an impression and elaborated upon it. He embellished it with
all his art was capable of, and the original impression underwent all
sorts of changes. It was merely the first inspiration--the foundation
stone upon which the whole art structure was erected. The artist of the
new school, on the other hand, endeavours to reproduce the impression he
has received, unchanged. He wants the impression itself, and wants to
see it on his canvas as he has seen and felt it, hoping that his
interpretation may call forth similar æsthetic pleasures in others as
the original impression did in him. It is a singular coincidence,
indeed, that while the men of the lens busy themselves with imitating
the art of several centuries ago, those of the brush are seeking but for
the accuracy of the camera plus technical individuality.
The impressionist painters adhere to a style of composition that
apparently ignores all previous laws. They depict life in scraps and
pigments, as it appears haphazard in the finder or on the ground glass
of the camera. The mechanism of the camera is essentially the one medium
which renders every interpretation impressionistic, and every
photographic print, whether sharp or blurred, is really an impression.
How did the impressionistic painters arrive at this new style of
composition? Permit me two questions. When was impressionism introduced
into painting? In the sixties. When did photography come into practice?
In the early forties. Do you see what I am driving at? Photography in
the sixties was still a comparative novelty, and consequently excited
the interest of pictorial reformers more than it does to-day. Its
influence must have been very strongly felt, and the more I have thought
of the nature of this influence the stronger has become the conviction
in me that the impressionistic style of composition is largely of
photographic origin.
[Illustration: THE SILENT CANAL (ETCHING).]
Impressionistic composition is unthinkable without the application of
focus. The lens of the camera taught the painter the importance of a
single object in space to realize that all subjects cannot be seen with
equal clearness, and that it is necessary to concentrate the point of
interest according to the visual abilities of the eye. There is no lens,
as everybody knows, which renders foreground and middle distance equally
well. If three objects, for instance, a house, a tree and a pool of
water, stand at different depths before the camera, the photographer
can, at will, fix either the house, the tree or the pool of water, but
whatever one of these three objects it will be, the other two objects
will appear less distinct.
The human eye could have told the painter the same story, as the eye
naturally and instinctively rests on the most pleasing part of the
scene, and in so doing, puts out of focus more or less all the other
parts. It is a curious fact that all the compositions of the Old Masters
were out of focus. True enough they swept minor light and colour
notations into larger ones, but there seldom was any definite indication
in their work whether an object was in the foreground or middle
distance. This way of seeing things was, no doubt, a voluntary one--they
had a different idea of pictorial interpretation. In their pictures, as
in nature, we continually allow our attention to flit from one point to
the other in the endeavour to grasp the whole, and the result is a
series of minor impressions, which consciously influence the final and
total impression we receive from a picture. The impressionist is
satisfied with giving one full impression that stands by itself, and it
was the broadcast appearance of the photographic images in the sixties
that taught him to see and represent life in focal planes and
divisions.
In the catalogue of Whistler's etchings, arranged by Frederick Wedmore
in 1886, we find 214 prints enumerated and commented upon. In a later
edition the number had increased to 268. In the Catalogue of etchings of
James McNeill Whistler, compiled by an amateur and published by
Wunderlich in New York, 1902, and which claims to contain all known
etchings by the artist, the number is 372.
But as Whistler was working on copper all his life, it is difficult to
state how many etchings he really made. Joseph Pennell, who probably
knows more about this phase of art than any living man, makes a
statement as follows:
"I know little, and can say less, of the state of his plates,--and I
believe he himself knew little more about them,--how many were printed,
whether they exist or not, or what has become of the coppers. All I do
know is that in the case of the Thames set, long after Whistler or
Delâtre--I am not sure which--had pulled a certain number of proofs,
long after the plates had been steeled and regularly published, about
1871, and later still, after a Bond Street dealer had been selling them
in endless numbers to artists for a few shillings each, the idea was
suggested to another dealer that he should purchase the copper
plates, remove the lead facings and, if they were in condition, print as
many as the plates would stand, or, if they were not, destroy the plates
and sell them; for even Whistler's destroyed copper plates have a value.
The experiment was tried, and extraordinarily fine proofs were obtained.
I believe collectors resented this very much, but artists rejoiced, and
the world is richer by a number of splendid examples of the master."
[Illustration: VIEW OF AMSTERDAM (ETCHING).]
Whistler gave etching a new impetus, and a new significance in the use
of line; even as Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer has so well expressed it:
"in telling use of a line he has no superior among the modern and few
equals in any age."
His work is never dull, nor cold, nor commonplace. It is always
fascinating and capable of provoking æsthetic sentiments. At times it is
of "slight constitution," a mere passing fancy, leaving many objects in
the stage of mere suggestion, but it always has a finished look. And
finish, as he understood it, meant the carrying on of a technical
process until it had fulfilled to the utmost its mission and
explanation, until not a touch more was needed to make clear the
intention which the picture embodied.