Delaborde Henri
Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History
Once, it is true, at the most brilliant period of English engraving, the French school was not without a moment of hesitation on the part of some, of disloyalty on that of others. During the First Empire, the existence of the art movement in London in the last years of the active rule of George III. and the beginning of the Regency was unsuspected in France. The cessation of commercial relations between the two countries left the French in such complete ignorance that, until 1816, the only English prints they knew were those by Strange, Ryland, and Woollett: those, in fact, published before the end of the eighteenth century. And when, after the Restoration, English work first came under the eyes of French engravers, the fascination of its novelty dazzled them more than the splendour of its merit.
Those who, like Tardieu and Desnoyers, were especially concerned with loftiness of style and masculine vigour of execution, were but little moved by such innovations, if we may judge by the nature of their subsequent publications. The "Ruth and Boaz," engraved by the former after Hersent, the divers "Madonnas" and the "Transfiguration," engraved by the latter after Raphael, do not testify that their belief in the excellence of the old French method was at all shaken. But others, either younger or less stable of conviction, were soon seduced. Like the English engravers, they attempted to unite all the different processes of engraving in their plates; and they sought, to the exclusion of all besides, the easiest way of work, piquancy of result, and prettiness everywhere, even in history. These imitations became more numerous by reason of their first success, till they threatened the independence of French engraving, which had not been encroached upon since the seventeenth century.
The fever, however, soon cooled. A happy reaction set in soon after 1830, and continued during the following years; and infatuation having everywhere been succeeded by reflection, the misleading qualities of the English manner were finally recognised. The French school takes counsel with none save itself, its past, and its traditions. To this just confidence in its own resources are owing its present superiority to, and independence of, other schools, and, what is more important still, its place apart from that mechanical industry which, with its spurious successes, its raids upon a territory not its own, and its pretentious efforts to occupy the place of art, would seize upon those privileges, which, do all it may, it can never hope to confiscate.
Of all the engravers who have honoured our epoch not in France alone, but also in other countries, the first in genius, as in the general influence he has exerted for nearly half a century, is certainly Henriquel – as he called himself in the early part of his career – Henriquel-Dupont in the second half. But he too, it would seem, had his hours of indecision. Perhaps, in some of his early works, certain traces may be discovered of a leaning towards the English manner, certain tendencies of doubtful orthodoxy; but, at any rate, they have never developed into manifest errors: they have, at the most, resulted in venial sins, which themselves have been abundantly atoned.
Henriquel is a master in the widest acceptation of the word: a master, too, of the stamp of those in the past of whom the French have the greatest right to be proud. The masters of the seventeenth century have scarcely left us plates at once so largely and so delicately treated, as his "Hémicycle du Palais des Beaux-Arts," his "Moïse Exposé sur le Nil," and his "Strafford," after Paul Delaroche; his admirable sketch in etching of the "Pilgrims of Emmaus," after Veronese; and the portrait of M. Bertin, after Ingres; and these are but a few. We have, besides the Van Dyck, "Une Dame et sa Fille," engraved some years before the "Abdication de Gustave Wasa," after Hersent, and the "Marquis de Pastoret," after Paul Delaroche; the "Christ Consolateur," engraved rather later, after Scheffer; and, among less important, though certainly not less meritorious works, the portraits engraved now with the scientific ease of the burin, now with the light and delicate touch of the needle: the "Pasta," the botanist "Desfontaines," "Desenne" the draughtsman, the "Brongniart," the "Tardieu," the "Carle Vernet," the "Sauvageot," the "Scheffer," the "Mansard et Perrault," the "Mirabeau à la Tribune," the "Rathier," and, latest of all, the charming little "Père Petétot."
In these – and in how many besides? for the work of the master does not fall short of ninety pieces, besides lithographs and a great deal in pastel and crayon – Henriquel proves himself not only a trained draughtsman and finished executant, but, as it were, still more a painter than any of his immediate predecessors. Bervic – whose pupil he became, after some years in the studio of Pierre Guérin – was able to teach him to overcome the practical difficulties of the art, but the influence of the engraver of the "Laocoon" and the "Déjanire" went no further than technical initiation. Even the example of Desnoyers, however instructive in some respects, was not so obediently followed by Henriquel as to cause any sacrifice of taste and natural sentiment. By the clearness of his views, as much as by the elevation of his talent, the engraver of the "Hemicycle" is connected with the past French school and the masters who are its chief honour; but by the particular form of expression he employs, by a something extremely unexpected in his manner and extremely personal in his acceptance of tradition, he stands to a certain extent apart from his predecessors, and may be called an innovator, though he by no means advertises any such pretension. As we have just remarked, his use of means is so versatile that he paints with the graver or the needle, where just before him others, even the most skilful – men like Laugier and Richomme – could only engrave; and the influence he has exerted – whether by direct teaching, or by his signed work – has had the effect of rejuvenating engraving in France in more than one particular, and of awakening talents, some of which, though plainly betraying their origin, have none the less a weight and an importance of their own, and deserve an honourable place in the history of contemporary art.
Several of his most distinguished pupils are dead: Aristide Louis, whose "Mignon," after Scheffer, won instant popularity; Jules François, who is to be credited, among other fine plates, with a real masterpiece in the "Militaire Offrant des Pièces d'Or à une Femme," after the Terburg in the Louvre; and Rousseaux, perhaps the most gifted engraver of his generation, whose works, few as they are, are yet enough to immortalise him. Who knows, indeed, if some day the "Portrait d'Homme" from the picture in the Louvre attributed to Francia, and the "Madame de Sévigné" from Nanteuil's pastel, may not be sought for with the eagerness now expended on the search for the old masters of engraving?
The premature death of these accomplished craftsmen has certainly been a loss to the French school. Fortunately, however, there remain many others whose work is of a nature to uphold the ancient renown of French art, and to defy comparison with the achievement of other countries. Where, save in France could equivalents be found, for instance, of the "Coronation of the Virgin," after Giovanni da Fiesole, and the "Marriage of Saint Catherine," after Memling, by Alphonse François; of the "Antiope," by Blanchard, after Correggio; of the "Vierge de la Consolation," after Hébert, by Huot; of Danguin's "Titian's Mistress," or Bertinot's "Portement de Croix," after Lesueur; of several other plates, remarkable in different ways, and bearing the same or other names? What rivalry need Gaillard fear, in the sort of engraving of which he is really the inventor, and which he practises with such extraordinary skill? Whether he produces after Van Eyck, Ingres, or Rembrandt, such plates as the "Homme à l'Œillet," the "Œdipus," and the "Pilgrims of Emmaus," or gives us, from his own drawings or paintings, such portraits as his "Pius IX." and his "Dom Guéranger," he, in every case, arrests the mind as well as surprises the eye, by the inconceivable subtlety of his work. Even when translating the works of others he shows himself boldly original. His methods are entirely his own, and render imitation impossible because they are prompted by the exceptional delicacy of his perceptions; but, with all the goodwill in the world, it would be no less difficult to appropriate his keenness of sentiment or to gain an equal degree of mental insight.
In France, then, line engraving has representatives numerous enough, and above all meritorious enough, to put to rout the apprehensions of those who believe, or affect to believe, the art irretrievably injured by the success of heliography. We have only to glance at the feats accomplished in our own day in engraving of another kind, and to examine those produced in France by contemporary French etchers, to be reassured on this question also. Might we not, even, without exaggeration, apply the term renaissance to the series of advances effected in the branch of engraving formerly distinguished by Callot and by Claude Lorraine? When, since the seventeenth century, has the needle ever been handled in France by so many skilful artists, and with so keen a feeling for effect and colour? But let none mistake the drift of our praise. Of course, we do not allude here to the thousands of careless sketches scrawled on the varnish, with a freedom to be attributed to simple ignorance, far more than to real dash and spirit; nor to those would-be "works of art," for which the skill of the printer and the tricks of printing have done the most. To the dupes of such blatant trickeries they shall be left. Still, it is only just to acknowledge, in the etchings of the day, a singular familiarity with the true conditions of the process, and generally a good knowledge of pictorial effect, solid enough and sufficiently under control to maintain a mean between pedantry and exaggerated ease.
Many names would deserve mention, were we not confined to general indications of the progress and the movement they represent. It is, however, impossible to omit that of Jacquemart, the young master recently deceased, who, in a kind of engraving he was the first to attempt, gave proof of much ingenuity of taste and of original ability. The plates of which his "Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne" is composed, and his etchings of similar models – sculpture and goldsmith's work, vases and bindings, enamels and cameos – all deserve to rank with historical pieces of the highest order; even as the still-life painted by Chardin a century ago still excites the same interest, and has a right to the same attention, as the best pictures by contemporary allegorical or portrait painters.
The superiority of the French school, in whatever style, has, moreover, been recently recognised and proclaimed in public. It has not been forgotten that the jury entrusted with the awards at the International Exhibition of 1878 unanimously decreed a principal share to the engravers of France. Without injustice this share might perhaps have been even greater if the jury, chiefly composed of Frenchmen, had not thought right to take full account of the special conditions of the competition, and the readiness with which the artists of other countries had responded.
Since then the position of art in Europe, and the relative importance of talents in different countries of Europe, have not changed. If, to understand the state of contemporary engraving, it be thought desirable to confine our attention to the present moment, there can be no doubt whatever that the most cursory examination of the works representing the different processes of engraving must justify the above observations. These we should wish briefly to recapitulate.
We have said that etching has, within the last few years, returned so much into favour, that probably at no other time have its products been more numerous, or in more general demand. This is but fair; and it is not in France only that the public taste for etched work, large and small, is justified by the talent of the artists who publish it. To quote a few names only among those to be commended, in different degrees, for their many proofs of sentiment and skill, we have Unger in Austria; Redlich and Massaloff in Russia; Gilli in Italy; and Seymour Haden in England. By their talents they assist in the reform which the French engravers began, and which they now pursue with increasing authority and exceptional technical knowledge.
Mezzotint and aquatint have been not nearly so fortunate. The former appears to have fallen, almost everywhere, into disuse. Even in England, where, as soon as Von Siegen's invention was imported, a school was founded to cultivate its resources – in England, where, from Earlom to S. W. Reynolds and Cousins, mezzotint engravers so long excelled – it is a mere chance if a few are still to be found supporting the tradition. In other countries, France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy, mezzotint is, to speak strictly, scarcely practised at all. It has been replaced by aquatint, which itself, as we mentioned in a former chapter, is only used for purely commercial requirements, except by engravers of real talent in combination with the needle and the graver.
Wood engraving has made, in certain respects, considerable progress in the course of the last few years. In France and England it is producing results that not only confirm its advances, but are as the prophecy of still better things. Amongst recent prints, those of Robert, for instance, do more than promise; they realise the hopes which others only hold out. All the same, it is commonly the case with wood engravers that, clever though they be, they are apt to deceive themselves as to the special conditions of their art, and too often to forget that it is not their province to imitate the appearance of line engraving. Instead of attempting to copy the complicated results of the graver, they should rather, in accordance with the nature of the process at their disposal, be satisfied with rapid suggestions of effect and modelling and a summary imitation of form and colour. The illustrations after Holbein, by Lützelburger and other Germans of the sixteenth century, and the portraits and subjects cut on wood by Italian artists, or by Frenchmen of the same epoch, as Geofroy Tory and Salomon Bernard, are models to which the engravers of our own day would do well to conform, instead of entering, under pretext of improvements, upon attempted innovations as foreign to the true nature of the process as to its objects and real resources.
Though the practice of line engraving is more scientific in France than anywhere else, it has nevertheless distinguished representatives in other countries. Besides the French, the German, and the Italian engravers we have mentioned, Weber, in Switzerland; De Kaiser, in Holland; Biot and Franck, in Belgium; Jacobi, Sonnenleiter, and Klaus, in Austria, are working manfully for the cause so well supported by Henriquel and his followers. But everywhere the perseverance of zeal and talent is unfortunately insufficient to overcome the prejudices of the public, and its exaggerated confidence in the benefits of mechanical discovery.
Since the progress accomplished by science in the domain of heliographic reproduction, since the advantages with regard to material exactness that photography and the processes derived from it have offered, or seem to offer, line engraving, of all the different methods, is certainly the one that has suffered most from the supposed rivalry. A mistake, all the more to be regretted as it seems to be general, gave rise to the idea that it was all over with the art of engraving, simply because, as mere copies, its products could not have the infallible fidelity of photographic images, and that, however painstaking and faithful the engraver's hand, it could never produce that exact fac-simile, that ruthless imitation of the thing copied.
Nothing could be truer than this, if the only object of line engraving were to give us a literal copy, a brutal effigy of its original. But is it necessary to mention again that, happily, it has also the task of interpretation? Owing to the very limited field in which he works, as it were in monochrome, the engraver is compelled to choose and to combine the best means of rendering by analogy the various colours of his original, to organise its general effect, and to bring out both the character and the style, now by the simplification of certain details, now by applying the principle of selection to certain others. We have no longer here the stupid impartiality, or, if it be preferred, the unreasoning veracity of a mechanical apparatus, but the deliberate use of feeling, intelligence, and taste – of all those faculties, indeed, which mould and enter into the talent of an artist.
Now as long as there are men in the world capable of preferring idea to matter, and the art which appeals to the mind to the fact which speaks to the eyes, line engraving will retain its influence, however small it may be supposed, however limited it may really be. In any case, those who in these days, in spite of every obstacle, are determined to pursue in their own way the work of such men as Edelinck and Nanteuil, will have deserved recognition from their contemporaries, and will have averted, so far as they could, the complete decay, if it must come, of art properly so called, when sacrificed to the profit of chance manufacture and mere technique.
A CHAPTER ON
English Engraving.
By WILLIAM WALKER
England appears at first only to have participated in the European movement amongst the fine arts by the trade which it carried on in foreign productions, and the hospitality and the patronage which it gave to many celebrated artists. Thus the country was enriched with foreign works, and examples were obtained, not perhaps worthy of being slavishly followed, but at all events capable of stimulating native talent. At the persuasion of Erasmus, Holbein, in 1526, came to try his fortune in England, and was followed afterwards by Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as De Bry, Vorsterman, and the indefatigable Hollar, the latter an engraver unrivalled in his own style, and perhaps the most unfortunate in worldly circumstances who ever practised the art.
As early as 1483 wood-cuts were used for illustration in Caxton's "Golden Legend," and subsequent printers adopted the same practice in issuing their publications. In like manner, copperplate engravings appeared first as illustrations for books, notably in one called "The Birth of Mankind," dedicated to Queen Catherine, and published by Thomas Raynalde in 1540, and in a translation of Vesalius' "Anatomy," published in 1545 by Thomas Geminus, who not only did the literary work, but copied the original wood-cuts on copper. In the middle of the century, the Hogenbergs took advantage of the method for portraiture, Francis engraving in 1555 a portrait of Queen Mary, and his brother Remigius in 1573 one of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to have retained the engraver in his service.
About the same period appeared William Rogers, who was born in London in 1545, and may be considered as the earliest English engraver worthy of mention. His series of portraits are of considerable merit, especially a whole length, taken from a drawing by Isaac Oliver, of Queen Elizabeth, standing with orb and sceptre, and clothed in a rich embroidered and puffed dress. This print bears at the bottom the name of the engraver, and was afterwards reduced in size all round, turning the figure of the Queen into a three-quarter length, and cutting away Rogers' name, which was not reinserted in the later publication. Both sizes of the print are scarce, especially the original, and indeed for a considerable time the reduced impression was considered anonymous, until the appearance of the larger engraving and its comparison with the smaller established the identity of the two. The elder Crispin de Passe engraved a plate from the same drawing of smaller size, and with different accessories in the background.
De Passe, a native of Utrecht, and his family, William, Simon, and a daughter Magdalen, came over to England at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and engraved many prints of much interest in a style peculiarly their own. Reginald Elstracke (born 1620) and Francis Delaram flourished about the same period.
But nothing was accomplished by any English engraver of great artistic value, or which could be fairly compared with the work in other countries, until the middle of the century. It was then that William Faithorne, by his series of portraits, full of colour and executed in a clear and brilliant style, freed England from this reproach. He may be said to have inaugurated the era of English engravers, who, though mostly surpassed by other nations in the line manner of engraving, have no rivals in mezzotint. This style, which, when combined with bold etching, may be called the culmination of the art, was taken up in this country as soon as discovered, adopted by the English as their own, and gradually brought by them to the fullest perfection. Faithorne was a pupil of Sir Robert Peake, painter and engraver, and is said also to have studied under Nanteuil, when driven through the troubles of the first revolution to take refuge in France. His portraits of Mary, Princess of Orange, the Countess of Exeter, Sir William Paston, Queen Catherine of Braganza, Charles II., with long flowing black hair, Thomas Killegrew, dramatist and court favourite, and the famous Marquis of Worcester, one of the contributors to the invention of the steam engine, rank high as engravings, and worthily take their place amidst the achievements of other countries.
Before treating of mezzotint and the new field which it opened out to the engraver, it will be well to call attention to the coming of Hollar to England, and his peculiar method of work, which consisted mainly of etching, assisted by the point or fine graver. Wenceslaus Hollar (born 1607) was forced early in life by the exigencies of those warlike times to leave his native land – Bohemia – and to travel through Germany, designing and engraving on his way, until, in 1636, he met at Cologne with the Earl of Arundel, the English Ambassador to Ferdinand II., who immediately took him into his employment, and on his return from his mission brought him to England, where, with the exception of the troubled years of the first revolution, Hollar resided for the remainder of his life.
Misfortune, however, which attended Hollar in youth, seemed relentless throughout his entire career; after the restoration of Charles II., he underwent the terrible experiences of the plague and of the fire of London, and the times, hostile to every pursuit of art, reduced Hollar to a state of indigence and distress from which, in spite of persevering industry, he seems never to have been able to recover. Sent to Africa in 1669 as the king's designer, to make drawings of the fortifications and surroundings of the town of Tangiers, he meets with Algerine corsairs on his way back, from which he escapes with difficulty. On his return, it is only after delay and vexation that he can obtain £100 from the impecunious king for his two years' labours and expenses. He travels through England, making drawings and etchings of abbeys, churches, ruins, and cathedrals, and ultimately dies at Westminster (1677) in a state of extreme poverty and distress, his very death-bed being disturbed by bailiffs, who threaten the seizure of the last article of furniture he possessed, the bed upon which he is lying. His body was laid in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster; his name and works remain living and immortal. Hollar's prints amount to considerably over two thousand, and embrace all kinds of subjects, portraits, landscapes, architecture, costume, and animal and still-life of varied character and quality. His treatment of the textures of hair, feathers, or the bloom on butterflies and other insects, is simply unrivalled. Besides his portraits, among other well-known and valued prints, there are – after his own designs – the long bird's-eye view of London in four parts, plans of the same city before and after the great fire (1666), exterior and interior views of the old Cathedral of St. Paul51 Westminster Hall, with its picturesque surroundings, the Cathedrals of Lincoln, Southwell, Strasbourg, Antwerp, and York, sets of butterflies, insects, costumes, muffs, and richly-wrought jewelled vessels.
In addition to these, he engraved a set of thirteen plates (1671) on the various English ways of hunting, hawking, and fishing, after Francis Barlow, painter and engraver, who flourished during the same period, and excelled in the representation of animals, birds, and fish. The latter artist has left a curious print – of which the only known example is supposed to be that of the British Museum – entitled "The Last Horse Race" (August 24, 1684), run before Charles II., at Dorsett Ferry (? Datchett), near Windsor Castle. Hollar was the master of Robert Gaywood, who in some measure imitates his style, and many of whose plates are justly esteemed, such as the series of heads after Van Dyck, the curious likeness of Cromwell, the large print of the philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus, as opposing professors of gaiety and gravity, and the plates of birds and animals after Barlow.
In the meantime, the art of mezzotint had been invented, in the first place, by Ludwig von Siegen, a lieutenant-colonel in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who used the method to execute a large portrait, bearing the date 1642, of the Princess Amelia Elizabeth, the dowager Landgravine of Hesse. The credit for the discovery has also been ascribed to the well-known Prince Rupert52 nephew of Charles I.; but the legend of the prince meeting with a soldier cleaning his corroded gun, and thus conceiving the idea of engraving a copper plate, rests on no sufficient foundation. It is, however, enough for this romantic prince's undying renown, that, having acquired the secret of producing the necessary ground by some means or other, most probably from Von Siegen, he not only introduced the process into England, but executed himself several remarkable engravings in the style, one of which, known as "The Great Executioner" (dated 1658), after Spagnoletto53 to distinguish it from a smaller plate containing the head only of the same figure, remains to this day as a powerful and wonderful example of the method. It is curious that, with the partial exception of Germany, and a few isolated instances in other countries, mezzotint should have been practically confined to England; the very name is not recognised elsewhere. Germany uses the word "Schabkunst," scraping art; the French, "La manière noire," the black manner; and Italy, "L'incisione a fumo," engraving in smoke or black54
Before the discovery of the new method, all engraving consisted of an arrangement of lines varied occasionally by dots, which had to be cut into the polished copperplate either directly by the graver or indirectly by the use of acid. Untouched by either graver or acid, the polished plate would thus, under the ordinary process of copperplate printing (rubbing in the ink by a suitable dabber and then cleaning off all the ink not held fast by in-dents), print white; mezzotint reverses the process. The plate, instead of being polished when the engraver commences his work presents a close, fine, file-like surface, which, if inked, wiped, and put under the heavy-pressure roller press, would now print off a deep uniform surface of bloomy black; in place, therefore, of putting in lines or dots to hold the ink, the engraver has to scrape off the close file-like grain at the required parts, bringing up his highest lights by means of a burnisher; the scraper and burnisher, not the graver, are consequently the principal tools used in executing mezzotint. In addition to the greater ease and rapidity with which an engraving could be made by this process, the range of effect or colour was immensely increased. All tones between pure white and the deepest black were now capable of realisation, and it is easy to see how greatly were enlarged the resources of the engraver, whose special gift and claim as an original artist – a fact too often forgotten, or rather not sufficiently recognised – consist in his power of translating into various shades of black and white the numerous colours at the disposal of the painter.
The forming or laying the grained surface, technically called ground, is necessarily of the utmost importance, and is effected by a tool known amongst practical workers as "the rocker," called also "cradle," or "berceau" – the French equivalent – from the peculiar rocking motion given to it by the operator. The rocker is made of moderately thin and carefully tempered steel about two inches broad, and might be termed a stumpy, wide chisel were it not that it is curved (like a cheese-cutter) and notched or serrated at the cutting edge, which serration is caused by one side of the steel being indented into small fluted ridges running parallel upwards to the handle by which the tool is held, and somewhat presenting the appearance of a small-tooth-comb. On the plain smooth side the rocker is ground level to the edge, like other cutting tools, and sharpened on a stone or hone of suitable quality. In laying the ground this instrument is held firmly in the hand, the elbow resting on a convenient cushion, the serrated cutting edge placed on the plate with a slight inclination, and a steady rocking motion given to the tool, which slowly advances over the surface of the copper or steel, forming on its way a narrow indented path. Side by side with this path another is made until the whole surface of the plate has been covered. The series of parallel paths is then repeated at a certain angle over the previous ones, and so on in regular progressive angular order until the required closeness of texture has been produced; to do this it is necessary that the series of parallel paths – technically called a way– should be repeated in proper angular progression from sixty to a hundred times. As the continual friction of the elbow against the cushion caused the laying of a ground to become a severe and painful operation, particularly when the use of steel instead of copper plates came into practice early in the present century, a modification of this plan was introduced whereby the tool was fixed at the fitting angle into one end of a long pole, the other end being inserted loosely in a ring fixed on the board upon which the plate was placed; the requisite rocking motion could then be easily given by the hand, and much painful labour avoided. The necessity for a good ground being so great, as the process became more and more general in England, a race of professional ground-layers grew up, who were paid at a certain rate per square inch for the surface thus covered. Much controversy has taken place as to the means by which Siegen, Prince Rupert, and the earlier mezzotinters produced their grounds, but there is little doubt that it must have been accomplished by some rude form of the present tool, and the curious appearance of the grain – as seen in very early mezzotints – must have been caused by the irregular crossings of the impressed layers, the necessity of regular angular procedure throughout the plate, in order to obtain an even tone, not having been recognised at first.