DOI Heft:
Nr. 99 (June 1901)
DOI Artikel:Wedmore, Frederick: Recent etching and engraving
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19788#0030
Recent Etching and Engraving
Frenchmen who etch at all, are present; there
must be a word for Chahine, for Bejot, for Helleu.
What is borne in upon one as one passes in one's
memory over the work exhibited is the evidence
that it affords of the capacity of pure black-and-
white to express what etching should express.
Experiments outside black-and-white there are
none in the contributions of the English Society.
Really there is no need of them. One looks on
such experiments, of course, wherever they are
made, sympathetically. The modern coloured
etching enlarges the range of the coloured print,
but it in no way supersedes the black-and-white,
which expressed all that called for expression in
Rembrandt's profound mind, and was enabled to
embody the graceful vision of Whistler and the
sombre dream of Meryon.
The range of Original Engraving is shown in two
ways. It is shown by variety of individual tempera-
ment, and it is shown by variety of technical
method. A word first as to this latter thing.
The artist in black-and-white—by which I do
not mean the draughtsman for the illustrated
paper—has, in his work of engraving, the choice of
many mediums. Dry point and pure etching may
themselves always be said to be two mediums—
two mediums which it is nevertheless often incon-
venient and impossible to distinguish between,
seeing that on the very same plate the employment
of the one is interwoven, so to say, with the em-
ployment of the other. Then, there is soft ground
etching—the French vemis mou—the process
employed by the great Cotman in certain, if not in
all, the prints of that Liber Studiorum of his, which,
in comparison with the Liber of Turner, is scarcely
known to the public at all. Aquatint—well, I am
not very sure whether aquatint happens to be used
this year; but, at all events, there is aquatint.
Another medium used much more extensively is
mezzotint. To employ either aquatint or mezzo-
tint in original work, is in some degree a recent
practice. Aquatint has been employed of old in
combination with etching. Girtin's Views in Paris
are a case in point; the combination there was
"OFT, TOO, COMES LOOMING VAST ALONG THE SKY—A MARCH OF WATERS" BY F. BURRIDGE
16
Frenchmen who etch at all, are present; there
must be a word for Chahine, for Bejot, for Helleu.
What is borne in upon one as one passes in one's
memory over the work exhibited is the evidence
that it affords of the capacity of pure black-and-
white to express what etching should express.
Experiments outside black-and-white there are
none in the contributions of the English Society.
Really there is no need of them. One looks on
such experiments, of course, wherever they are
made, sympathetically. The modern coloured
etching enlarges the range of the coloured print,
but it in no way supersedes the black-and-white,
which expressed all that called for expression in
Rembrandt's profound mind, and was enabled to
embody the graceful vision of Whistler and the
sombre dream of Meryon.
The range of Original Engraving is shown in two
ways. It is shown by variety of individual tempera-
ment, and it is shown by variety of technical
method. A word first as to this latter thing.
The artist in black-and-white—by which I do
not mean the draughtsman for the illustrated
paper—has, in his work of engraving, the choice of
many mediums. Dry point and pure etching may
themselves always be said to be two mediums—
two mediums which it is nevertheless often incon-
venient and impossible to distinguish between,
seeing that on the very same plate the employment
of the one is interwoven, so to say, with the em-
ployment of the other. Then, there is soft ground
etching—the French vemis mou—the process
employed by the great Cotman in certain, if not in
all, the prints of that Liber Studiorum of his, which,
in comparison with the Liber of Turner, is scarcely
known to the public at all. Aquatint—well, I am
not very sure whether aquatint happens to be used
this year; but, at all events, there is aquatint.
Another medium used much more extensively is
mezzotint. To employ either aquatint or mezzo-
tint in original work, is in some degree a recent
practice. Aquatint has been employed of old in
combination with etching. Girtin's Views in Paris
are a case in point; the combination there was
"OFT, TOO, COMES LOOMING VAST ALONG THE SKY—A MARCH OF WATERS" BY F. BURRIDGE
16