DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52444#0052
INTRODUCTION.
hangs down the back, and is thrown over the knee, and to these must
be added the variations in the arrangement and combination of lines
and dots in the foreground, the wall, and the distant landscape. Thaus-
ing evidently overlooked this peculiarity of the plate in question, but,
noticing a difference between it and other plates, sought for other rea-
sons. It will be sufficient to point out the contradictions in which he
involves himself and which are of a nature to destroy the force of his
argument. Diirer is supposed to have been led to the use of the dry-
point by some of the engravings of the Master of 1480, “the delicate,
bloomy effect of which we must attribute principally to the dry-point ”
(II, p. 63). But he starts out with etching, and only resorts to the point
after its failure. Again, we are told that the richness of these works is
best seen in the first impressions before the monogram, while evidently
the first impressions must be the barest of all, since the work of the point
came in only later. After an interval of four years he began to etch on
iron, which necessitates an entirely different treatment of the acid or
mordant than etching on copper, and having been successful in this, he
applied the process to copper again, but wisely abandoned the point, and
instead trimmed every line with the burin. Nevertheless, although the
action and the purpose of the burin would be to sharpen and clean the
work, and thus to remove the imperfections inherent in the etched line,
the traces of etching are still to be found “ in the blunter, frayed lines ”
produced by it.
The subject might be dropped here, if Thausing’s contradictory
statements had not been adopted by later writers, one of whom, Mr.
Middleton, the author of the well-known Rembrandt catalogue, even goes
beyond him in the extent to which he would make etching a factor in the
execution of Durer’s engraved plates. Thus, Thausing expressly names
“ The Sudarium held by Two Angels ” (No. 68 of this catalogue) as
one of the plates illustrating his older method, while, according to Mr.
Middleton, it “ was printed not from an engraved, but from an etched
plate — i. e., from a plate in which the design was both bitten in and
xxxiv
hangs down the back, and is thrown over the knee, and to these must
be added the variations in the arrangement and combination of lines
and dots in the foreground, the wall, and the distant landscape. Thaus-
ing evidently overlooked this peculiarity of the plate in question, but,
noticing a difference between it and other plates, sought for other rea-
sons. It will be sufficient to point out the contradictions in which he
involves himself and which are of a nature to destroy the force of his
argument. Diirer is supposed to have been led to the use of the dry-
point by some of the engravings of the Master of 1480, “the delicate,
bloomy effect of which we must attribute principally to the dry-point ”
(II, p. 63). But he starts out with etching, and only resorts to the point
after its failure. Again, we are told that the richness of these works is
best seen in the first impressions before the monogram, while evidently
the first impressions must be the barest of all, since the work of the point
came in only later. After an interval of four years he began to etch on
iron, which necessitates an entirely different treatment of the acid or
mordant than etching on copper, and having been successful in this, he
applied the process to copper again, but wisely abandoned the point, and
instead trimmed every line with the burin. Nevertheless, although the
action and the purpose of the burin would be to sharpen and clean the
work, and thus to remove the imperfections inherent in the etched line,
the traces of etching are still to be found “ in the blunter, frayed lines ”
produced by it.
The subject might be dropped here, if Thausing’s contradictory
statements had not been adopted by later writers, one of whom, Mr.
Middleton, the author of the well-known Rembrandt catalogue, even goes
beyond him in the extent to which he would make etching a factor in the
execution of Durer’s engraved plates. Thus, Thausing expressly names
“ The Sudarium held by Two Angels ” (No. 68 of this catalogue) as
one of the plates illustrating his older method, while, according to Mr.
Middleton, it “ was printed not from an engraved, but from an etched
plate — i. e., from a plate in which the design was both bitten in and
xxxiv