Consider this: Picasso and Matisse, on the one hand, and McBey and Bone, on the other, were all born within fourteen years of each other, Matisse being the oldest, McBey the youngest.  Mentally recalling samples of their work, one cannot simply say that there are stylistic differences among them.  Rather, the two pairs inhabit totally different artistic worlds.

    The roots of Modern Art lie in Barbizon, and much of Barbizon art is thought of, these days, as looking forward and labeled “Pre-Impressionist.”  Thence through Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Abstraction and the dozens of other movements that opened new stylistic ideas.  Somewhere along the line, it all became Modern Art.   The roots of the Etching Revival lie in Barbizon, and a good deal of the art looked backwards to Rembrandt and the Dutch seventeenth century.  It developed in France, moved soon to Britain and a bit later to America with a few other far-flung contributors.  There was very little exchange between Modern Art and the Etching Revival.  In fact, the first consisted largely of painters and sculptors, some of whom made prints, and the second largely of print makers, some of whom made paintings.

    Thus, the thesis: the Etching Revival was essentially an artistic movement in itself, begun in the nineteenth century, that ran parallel to and distinct from the development of Modern Art.  It appears to have ended with the Depression and World War II, but that may yet prove not to be the case.  But leaving that aside, it was, and maybe is, a distinct artistic tradition that rested upon  1) a realistic perception of the world and 2) individual craftsmanship, whether the medium was etching, drawing or even painting.  It had virtually no connection with Modern Art, nor with the nineteenth-century academic studio art against which Modern Art was rebelling.  It was something of its own, an ALTERNATIVE TRADITION to Modern Art.  And perhaps the name, Etching Revival, is itself a misnomer, though precisely what one should call it is a problem.

    And yet, individual works and artists declare themselves clearly, one way or the other.  Picasso and Matisse made etchings, but are they part of the Etching Revival?  No way.  There is a different aesthetic at work.  Cameron and Sloan made paintings, but are they part of Modern Art?  Hardly.  The approach is totally different.  Buhot failed commercially as a painter because he was neither an Academic nor an Impressionist, but a member of a different tradition who happened to make paintings as well as prints..  Renoir lacked craftsmanship as an etcher, but his etchings succeeded commercially not for themselves, but because they were the work of an important painter.  There were a few real crossovers, yes, but by and large the movements were independent of one another.