DOI Heft:
No. 206 (May, 1910)
DOI Artikel:Sir Hubert von Herkomer's lithographs
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20969#0303
Sir Hubert von Herkomer s Lithographs
has been needlessly limited by the conventional
acceptance of the art as merely a form of auto-
graphic chalk drawing—as a convenient process by
which both slight sketches and elaborate drawings
in chalk can be reproduced and printed. To
escape this limitation, and to contrive a way in
which it could be removed, he brought to bear
upon his first experiments with lithography the
knowledge he possessed of mezzotint engraving,
and by the light of this knowledge he quickly
evolved a method which enabled him to get, in
working upon stone, results closely akin to mezzo-
tint, but distinguished by even greater subtleties
of effect than are ordinarily within the mezzotint
engraver’s reach. To the perfecting of this method
he has devoted several months of strenuous labour,
he has tested it assiduously, and with the most
serious consideration of its possible defects, and he
has delayed publishing his conclusions about it
until he had satisfied himself that their correctness
could be guaranteed by actual demonstration and
definite achievement
The first essential of his method is that the work
should be done directly upon the stone ; it does
not permit the use of transfer pape-, because a
drawing made upon paper could not be carried to
completion by the processes he employs and then
be transferred to the stone. At the outset the
stone is granulated by being delicately ground
with very finely sifted sand, and is given a grain
much smaller than has hitherto been customary in
lithographic work—though, it may be noted, this
granulation can be varied by
subsequent grinding here and
there with coarser sand if the
stone is being prepared for a
subject which requires in some
parts a larger grain than in
others. Then the stone is
blacked all over with an ink
made, in the usual manner for
lithographic work, by grinding
together parings of lithographic
chalk and a proportionate
amount of Russian tallow.
This ink, however, is not
smeared or rubbed on with a
stump or leather—the way in
which it has been usually
applied—but is dabbed on
firmly with a stiff hog-hair
brush so as to force it well
into the granulation of the
stone, and to make it lie on
both the depressions and the
projections of the grain.
There is a particular neces-
sity for care in laying this black
ground, because it is by scrap-
ing away the ink that Sir
Hubert obtains all the tone
effects that are required in the
picture he is producing. Just
as mezzotinters scrape away
the tooth on the copper plate,
so he removes the ground to
a greater or less extent accord-
ing to the degree of tone he
desires to express—the more,
of course, the amount of
has been needlessly limited by the conventional
acceptance of the art as merely a form of auto-
graphic chalk drawing—as a convenient process by
which both slight sketches and elaborate drawings
in chalk can be reproduced and printed. To
escape this limitation, and to contrive a way in
which it could be removed, he brought to bear
upon his first experiments with lithography the
knowledge he possessed of mezzotint engraving,
and by the light of this knowledge he quickly
evolved a method which enabled him to get, in
working upon stone, results closely akin to mezzo-
tint, but distinguished by even greater subtleties
of effect than are ordinarily within the mezzotint
engraver’s reach. To the perfecting of this method
he has devoted several months of strenuous labour,
he has tested it assiduously, and with the most
serious consideration of its possible defects, and he
has delayed publishing his conclusions about it
until he had satisfied himself that their correctness
could be guaranteed by actual demonstration and
definite achievement
The first essential of his method is that the work
should be done directly upon the stone ; it does
not permit the use of transfer pape-, because a
drawing made upon paper could not be carried to
completion by the processes he employs and then
be transferred to the stone. At the outset the
stone is granulated by being delicately ground
with very finely sifted sand, and is given a grain
much smaller than has hitherto been customary in
lithographic work—though, it may be noted, this
granulation can be varied by
subsequent grinding here and
there with coarser sand if the
stone is being prepared for a
subject which requires in some
parts a larger grain than in
others. Then the stone is
blacked all over with an ink
made, in the usual manner for
lithographic work, by grinding
together parings of lithographic
chalk and a proportionate
amount of Russian tallow.
This ink, however, is not
smeared or rubbed on with a
stump or leather—the way in
which it has been usually
applied—but is dabbed on
firmly with a stiff hog-hair
brush so as to force it well
into the granulation of the
stone, and to make it lie on
both the depressions and the
projections of the grain.
There is a particular neces-
sity for care in laying this black
ground, because it is by scrap-
ing away the ink that Sir
Hubert obtains all the tone
effects that are required in the
picture he is producing. Just
as mezzotinters scrape away
the tooth on the copper plate,
so he removes the ground to
a greater or less extent accord-
ing to the degree of tone he
desires to express—the more,
of course, the amount of