Part 1

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 65243-h.htm or 65243-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65243/pg65243-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/65243/65243-h.zip)

Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/printsbriefrevie01rich

PRINTS

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THEIR TECHNIQUE AND HISTORY

PRINTS

A Brief Review of Their Technique and History

by

EMIL H. RICHTER

With Illustrations

Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge 1914

Copyright, 1914, by Houghton Mifflin Company

All Rights Reserved

Published November 1914

PREFACE

Prints have long been an undisturbed domain of the collector and scholarly connoisseur. Centuries of study and research are resulting in the identification and description of this vast amount of material. The literature on prints embodies these results in the form of handbooks, histories, catalogues for reference, essays, and specializing treatises. These are written primarily for the use of students and collectors, with the elaboration and detail requisite for this class of readers.

Manifestations of a widening interest are more evident every day. With this broadening popular interest has come a demand for a plain, short explanation of “prints.” In the absence of such a brief review and in answer to repeated inquiries, a series of lectures were prepared and delivered--some years ago--by the writer. These lectures are herewith offered, in slightly revised form, to those interested in the nature and development of prints.

This little book is not a compendium of the graphic arts, just an introduction. Brevity and simplicity have been aimed at, the purpose being to awaken interest and convey initial information conducive to further study.

The charm and value of a print lies essentially in the _quality_ of line or tone peculiar to the process employed in its making. These cannot be rendered adequately by the half-tone illustrations which accompany these pages. The prints themselves must be seen to be truly appreciated and understood.

CONTENTS

I. HOW PRINTS ARE MADE 1

Introductory, 1. Bank note and magazine illustration, 3. Three main divisions of processes. Woodcut, 4. Wood-engraving, 5. Engraving, 6. Dry-point, mezzotint, 8. Etching, 9. Lithography, 10. The printing presses used, 11.

II. THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 12

Not a sudden invention, 12. Utilitarian origin, 14. The past reviewed, 15. The panel picture and its cheap substitute, 18. Saints’ pictures, 20. Playing cards, 21. Increasing demand for pictures, 24. Block-books, movable type, 26. Book illustration in Germany and Italy, 28. Examples of early woodcuts: German, 30, Italian, 32.

III. THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 35

Intaglio printing, the goldsmith’s niello, 35. Engraving in Germany and Italy, attitude and results, 37. Anonymous masters, 40. Schongauer, 41. Early Italian examples, 44. Pollajuolo, Mantegna, 46. Giulio Campagnola, 47.

IV. ITALY 49

The professional engraver, 49. Marcantonio Raimondi, 50. The publisher, 51. Revival; Carracci, 52. Painter-etchers, 53. Later developments; Canaletto, 55. The classical engravers, 55. Chiaroscuro woodcut, 56.

V. GERMANY 59

Culmination, Dürer, 60. Lucas van Leyden, 65. Italian influence, 66. Little masters, 67. Woodcut: Cranach, Holbein, 69. The two masters, Dürer and Holbein, 70. Decline, 71.

VI. THE NETHERLANDS 73

History. Flemish and Dutch art, 73. Engraver families, commerce in Saints’ pictures, 75. Virtuosi of the graver, Goltzius, 76. Rubens and his engravers, 77. Van Dyck, 78. Cornel Visscher, 79. Rembrandt, 80. Ostade, 84. Ruysdael. Landscape and animal etchers, 85. Italian influence, decline, 86.

VII. FRANCE 87

Woodcut illustrations, 87. Engraving, Jean Duvet, 89. The Fontainebleau school, 90. Callot, Claude Lorrain, 91. Portrait engraving, 93. Mellan, 94. Morin, 95. Nanteuil, 96. Edelinck and others, 97. New processes, 100. Color-prints, book ornamentation, 101. Classical engraving, Wille, 104. Italian preëminence, 105. Etchers, vignettists, 105. SPAIN: Goya, 107.

VIII. ENGLAND 109

Early days, Hollar. English engravers, 109. Hogarth, 110. Bartolozzi, 110. Mezzotint engravers, 111. Earlom, 113. Wood-engraving: Bewick, 114.

IX. THE UNITED STATES 116

Colonial times; Pelham, Peale, 116. Stipple; book illustration, 117. Wood-engraving, the tone engravers, 118. Etching, 120.

X. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 121

Individual expression, 121. Blake, 122. Chodowiecki, 123. A new era, Constable, Delacroix and others, 124. Turner, 126. Wood-engraving and lithography, 127. Menzel; Gavarni, Daumier, 129. Raffet, 130. Revival of etching, 130. Jacque, Millet, and others, 131. Etching versus Engraving, 131. Haden, Whistler, 132. Meryon, 133. Gaillard, 134. Exacting demands on the graphic arts; Zorn, Klinger, 135. Conclusion, 136.

Books recommended for study of prints, 138.

ILLUSTRATIONS

TITLE-PAGE TO HERODOTUS. Anonymous _Title-page_

ST. MARGARET OF HUNGARY. Anonymous 30

PAGE FROM ARS MEMORANDI. Anonymous 30

PAGE FROM NUREMBERG CHRONICLE. Anonymous 30

VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN. Anonymous 32

PAGE FROM HYPNEROTOMACHIA. Anonymous 32

PAGE FROM MORGANTE MAGGIORE. Anonymous 32

MADONNA OF EINSIEDELN. Anon. Master E. S. 40

DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. Martin Schongauer 42

SIBILLA SAMIA. Anonymous 44

CLIO, FROM THE SO-CALLED TAROCCHI. Anonymous 44

BATTLE OF NUDE MEN. Antonio Pollajuolo 46

CHRIST BETWEEN TWO SAINTS. Andrea Mantegna 46

ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. Giulio Campagnola 46

DEATH OF DIDO. Marcantonio Raimondi 50

ADAM AND EVE. Marcantonio Raimondi 50

TITIAN. Agostino Carracci 52

MADONNA AND CHILD. Federigo Barocci 54

TORRE DI MALGHERA. Antonio Canale 56

DIOGENES. Ugo da Carpi 56

FOUR HORSEMEN, APOCALYPSE. Albrecht Dürer 60

ARMS WITH THE SKULL. Albrecht Dürer 62

REST IN EGYPT. Albrecht Dürer 62

ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY. Albrecht Dürer 64

CARDINAL ALBRECHT. Albrecht Dürer 64

ADORATION OF THE MAGI. Lucas van Leyden 66

TOURNAMENT. Lucas Cranach 68

JOHANNES ZURENUS. Hendrik Goltzius 74

RUBENS. Paul Pontius 76

JAN BRUEGHEL. Anthony van Dyck 78

GELLIUS DE BOUMA. Cornel Visscher 78

ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. Rembrandt 80

THE THREE TREES. Rembrandt 80

JANUS LUTMA. Rembrandt 82

TOBIT BLIND. Rembrandt 82

THE SPINNER. Adriaen van Ostade 84

THE TRAVELERS. Jacob Ruysdael 84

THE DIAMOND. Nicolaes Berghem 86

TOUR DE NESLE. Jacques Callot 90

LE BOUVIER. Claude Lorrain 92

DUC DE GUISE. Claude Mellan 94

ANTOINE VITRÉ. Jean Morin 94

POMPONE DE BELLIÈVRE. Robert Nanteuil 96

PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE. Gérard Edelinck 96

BOSSUET. Pierre Imbert Drevet 98

CHAMPS ÉLYSÉES. Nicolas Henri Tardieu 100

INSTRUCTION PATERNELLE. Georg Wille 104

PLATE FROM THE CAPRICHOS. Francisco Goya 106

CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA. William Faithorne 110

THE HON. MISS BINGHAM. Francesco Bartolozzi 110

MRS. CARNAC. John Raphael Smith 112

FLOWER AND FRUIT PIECE. Richard Earlom 114

THOMAS JEFFERSON. David Edwin 116

CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. Asher Brown Durand 118

STILL-LIFE WITH THE PEACOCK. William J. Linton 118

PLATE FROM THE BOOK OF JOB. William Blake 122

HOME OF A PAINTER. Daniel Chodowiecki 124

INVERARY PIER. J. M. W. Turner 126

ÆSACUS AND HESPERIE. J. M. W. Turner 126

CHRIST DISPUTING WITH DOCTORS. A. v. Menzel 128

CARTOON ON LOUIS PHILIPPE. Honoré Daumier 128

MIDNIGHT REVIEW. Auguste Raffet 130

WOMAN CHURNING. Jean François Millet 130

SUNSET IN IRELAND. Sir Seymour Haden 132

THE DOORWAY. VENICE. James McN. Whistler 132

LE PETIT PONT. Charles Meryon 132

DOM PROSPER GUÉRANGER. Ferdinand Gaillard 134

GIRL BATHING. Anders Zorn 134

EXPULSION FROM PARADISE. Max Klinger 134

PRINTS

THEIR TECHNIQUE AND HISTORY

I

HOW PRINTS ARE MADE

Prints are familiar to every one of us, and yet the subject of prints is strangely unfamiliar. If we look at a painting, a piece of sculpture, or at a monumental building, we know how these things came into being. Without any effort we can see in our mind’s eye the painter, with palette and brushes, applying the colors on his canvas, we can see the sculptor thumbing the clay model on the stand before him, with alternate gentleness and force, while the spectacle of stone-masons and bricklayers at work is a matter of daily occurrence. Likewise are we daily face to face with prints in our homes. They are familiar objects that have always been there; we are so used to them that we hardly see them. But have we ever conjured up, in our mind’s eye, the vision of an engraver, or etcher, or lithographer at work making the print which is so familiar to us? It is a world, indeed, this field on which the energies of thousands upon thousands of men have been expended, expressive of the thoughts of great masters, expressive, yes, eloquent, of the changing mental attitude, the changing customs and interests of successive periods. There is no field, I am tempted to say, in all the realm of art, more comprehensive, more broadening than this subject of prints. In order fully to appreciate the phases of its development, we must find out, first of all, what a print is, and how it is made.

The term “print,” as we use it here, applies to any design conveyed upon paper or any similar substance by means of pressure, usually in the printing-press. Prints are not all produced in one and the same manner;--if this statement should prove surprising, just open any magazine on an illustration page; then place beside it, for comparison, a new dollar bill. Notice the even tone of black in the magazine illustration and the intensity of the black, sharp-cut, metallic lines of the head on the bill. It is quite evident that these two examples have been produced by different means; the magazine illustration shows that the inked lines and dots which constitute the picture have been brought upon the paper with considerable pressure: the ink is embedded into the paper; whereas, if the bill is new, you will notice, upon close inspection, that the ink of every line and dot lies upon the surface of the paper. Pass your finger lightly over some of the heavier lines, and if your finger-tips are sensitive, you will distinctly feel these ridges of ink. Why this difference? Because human ingenuity has devised several ways of obtaining an impression. There are three such possibilities, which divide the graphic arts into three main groups, namely:--

RELIEF PROCESSES: Woodcut, wood-engraving;

INTAGLIO PROCESSES: Engraving, dry-point, mezzotinting, and the etching processes;

PLANOGRAPHIC PROCESSES: Lithography, and its derivatives.[1]

[1] In order to keep the subject as simple as may be, we will leave aside that vast array of modern processes based upon photography, and therefore known as photo-mechanical processes (half-tone, photogravure, and the like) and devote our attention to the _hand processes_ only.

Examples from two of these main divisions have just been under discussion, the magazine illustration being a relief print, the bill an engraving on steel, consequently intaglio. Let us now devote a few moments to their technical features, taking first the oldest of all the processes, woodcut.

If we take a block of wood, nicely planed, finish its face with sandpaper, and cover it with printer’s ink, an impression from that blackened surface would naturally be an unbroken, rectangular patch of black. Now we take a knife with a strong, short blade, a woodcutter’s knife, and with two slanting cuts we take out a thin long sliver from the middle of this blackened surface of wood. The result of an impression will now be a black surface with a white line where we have cut away the wood. Another two cuts parallel with the first will result in another white line, or rather we shall now have a _black_ line, with a white space on either side, the black line being the ridge of wood standing between the two pieces which we have cut away. Could anything be simpler than this working recipe?--wherever black is wanted, leave the wood standing; where you need white, cut away the wood. The same theory applies to wood-engraving, with some changes in material and implements. The wood-engraver uses cross-grain blocks of the hard boxwood, instead of planks of cherry or pear wood, and on this hard surface the graver replaces the knife. The graver--most useful of tools--is a long, thin, diamond-shaped bar of steel, ending in a blunt point with cutting edges; its wooden handle fitting the palm of the hand. The graver is pushed forward and ploughs with great precision across the block or plate, cutting lines of any degree of delicacy or boldness. Like the knife, it removes the wood, consequently leaving a white line or dot wherever it has passed. Hence the term “white-line engraving,” often used for wood-engraving.

When we turn to the second great division, to the intaglio processes, we find that the recipe of the woodcut has to be just reversed to fit this new proposition. Consult the diagram of the three possibilities of printing; the cross-section of the relief-block presents a series of flat-topped ridges with valleys between them. The tops of the ridges print, the valleys are the spaces which are to appear white in the impression. The second figure, a cross-section of an intaglio plate,--an engraving on copper we will say,--shows no hills and vales, but a flat surface with a number of V-shaped cuts filled with ink. When engraving on a copper plate, we cut with the graver into the metal every line of our design that is to appear black. Wherever we want a white space we are careful to leave untouched the polished surface of the plate. Having completed the cutting-in (engraving) of our design, the plate is covered all over with printing-ink, and this is rubbed thoroughly into every furrow which we have cut, so that they are all filled flush with the surface. The surface of the plate is wiped clean. An impression taken from the plate so prepared will show us a black line for every furrow we have cut. Small wonder that the lines on the dollar bill were perceptible ridges of ink, since all the ink in the furrows of the plate is now on the surface of the paper. The theory of the intaglio processes is plainly this: wherever you want black in your design, cut lines or dots into the plate; wherever white is needed, leave the smooth surface of the plate untouched. Based upon this formula, the different intaglio processes produce their blacks in different ways; in dry-point engraving, for instance, the design is scratched into the metal by means of a sharp needle-point, the etching-needle. In tearing through the copper the needle leaves a jagged ridge of copper standing on the sides of each line, this “burr” retains some ink after the plate has been wiped clean, and gives to the dry-point line its peculiar velvety, slightly blurred appearance. The mezzotinter begins his work by roughening the whole surface of the plate with the “rocker” into myriad indentations and tiny projecting teeth of copper. The plate in this condition prints a uniform, velvety black, the deepest tone obtainable. Now by scraping away the little teeth of copper more or less completely, the design is modeled at will in varying half-tones. The high lights are obtained by burnishing the copper quite smooth again. The etcher, instead of cutting the lines of his design into the copper, trusts to the corroding action of powerful acids. Covering his plate with an acid-proof etching-ground, he draws his subject with the etching-needle, using just sufficient pressure to cut through the thin film of ground and lay bare the copper. The plate is then put into an acid bath which eats away the metal wherever a line has been laid bare. The ground is then washed off with a suitable solvent, and the plate printed. There are a number of processes based on etching, like aquatint, crayon manner, stipple, soft-ground etching, and others, but a review, however brief, of all these kindred devices does not lie within the scope of these pages.

We have now reviewed the relief processes, both dependent entirely on hand work, and the intaglio processes, engraving, dry-point, mezzotint, likewise relying upon manual power to prepare the plate for printing. In the etching group of intaglio devices, a chemical factor is called upon to lessen and accelerate the work of the hand. The last group to be considered, planographic processes, is based entirely upon chemical and physical action. The drawing to be reproduced is made with fatty crayon or ink upon a slab of a special variety of limestone; the stone is then treated with acidulated water, and with gummed water. As a result, when the stone is moistened, all those parts which have been drawn upon reject the water, but have an affinity for printing-ink, while the portions not drawn upon have an affinity for water and reject printing-ink, as long as they are kept moist. Neither by ridges nor sunken furrows, just from one plane surface,--hence the term “planographic,”--merely by the enmity of water and fatty ink are these lithographic impressions obtained. Plates of metal are often substituted for stone (zincography, algraphy), but the process always remains the same.

It goes without saying that each of these three possibilities of printing necessitates presses of appropriate construction; thus, in the so-called _platten_ press, the pressure is exerted vertically upon the block by the flat metal plate which comes down upon it, on the same principle as in the letter-press familiar to us all. All intaglio plates are printed in _roller_ presses, in which the plate, laid on an iron bed, passes between two rollers, one above, one below, as in a clothes-wringer. The lithographic press, finally, has a traveling bed, which passes under a stationary flat piece of wood. During its passage under this wooden bar, the paper is firmly pressed down upon the stone, which would be crushed in the other types of presses.[2]

[2] Lithographs made on metal plates may be printed in an intaglio press as well.

After this summary review of the technique of prints, let us consider, with what brevity we may, the great phases of development of the graphic arts.

II

THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT

The term “invention” is often used in referring to the origin of printing and of engraving, as though these devices had come into being quite suddenly,--overnight, as it were. The belief is prevalent, indeed, that one man in Mayence originated, developed, perfected, established printing, and that another man in Florence originated printing from engraved plates about that same time (middle of the fifteenth century). If we look more closely into these subjects, it becomes evident that Dame Tradition has flashed the light of fame upon one link only, of a chain of achievements which stretches back into the unknown. She has clothed one man, call him Gutenberg, call him Finiguerra, with the sum of thought and attainment which had preceded them, that the _achievement_ might gain added impressiveness. The printing-press, and printing from movable type, had reached a state of high perfection at the time when Gutenberg printed his epoch-making Bibles, and research has substantiated the belief that a period of experiment and development _must_ have preceded and led up to such excellence, although these early days of printing still baffle the ingenuity of research. The genesis of printing from engraved plates is equally difficult to establish, though the claim of invention by any one man is as little admissible here as in the other instance. It is a matter of gradual development. Remember, it is the _printing_ from engraved plates which concerns us in our inquiry. Engraving as a means of decorating metal surfaces dates back to remote antiquity, but that is foreign to our present subject. Only when engraving is used as a means of _reproducing_ a design, does it enter within our sphere of interest. Similarly are we concerned to a certain extent with the wood-block method used in the days of Byzance, for stamping patterns upon cloth, because it is the parent of our woodcut. We have here, however, a device used for the decoration of textile fabrics, and we must reserve our interest for the time when _the design printed from the wood block_, upon paper or any other suitable carrier of an impression, becomes the essential consideration.