Studies from an Artist’s Sketchbook
James Smetham was encouraged to take up etching by William Bell Scott. Smetham’s biographer William Davies has described how this particular project came about:
In 1859 he sought to make his way into book illustration, but without much success. Not, however, from a want of imaginative power. He had the most fertile and ready pictorial invention I have ever known…His want of any decided success here led him to conceive the idea of etching his own designs at a cheap rate, and of issuing them quarterly to subscribers. When his project became known, about six hundred subscribers sent in their names. To a mind teeming with pictorial imagery, and longing for the means of putting outside of itself a portion of its artistic wealth without spending too much time in the process of elaboration, this constituted a very successful medium, and it was with enjoyment to himself and satisfaction to his clientele that this plan was continued for three years. [Casteras 22-23}
Subscribers to this project included such notables as John Ruskin, D. G. Rossetti, and Tom Taylor. Between 1860 and 1861 a number of etchings were therefore issued on a quarterly basis under the title Studies from an Artist's Sketch Book. In 1862 these engravings were issued in book form by Williams & Lloyd containing twelve etchings. Eventually Smetham became dissatisfied with the etching medium as an interpretation of his conceptions because it was laborious and excluded any colour. He therefore modified his plan for his subscribers and substituted an oil sketch or a drawing in place of an etching, for which he charged the moderate sum of three guineas. This change narrowed his subscription list, however.
When Studies from an Artist's Sketchbook was published in 1862 a critic for The Art Journal noted:
A series of small figure-subjects, designed by an artist possessed of true poetic feeling, and who handles the etching needle with much delicacy. Among the eight or ten subjects he has published, are three or four little gems. ‘The Last Sleep,’ a design admirably adapted for monumental sculpture; ‘Hugh Miller Watching for his Father’s Vessel’ is full of spirit and expression; ‘Midsummer,’ a boy basking in the sun, as he lies, face upwards, in an open common, with his young sister seated upon him, is natural in composition, and clever in execution; ‘The Lord of the Sabbath,’ in a corn-field, is a work of no ordinary merit. Mr. Smetham’s name is unknown to us as an artist, but he has evidently some of the right metal in him: only let him beware of modern pre-Raffaellism [sic], towards which he seems to have a bias”(164).
In 1865 the critic of The Athenaeum made some disparaging comments on this series of etchings:
Messrs. Williams & Lloyd publish a series of autograph etched designs by Mr. James Smetham. Those portions which have come to us for examination display considerable feeling for design, some pictorial power, and great variety of invention. These excellent artistic qualities are seriously marred by technical weakness on Mr. Smetham’s part as a draughtsman; many of his figures are ridiculously ill drawn and marvellously ill proportioned. The works exhibit withal many good ideas and some creditable feeling for expression. Good composition is apparent in some of the etchings; among the best, are “The Water Lily,’ boys at the edge of a pond; ‘The Death of Earl Siward,’ the drawing of which ruins a capital design; ‘Mr. Robert Levett,’ which shows some gracefulness in a female figure; ‘Hugh Miller watching for his Father’s Vessel,’ and ‘The Days of Noach [sic].’ Mr. Smetham’s genuine ability needs to be disciplined and educated” (850).
In a letter to D. G. Rossetti from December 18, 1865 Smetham wrote:
I quite agree with the critic’s remarks about the rediculous [sic] drawing and monstrous disproportion in many of the figures. I don’t know how it could be otherwise for most of them were drawn by guess. ‘The days of Noah’ was all guess work – and where I used a model it was only for about 5 minutes just to see how things came – except in a few exceptional instances – the woman in Levitt was drawn with some care – but with nothing like the splendid scientific care that you painters, I perceive, use in the realization of ideas…As to the etchings the review of them all seems comic…Certainly there is a good deal of patient labour in them which gives them a serious air – but that was in reality a sort of obstinate discipline to learn the art of etching as to the process & a sort of delight in pinning myself down to toil” (Fredeman, Correspondence, letter 65.185A, 363-364).
D. G. Rossetti in a letter of December 22, 1865 condemned the comments made by the critic of The Athenaeum: “It is impossible to make such things understood by persons who, not being conversant with Art are told in engraving that you, whom they have always looked up to as an artist, do not know how to draw; & the evil is most unfair & vexatious. What the opinion of much better authorities is you perhaps partly heard on Wednesday evening. I never saw Madox Brown more demonstratively pleased with anything than with your etchings, a few of the first of which only he seems to have seen some years ago & never the rest till the other evening; & his praise means more than many Athenaeum puffings & blowings” (Fredeman, Correspondence, letter 65.185, 365).
More recently Suriano has stated: ”This book is a fascinating collection of the work of a poetic miniaturist, and the quality of the best pieces – The Days of Noah, The Death of Earl Siward, The Last Sleep, and a few others – show the imaginative and compositional power and overwrought Romantic quirkiness that characterized early Pre-Raphaelitism, especially of the Rossetti school. This series of twelve etchings constitutes Smetham’s main contribution to published graphics” (266).
Bibliography
Casteras, Susan P. James Smetham: Artist, Author, Pre-Raphaelite Associate. Aldershot, U.K.: Scholar Press, 1995.
Smetham, Sarah and William Davies, Eds. Letters of James Smetham with an Introductory Memoir, London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1902.
“Reviews. Study from a Sketchbook.” The Art Journal, New Series Vol. I, (1862): 164.
“Fine Arts. Illustrated Books.” The Athenaeum, No. 1990, (December 16, 1865): 849-50.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Chelsea Years, 1863-67. Ed. William E. Fredeman, Volume 3. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003.
Suriano, Gregory R. The Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators. New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 2000.
Last modified 23 March 2022