DOI issue:
Nr. 225 (November 1915)
DOI article:Britton, James: Two new methods in the graphic art: subchromatic and brulegravure
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43460#0106
Two New Methods in the Graphic Art
TWO NEW METHODS IN THE
GRAPHIC ART: SUBCHROMATIC
AND BRULEGRAVURE
(?) Subchromatic
Subchromatic is the scientific device of Mr.
J. G. Kitchell who for some two or three years
has been experimenting around the coloured
engraving, with the object of allying reproductive
material with a harmonious and atmospheric
quality not yet arrived at. His idea is quite
simple but, like many other simple ideas, has
taken long to materialize and is capable of end-
less development. The work is performed with
two planes. Upon the lower film a monochrome
composition, copy or original, is placed and
coloured. This may be called the colour film.
An upper or superimposed film shows the picture
in such wise that perfect harmony of diffused
colour results. It is, in fact, a picture in two
planes. Any artistic monotone may be selected,
black, sepia, olive green, or what not. Curiously
enough the colour application may be performed
in the very crudest manner by a mere beginner,
but the most satisfactory results are necessarily
obtained by the more practised hand. It is
comforting, however, for the tyro to know that
his or her efforts, immature though they be, seem
to undergo some magic metamorphosis when
applied to the Kitchell process. A very interest-
ing hobby may be acquired through Subchro-
matic, namely experimenting with the work of
well-known American artists and seeing how
these pictures might have appeared under
different colour treatment.
Very satisfactory experiments have been made
with Corot’s Souvenir of Normandy, the original
of which is owned by the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, but, as has already been in-
timated, this invention, discovery, application—
call it by any name you will—lends itself equally
to original work. Its greatest use, though, will be
the spreading about of beautiful subjects artist-
ically represented, and nothing, Mr. Kitchell
declares, shall ever be published that is not
wholesome and beautiful.
The idea leading to the introduction of colour
from below emanated from the knowledge that
we never see natural beauty directly, but always
through an intervening veil, whether atmos-
pheric or otherwise. Thus the beauty that we
admire in a fresh complexion or in the bloom of
a ripe peach is not inherent in the outer surface,
neither does it exist independently in the broader
colour mass underneath. It is the outer surface
or cuticle in each instance that resolves into
pleasing and artistic effect the underlying colors,
refining and blending them into the harmonious
fabric which the eye perceives. In like manner
the Kitchell method takes into account the laws
of atmospheric effect. Colour of and by itself is
always aggressive. It takes on beauty and value
only as it is modified or affected by the subtle
graduation of light, shade and distance. The
artistic value of a picture as a mental impression
is in ratio to the help it affords in our compre-
hension or interpretation of colour and form, and
form necessarily means different planes of
plane suggestion.
One scientific value of the Kitchell method
lies in the demonstration that it modifies, re-
presses, and transforms the usual exaggerations
of colour work into the exact artistic values of
nature as nearly as these can be reproduced
without sacrificing tonal refinements or modelling.
The refractory plane may run the whole gamut of
tones and shadings, thus giving almost limitless
possibilities to the effects obtained and producing
rarely beautiful results when the exact har-
monious key is determined. W. H. N.
(w) Brulegravure
It has remained for an inventive New Eng-
lander to contribute to the print world a process
which dispenses with the use of ink. A tonal
picture resembling mezzotint, but possessing a
velvety quality impossible to mezzotint is the
result obtained by the Bostonian, John W.
Robbins, from a brass plate etched in planes of
varying depths and pressed upon vellum. Heat
supplies the colouring, and does it as ink has
never been able to do it—with a softness and
delicacy of absolutely unbroken tone, graded in
the richest and most beautiful shades of sepia.
The discovery of this unique and novel method
came during experimentation with digressions
from the known modes of the etcher. When it
appeared that instead of biting with the acid
through lines drawn in a wax ground, sections
of a bare plate could be bitten or washed down
in masses—the deeper portions to produce the
high lights and the shallow ones the shades.
The successful production of such a plate meant
the mastering of difficulties not encountered in
XXVI
TWO NEW METHODS IN THE
GRAPHIC ART: SUBCHROMATIC
AND BRULEGRAVURE
(?) Subchromatic
Subchromatic is the scientific device of Mr.
J. G. Kitchell who for some two or three years
has been experimenting around the coloured
engraving, with the object of allying reproductive
material with a harmonious and atmospheric
quality not yet arrived at. His idea is quite
simple but, like many other simple ideas, has
taken long to materialize and is capable of end-
less development. The work is performed with
two planes. Upon the lower film a monochrome
composition, copy or original, is placed and
coloured. This may be called the colour film.
An upper or superimposed film shows the picture
in such wise that perfect harmony of diffused
colour results. It is, in fact, a picture in two
planes. Any artistic monotone may be selected,
black, sepia, olive green, or what not. Curiously
enough the colour application may be performed
in the very crudest manner by a mere beginner,
but the most satisfactory results are necessarily
obtained by the more practised hand. It is
comforting, however, for the tyro to know that
his or her efforts, immature though they be, seem
to undergo some magic metamorphosis when
applied to the Kitchell process. A very interest-
ing hobby may be acquired through Subchro-
matic, namely experimenting with the work of
well-known American artists and seeing how
these pictures might have appeared under
different colour treatment.
Very satisfactory experiments have been made
with Corot’s Souvenir of Normandy, the original
of which is owned by the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, but, as has already been in-
timated, this invention, discovery, application—
call it by any name you will—lends itself equally
to original work. Its greatest use, though, will be
the spreading about of beautiful subjects artist-
ically represented, and nothing, Mr. Kitchell
declares, shall ever be published that is not
wholesome and beautiful.
The idea leading to the introduction of colour
from below emanated from the knowledge that
we never see natural beauty directly, but always
through an intervening veil, whether atmos-
pheric or otherwise. Thus the beauty that we
admire in a fresh complexion or in the bloom of
a ripe peach is not inherent in the outer surface,
neither does it exist independently in the broader
colour mass underneath. It is the outer surface
or cuticle in each instance that resolves into
pleasing and artistic effect the underlying colors,
refining and blending them into the harmonious
fabric which the eye perceives. In like manner
the Kitchell method takes into account the laws
of atmospheric effect. Colour of and by itself is
always aggressive. It takes on beauty and value
only as it is modified or affected by the subtle
graduation of light, shade and distance. The
artistic value of a picture as a mental impression
is in ratio to the help it affords in our compre-
hension or interpretation of colour and form, and
form necessarily means different planes of
plane suggestion.
One scientific value of the Kitchell method
lies in the demonstration that it modifies, re-
presses, and transforms the usual exaggerations
of colour work into the exact artistic values of
nature as nearly as these can be reproduced
without sacrificing tonal refinements or modelling.
The refractory plane may run the whole gamut of
tones and shadings, thus giving almost limitless
possibilities to the effects obtained and producing
rarely beautiful results when the exact har-
monious key is determined. W. H. N.
(w) Brulegravure
It has remained for an inventive New Eng-
lander to contribute to the print world a process
which dispenses with the use of ink. A tonal
picture resembling mezzotint, but possessing a
velvety quality impossible to mezzotint is the
result obtained by the Bostonian, John W.
Robbins, from a brass plate etched in planes of
varying depths and pressed upon vellum. Heat
supplies the colouring, and does it as ink has
never been able to do it—with a softness and
delicacy of absolutely unbroken tone, graded in
the richest and most beautiful shades of sepia.
The discovery of this unique and novel method
came during experimentation with digressions
from the known modes of the etcher. When it
appeared that instead of biting with the acid
through lines drawn in a wax ground, sections
of a bare plate could be bitten or washed down
in masses—the deeper portions to produce the
high lights and the shallow ones the shades.
The successful production of such a plate meant
the mastering of difficulties not encountered in
XXVI