An Indolent and Blundering Art?

First published in 1999, Chambers explores English etching changed that radically during the nineteenth century. This book looks into the freedom and directness of the etching process became a key plank in a sustained attempt to raise the status of etching in Britain spearheaded by artists such as Francis Seymour Haden and James McNeill Whistler and members of the Etching Club. An Indolent and Blundering Art? Opens with a description of the use of language and art criticism to redefine etching

Emma Chambers is Curator of Modern British Art at Tate Britain.

1. From Chemical Process to the Aesthetics of Omissions: Etching and the Languages of Art Criticism in Nineteenth Century England. 2. Private Sociability Verses Professional Staus : Etching Clubs and Societies in Nineteenth Century England. 3. Objects of Desire: Etching and Print Collecting. 4. Medium and Message: Etching and the Illustrated Book. 5. Etching From Nature: Urban Texts and Tourism. 6. Exhibition Culture: The Luxury Commodity and the Status of Etching in the Late Nineteenth Century.