HERMAN A. WEBSTER
ByMARTIN HARDIE
“DID you ever see a barber sharpen his razor? That’s what it wants—the decision and the smacks.” That is one of the many quaint remarks that old John Varley used to hurl at the pupils who came to him for lessons in the complete art of painting in water-color. It is a remark very appropriate to the vast quantity of etchings, mechanically correct, but unimpassioned and uninteresting, which are produced to-day. There are wonderfully few etchers whose work strikes a note of imagination and individuality, and appeals by its force and directness, its decisions and its smacks. One of that small company is Mr. Herman A. Webster.
An artist’s life is written in his work, and the cold facts of his biography are of little real importance. To some extent, however, they act as a commentary upon his productions, and at the worst they serve to satisfy the not unpardonable curiosity which impels all of us to inquire into the age and life-history of any man whose pictures or prints awaken our instant sympathy. So I put here a few outlines of Mr. Webster’s career, merely the mile-stones that mark the route along which he has proceeded. It has been a career of strenuous activity, for the artist who now prints his finely-wrought plates in his studio in the Rue de Furstenbergat Paris (the street of which Whistler made a lithograph in 1894) has graduated at a famous university, traveled round the world, spent two years in commercial life, toiled as general reporter to a big daily paper, worked in a coal-mine, and acted as assistant cashier in a bank. And the tale of his years is only just over thirty, for he was born in 1878. Need I add—for an English reader it would be quite superfluous—that Mr. Webster is an American, with New York as his native city?
Mr. Webster came into the world with an innate love of art. In his school-days, before he had received any instruction in drawing, he made posters, that were perhaps crude but not ineffective, for the school games; and at Yale he was one of the editors and a valued illustrator of theYale Record. This love of art was fostered by a visit to the 1900 Exposition at Paris, where thegenius locihas a stronger spell for the young artist than anywhere else upon earth. Studios and restaurants of the Quartier Latin are fragrant with great memories, still haunted by the mighty spirits of the past: Louvre and Luxembourg are filled with the living realities that abide. Amid the enchantment of this artistic atmosphere, with all its traditions and associations, Mr. Webster lingered for some months, and then set out on a trans-Siberian tour to the Orient, staying long enough in Japan and China for his natural instinct to be quickened by the marvelous art which has exerted so strong an influence on the Western world. On returning home his desire to adopt art as his life-calling was checked by family opposition. Here in England—for I write as one of Mr. Webster’s English admirers—many a boyartist has been thwarted by a foolish antipathy in the home circle to art in the abstract, but for a parent in the New World the conviction must be even more sincere that business is the only lucrative profession, while art is at least something precarious, if not a downward road to poverty and starvation. And so, at his father’s wish, Mr. Webster, in the office of theChicago Record-Heraldand elsewhere, served two years of bondage to commerce. Determination, however, won its way at last, and in February, 1904, he set out to Paris with the family consent to “try it for a year.” That year is still continuing.
Webster. St. Ouen, Rouen“His chief delight is in the nooks and corners of old-world thoroughfares and culs-de-sac, where deep shadows lurk in the angles of time-worn buildings, and sunlight ripples over crumbling walls, seamy gables, and irregular tiled roofs.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 5½ × 3⅞ inches
Webster. St. Ouen, Rouen
“His chief delight is in the nooks and corners of old-world thoroughfares and culs-de-sac, where deep shadows lurk in the angles of time-worn buildings, and sunlight ripples over crumbling walls, seamy gables, and irregular tiled roofs.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 5½ × 3⅞ inches
Webster. La Rue Grenier sur l’Eau, Paris“A fourth plate, perhaps even finer than any of these in its force, directness, and concentrated simplicity, is theRue Grenier sur l’Eau. There is much of Meryon in its clear, crisp line-work.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 8¾ × 4⅞ inches
Webster. La Rue Grenier sur l’Eau, Paris
“A fourth plate, perhaps even finer than any of these in its force, directness, and concentrated simplicity, is theRue Grenier sur l’Eau. There is much of Meryon in its clear, crisp line-work.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8¾ × 4⅞ inches
Seven months during 1904 were spent at the Académie Julien under Jean Paul Laurens, in study from the nude; and that is the only academic instruction which Mr. Webster has received. A few months after his arrival in Paris, chance led him to the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he saw some of Meryon’s etchings, and fell instantly under the spell of the great artist whose sinister needle first revealed the mysterious and somber poetry of Paris and the Seine. From Meryon and from books he forthwith taught himself to etch, receiving no outside instruction, but evolving his own methods till he attained mastery of the “teasing, temper-trying, yet fascinating art”—a mastery the more valuable and complete in that it was based on his own experience. A first attempt was made from his studio window in the Rue de Furstenberg, and some copperplates went with him on his autumn holiday at Grez, that “pretty and very melancholy village” in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where Robert Louis Stevenson met the romance of his life. As the first-fruits of this holiday three little etchings won their way intothe next summer’s Salon—theRue de l’Abbaye,The Loing at Grez, andThe Court, Bourron, the last being the forerunner of several subjects of similar type. At the Salon also was hung a large oil-painting of still life, a study of fabrics and porcelain; but though color will no doubt claim allegiance again, Mr. Webster has been too closely held in thrall by etching to essay further experiments in the painter’s craft.
A pilgrimage to Spain in the spring of 1905 was the source of several spontaneous and effective plates, among themSt. Martin’s Bridge, Toledo, andMirada de las Reinas, Alhambra. Up to this point Mr. Webster’s work may be considered, in a large measure, tentative and experimental, but from 1906 onward he has found in Normandy—at Pont de l’Arche and Rouen—at Bruges, and above all in Paris, the inspiration for a series of plates noteworthy for their fine craftsmanship and their expression of individuality. They have won him the recognition of connoisseurs and public without his passing through any period of undeserved obscurity. At the Paris Salon, at the Royal Academy, and in his native land, his etchings have constantly been exhibited and admired. Nor must I forget to add that in 1908 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, which, under the presidency of its veteran founder, Sir Francis Seymour Haden, has done so much to foster the revived art of etching.
Webster. Quai Montebello“Few etchers have ever preached the gospel of light with more truth and earnestness than Webster himself in theQuai Montebelloand many other plates.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 7⅞ × 5⅛ inches
Webster. Quai Montebello
“Few etchers have ever preached the gospel of light with more truth and earnestness than Webster himself in theQuai Montebelloand many other plates.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 7⅞ × 5⅛ inches
Webster. Le Pont Neuf, Paris“A fitting companion to this vision of Notre Dame isLe 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.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 8⅛ × 11¾ inches
Webster. Le Pont Neuf, Paris
“A fitting companion to this vision of Notre Dame isLe 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.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8⅛ × 11¾ inches
It is of some of the chief works produced and exhibited during the last three years that I have now to speak, and in doing so may perhaps indicate a few leading characteristics of the etcher’s work. His chiefdelight is in the nooks and corners of old-world thoroughfares and culs-de-sac, where deep shadows lurk in the angles of time-worn buildings, and sunlight ripples over crumbling walls, seamy gables, and irregular tiled roofs. Of such is a series of subjects found in old Rouen—theSt. Ouen; theRue du Hallage, where the cathedral spire towers high above old timbered houses; and that charming plate with the titleOld Houses, Rouen, a quaint corner of tenements whose high-pitched roofs stand propped against one another for all the world like a castle of cards. The etcher of this and of theSt. Ouenwas welcomed with warm sympathy by theGazette des Beaux-Arts, which said that “never before has there been so fervent and skilled an interpreter of the bowed timber and crumbling plaster of the old houses of Rouen, which line the street ending in the cathedral with its pointed spire against the open sky.” And so we pass to two courtyard scenes—belonging, like the Rouen subjects, to the year 1906—theCour, Normandie, andLes Blanchisseuses. In both we find the artist becoming more adept in using broad and balanced disposition of light and shade to give not merely chiaroscuro but the suggestion of actual color, and more skilled in adding exquisiteness of detail to refined truth of visual impression.Les Blanchisseuses, in particular, with its rich mystery of shadow, with its sunshine falling on white walls and lighting the seamed interstices of plaster and timber, has an indefinable charm that, for myself at any rate, makes it a high-water mark in Mr. Webster’s art. Of similar type is theOld Butter Market, Bruges, where a cobbled street curves beneath a shadowed archway; and then for variety you step fromBruges la Morte,from the silent cobbles that centuries ago were a busy thoroughfare for ringing feet, to the Bruges of to-day. It is Bruges in a very different aspect, this free and spirited study made on July 27, 1907, on the day of the Fête de l’Arbre d’Or, giving a quick impression of gay holiday crowds, of banners fluttering against the open sky, and of the “belfry old and brown” whose carillon inspired America’s poet, as its tall form and fretted outline have inspired the American etcher of whom I write. ThisBruges en Fête, andPaysanne, a clever and direct figure-study of an old peasant at Marlotte, come as an episode of pleasing variety in Mr. Webster’s work, and tend to show that, though he has his preferences, he is not really fettered by any limitation of subject or treatment.
Webster. La Rue Cardinale“La Rue Cardinalehas affinity of general treatment withRue de la Parcheminerie, and is not the less interesting for an amazingtour de forcein the rendering of color and texture in the striped blind over a shop-front.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 10⅞ × 7⅝ inches
Webster. La Rue Cardinale
“La Rue Cardinalehas affinity of general treatment withRue de la Parcheminerie, and is not the less interesting for an amazingtour de forcein the rendering of color and texture in the striped blind over a shop-front.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 10⅞ × 7⅝ inches
Webster. La Rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris“Closely akin toRue Brise Michein restful balance of composition and in fine shadow effect is theRue de la Parcheminerie—of special value now, for the old street has disappeared largely since the making of the plate.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 11⅛ × 7 inches
Webster. La Rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris
“Closely akin toRue Brise Michein restful balance of composition and in fine shadow effect is theRue de la Parcheminerie—of special value now, for the old street has disappeared largely since the making of the plate.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 11⅛ × 7 inches
It is but natural that an artist of Mr. Webster’s temperament, a devoted admirer of Meryon, should become absorbed in Paris herself and endeavor to put upon copperplate the “poésie profonde et compliqué d’une vaste capitale.” The Bruges and Rouen plates showed Mr. Webster to be keenly susceptible to the magnetism and charm of medieval tradition, but Paris, steeped in sentiment even more than Rouen or Bruges, was to rouse a still greater warmth and feeling. He began by searching out those picturesque streets in the old quarters that have survived the wholesale demolishment of Baron Haussmann, a name hated by artists as that of Granger by lovers of books. TheRue Brise Michefound its way to the Royal Academy, and was also honored by publication in theGazette des Beaux-Arts(July, 1907). Closely akin to it in restful balance of composition and in fine shadow effect is theRue de la Parcheminerie—of special value now, forthe old street has disappeared largely since the making of the plate.La Rue Cardinalehas affinity of general treatment, and is not the less interesting for an amazingtour de forcein the rendering of color and texture in the striped blind over a shop-front. A fourth plate, perhaps even finer than any of these in its force, directness, and concentrated simplicity, is theRue Grenier sur l’Eau. There is much of Meryon in its clear, crisp line-work. Some day perhaps these loving studies of the old Paris of Balzac may be gathered in a series illustrating the “Quartier Marais,” and published in anédition de luxewith descriptive text by the etcher. Let us hope that this may come to pass, for the buildings that Mr. Webster depicts are far more than a prosaic record of architectural features. There is a spiritual and human suggestiveness behind the mortar and bricks of his pictures: as a poet of his own nation has it, they are “latent with unseen existences.” He has appreciated the fact that etching—an art hedged in by limitations and depending upon power of suggestion—is the one art that can give at once those delicate lines, those broad shadows, those crumbling bits of texture. The lover of etching can regard his subject with indifference, and take full joy in the soft play of sunlight, the fine choice of line, the effective massing of light and shade.
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 theMorgue, 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 isLe 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 ofSt. 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. Saturninwill 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 theAncienne Faculté de Médecine, 1608. One is grateful to him for his fine record of thisdomed 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.
Webster.“St. Saturnin, Toulouse”Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 4¾ inches
Webster.“St. Saturnin, Toulouse”
Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 4¾ inches
Webster. Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, Paris“The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draftsmanship have been used to singular advantage in theAncienne 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
Webster. Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, Paris
“The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draftsmanship have been used to singular advantage in theAncienne 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 thePorte 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 ofNotre 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 thePont Neufand theRue 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 thePont Neufand theNotre Dame des Andelysrouse full admiration and respectfor their splendid artistry, the more haphazard methods of theRue Brise MicheandLes Blanchisseusestouch 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 Blanchisseusesis in no sense an imitative plate, but I should have said it was the work of a man who knew Whistler’sUnsafe Tenementby 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.
Webster. Notre Dame des Andelys“The ordinary observer will delight inNotre Dame des Andelysfor 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
Webster. Notre Dame des Andelys
“The ordinary observer will delight inNotre Dame des Andelysfor 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
Webster. Porte des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen“Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving care in thePorte 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
Webster. Porte des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen
“Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving care in thePorte 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 sowell 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.”
Part II
It is difficult to clothe one’s speech in the detached terms of a catalogue when writing of an artist whose work always kindles fresh enthusiasm. And so I may perhaps be pardoned if, in adding something to a previous essay upon the etchings of Herman A. Webster, I venture to strike a more personal note.
Webster. Vieilles Maisons, Rue Hautefeuille, Paris“He loves dark and dingy thoroughfares with dilapidated roofs and moldering plaster, ... for the patches of brilliant, quivering sunlight to which the shadows give so full a value.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 11¼ × 5⅞ inches
Webster. Vieilles Maisons, Rue Hautefeuille, Paris
“He loves dark and dingy thoroughfares with dilapidated roofs and moldering plaster, ... for the patches of brilliant, quivering sunlight to which the shadows give so full a value.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 11¼ × 5⅞ inches
Webster. La Route de Louviers“In landscape, as in his architectural work, Webster sets his theme upon the plate with fine skill of arrangement and with exquisite draughtsmanship.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 6 × 8¼ inches
Webster. La Route de Louviers
“In landscape, as in his architectural work, Webster sets his theme upon the plate with fine skill of arrangement and with exquisite draughtsmanship.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 6 × 8¼ inches
There can be few men to whom art is more of a religion than to Webster. On two occasions when I saw him during his hurried visits to London in the spring of 1910, he spoke of his art with all the zeal of a missionary and the fervor of a convert. He seemed to be laboring in a slough of despond, beset with a feeling that his past work was something worthless, to be thrown aside like Christian’s bundle. He appeared to be torn in sunder by divers doctrines, telling me of the constant ebb and flow of argument in the Paris cafés and studios between theparti métierand theparti âme—those who maintained that finished technique, the “cuisine” of the French student, was the final aim, and those who held that the artist’s own emotion, howsoever it might find expression, was the greatest thing of all. Webster felt—and it was a fact, indeed, at which I hinted in writing of his work before—that he was sacrificing something of theâmeto themétier; and his own realization of that is already becoming apparent in his outlook and his style. Then, too, his talk was all of the attainment and suggestion of light as the supreme quality in an etching; and here I could reassure him, for few have ever preached the gospel of light with more truth and earnestness than Webster himself in theQuai Montebelloand many other plates.
Still, there matters stood more than a year ago, and the plates that Webster had etched at Marseilles and elsewhere lay rejected and unbitten in his studio. Then he set out to America, where he spent the summer of 1910, and, like Mr. Pennell, fell a victim to the sky-scrapers of New York. “They are the most marvelous things,” he wrote, “on the face of MotherEarth to-day. It took me two months to begin to see them, but then they began to glow, to take shape, and to grow. Perhaps no work of human hands in all the world offers such a stupendous picture as New York seen from almost anywhere within the down-town district, or from the river or the bay. There are cliffs and cañons where sun and shadow work the weirdest miracles, and soaring above them, between forty and fifty stories from the ground, rise arched roofs and pointed ones, gray and gold and brown, that one must see with one’s own eyes to have the faintest conception of. From across the Hudson in the afternoon when the sun goes down you can watch the shadows creep up the sides of these mountains of brick and stone until you’d swear you were looking out on some gigantic fairyland.”
His admiration of those sky-scrapers found expression in a series of drawings made on behalf ofThe Century Magazine, and in, at any rate, one etching—theCortlandt Street, New York. The subject will appeal most, perhaps, to those who live beneath the familiar shade of these monstrous habitations, with their hundreds of staring eyes; but the ordinary man, though he may find it strangely uninspiring and unromantic, will at any rate admire the firm decision of the drawing and welcome the slender filaments and trembling gray spirals of smoke—so difficult to express in line with a point of steel—that cast a veil over the sordid reality of the scene. Though Webster carried that one plate to a finish, he was still obsessed by all sorts of doubts. Many drawings were torn up, and many plates that he etched were wilfully destroyed. Just as the golfer falls victim to too muchreading of theoretical works, so for Webster his eager indulgence in theory and science put him “off his game.” I say all this to account for what must seem a small output during two years for a man whose sole work is etching. It is all to the artist’s credit; but, none the less, we have suffered,nous autres, for his convictions. Now, however, Richard is himself again. A month or more spent in Frankfort this summer has produced a series of pencil-drawings and etchings which should bring satisfaction and content both to the artist and to all who admire his work.
Webster. Bendergasse, Frankfort“Then there are theStreet of the Three Kings, theBendergasse, andSixteenth Century Houses, all of them felicitous in charm of theme, in play of light and shade, and in the suggestion of life given by the animated figures.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 8 × 5¼ inches
Webster. Bendergasse, Frankfort
“Then there are theStreet of the Three Kings, theBendergasse, andSixteenth Century Houses, all of them felicitous in charm of theme, in play of light and shade, and in the suggestion of life given by the animated figures.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8 × 5¼ inches
Webster. Cortlandt StreetSize of the original etching, 12⅞ × 7½ inches
Webster. Cortlandt Street
Size of the original etching, 12⅞ × 7½ inches
Before speaking of the Frankfort series of etchings, a word may be said about Webster’s pencil-drawings. I know of no other artist, save perhaps Mr. Muirhead Bone, who can use the pencil-point with such exquisite fineness and precision in the production of an architectural drawing that, with all its accuracy, still retains the freshness of a sketch. Finding in a portfolio a drawing ofCortlandt Streetand several others that repeated the subjects of the Frankfort etchings, I felt curious as to the exact relationship between these drawings and the work on the copperplate. This interest was largely, perhaps, that of a fellow-etcher, keen to see “how the wheels go round,” but Webster’s reply to a question on this subject may interest others as well. “I determine my composition,” he wrote, “in outline first. This outline I transfer to the plate. Then I go out and carefully study in pencil, on the original outline sketch, the subject I want to do, so as to ‘get acquainted’ with it before beginning the more exacting work upon the copperplate. I never use a drawing to work from except sometimes as an extra guide in the biting, where acareful study can be very useful.” They are beautiful things, these pencil-drawings of New York and Frankfort, but there can be only one of each. The etchings, fortunately, can be shared and enjoyed by many possessors.
Frankfort has grown to be a large and very modern town with broad thoroughfares and palatial buildings; but it has its old quarter as well, and among the houses that nestle in narrow streets round the cathedral, Webster has found the same kind of subject that fascinated him before in Bruges and Marseilles and Paris. A brilliant draughtsman, he never seems to hesitate or lose his way among the manifold intricacies of the old-world buildings that he depicts. He aims always at knitting his subjects into fine unity of composition by broad massing of light and shade. “In the last few months,” he writes, “I have grown never to make an etching for etching’s sake, but for the means it gives of studying closely the play of light across my subject.” That is his main theme: the light that travels now with cold curiosity as it did centuries ago, glancing into open windows, throwing into relief a corbel or a crocket, casting a shadow under eave or window ledge, revealing, like a patch in some tattered garment, the cracks and seams in moldering plaster or time-worn timber. In depicting these storehouses of human joys and aspirations, hopes and despairs, he has none of Meryon’s gloom and morbidness. It is true that behind many of the windows in these poor homes of his pictures some Marie Claire may be toiling in sad-eyed poverty; yet for Webster the outside shall be sunny, little white curtains shall veil the gloom, and flowers shall blossom on the windowledge, though the sad worker may have watered them with her tears. And if sunshine is still potent in these new plates, there is also a fresh and joyous note of life and movement in the streets. The introduction of figures, well placed and full of character, is a new development in Webster’s art. Bustling workers, or happy groups of gossiping women, or the dark mass of a distant crowd, are introduced with consummate skill, and the picturesqueness of the old streets gains new value from the suggestion of this living stream of human traffic. The presence of modern life enhances the gray and wrinkled age of the buildings which have watched so many generations come and go.
Webster. Lowenplätzchen, FrankfortSize of the original etching, 8 × 6⁵⁄₁₆ inches
Webster. Lowenplätzchen, Frankfort
Size of the original etching, 8 × 6⁵⁄₁₆ inches
Webster. Der Langer Franz, Frankfort“Der Langer Franz, a view of the Rathaus tower that took its nickname from a tall burgomaster of the town, is a little gem, brilliant with light and rich in the mystery of shadow.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching. 4⅞ × 3⅜ inches
Webster. Der Langer Franz, Frankfort
“Der Langer Franz, a view of the Rathaus tower that took its nickname from a tall burgomaster of the town, is a little gem, brilliant with light and rich in the mystery of shadow.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching. 4⅞ × 3⅜ inches
Among the new plates are four that deal with street scenes in the Alt Stadt of Frankfort.Der Langer Franz, a view of the Rathaus tower that took its nickname from a tall burgomaster of the town, is the smallest of all, but a little gem, brilliant with light and rich in the mystery of shadow. Then there are theStreet of the Three Kings, theBendergasse, andSixteenth-century Houses, all of them felicitous in charm of theme, in play of light and shade, and in the suggestion of life given by the animated figures. There are admirable figures again inAn Old Court, one of the plates that the collector of future days will most desire to possess. There is less in it of obvious labor than in the street scenes; the etcher has overcome a natural fear of blank spaces; and his reticence and more summary execution have lent to this plate much of the unconscious and unpremeditated charm that is one of the finest qualities which an etching can possess.
Two etchings of old bridges over the Main at Frankfort must rank among the best work that Webster has yet produced. One is a small and spirited plate showing the tower of the cathedral and a row of houses, most delicately drawn, rising with a beautiful sky-line above the solid mass of the shadowed bridge with its heavy buttresses. The other shows the old bridge that spans the Main between Frankfort and Sachsenhausen. Legend tells that in compensation for finishing the building within a certain time the architect made a vow to sacrifice to the devil the first living being that crossed the bridge. Then, when the fatal day arrived, he drove a cock across, and so cheated the devil of his due. Much the same story of outwitting the devil is told about the building of the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. Whether Webster ventured upon any compact I do not know; but this plate, in its building, in its well-constructed composition, in its splendid effect of brilliant sunshine, is one of the most successful tasks he has ever accomplished. The group of figures on the near bank, happily placed like those in Vermeer’s famousView of Delft, adds no little to the charm of the scene. I would set this plate besideLes Blanchisseusesand theQuai Montebello, which Mr. Wedmore has found “modestly perfect,” as representing the very summit of Webster’s art.
Webster. The Old Bridge, FrankfortThis old bridge spans the river Main between Frankfort and Sachsenhausen“I would set this plate besideLes BlanchisseusesandQuai Montebello, which Mr. Wedmore has found ‘modestly perfect,’ as representing the very summit of Webster’s art.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 5½ × 8½ inches
Webster. The Old Bridge, Frankfort
This old bridge spans the river Main between Frankfort and Sachsenhausen
“I would set this plate besideLes BlanchisseusesandQuai Montebello, which Mr. Wedmore has found ‘modestly perfect,’ as representing the very summit of Webster’s art.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 5½ × 8½ inches
Webster. La Rue St. Jacques, Paris“... One of the best etchings he has ever made.... It is not merely fine in its pattern of light and shade, but it has a direct force and simplification that are rich with promise for the future.”Martin Hardie.Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 5⅞ inches
Webster. La Rue St. Jacques, Paris
“... One of the best etchings he has ever made.... It is not merely fine in its pattern of light and shade, but it has a direct force and simplification that are rich with promise for the future.”Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 5⅞ inches
While he has surrendered for the time being to the charm of Frankfort, Webster has not been unfaithful to the Paris of his early love. Of Paris he might say, like Montaigne, “That city has ever had my heart; and it has fallen out to me, as of excellent things, that the more of other fine cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this gains on my affections. I loveit tenderly, even with all its warts and blemishes.” All the more for the warts and blemishes of its old buildings Webster loves it, too; and while working on his Frankfort plates he has completed another ofLa Rue St. Jacques, Paris, which, I think, is one of the best etchings he has ever made. At times, even in his Frankfort plates, one still feels that his superb draughtsmanship and his love of detail—ce superflu, si nécessaire—have led him to a uniformity of finish that is almost too “icily regular.” I do not mean that Webster’s elaboration is the cold, almost meaningless, elaboration of the line-engraver; nor do I forget that the technique of Meryon, one of the greatest masters of etchings, was, in Mr. Wedmore’s happy phrasing, “one of unfaltering firmness and regularity, one of undeterred deliberation.” All the same, one wishes that Meryon had done a few more things like theRue des Mauvais Garçons, and wishes that Webster also, in a similar way, were now and then less sure of himself, were held sometimes by a trembling hesitancy, or driven sometimes by the passion of the moment to allow room for fortunate accident and rapid suggestion. For that reason I welcome hisRue St. Jacques. It is not merely fine in its pattern of light and shade, but it has a direct force and simplification that are rich with promise for the future.
Since writing the above, I have seen working-proofs of two new etchings of landscape. And here, too, there is high promise. They show, at least, that Webster is not going to remain a man of one subject; that he is opening his heart to the beauty and romance of simple nature. He has sought his first themes in that pleasant countryside where, between tall poplars, youget peeps of Château Gaillard, nobly set upon its hill. In landscape, as in his architectural work, Webster sets his theme upon the plate with fine skill of arrangement and with exquisite draughtsmanship. These two plates,Château GaillardandLa Route de Louviers, are exhilarating in their feeling of sunshine, and they please by their absolute simplicity of statement. They are honest, and without artifice. Printed “as clean as a whistle,” without any of the doubtful expedients that give a meretricious attractiveness to so much modern etching, they appeal by their rightness of pattern and precision of line. Those who see high promise as well as present fulfilment in Webster’s art, will not regret that he has left the town and set out where
thro’ the green land,Vistas of change and adventure,The gray roads go beckoning and winding.
thro’ the green land,Vistas of change and adventure,The gray roads go beckoning and winding.
thro’ the green land,Vistas of change and adventure,The gray roads go beckoning and winding.
thro’ the green land,
Vistas of change and adventure,
The gray roads go beckoning and winding.