Chapter XII: Part II: Seymour Haden in America (3)

Another plate of this “Quartier Marais” series is a noble representation of Notre Dame seen from an unusual aspect. It is a drawing from near the Hôtel de Ville and shows the splendid mass of the cathedral rising above the irregular houses that face the Quartier Marais and the Quai aux Fleurs. There is freedom and charm in the treatment of the foreground, where a little tug puffs along the river and the big barges move cumbrously under the lee of the near bank, and in the middle distance where the light plays pleasantly over the old houses; but the roof of the cathedral itself, put in with unpleasing rigidity of line, comes like cold fact in the middle of romance. It is as though Meryon here had imposed his weakness as well as his strength upon Mr. Webster, for in the _Morgue_, for instance, the one small blemish is the ruled precision of the lines upon a roof. A fitting companion to this vision of Notre Dame is _Le Pont Neuf_, another of the etcher’s largest and most distinguished plates. The stern solidity of the bridge, with its massive masonry, its corbeled turrets, and its deeply shadowed arches, makes pleasing contrast with the irregular sky-line of the sunlit houses that rise beyond.

It may be said of all Mr. Webster’s etchings--and perhaps there could be no higher praise--that each possesses the faculty of provoking fresh interest. That is certainly the case with four of his most recent plates. One is an interior of _St. Saturnin, Toulouse_, majestic and stately, full of suggestive mystery in the religious light that falls with soft touch upon the pillars, throws into relief the dark masses of the choir-stalls, and strives to penetrate the dim recesses of the vaulted roof. _St. Saturnin_ will be among the rariora of the collector, for the plate unfortunately broke when twelve proofs only had been printed.

The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draughtsmanship have been used to singular advantage in the _Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, 1608_. One is grateful to him for his fine record of this domed building that was a little gem of Renaissance art, though there is a note of sadness in the substructure of balks and struts set at its base by the ruthless hand of the destroyer.

Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 4¾ inches]

“The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draftsmanship have been used to singular advantage in the _Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, 1608_. One is grateful to him for his fine record of this domed building that was a little gem of Renaissance art, though there is a note of sadness in the substructure of balks and struts set at its base by the ruthless hand of the destroyer.”

Martin Hardie.

Size of the original etching, 11⅞ × 7⅞ inches]

Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving care in the _Porte des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen_, but here again it is the mystery of shadow in the deep porch that supplies the true theme. A church porch has also supplied the subject of one of Mr. Webster’s latest works, _Notre Dame des Andelys_. The ordinary observer will delight in the print for its beautiful rendering of a noble fragment of architecture. Those who have real knowledge of etching will appreciate it still more for its clever biting and for its subtle delicacy of line so cunningly used for the indication of stone, glass, and woodwork with their different surfaces and textures.

That plate of _Notre Dame des Andelys_, though not the most instantly engaging, is perhaps the most accomplished which the artist has produced. It is in this accomplishment that from the coldly critical point of view I see an indication--a hint only--of possible danger. Here, and to some extent in the _Pont Neuf_ and the _Rue Grenier_, the careful, tense, concentrated work shows almost too disciplined a self-control. Close study of these prints gives just a touch of the irritation that comes from watching the monotonous perfection of a first-class game-shot or golfer, bringing a malicious desire for some mistake or piece of recklessness. The true etching always appeals in some degree by its spice of adventure, by some happiness of accident, and so while the _Pont Neuf_ and the _Notre Dame des Andelys_ rouse full admiration and respect for their splendid artistry, the more haphazard methods of the _Rue Brise Miche_ and _Les Blanchisseuses_ touch a far deeper note of sympathy. They have in them the breezy, natural oratory that is often so much more stirring than the fluent, polished periods of the accomplished speaker. But even where Mr. Webster is most precise in his articulation, most resolute in his adherence to familiar truths, he always combines with this a personal aspect and a power of selection that, disregarding the commonplace and petty, lends poetry to the interpretation. His “careful” work is very far removed from the cold and careful work of the ordinary uninspired craftsman.

In studying the work of a young etcher--and Mr. Webster is still young as an etcher--it is almost always possible to trace certain influences which, quite legitimately, have acted upon his choice of subject and his technique. In one of his first etchings, _The Court, Bourron_, the Whistler influence is frankly apparent. _Les Blanchisseuses_ is in no sense an imitative plate, but I should have said it was the work of a man who knew Whistler’s _Unsafe Tenement_ by heart. And there comes in the critic’s danger of leaping to rash conclusions, for Mr. Webster tells me he never saw that print by Whistler till long after his etching was made. For the Meryon influence, which is clearly apparent in much of his work, Mr. Webster makes no apology. Nor need he do so; for if he reminds us, here a little of Whistler, there a little of Meryon, there is always a large measure of himself besides. The true artist lights his torch from that of his predecessors: it is his business to carry on great traditions. “I have done my best simply to learn from him, not to steal”--that is Mr. Webster’s own expressive way of putting it.

“The ordinary observer will delight in _Notre Dame des Andelys_ for its beautiful rendering of a noble fragment of architecture. Those who have real knowledge of etching will appreciate it still more for its clever biting and for its subtle delicacy of line so cunningly used for the indication of stone, glass, and woodwork with their different surfaces and textures.” Martin Hardie.

Size of the original etching, 11 × 7⅛ inches]

“Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving care in the _Porte des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen_, but here again it is the mystery of shadow in the deep porch that supplies the true theme.”

Martin Hardie.

Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 7 inches]

Mr. Webster has not learned from Meryon at the cost of his own individuality, and one reason for the freshness that characterizes his work is that he is one of those who like to transfer their first impressions of nature direct to the plate in the open air. With very few exceptions, that is how his etchings have been made. A certain amount of work is necessarily done afterward in the retirement of the studio, but the straightforward method of rendering nature gives a vividness and spontaneity that careful work from intermediate studies in pencil or color can rarely produce. This spontaneity is the very essence of good etching, for with etching, as with water-color, its highest charm is inevitably troubled by mechanical labor; it is essentially a method of which one feels that “if ’twere done, ’twere well done quickly.” The etcher should no more be able to stay the quick gliding of his needle in the middle of a line than the skater to stand still upon the outside edge. And I think that the etcher who works straight from nature is more apt to search out the notes and accents of character and to seize upon those structural lines which are a fundamental necessity to his work.

Another chief excellence in Mr. Webster’s work lies in the fact that from the first he has been his own printer. He is no believer in the principle followed by many other etchers of biting their plate and leaving it to some one “with the palm of a duchess” to do the rest. Patient acquisition of craftsmanship is bound to tell, for the paid printer, be he never so skilled, cannot hope to understand an artist’s intentions quite so well as the artist himself. Mr. Webster, however, has no need of any artifice; there is no trace in his etchings of the meretricious printing which Whistler condemned as “treacly.” Light and shade enter into charming alliance in his prints, but line is always of the confederacy, and it is to purity of line that the shadows which tell so strongly owe their strength. In the very depths of them there is always a luminous gloom, never a trace of the harshness and opacity that come from slurred workmanship and reliance upon printer’s ink.

Perhaps I have said too much already, for Mr. Webster’s work is well able to speak for itself. But there is one noteworthy feature, common to all his plates, that claims attention, and that is his power of rendering sunlight. If he loves dark and dingy thoroughfares with dilapidated roofs and moldering plaster, it is for the sake of those quaint shadows that peep from their recesses and climb the high walls, and still more for the patches of brilliant, quivering sunlight to which the shadows give so full a value. He seems to hear, like Corot, the actual crash of the sun upon the wall--“l’éclat du soleil qui frappe.”