DOI issue:
No. 289 (April 1917)
DOI article:Salaman, Malcolm C.: The art of the colour-print
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24576#0118
The Art of the Colour-print
resourceful art and craft, is the medium of the
remarkable prints of Lieut. Verpilleux, a young
artist full of temperament and activity of vision,
a craftsman of imagination. The vibrations of
light through the atmospheric tones and local
colours are rendered with wonderful brilliance,
by actual engraving rather than devices of
printing, as one may see in his latest print,
Searchlights, Trafalgar Square, where the search-
lights playing across the sky give, with their
vibrant lines, a sense of mysterious vitality to
the design formed by the lines of the square
and the Nelson Column.
Aquatint, because its object is to produce
tones that shall resemble wash-drawings, seems
to me of all the intaglio methods the most
suitable basis for the colour-print. It was the
medium of the finest and most artistic French
colour-prints of the eighteenth century, the
medium with which Janinet, Descourtis, and
Debucourt produced, with a number of super-
imposed printings from several plates, their
subtleties of tonality, and it is used to-day by an
interesting group of our graver-printers in colour.
Had aquatint Deen a known practice at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, Le Blon
would undoubtedly have used that medium in
preference to mezzotint. Scientifically he com-
posed his prints with the primary colours super-
imposed, each printed from a separate plate, and
some of his results were extraordinarily successful.
But rarely is a coloured mezzotint an artistic
success, since the true quality of the engraving
is seen only in black and white, with ail the
colour-suggestion of its infinite range of tone,
and then only in an early impression, brilliant
with all its velvety beauty of bloom. For this
reason colour-printing was merely an after-
thought with the great mezzotinters of the
eighteenth century ; it was never the objective
of their engraving. To-day Mr. Frederick Mar-
riott, as far as I know, is alone in producing
colour-prints from mezzotint plates, and then,
going for strong contrasts in light and shade—
artificial light frequently—he uses resources of
his own to achieve his brilliancy. The modern
graphic artist, seeking means only for original
expression, has seen nothing worth reviving in
COLOUR-PRINT BY EDITH B. DAWSON
resourceful art and craft, is the medium of the
remarkable prints of Lieut. Verpilleux, a young
artist full of temperament and activity of vision,
a craftsman of imagination. The vibrations of
light through the atmospheric tones and local
colours are rendered with wonderful brilliance,
by actual engraving rather than devices of
printing, as one may see in his latest print,
Searchlights, Trafalgar Square, where the search-
lights playing across the sky give, with their
vibrant lines, a sense of mysterious vitality to
the design formed by the lines of the square
and the Nelson Column.
Aquatint, because its object is to produce
tones that shall resemble wash-drawings, seems
to me of all the intaglio methods the most
suitable basis for the colour-print. It was the
medium of the finest and most artistic French
colour-prints of the eighteenth century, the
medium with which Janinet, Descourtis, and
Debucourt produced, with a number of super-
imposed printings from several plates, their
subtleties of tonality, and it is used to-day by an
interesting group of our graver-printers in colour.
Had aquatint Deen a known practice at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, Le Blon
would undoubtedly have used that medium in
preference to mezzotint. Scientifically he com-
posed his prints with the primary colours super-
imposed, each printed from a separate plate, and
some of his results were extraordinarily successful.
But rarely is a coloured mezzotint an artistic
success, since the true quality of the engraving
is seen only in black and white, with ail the
colour-suggestion of its infinite range of tone,
and then only in an early impression, brilliant
with all its velvety beauty of bloom. For this
reason colour-printing was merely an after-
thought with the great mezzotinters of the
eighteenth century ; it was never the objective
of their engraving. To-day Mr. Frederick Mar-
riott, as far as I know, is alone in producing
colour-prints from mezzotint plates, and then,
going for strong contrasts in light and shade—
artificial light frequently—he uses resources of
his own to achieve his brilliancy. The modern
graphic artist, seeking means only for original
expression, has seen nothing worth reviving in
COLOUR-PRINT BY EDITH B. DAWSON