DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0332
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BOOK III.
ENGRAVING AND ETCHING
CHAP. I.
ENGRAVING AND THE USE OF THE DRY NEEDLE,
THERE are several species of engraving which may principally be divided into engraving
on metals, on wood, on stones and on glass. But on every kind of engraving there is none lo
which the polite arts are more indebted, or which have afforded a greater benefit to mankind
than that of engraving on copper-plates.
Engraving on copper may be defined the making of concave lines, on a smooth surface of
copper, corresponding to some delineated figure or design, either by cutting with a tool, or by
corrosion with some dissolvent menstruum ; so as to render the plate capable, when charged
with any coloured fluid, of imparting by compression an exact representation of the figure or
design to paper, parchment, or any other proper substance : consequently etching, as ranking
under this definition, may be esteemed a species of engraving, which is the general name for
all copper-plates wrought by either of the above methods, as also for the impressions takeu
from them.
Engraving undoubtedly merits a very distinguished place among the fine arts. It is not
only an invention of great utility to mankind, but affords the mind a particular pleasure in con-
templating the perfection to which it is brought, particularly when we consider the difficulty
attending its execution. By means of this art the cabinets of the curious are adorned with the
portraits of the greatest characters of all ages and nations; the most remarkable occurrences of
their lives are preserved and transmitted to posterity, with all their appendant circumstances,
and that in a more striking manner than could be performed by the pen of the poet or historian.
The great and important events of ancient history are still perpetuated and presented to our
view. We are transported to ancient scenes, we view as if actually present the devastation which
reigned in ancient fields of slaughter, enter into the contest and, for a moment, forget we are
beings of a posterior generation. We form a more adequate idea of the fables of the earlier
part of our race, by seeing pourtrayed in our portable volumes the deities, nymphs, &c. who
influenced the actions and regulated the conduct of mankind, for half the age of the world.
It is by this art that painting itself is rendered so generally useful to mankind, as by it the works
of the greatest masters are multiplied to a boundless number; and the admirers of the fine arts
are able, in every part of the globe, to enjoy those beauties from which their distant situations
seem
BOOK III.
ENGRAVING AND ETCHING
CHAP. I.
ENGRAVING AND THE USE OF THE DRY NEEDLE,
THERE are several species of engraving which may principally be divided into engraving
on metals, on wood, on stones and on glass. But on every kind of engraving there is none lo
which the polite arts are more indebted, or which have afforded a greater benefit to mankind
than that of engraving on copper-plates.
Engraving on copper may be defined the making of concave lines, on a smooth surface of
copper, corresponding to some delineated figure or design, either by cutting with a tool, or by
corrosion with some dissolvent menstruum ; so as to render the plate capable, when charged
with any coloured fluid, of imparting by compression an exact representation of the figure or
design to paper, parchment, or any other proper substance : consequently etching, as ranking
under this definition, may be esteemed a species of engraving, which is the general name for
all copper-plates wrought by either of the above methods, as also for the impressions takeu
from them.
Engraving undoubtedly merits a very distinguished place among the fine arts. It is not
only an invention of great utility to mankind, but affords the mind a particular pleasure in con-
templating the perfection to which it is brought, particularly when we consider the difficulty
attending its execution. By means of this art the cabinets of the curious are adorned with the
portraits of the greatest characters of all ages and nations; the most remarkable occurrences of
their lives are preserved and transmitted to posterity, with all their appendant circumstances,
and that in a more striking manner than could be performed by the pen of the poet or historian.
The great and important events of ancient history are still perpetuated and presented to our
view. We are transported to ancient scenes, we view as if actually present the devastation which
reigned in ancient fields of slaughter, enter into the contest and, for a moment, forget we are
beings of a posterior generation. We form a more adequate idea of the fables of the earlier
part of our race, by seeing pourtrayed in our portable volumes the deities, nymphs, &c. who
influenced the actions and regulated the conduct of mankind, for half the age of the world.
It is by this art that painting itself is rendered so generally useful to mankind, as by it the works
of the greatest masters are multiplied to a boundless number; and the admirers of the fine arts
are able, in every part of the globe, to enjoy those beauties from which their distant situations
seem