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LINE ENGRAVING
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See also:LINE See also:ENGRAVING , on plates of See also:copper or See also:steel, the method of engraving (q.v.), in which the line itself is hollowed, whereas in the woodcut when the line is to See also:print See also:black it is See also:left in See also:relief, and only See also: They went on engraving nielli just the same to See also:ornament plate and See also:furniture; nor was it until the 16th century that the new method of printing was carried out to its See also:great and wonderful results. There are, however, certain See also:differences between plate-printing and See also:block-printing which affect the essentials of art. When paper is driven into a line so as to fetch the ink out of it, the line may be of unt imaginable fineness, it will print all the same; but when the paper is only pressed upon a raised line, the line must have some appreciable thickness; the See also:wood engraving, therefore, can never —except in a tour de force—be so delicate as plate engraving. Again, not only does plate-printing excel block-printing in delicacy ; it excels it also in force and See also:depth. There never was,72I
and there will never be, a woodcut line having the See also:power of a deep line in a plate, for in block-printing the line is only a blackened surface of paper slightly impressed, whereas in plate-printing it is a cast with an additional thickness of printing ink.
The most important of the tools used in line-engraving is the burin, which is a See also:bar of steel with one end fixed in a handle rather like a See also:mushroom with one See also:side cut away, the burin itself being shaped so that the cutting end when sharpened takes the See also:form of a See also:lozenge, point downwards. The burin .acts exactly like a plough; it makes a furrow and turns out a shaving of metal as the plough turns the See also:soil of a See also: The next thing is to cut out the blacks (not the whites, as in wood engravin, and this would be done with two different burins. The engraver would get his See also:vertical black line by a powerful ploughing with the burin between his two preparatory first lines, and See also:theft take out some copper in the thickest parts of the two curves. This done, he would then take a finer burin and work out the gradation from the thick line in the midst of the See also:curve to the thin extremities which See also:touch the perpendicular. When there is much gradation in a line the darker parts of it are often gradually ploughed out by returning to it over and over again. The hollows so produced are afterwards filled with printing ink, just as the hollows in a niello were filled with black enamel; the surplus printing ink is wiped from the smooth surface of the copper, damped paper is laid upon it, and driven into the hollowed letter by the pressure of a revolving See also:cylinder; it fetches the ink out, and you have your letter B in intense black upon a white ground. When the surface of a metal plate is sufficiently polished to be used for engraving, the slightest scratch upon it will print as a black line, the degree of blackness being proportioned to the depth of the scratch. An engraved plate from which visiting See also:cards are printed is a See also:good example of some elementary principles of engraving. It contains thin lines and thick ones, and a considerable variety of curves. An elaborate line engraving, if it is a pure line engraving and nothing else, will contain only these simple elements in different combinations. The real line engraver is always engraving a line more or less broad and deep in one direction or another; he has no other business than this. In the See also:early See also:Italian and early See also:German prints, the line is used with such perfect simplicity of purpose that the methods of the artists are as obvious as if we saw them actually at work. The student may soon understand the spirit and technical quality of the earliest Italian engraving by giving his See also:attention to a few of the See also:series which used erroneously to be called the " Playing Cards of See also:Mantegna," but which have been shown by Mr See also:Sidney See also:Colvin to represent " a kind of See also:encyclopaedia of knowledge." The See also:history of these engravings is obscure. They are supposed to be Florentine; they are certainly Italian; and their technical manner is called that of See also:Baccio Baldini. But their style is as clear as a style can be, as clear as the artist's conception of his art. In all these figures the outline is the See also:main thing, and next to that the lines which See also:mark the leading folds of the drapery; lines quite classical in purity of form and severity of selection, and especially characteristic in this, that they are always really engraver's lines, such as may naturally be done with the burin; and they never imitate the freer line of the See also:pencil or etching See also:needle. Shading is used in the greatest moderation with thin straight strokes of the burin, that never overpower the stronger organic lines of the design. Of See also:chiaroscuro, in any See also:complete sense, there is none. The See also:sky behind the figures is represented by white paper, and the foreground is sometimes occupied by See also:flat decorative engraving, much nearer in feeling to calligraphy than to modern See also:painting. Sometimes there is a cast See also:shadow; but it is not studied, and is only used to give relief. In this early metal engraving the lines are often crossed in the shading, whereas in the earliest woodcuts they are not; the See also:reason being that when lines are incised they can as easily be crossed as not, whereas, when they are reserved, the See also:crossing involves much labour of a non-See also:artistic kind. Here, then, we have pure line-engraving with the burin, that is, the engraving of the pure line patiently studied for its own beauty, and exhibited in an abstract manner, with care for natural form combined with inattention to the effects of nature. Even the forms are idealized, especially in the cast of draperies, for the See also:express purpose of exhibiting the line to better See also:advantage. Such are the characteristics of those very early Italian engravings which were attributed erroneously to Mantegna. When we come to Mantegna himself we find a style equally decided. See also:Drawing and shading were for him two entirely distinct things. He did not draw and shade at the same time, as a modern chiaroscurist would, but he first got his outlines and the patterns on his dresses all very accurate, and then threw over them a See also:veil of shading, a very peculiar kind of shading, all the lines being straight and all the shading See also:diagonal. This is the See also:primitive method, its peculiarities being due, not to a learned self-See also:restraint, but to a See also:combination of natural See also:genius with technical inexperience, which made the early Italians at once See also:desire and discover the simplest and easiest methods. Whilst the Italians were shading with straight lines the Germans had begun to use curves, and as soon as the Italians saw good German work they tried to give to their burins something of the German suppleness.
The characteristics of early metal engraving in See also:Germany are seen to perfection in See also: Here, of course, is an See also:element of facility in primitive art which is denied to the modern artist. In Durer all objects are on the same See also:plane. In his " St See also:Hubert " (otherwise known as " St Eustace ") of c. 1505, the See also:stag is quietly See also:standing on the See also:horse's back, with one hoof on the See also:saddle, and the kneeling See also:knight looks as if he were tapping the horse on the See also:nose. Durer seems to have perceived the See also:mistake about the stag, for he put a See also:tree between us and the See also:animal to correct it, but the stag is on the horse's back nevertheless. This See also:ignorance of the See also:laws of effect is least visible and obtrusive in plates which have no landscape distances, such as " The Coat of Arms with the Death's See also:Head " (1503) and " The Coat of Arms with the See also:Cock " (c. 1512). Durer's great manual skill and See also:close observation made him a wonderful engraver of objects taken separately. He saw and rendered all objects; nothing escaped him; he applied the sameintensity of study to everything. Though a thorough student of the nude—See also:witness his See also:Adam and See also:Eve (1504) and other plates—he would pay just as much attention to the creases of a gaiter as to the development of a muscle; and though See also:man was his main subject, he would study See also:dogs with equal care (see the five dogs in the " St Hubert"), as well as pigs (seethe " Prodigal Son," C. 1495); and at a time when landscape painting was unknown he studied every See also:clump of trees, every visible See also:trunk and See also:branch, See also:nay, every foreground plant, and each See also:leaf of it separately. In his buildings he saw every See also:brick like a bricklayer, and every See also:joint in the woodwork like a See also:carpenter. The immense variety of the objects which he engraved was a training in suppleness of See also:hand. His lines go in every direction, and are made to render both the undulations of surfaces (see the plane in the Melencolia, 1514) and their texture (see the granular texture of the stones in the same print). From Durer we come to See also:Italy again, through See also:Marcantonio, who copied Durer, translating more than sixty of his woodcuts upon metal. It is one of the most remarkable things in the history of art, that a man who had trained himself by copying See also:northern work, little removed from pure Gothicism, should have become soon afterwards the great engraver of See also:Raphael, who was much pleased with his work and aided him by See also:personal See also:advice. Yet, although Raphael was a painter, and Marcantonio his interpreter, the reader is not to infer that engraving had as yet subordinated itself to painting. Raphael himself evidently considered engraving a distinct art, for he never once set Marcantonio to work from a picture, but always (much more judiciously) gave him drawings, which the engraver might interpret without going outside his own art; consequently Marcantonio's works are always genuine engravings, and are never pictorial. Marcantonio was an engraver of remarkable power. In him the real pure art of line-engraving reached its maturity.. He retained much of the early Italian manner in his backgrounds, where its simplicity gives a desirable sobriety; but his figures are boldly modelled in curved lines, crossing each other in the darker shades, but left single in the passages from dark to See also:light, and breaking away in fine dots as they approach the light itself, which is of pure white paper. A school of engraving was thus founded by Raphael, through Marcantonio, which cast aside the See also:minute details of the early See also:schools for a broad, harmonious treatment. The See also:group known as the engravers of See also:Rubens marked a new development. Rubens understood the importance of engraving as a means of increasing his fame and See also:wealth, and directed Vorsterman and others. The theory of engraving at that time was that it ought not to render accurately the See also:local See also:colour of painting, which would appear wanting in See also:harmony when dissociated from the hues of the picture; and it was one of the anxieties of Rubens so to See also:direct his engravers that the result might be a fine plate independently of what he had painted. To this end he helped his engravers by drawings, in which he sometimes indicated what he thought the best direction for the lines. Rubens liked Vorstertnan's work, and scarcely corrected it, a plate he especially approved being " Susannah and the Elders," which is a learned piece of work well modelled, and shaded everywhere on the figures and costumes with fine curved lines, the straight line being reserved for the See also:masonry. Vorsterman quitted Rubens after executing fourteen important plates, and was succeeded by See also:Paul Pontius, then a youth of twenty, who went on engraving from Rubens with increasing skill until the painter's death. See also:Boetius a Bolswert engraved from Rubens towards the close of his See also:life, and his See also:brother Schelte a Bolswert engraved more than sixty compositions of Rubens, of the most varied character, including See also:hunting scenes and landscapes. This brings us to the engraving of landscape as a separate study. Rubens treated landscape in a broad comprehensive manner, and Schelte's way of engraving it was also broad and comprehensive. The lines are See also:long and often undulating, the See also:cross-hatchings bold and rather obtrusive, for they often substitute unpleasant reticulations for the refinement and See also:mystery of nature, but it was a beginning, and a vigorous beginning. The technical developments of engraving under the See also:influence of Rubens may be summed up briefly as follows: (I) The Italian outline had been discarded as the See also:chief subject of attention, and modelling had been substituted for it; (2) broad masses had been substituted for the minutely finished detail of the northern schools; (3) a See also:system of light and dark had been adopted which was not pictorial, but belonged especially to engraving, which it rendered (in the See also:opinion of Rubens) more harmpnious. The history of line-engraving, from the time of Rubens to the beginning of the loth century, is rather that of the vigorous and energetic application of principles already accepted than any new development. From the two See also:sources already indicated, the school of Raphael and the school of Rubens, a See also:double tradition flowed to See also:England and See also:France, where it mingled and directed See also:English and See also:French practice. The first influence on English line-engraving was Flemish, and came from Rubens through Vandyck, Vorsterman, and others; but the English engravers soon underwent French and Italian influences, for although See also:Payne learned from a See also:Fleming, See also:Faithorne studied in France under Philippe de See also:Champagne the painter and See also:Robert See also:Nanteuil the engraver. See also:Sir Robert See also:Strange studied in France under Philippe Lebas, and then five years in Italy, where he saturated his mind with Italian art. French engravers came to England as they went to Italy, so that the art of engraving became in the 18th century See also:cosmopolitan. In figure-engraving the outline was less and less insisted upon. Strange made it his study to soften and lose the outline. Meanwhile, the great classical See also:Renaissance school, with See also:Gerard See also:Audran at its head, had carried forward the art of modelling with the burin, and had arrived at great perfection of a sober and dignified kind. Audran was very productive in the latter See also:half of the 17th century, and died in 1703, after a life of severe self-direction in labour, the best See also:external influence he underwent being that of the painter See also:Nicolas Poussin. He made his, work more rapid by the use of etching, but kept it entirely subordinate to the work of the burin. One of the finest of his large plates is " St See also: The check to line-engraving came from the desire for cheaper and more rapid methods, a desire satisfied in various ways, but especially by etching and by the various kinds of See also:photography. Nevertheless, the loth century produced most highly accomplished work in line-engraving, both in the figure and in landscape. Its characteristics, in comparison with the work of other centuries, were chiefly a more thorough and delicate rendering of local colour, light and shade, and texture. The See also:elder engravers could draw as correctly as the moderns, but they either neglected these elements or admitted them sparingly, as opposed to the spirit of their art. In a modern engraving from See also:Landseer may be seen the blackness of a man's boots (local colour), the soft roughness of his coat (texture), and the exact value in light and dark of his See also:face and See also:costume against the cloudy sky. Nay more, there is to be found every sparkle on See also:bit, See also:boot and See also:stirrup. Modern painting pays more attention to texture and chiaroscuro than classical painting did, and engraving necessarily followed in the same directions. But there is a certain sameness in pure line-engraving more favourable to some forms and textures than to others. This sameness of line-engraving.and its costliness, led to the See also:adoption of mixed methods, extremely prevalent in commercial prints from popular artists. In the well-known prints from See also:Rosa See also:Bonheur, for example, by T. See also:Land-seer, H. T. Ryall, and C. G. See also:Lewis, the See also:tone of the skies is got by See also:machine-ruling, and so is much undertone in the landscape; the See also:fur of the animals is all etched, and so are the foreground See also:plants, the real burin work being used sparingly where most favourable to texture. Even in the exquisite engravings after See also:Turner, by See also:Cooke, Goodall, See also:Wallis, See also:Miller, See also:Willmore, and others, who reached a degree of delicacy in light and shade far surpassing the work of the old masters, the engravers had recourse to etching, See also:finishing with the burin and dry point. Turner's name may be added to those of Raphael, Rubens and Claude in the See also:list of painters who have had a See also:special influence upon engraving. The speciality of Turner's influence was in the direction of delicacy of tone. In this respect the Turner vignettes to See also:Roger's poems were a high-See also:water mark of human attainment, not likely ever to be surpassed. The See also:record of the art of line-engraving during the last See also:quarter of the loth century is one of continued decay. Technical improvements, it was hoped, might See also:save the art; it was thought by some that the slight revival resultant on the turning back of the burin's cutting-point—whereby the operator pulled the See also:tool towards him instead of pushing it from him—might effect much, in virtue of the time and labour saved by the See also:device. But by the beginning of the 20th century pictorial line-engraving in England was practically non-existent, and, with the passing of Jeens and Stacpoole, the spasmodic demand by publishers for engravers to engrave new plates remained unanswered. Mr C. W. Sherborn, the exquisite and facile designer and engraver of See also:book-plates, has scarcely been surpassed in his own line, but his art is mainly heraldic. There are now no men capable of such work as that with which See also:Don, J. H. See also:Robinson, and their See also:fellows maintained the See also:credit of the English School. Line-engraving has been killed by etching, See also:mezzotint and the " mixed method." The disappearance of the art is due not so much to the artistic objection that the See also:personality of the line-engraver stands obtrusively between the painter and the public; it is rather that the public refuse to wait for several years for the proofs for which they have subscribed, when by another method they can obtain their plates more quickly. An important line plate may occupy a prodigious time in the engraving; J. H. Robinson's " See also:Napoleon and the Pone " took about twelve years. The invention of steel-facing copper plate would now enable the engraver to proceed n ore expeditiously; but even in this See also:case he can no more compete with the etcher than the mezzotint-engraver can keen See also:ace with the photogravure manufacturer.'
The Art See also:Union of See also:London in the past gave what encouragement it could; but with the death of J. See also:Stephenson (1886) and F. See also: Since then there was some promise of a revival, and Mr See also:Bourne engraved a few of the pictures by Gustave See also:Dore. But little followed. The last of the line-engravers of Turner's pictures died in the See also:person of Sir See also:Daniel See also: See also:Gaillard (d. 1887), See also:Blanchard, and See also:Alphonse See also:Francois (d. 1888) were perhaps the earliest chiefs of the new school, the characteristics of which are the substitution of exquisite greys for the See also:rich blacks of old, simplicity of method being often allied to extremely high elaboration. Yet the aim of the modern engraver has always been, while pushing the capability of his own art to the farthermost limit, to retain throughout the individual and personal qualities of the master whose work is translated on the plate. The height of perfection to which the art is reached is seen in the See also:triptych of Mantegna by Achille Jacquet (d. 1909), to whom may perhaps be accorded the first See also:place among several engravers of the front See also:rank. This " See also:Passion " (from the three pictures in the Louvre and at See also:Tours, forming the See also:predella of the See also:San See also:Zeno altarpiece in See also:Verona) not only conveys the forms, sentiment, and colour of the master, but succeeds also in rendering the peculiar luminosity of the originals. Jacquet, who ga,~'ned the Prix de See also:Rome in 1870, also translated pictures of ;Sir See also:Joshua See also:Reynolds, and engraved fine plates after Paul See also:Dubois, See also:Cabanel, See also:Bouguereau, See also:Meissonier and See also:Detaille. The freedom of much of his work suggests an See also:affinity with etching and dry-point; indeed, it appears that he uses the etching-needle and See also:acid to See also:lay in some of his groundwork and outlines. See also:Leopold Flameng's engraving after See also:Jan See also:van See also:Eyck's " Virgin with the Donor," in the Louvre, is one of the most admirable works of its kind, retaining the quality and sentiment of the master, extreme minuteness and elaboration notwithstanding. Jules Jacquet is known for his work after Meissonier (especially the " Fried-land ") and after See also:Bonnat; Adrien Didier for his plates after See also:Holbein (" See also:Anne of See also:Cleves "), Raphael, and Paul Veronese, among the Old Masters, and Bonnat, Bouguereau, and Roybet among the new. Jazinski (See also:Botticelli's " Primavera "), Sulpis (Mantegna and Gustave See also:Moreau), Patricot (Gustave Moreau), See also:Burney, and See also:Champollion (d. 1901), have been among the leaders of the modern school. Their object is to secure the faithful transcript of the painter they reproduce, while readily sacrificing the power of the old method, which, whatever its force and its beauty, was easily acquired by mediocre artists of technical ability who were nevertheless unable to appreciate or reproduce anything beyond See also:mechanical excellence. The Belgian School of engraving is not without vitality. Gustave See also:Biot was equally skilful in See also:portraiture and subject (engraving after See also:Gallait, Cabanel, Gustave Dore, among his best work); A. M. See also:Dame executed plates after leading painters, and elaborated an effective " mixed method " of graver-work and dry-point; and de Meerman has engraved a number of good plates; but private patronage is hardly sufficient in See also:Belgium to maintain the school in a state of prosperous efficiency. In Germany, as might be expected, line-engraving retains not a little of its popularity in its more orthodox form. The novel Stauffer-See also:Bern method, in which freedom and lightness are obtained with such delicacy that the fine lines, employed in great See also:numbers, run into tone, and yield a supposed advantage in modelling, has not been without appreciation. But the more usual virtue of the graver has been best supported, and many have worked in the old-fashioned manner. See also:Friedrich See also:Zimmermann (d. 1887) began his career by engraving such prints as Guido Reni's " Ecce Homo " in See also:Dresden, and then devoted himself to the translation of modern German painters. See also:Rudolph Pfnor was an ornamentist representative of his class; and See also:Joseph Kohlschein, of See also:Dusseldorf, a typical exponent of the intelligent conservative manner. His " See also:Marriage at See also:Cana " after Paul Veronese, " The Sistine Madonna " after Raphael, and "St See also:Cecilia " after the same master, are all plates of a high See also:order. In Italy the art is well-nigh as moribund as in England. When See also:Vittorio See also:Pica (of See also:Naples) and Conconi (of See also:Milan) have been named, it is difficult to mention other successors to the fine school of the 19th century which followed See also:Piranesi and Volpato. A few of the pupils of Rosaspina and See also:Paolo Toschi lived into the last quarter of the century, but to the See also:present generation Asiolo, See also:Jesi, C. Raimondi, L. Bigola, and See also:Antonio Isac are remembered rather for their efforts than for their success in supporting their art against the combined opposition of etching, "See also:process" and public indifference. Outside Europe line-engraving can no longer be said to exist. Here and there a spasmodic See also:attempt may be made to See also:appeal to the artistic appreciation of a limited public; but no See also:general attention is paid to such efforts, nor, it may be added, are these inherently worthy of much See also:notice. There are still a few who can engrave a head from a photograph or drawing, or a small en-graving for book-See also:illustration or for book-plates; there are more who are highly proficient in mechanical engraving for decorative purposes; but the engraving-machine is fast superseding this class. In See also:short, the art of worthily translating a fine painting beyond the See also:borders of France, Belgium, Germany and perhaps Italy can scarcely be said to survive, and even in those countries it appears to exist on sufferance and by hot-See also:house encouragement. AuTHoRITIEs.—P. G. See also:Hamerton, Drawing and Engraving (See also:Edinburgh, 1892) ; H. W. See also:Singer and W. See also:Strang, Etching, Engraving, and other methods of Printing Pictures (London, 1897) ; A. de Lostalot, See also:Les Prodder de la gravure (See also:Paris, 1882) ; Le See also:Comte See also:Henri See also:Delaborde, La Gravure (Paris, English trans., with a See also:chapter on English engraving methods, by See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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