DOI Heft:
No. 118 (December, 1906)
DOI Artikel:Newbolt, Frank: The art of printing etchings
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28250#0149
The Art of Printing Etchings
AN ETCHING BY T. HOPE MCLACHLAN. MR. GOULDING'S PROOF
We are here concerned only with the process
of printing on paper, or vellum, of impressions of
etchings, aquatints or dry-points executed on
metal plates, which almost always consist of
copper or zinc, sometimes of pewter, and very
rarely of steel.
The object of such printing is primarily the
multiplication of the design and its commercial
production for the market. But this idea is
modern, as the practice originated with the early
Italian goldsmiths, who took “proofs” from their
engraved work simply to test its progress. The
earliest known “ proof” is said to be an impression
of a pax, or metal plate used in the Roman Church,
engraved by Maso Finiguerra in 1452 for the
Church of San Giovanni in Florence.
Since that time printing has progressed step by
step with engraving, but naturally in a more re-
stricted way, and it is not possible within the
limits of a short article to deal with it historically.
We can only endeavour to show what printing is
to-day as the result of four centuries and a half
of evolution.
The process of etching, which is perhaps better
understood in other countries, is not a matter of
common knowledge in England, though it is an
art practised by some hundreds of people. The
word itself is still often taken to mean a pen-and-
ink drawing; and it is not very surprising that
people with no technical knowledge of any kind
should be puzzled by such terms as “aquatint,”
“dry-point,” or “painter-etcher,” which certainly
do not explain themselves.
The illustrations chosen in order to demonstrate
here what printing is, and what it can do, are all
“proofs,” or prints, from etched plates-—-three
copper and one zinc. In each case two impressions
are taken from the plate, with quite a different
result, and our object is simply to show what each
is, and why they are different.
First of all, then, an etching is a piece of paper
which has been squeezed, when damp and soft,
against an incised metal plate, previously inked.
The ink in the incised lines clings to the paper,
and gives a reversed impression of the design. In
order to make the lines which thus hold the ink,
the etcher draws them with a needle upon the
plate, which he covers with a very fine coat of wax.
When he has drawn the lines he pours acid over
them, and thus corrodes the metal only where the
needle has removed the wax. The lines are of
different depths, which vary with the time of their
I35
AN ETCHING BY T. HOPE MCLACHLAN. MR. GOULDING'S PROOF
We are here concerned only with the process
of printing on paper, or vellum, of impressions of
etchings, aquatints or dry-points executed on
metal plates, which almost always consist of
copper or zinc, sometimes of pewter, and very
rarely of steel.
The object of such printing is primarily the
multiplication of the design and its commercial
production for the market. But this idea is
modern, as the practice originated with the early
Italian goldsmiths, who took “proofs” from their
engraved work simply to test its progress. The
earliest known “ proof” is said to be an impression
of a pax, or metal plate used in the Roman Church,
engraved by Maso Finiguerra in 1452 for the
Church of San Giovanni in Florence.
Since that time printing has progressed step by
step with engraving, but naturally in a more re-
stricted way, and it is not possible within the
limits of a short article to deal with it historically.
We can only endeavour to show what printing is
to-day as the result of four centuries and a half
of evolution.
The process of etching, which is perhaps better
understood in other countries, is not a matter of
common knowledge in England, though it is an
art practised by some hundreds of people. The
word itself is still often taken to mean a pen-and-
ink drawing; and it is not very surprising that
people with no technical knowledge of any kind
should be puzzled by such terms as “aquatint,”
“dry-point,” or “painter-etcher,” which certainly
do not explain themselves.
The illustrations chosen in order to demonstrate
here what printing is, and what it can do, are all
“proofs,” or prints, from etched plates-—-three
copper and one zinc. In each case two impressions
are taken from the plate, with quite a different
result, and our object is simply to show what each
is, and why they are different.
First of all, then, an etching is a piece of paper
which has been squeezed, when damp and soft,
against an incised metal plate, previously inked.
The ink in the incised lines clings to the paper,
and gives a reversed impression of the design. In
order to make the lines which thus hold the ink,
the etcher draws them with a needle upon the
plate, which he covers with a very fine coat of wax.
When he has drawn the lines he pours acid over
them, and thus corrodes the metal only where the
needle has removed the wax. The lines are of
different depths, which vary with the time of their
I35