Engraving

“ Everybody knows something of engraving, as of printing, with which it was associated in origin. School-books, illustrated papers, and shop windows are the ordinary opportunities open to all. But while creating a transient interest, or, perhaps, quickening the taste, they furnish little with regard to the art itself, especially in other days. And yet, looking at an engraving, like looking at a book, may be the beginning of a new pleasure and a new study. ”

“ Since then engraving, we say, is essentially cutting into the surface of any solid; as the primitive design is in lines or dots, the primitive cutting of such design is a scratch or a hole; and scratchable solids being essentially three—stone, wood, metal,—we shall have three great schools of engraving to investigate in each material. ”

“ Stone engraving is the art of countries possessing marble and gems; wood engraving, of countries overgrown with forest; metal engraving, of countries possessing treasures of silver and gold. And the style of a stone engraver is formed on pillars and pyramids; the style of a wood engraver under the eaves of larch cottages; the style of a metal engraver in the treasuries of kings. Do you suppose I could rightly explain to you the value of a single touch on brass by Finiguerra, or on box by Bewick, [Pg 35] unless I had grasp of the great laws of climate and country ”

“ In engraving a surface for subsequent treatment with another metal or with enamel the process itself will dictate the use of a strong and suitable method of cutting. When, however, the engraving is to stand on its own qualities it is important to bear in mind the difference between engraving that is employed as decoration and that intended for printing. ”

“ Permanent exceedingly,—even in flesh, or on mahogany tables, often more permanent than we desire. But when studiously and honorably made, divinely permanent, or delightfully—as on the venerable desks of our public schools, most of them, now, specimens of wood engraving dear to the heart of England. [Pg 18]
34. Engraving, then, is, in brief terms, the Art of Scratch. It is essentially the cutting into a solid substance for the sake of making your ideas as permanent as possible, graven with an iron pen in the Rock forever. ”

“ All engraving consists of cutting with a sharp instrument into a hard surface, whether of wood or metal, so that when the picture is perfected on the wood or metal, ink may be applied to the surface, from which fac-similies may be taken off by the impression of moistened paper on the block or plate by means either of friction or pressure.
The practice thus far is identical whether steel, copper or wood is to be the material engraved. ”

“ This change was naturally shown in the arts of engraving more than in painting, because engraving in copper and on wood had a far greater sphere of influence, and came into more intimate relations with the popular life, and because the illustration of books offered a greater variety of subject. In German engraving, from this time, the actual life of the town and the peasantry was represented almost as often as the history of the Saviour and the saints ”

“ Early Italian engraving begins with the44 niello of the goldsmith, little silver plates for ornamental uses, with minute scenes and figures, usually well cut, as might certainly be expected in a guild so highly skilled. It is interesting to follow engraving as it broadens beyond the neat and primarily ornamental sphere of the craft, into the large field of art. ”

“ Metal engraving was absorbing the attention of the artistic world, and for many years wood engraving was regarded as only fit for the reproduction of pictures which may be charitably described as inartistic, and too often perhaps discreditable. ”

“ Many regard this plate as the greatest engraving of the century. In a manner typical of those pomp-loving times, the eminent churchman is represented amidst columns and sweeping draperies. Here, indeed, we have the last word of technical resourcefulness in expanses of gorgeous silks and delicate laces, and many other textures and substances. If one should feel that all this elaboration of the setting distracts the attention from the portrait itself, he must blame the epoch and the painter whose design the engraver needs must follow. ”

“ The nations of antiquity understood and practised engraving, that is to say, the art of representing things by incised outlines on metal, stone, or any other rigid substance. Setting aside even those relics of antiquity in bone or flint which still retain traces of figures drawn with a sharp-pointed tool, there may yet be found in the Bible and in Homer accounts of several works executed by the aid of similar methods ”

“ Whether produced in France, in the Low Countries, or in Germany, the dotted engravings of the fifteenth century add so little lustre to the land which gave them birth, that no scepticism as to their origin need lie very heavily on the conscience. In the general history of the documents on the origin of engraving, the dotted prints form a series distinguished by the method of their execution from any other earlier or contemporary specimens of work ”

“ They all agree in recognising that the methods of relief engraving were practised with a view to printing earlier than the method of intaglio. What interval, however, separates the two discoveries? At what epoch are we to place the invention of wood engraving? or if the process, as has been often alleged, is of Asiatic origin, when was it brought into Europe? To pretend to give a decisive answer to these questions would be, at least, imprudent. Conjectures of every sort, and even the most dogmatic assertions, are not wanting. ”

“ The modern revival of wood-engraving, which came just after the war, is quite different in style from any that preceded it. The artist and engraver are now one, as they should be where original work is to be done, and every exponent of the craft expresses his or her own individuality. ”

“ Are not all our journals,—and the best of them, Punch, par excellence,—full of the most brilliantly swift and slight sketches, engraved on wood; while line-engravings take ten years to produce, and cost ten guineas each when they are done? ”

“ The Egyptians, Greeks, and Etruscans have left us specimens of goldsmith's work and fragments of all kinds, which, at any rate, attest the practice of engraving in their countries. Finally, every one is aware that metal seals and dies of engraved stone were in common use amongst the Romans.
Engraving, therefore, in the strict sense of the2 word, is no invention due to modern civilisation. ”

“ In any case, it is best to reserve a definitive opinion, and simply to state what American engraving is, and must be, till a master arise by whose influence and example it may be animated and renewed. ”

“ Some support for this view, that the art of printing from engraved metal plates was discovered by the goldsmiths, and preceded and suggested wood-engraving, is derived from the peculiar prints in the manière criblée, or the dotted style, of which over three hundred are known. They were produced by a mixed process of engraving in relief and in intaglio, usually upon a metal plate, but sometimes upon wood. The effects are given by dots and lines relieved in white upon a black ground, assisted by dots and lines relieved in black upon a white ground. ”

“ As we follow engraving, it declines from a spontaneous exercise of the thinking, artistic mind into drudgery of systematized routine. Engraving becomes petrified into a thing of tradition, with elaborate systems of lines and dots, to be dutifully acquired during long years of apprenticeship. ”

“ From the point of view of engraving alone, the prints published in France at this time are for the most part models of spirit and delicacy, as those of the Louis XIV. masters are of learned execution and vigorous conception. Moreover, under the frivolous forms affected by French engraving in the eighteenth century, something not unfrequently survives of the masterly skill and science of the older men. ”

“ Armorers and goldsmiths practiced this art of engraving in mediæval and Renaissance times. For our present purposes the absorbing question is this: How did the idea of printing from this decorated metal first suggest itself? We may get a clue by watching the engraver at work. With the graver he cuts a maze of lines into the metal; it is almost impossible to see the design owing to the glitter of each new-cut furrow. This troubles the engraver himself, and in36 order to see just what he has done, he smears the plate over with a mixture of lamp-black and oil, rubbing it well into the furrows. ”

“ The invention and monopoly of dotted engraving once attributed to a single country, or rather to a single man, these assertions continued to gain ground for some time, and were even repeated in literary and historical works. ”

“ The proportionate reduction of pictures for engraving also demands exquisite skill and accurate draughtsmanship in which the eye and hand of the artist may be distinctly traced.
Thus, by a laborious yet picturesque and harmonious interpretation of the artist's creations, the engraver renders their reproduction possible, widens the sphere of their interest and influence, and in many instances procures for them a world-wide reputation. ”

“ In the breadth of his interests, in the variety of his subjects, and in his sympathy with the special movements of his age, he was as an engraver more characteristic of the civilization in which he lived than any other of the Little Masters who gave their attention to wood-engraving. ”

“ It is almost impossible to appreciate the true value of the engraver's work without some consideration of the labour it entails. Each one of the multitudinous lines of an engraving is cut with a definite purpose and deliberate care, and may be operated upon again and again to increase the depth or width in various places. Even the dots of a stipple are not made in that aimless fashion which their appearance might at first suggest. ”

“ The engraver is to remember that the production is to be an engraving and not a drawing; that it is to have the character of an engraving—an engraving manifest and not an imitation of another drawing, half-tone, or any other process. Let the dependence be on the engraving tools rather than the pencil. As far as possible draw direct on to the wood. ”

“ The subtle continuity of thought, from the first conception to the finished plate, which we prize in original engraving, is necessarily destroyed in such collaboration, but the engraver, working exclusively on the copper plate, is able infinitely to vary and develop the resources of the process by dint of practice. ”

“ And for any of the series of superadded lines, dots, of equivalent value in shade, may be substituted. (Some engravings are wrought in dots altogether.) Choice infinite, with multiplication of infinity, is, at all events, to be made, for every minute space, from one side of the plate to the other.
121. The excellence of a beautiful engraving is primarily in the use of these resources to exhibit the qualities of the original picture, with delight to the eye in the method of translation ”

“ In this early metal engraving the lines are often crossed in the shading, whereas in the earliest woodcuts they are not; the reason being that when lines are incised they can as easily be crossed as not, whereas, when they are reserved, the crossing involves much labour of a non-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. ”

“ These tools can be bought of Luther M. Wightman, Milk Street, Boston, Mass.
Engraving on Metal
Engraving on metal is a beautiful art. The method is simple and the effect is striking but it requires a good deal of patience and long practice to do really good work.
Fig. 41. tools for engraving on metal
A. Shapes of gravers.
B. Handles for gravers.
The Tools That Are Used. —Engraving tools, or gravers as they are called, are made in ten or a dozen shapes but the knife, round and lozenge gravers will be [100] enough to do all ordinary work with. ”

“ For indeed we want such a word in speaking of modern art; it is all full of sinisterity. Hands independent of brains;—the left hand, by division of labor, not knowing what the right does,—still less what it ought to do.
76. Turning, then, to our special subject. All engraving, [Pg 43] I said, is intaglio in the solid. But the solid, in wood engraving, is a coarse substance, easily cut; and in metal, a fine substance, not easily. Therefore, in general, you may be prepared to accept ruder and more elementary work in one than the other ”

“ What we want is to get nearest to the artist himself with the least amount of interpretation or intermediation on the part of the engraver. Is engraving on copper to be reproduced, we want a facsimile if possible, and not a rendering into something which is supposed to be the orthodox utterance of wood-engraving. Take, for example, the copy of Schiavonetti’s engraving of Blake’s Death’s Door in “Scribner’s Magazine” for June 1880, or the cut from the same source at page 131 of this book. ”

“ But the fact that this and the following lecture are on the subject of design in engraving, implies of course that in the work we have to examine, it was often the engraver himself who designed, and as often the artist who engraved.
And you will observe that the only engravings which bear imperishable value are, indeed, in this kind. It is true that, in wood-cutting, both Dürer and Holbein, as in our own days Leech and Tenniel, have workmen under them who can do all they want. But in metal cutting it is not so. ”