DOI Heft:
Nr. 170 (May 1907)
DOI Artikel:East, Alfred: The art of the painter-etcher - etchings from nature
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20774#0302
The Art of the Painter-Etc her
come of great knowledge, the clouds, instead of
conveying a feeling of transparency, lightness and
luminosity, might appear as solid objects, hard as
the rounded tops of hills and as unsympathetic as
the outlines of a haystack. Think of the skill
which can suggest all the beauties of a cloud by a
simple outline, and see with what confidence such
masters as Rembrandt and Whistler described with
their needle the sense of distance, and the wonderful
serenity of the sky. How wonderful is this exact
direction and strength of the lines which express
distance ! The perspective is so subtle that it at
once satisfies us that both the aerial and linear per-
spective are correlative. From the distant cloudlets
faintly shimmering in the serenity of light, we look
at all their gradations down to the foreground,
strongly drawn and deeply bitten, and remember
that all have been drawn with this fine steel point!
What an interval of anxiety lies before the etcher
—even though he be one of great experience—ere
he can see a printed proof! For the moment he
entrusts his plate to the action of the acid bath, he
submits to many risks of failure. He may have
drawn upon his plate something that expressed his
appreciation of what he saw, and yet it may be
ruined by an oversight which has been caused by
the want of experience. He should thoroughly
understand his business in this respect, as a plate
under or over-bitten is a source of sorrow when it
has been, up to that point, a successful one.
There is another method of etching from nature,
as practised by Sir Seymour Haden with such
brilliant success, and it is no doubt an excellent
one, ensuring a perfect gradation of line. By this
method the etcher starts with the lines which he
wishes to be the most deeply bitten, and so works
up to his highest light, working on the plate whilst
in the bath. The bath, of course, must be slow,
just suited to the speed of your work—that is, if you
take ten hours to etch a plate in the ordinary way
(z.e., completing the drawing before biting), you must
use just that strength of acid which will have bitten
the darkest lines sufficiently a few moments before
you draw your faintest ones. Although you can, of
course, take the plate out and resume the work
another time, yet the principle holds good. But
come of great knowledge, the clouds, instead of
conveying a feeling of transparency, lightness and
luminosity, might appear as solid objects, hard as
the rounded tops of hills and as unsympathetic as
the outlines of a haystack. Think of the skill
which can suggest all the beauties of a cloud by a
simple outline, and see with what confidence such
masters as Rembrandt and Whistler described with
their needle the sense of distance, and the wonderful
serenity of the sky. How wonderful is this exact
direction and strength of the lines which express
distance ! The perspective is so subtle that it at
once satisfies us that both the aerial and linear per-
spective are correlative. From the distant cloudlets
faintly shimmering in the serenity of light, we look
at all their gradations down to the foreground,
strongly drawn and deeply bitten, and remember
that all have been drawn with this fine steel point!
What an interval of anxiety lies before the etcher
—even though he be one of great experience—ere
he can see a printed proof! For the moment he
entrusts his plate to the action of the acid bath, he
submits to many risks of failure. He may have
drawn upon his plate something that expressed his
appreciation of what he saw, and yet it may be
ruined by an oversight which has been caused by
the want of experience. He should thoroughly
understand his business in this respect, as a plate
under or over-bitten is a source of sorrow when it
has been, up to that point, a successful one.
There is another method of etching from nature,
as practised by Sir Seymour Haden with such
brilliant success, and it is no doubt an excellent
one, ensuring a perfect gradation of line. By this
method the etcher starts with the lines which he
wishes to be the most deeply bitten, and so works
up to his highest light, working on the plate whilst
in the bath. The bath, of course, must be slow,
just suited to the speed of your work—that is, if you
take ten hours to etch a plate in the ordinary way
(z.e., completing the drawing before biting), you must
use just that strength of acid which will have bitten
the darkest lines sufficiently a few moments before
you draw your faintest ones. Although you can, of
course, take the plate out and resume the work
another time, yet the principle holds good. But