the beard worn collarwise, according to the prevailing fashion, gives
to Daumier's face the distinctive mark of his period." This etched
portrait may be seen in several states at the Lenox Library.

LALANNE'S ETCHINGS

How heavily personality counts in etching may be noted in the etched
work of Maxime Lalanne which is at the Keppel Galleries. This skilful
artist, so deft with his needle, so ingenious in fancy, escapes great
distinction by a hair's breadth. He is without that salt of
individuality that is so attractive in Whistler. Of him Hamerton
wrote: "No one ever etched so gracefully as Maxime Lalanne; ... he is
essentially a true etcher... There have been etchers of greater power,
of more striking originality, but there has never been an etcher equal
to him in a certain delicate elegance." This is very amiable, and
Joseph Pennell is quite as favourable in his judgment. "His ability,"
wrote Mr. Pennell in Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen, "to express a
great building, a vast town, or a delicate little landscape has never
been equalled, I think, by anybody but Whistler." Mr. Pennell modestly
omits his own name; but the truth is that Pennell is as excellent if
not more individual a draughtsman as Lalanne, and when it comes to
vision, to invention, and to the manipulation of the metal he is the
superior of the Frenchman. The American etcher rates Lalanne's lines
above Titian's. Whistler and Titian would be big companions indeed for
the clever-mannered and rather pedantic Lalanne.

Let us admit without balking at Hamerton that his line is graceful. He
belongs to the old-fashioned school which did not dream, much less
approve, of modern tonal effects in their plates. A Lalanne etching is
as clean and vivid as a photograph (not an "art" photograph). It is
also as hard. Atmosphere, in the material as well as the poetic sense,
is missing. His skies are disappointing. Those curly-cue clouds are
meaningless, and the artist succeeds better when he leaves a blank. At
least some can fill it with the imagination. Another grave defect is
the absence of modulation in his treatment of a landscape and its
linear perspective. Everything seems to be on the same plane of
interest, nor does he vary the values of his blacks--in foreground,
middle distance, and the upper planes the inking is often in the same
violent key. Such a capital plate, for example, which depicts a fire
in the port of Bordeaux is actually untrue in its va