SIR SEYMOUR HADEN

PAINTER-ETCHER

Reprinted, by permission, from "The Outlook"

IN writing of a celebrity who has already been

much written about, it is sometimes not easy to avoid the "rethreshing of old straw"; but even admitting this, we must also admit that very much depends upon the particular sort of straw we may be threshing.

Among the makers of pictures some artists yield us their little all, very quickly, while others may be compared to certain mines where the precious ore is almost inexhaustible, and where the more you delve the more you get.

In any creative art whether it be pictures or poetry or music or fiction — it often happens that the shallow and adroit practitioner wins his reward more quickly and more largely than does his profounder and more original brother. The former is like a bird that sings one little song. His message is obvious and is quickly understood of all; while the truly original and creative artist brings a message so unusual, so unheard of, that it is at first like Saint Paul's new doctrine-"to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. Still another thing which militates against the immediate success of the artist of

real originality is that he never repeats himself; each picture is a new problem worked out in a new way, and it never is a disguised repetition of some former success of his. In speaking thus I by no means intend to intimate that, in art, what is clear and obvious is bad, while what is obscure and hard to understand is good. Indeed, I believe that obscurity which is not profundity-is my "pet aversion." Furthermore, Seymour Haden is not obscure, yet it took him many years to win recognition.

A signal demonstration may be found in the careers of two renowned French contemporaries

Meissonier and Millet. Meissonier's brilliant monetary success as painter and etcher began early and increased to the end of his long life. He had consummate dexterity, but he went on repeating variations of just one artistic idea. Millet's sad story is too well known to be repeated here. He was the profound originator, whose style was a surprise to the public, and so he struggled on in dire poverty during the years when he was producing paintings and etchings which were then despised and neglected, but which, according to the verdict of a later generation, now rank as masterpieces; and among the great masters in art Millet has surely "come to stay."

Unquestionably the art of Seymour Haden has come to stay also. Within the modest limits of pictures in black and white, and in the opinion of the best judges, his etchings must assuredly

rank among the permanently great art works of the nineteenth century.

Before more definitely considering the etchings, dry-points, and mezzotints of Seymour Haden, it may not be amiss for us to recall the elementary a b c of the etcher's technique, so as better to understand an etching when we examine it. This may have the same good effect that athletes derive from the daily practise which keeps them "fit," or it may be compared to the lifelong daily habit of the great singer Adelina Patti. Every day of her professional life she sang the simple do, re, mi of her early girlhood, and thus she conserved her glorious voice so that it outlasted the voices of all her contemporary rivals.

Etchings, then, are impressions printed from a copper plate upon which the etcher has drawn and "bitten" or corroded his composition; and the prime advantage of the etching process is that it does not hamper the etcher with the tedious difficulties of line engraving, but allows him absolute freedom and lightness of touch while he is at work. Hence the prime virtue of a good etching is its spontaneity and freshness, and Sir Seymour Haden declares that his finest plates were etched at a single sitting. But danger lies in this same advantage of facility. The French artist Paul Rajon well expressed this danger when he said, "It is so easy to make an etching, and so hard so very hard to make a good one."

But while the mere drawing of the design on the copper plate is mechanically a simple matter,

SHERE MILL POND

Size of the original print, 7 by 13 inches.

From the etching by Seymour Haden. Of this plate Philip Gilbert Hamerton writes: "With the single exception of one plate, by Claude, this is the finest etching of a landscape subject that has ever been executed in the world.'

Size of the original print, 4 by 11 inches.

From the etchings by Seymour Haden. "Out of Study Window" (etched in 1859) is a view from an upper window in Sir Seymour Haden's house in Sloane Street. In the mid-distance is the suburb of Brompton. "Early Morning - Richmond," was done actually at sunrise, and is dated 1859.