4
The Works of the American Etchers: XVIII. William M. Chase. XIX. F. S. Church Author(s): S. R. Koehler Source: The American Art Review, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Feb., 1881), pp. 143-144 Published by: Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20559784 . Accessed: 14/05/2014 19:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.78.108.141 on Wed, 14 May 2014 19:05:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

The Works of the American Etchers: XVIII. William M. Chase. XIX. F. S. Church

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

The Works of the American Etchers: XVIII. William M. Chase. XIX. F. S. ChurchAuthor(s): S. R. KoehlerSource: The American Art Review, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Feb., 1881), pp. 143-144Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20559784 .

Accessed: 14/05/2014 19:05

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.141 on Wed, 14 May 2014 19:05:28 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

THE WORKS OF THE AMERICAN ETCHERS.

XVIII.-WILLIAM M. CHASE.

R. CHASE'S activity as an etcher has so far been quite limited, and it might

almost seem superfluous to speak of him here, in view of the appreciative

notice of his work which is finished in this number of the REVIEW, were it

not desirable that his name should be included in the Peintre-Graveur

Americain, for which I am trying to lay the foundation in Tze Works of

the American Etchers. Mr. Chase has only executed two other plates be

sides the Couirt fester (published herewith). the one being simplv a first

attempt, for which he chose Mr. Currier's Whistling Boy as a subject, the other a dry-point

from one of the portraits of the children of Piloty, which, as Mrs. Van Rensselaer relates in

her article, he painted at the request of that artist.

It may not be out of place here to allude to some curious experiments in printing lately

made by Mr. Chase, the results of which are likely to puzzle more than one person, and to

leave a doubt in the mind as to their manner of production. These impressions -heads, land

scape sketches, and the like-are produced by covering a metal plate uniformly with printer's

ink, so that, if an impression were taken from the plate, the result would be a flat black or

brown tint, the color varying, of course, according to the color of the ink employed. But

before the impression is taken, the design is wrought out upon the plate by wiping away the

ink-with the finger, a rag, or stumps, wherever necessary, much after the method by which the

well-known "smoke pictures" are produced. The results that may be obtained in this way by

the hand of a skilful artist are very fascinating, and offer peculiarities which it would not be

easy to obtain by any otlier method. Mr. Chase had some of these " copperplate impressions"'

on exhibition at the "Black and White," which closed at the Academy on the first of the

year. S. R. KOEHLER.

XIX.-F. S. CHURCH.

S. CHURCH is best known to the public by his quaint conceits, in which the

fantastic and the real, animal life and human life, are mingled together in a seem

ingly inextricable manner, as in a dream. No American artist has so caught the

spirit of the old fairy story,-the German "Mahrchen,"-with its half-uncon

scious. half-hidden meanings, its turns that lead to nothing, its cloudy images that

dissolve and vanish in the air. In another respect, also, the spirit by which Mr. Church is

animated is akin to that which pervades these old-time tales. In them there is a vein of

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.141 on Wed, 14 May 2014 19:05:28 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

I44 THE AMERICAN ART REVIEW.

seriousness and sadness that runs through all their fun, and breaks out suddenly in the very' midst of mirthfulness, as if the acting personages were spectres, dancing in their shrouds, and reminded every now and then of'the fact that they are mere empty nothings, whose laughter is hollow, and whose existence is but a phantasmagoria, which must fade before the light of the morning sun. It is the great problem of being, the riddle propounded to all thinking minds by the phenomena of the world, which 'ever and anon throws a shadow over the bright stage of life, and mingles the *myrrh of sadness with the sweetest smile.

These characteristics Mr. Church has also carried into his etchings, of which he has executed quite a number. Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to give a list of them here, as the artist, in a fit of dissatisfaction with himself and his work, has destroyed nearly all the plates, and deems them unworthy of being recorded. Few persons who have seen impressions from these plates will uphold hirh in his opinion. Among them 'there was a mermaid; with a sad,

wearied look in her face, speaking of the anguish of an aimless and unexplained existence, tickling an odd-looking fish, who, to judge from the serio-comic expression of his eyes, might be an enchanted prince, anxiously awaiting his deliverance. Then there was Silence, the head, of an Egyptian mummy with a rose held to its nostrils, Ye Fortune Teller, Ye Fiddler Crab, and similar subjects. And there were landscapes and views, etc., such as The Muskrat's Home, which gave a fair inkling of the great excellence Mr. Church has attained as a sketcher from nature. Those who own copies of these etchings may treasure them, for future cataloguers will certainly mark them "rare," "very rare," and "almost unique."

The plate herewith published, Tuze Mermaid, Mr. Church has had the kindness to execute especially for the REVIEW. It is not as boldly treated as most of his earlier plates, -a quality which will be valued or deprecated, according to the individual views of the observer. But in subject it is quite typical.

S. R. KOEHLER.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.141 on Wed, 14 May 2014 19:05:28 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

_ -.7

- -j

________________________- -.?-.-=------ I- ?Hi]it?(H 5

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.141 on Wed, 14 May 2014 19:05:28 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions