Chapter IV

The etched work of Potter that has come down to us consists of eighteen plates; not many, considering how prolific he was as a painter, but all the plates are important.

Taking them in chronological order, we have first the etching already spoken of, done when the artist was only eighteen, _The Cowherd_ (B. 14). In 1649, six years after its original execution, the plate was reduced in length by Potter and the new date affixed. A reedy hollow, with a pool, was substituted for the group of three cows at the left; and an alteration was also made in the feet of one of the cows descending the hill on the right. The etching, we know, was popular. For, after it had been cut down, it was issued by at least three publishers in turn; by F. de Wit, by P. Schenk, and by an anonymous publisher who effaced the two former names. Probably in the first instance it was issued by Potter himself, as was the series of cattle published in 1650.

Full of skill in grouping and knowledge of form as this plate is, it is certainly inferior to the later etchings. Already, by the next year, Potter was able to produce a print, _The Shepherd_ (B. 15) which surpasses it in every way, and which to more sound drawing adds a pastoral atmosphere of lightness and sunshine and repose.

Berchem, Potter’s senior by five years, was at Haarlem in 1642, when Potter, as we know, was in De Wet’s studio. We may assume, therefore, that the two met. Perhaps it was in emulation of Berchem’s set of etchings, published in 1644, that Potter produced his _Cowherd_ and _Shepherd_. If so, he succeeded in surpassing them.

There now occurs an interval of some years in Potter’s etched work. His next publication, so far as we know, was the series of eight plates (B. 1-8) representing cattle, and beginning with the fine _Bull_ (Fig. 24). This title-piece is dated 1650, so that we may refer the production of the plates to 1649, and possibly the year or two immediately preceding. However, the fact that 1649 is the date of the revised _Cowherd_ seems to point to Potter’s having resumed his interest in etching in that year, and to his having executed the whole set after the re-publication of that plate.

He would hardly issue an immature work, when he had by him much more triumphant specimens of his skill.

As studies of animals, these eight little plates are as good as they can be. But they are not more than studies. As we saw, it had become a fashion for artists to etch such studies, and so spread their fame among those who could not buy their pictures. This at once suggests the reason of Potter’s deficiency as an etcher. Strictly speaking, he was not an etcher at all. He used etching because it was the favourite medium for multiplying sketches of his time. But one feels that the burin would have been the apter instrument for that sure and cunning hand. There is a deliberation, a want of immediacy in these designs, that are not of the born etcher. Between the treatment of cattle in these etchings and their treatment in line-engraving by Lucas van Leyden there is no essential difference.

But we must take things as they are, and as specimens of subtle and certain drawing, the plates are astonishing. The attitudes and movements of oxen have never been better given. But it is not in mere correctness of drawing that Potter excels his rivals. Berchem was only interested in animals so far as they helped him in the composition of a landscape, but with Potter they were the main interest, he loved them for themselves. And in expressing that vague inarticulate soul that is in the look of cattle, that mildness and acquiescence which are in their attitudes and motions, he is a master, greater than any.

There is something in Dutch landscape, so open, tranquil, large, which seems to look for the presence of these peaceful creatures as its natural complement; their spirit is so entirely in harmony with the spirit of their pastures. Not accidental, perhaps, nor without its due effect, was the Dutch strain of blood in the American poet who seems to have first suggested in words what Potter expressed in art--

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain, or halt in the leafy shade,
What is it that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.[14]

Like Whitman, Potter is possessed by the fascination of animals; he, too, “stands and looks at them long and long.” And with a feeling so reticent that its intensity escapes a superficial notice, he puts into these etched lines the breath that moves their bodies, and the dumbness that looks out of their eyes.