Museum exhibit etched in history
CHADDS FORD, Pa. — Visitors to a new exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum might be forgiven if their thoughts harken back to Dorothy's assessment of her surroundings upon arriving in the land of Oz: We're not in Kansas anymore.
Nor, it seems, in any other part of the United States.
Instead, we're in Venice, Paris, Florence, even China and the Middle East, courtesy of intrepid American artists who found inspiration and adventure overseas as they literally carved their niche in the history of American fine art.
"American Etchers Abroad, 1880-1939" features almost 60 works by more than 30 artists whose names — famous and not-so famous — are linked to an "etching revival" that began in the late 19th century.
Eschewing brushes and pencils for sharpened needles and caustic acid, artists such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Joseph Pennell and Mary Cassatt fashioned delicate images on metal plates, instead of canvas or paper.
Some of the resulting prints are on display from June 3 to Sept. 4 at the Brandywine, the first and only venue for the exhibition outside its birthplace at the Spencer Museum of Art in Kansas.
"I think the Spencer has done something important here," said Jim Duff, director of the Brandywine museum.
The exhibition is the brainchild of Reed Anderson, 50, a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.
"I'm hoping there will be other (venues) after the Brandywine," he said. "One of my objectives in putting this exhibition together is that it would travel ... I didn't want it to just sit here in Kansas."
The idea for the exhibition was spawned about four years ago when Anderson was serving an internship at the Spencer Museum and Stephen Goddard, curator of prints and drawings, told him to get to know the collection.
"We had spoken informally about the possibility of doing an exhibition," Goddard recalled. "... We have some really wonderful things in our collection, and they don't always see the light of day."
Anderson saw the light almost immediately, falling in love with scores of etchings by American artists inspired by French predecessors such as the brilliant Charles Meryon (1821-1868), who themselves were inspired by the etchings of the Dutch master Rembrandt.
"I came away with much more respect for the medium and the artists involved with it," Anderson said.
Around 1880, according to Anderson, more and more artists began to discover that, unlike engraving, another intaglio technique, the more delicate art of etching allowed the same kind of freedom of expression and emotion that could be found through painting and drawing.While best known for the iconic portrait of his mother sitting in a chair, Whistler, for example, inspired other Americans to take up etching and created a lasting body of his own work in that medium."I think the greatest contribution to the arts is his etchings, hands down," said Anderson, whose favorite works include Whistler's "The Garden (1880)" a dreamlike scene of a boy sitting alongside a Venetian canal that is one of the first prints to greet visitors at the Brandywine exhibition."It brings a tear to my eye every time I see it," Anderson said. "It's a masterpiece."The images range from the simple, sparse lines used by Cassatt to depict the mother-child bond in "Baby's Back (1890)" to the meticulous, almost photograph-like precision in the architectural renderings of John Taylor Arms, who held a master's degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."Some of his lines are drawn with a sewing needle, they're that fine," Anderson noted.Complementing works from the Spencer collection, Brandywine curator Gene Harris has added about a dozen of the Brandywine's own etchings, including works by artists such as Daniel Garber, Marguerite Kirmse and Robert Shaw.Some of the artists featured in the exhibition worked from preliminary drawings done on paper.Others, such as Whistler, Pennell and Donald Shaw MacLaughlan, worked directly on the copper plates, drawing designs into the waxy, acid-resistant "ground" covering the plates, which were then treated with acid that ate into the exposed metal.In addition to using acids, artists sometimes scratched designs directly into the copper plates with sharpened tools, a technique known as "drypoint," which left tiny burrs on the plates and lent a soft, even blurry quality to the prints."That's what you see in many Rembrandt prints, for example," Goddard said. "It makes a beautiful line, but it breaks up very easily."Further flexibility could be found through experimenting with the waxes used to coat the plates and the acids used to etch them, as well as with the inks and papers used to produce prints from the etchings.
<B>WHAT:</B> "American Etchers Abroad, 1880-1939."<B>WHERE: </B>Brandywine River Museum, U.S. Route 1, Chadds Ford, Pa.<B>WHEN: </B>Through Sept. 4.<B>ADMISSION:</B> Adults: $8; children, seniors, students: $5; children younger than 6: free.<B>HOURS: </B>Open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.<B>MORE INFORMATION:</B> 610-388-2700 or check the Web at www.brandywinemuseum.org
