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ENGRAVING

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 646 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ENGRAVING . the See also:

process or result of the See also:action implied by the verb " to engrave " or See also:mark by incision, the marks (whether for inscriptive, pictorial or decorative purposes) being produced, not by simply staining or discolouring the material (as with paint, See also:pen or See also:pencil), but by cutting into or otherwise removing a portion of the substance. In the See also:case of pictures, the engraved See also:surface is reproduced by See also:printing; but this is only one restricted sense of " engraving," since the See also:term includes See also:seal-engraving (where a See also:cast is taken), and also the chased ornamentation of See also:plate or. gems, &c. The word itself is derived from an O. Fr. engraver (not to be confused with the same See also:modern See also:French word used for the See also:running of a See also:boat's See also:keel into the See also:beach, or for the sticking of a See also:cart's wheels in the mud,—from greve, Proiengal grava, sands of the See also:sea or See also:river See also:shore; cf. Eng. " See also:gravel "); it was at one See also:time supposed that the Gr. ypauai, to write, was etymologically connected, but this view is not now accepted, and (together with " See also:grave," meaning either to engrave, or the See also:place where the dead are buried) the derivation is referred to a See also:common See also:Teutonic See also:form signifying " to dig " (0. Eng. grafan, Ger. graben). The modern French graver, to engrave, is a later See also:adoption. The See also:idea of a furrow, by digging or cutting, is thus historically associated with an engraving, which may properly include the rudest marks cut into any substance. In old See also:English literature it included See also:carving and See also:sculpture, from which it has become convenient to differentiate the terminology; and the ancients who chiselled their See also:writing on slabs of See also:stone were really " en-graving." The word is not applicable, therefore, either strictly to See also:lithography (q.v.), nor to any of the photographic processes (see PROCESS), except those in which the surface of the plate is actually eaten into or lowered. In the latter case, too, it is convenient to mark a distinction and to ignore the strict See also:analogy. In modern times the term is, therefore, practically restricted—outside the See also:spheres of See also:gem-engraving and seal-engraving (see GEM), or the inscribing or ornamenting of stone, plate, See also:glass, &c.—to the See also:art of making See also:original pictures (i.e. by the draughtsman himself, whether copies of an original See also:painting or not), either by incised lines on See also:metal plates (see See also:LINE-ENGRAVING), or by the corrosion of the lines with See also:acid (see See also:ETCHING), or by the roughening of a metal surface without actual lines (see See also:MEZZOTINT), or by cutting a See also:wood surface away so as to leave lines in See also:relief (see WOOD-ENGRAVING); the result in each case may be called generically an engraving, and in common parlance the term is applied, though incorrectly, to the printed See also:reproduction or " See also:print." Of these four varieties of engraving—line-engraving, etching, mezzotint or wood-engraving—the woodcut is historically the earliest.

Line-engraving is now practically obsolete, while etching and mezzotint have recently come more and more to the front. To the draughtsman the difference in technical handling in each case has in most cases some relation to his own See also:

artistic impulse, and to his own feeling for beauty. A line engraver, as P. G. See also:Hamerton said, will not see or think like an etcher, nor an etcher like an engraver in mezzotint. Each See also:kind, with its own sub-varieties, has it; See also:peculiar effect and attraction. A real knowledge of engraving can only be attained by a careful study and comparison of the prints themselves, or of accurate facsimiles, so that books are of little use except as guides to prints when the reader happens to be unaware of their existence, or else for their explanation of technical processes. The value of the prints varies not only according to the artist, but also according to the fineness of the impression, and the " See also:state " (or See also:stage) in the making of the plate, which may be altered from time to time. " Proofs " may also be taken from the plate, and even touched up by the artist, in various stages and various degrees of fineness of impression. The See also:department of art-literature which classifies prints is called Iconography, and the classifications adopted by iconographers are of the most various kinds. For example, if a See also:complete See also:book were written on Shakespearian iconography it would contain full See also:information about all prints illustrating the See also:life and See also:works of See also:Shakespeare, and in the same way there may be the iconography of a locality or of a single event. The See also:history of engraving is a See also:part of iconography, and various histories of the art exist in different See also:languages.

In See also:

England W. Y. Ottley wrote an See also:Early History of Engraving, published in two volumes 4to (1816), and began what was intended to be a See also:series of notices on engravers and their works. The facilities for the reproduction of engravings by the photographic processes have of See also:late years given an impetus to iconography. One of the best modern writers on the subject was Georges Duplessis, the keeper of prints in the See also:national library of See also:France. He wrote a History of Engraving in France (1888), and published many notices of engravers to accompany the reproductions by M. Amand See also:Durand. He is also the author of a useful little See also:manual entitled See also:Les Merveilles de la gravure (1871). See also:Jansen's See also:work on the origin of wood and plate engraving, and on the know-ledge of prints of the 15th and 16th centuries, was published at See also:Paris in two volumes 8vo in 1808. Among See also:general works see See also:Adam Bartsch, Le Peintre-graveur (1803–1843); J. D. Passavant, Le Peintre-graveur (1860—1864); P.

G. Hamerton, Graphic Arts (1882); See also:

William See also:Gilpin, See also:Essay on Prints (1781); J. Maberly, The Print See also:Collector (1844); W. H. See also:Wiltshire, Introduction to the Study and Collection of See also:Ancient Prints (1874); F. See also:Wedmore, See also:Fine Prints (1897). See also the lists of works given under the See also:separate headings for LINE-ENGRAVING, ETCHING, MEZZOTINT and WOOD-ENGRAVING.

End of Article: ENGRAVING

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