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PRINTS

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THEIR
TECHNIQUE AND HISTORY


[Illustration:

HERODOTUS. VENICE, 1494]


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.

The origin of the processes of reproduction is invariably utilitarian.
Every advance, every new technical attainment, can be traced to the
demand for devices which would lessen labor and save time. The graphic
arts do not share with painting a development based upon a desire for
æsthetic expression. Their origin is imitative, thoroughly democratic,
and every process continues in that lowly sphere, until the genius of
some powerful artist lifts it into realms of art. For the very reason
of this utilitarian tendency, and because of a gamut of expression
restricted to line and tone for the interpretation of a world of color
and form, the graphic arts, even more than other forms of artistic
expression, need the steady hand of the gifted artist to sustain them
on a high plane of excellence. Deprived of this guiding support,
their decline to levels of mediocrity and commercialism is swift and
inevitable.

If we glance at early periods of history, we are readily convinced that
before the fifteenth century there existed no demand for pictorial work
widespread or emphatic enough to call into life speedier substitutes
for hand work. Surely no need of such substitutes was felt in the
Græco-Roman world, where a well-developed system of scribes met the
demands of their patrons. Nor were multiplying devices needed in
the early days of Christianity. The new faith, to be sure, made its
appeal to everybody, to the high-born and lowly alike, but it relied
mainly on the word of the preacher for the transmission of its simple
creed. During the dark ages of ferment, migration, and strife which
followed, the monuments of antique culture, erudition, knowledge
were engulfed. What demand could there have been for the multiplying
arts in that period of dense ignorance, of ceaseless struggle for
life itself, for the bare necessities of life, for merely endurable
conditions? The Church, the only institution of stability in this sea
of unrest, became the repository of whatever remained of tradition and
erudition,--mysteries, these, to be jealously guarded and held as a
privilege of the clergy.

Owing to the prevalent illiteracy among the people in these dark ages,
the Church, in its mission of spiritual guidance, relied, as of old,
on the preacher’s word. The power of his exhortations was seconded,
however, by silently eloquent, impressive teachings surrounding the
worshipers, namely, the scenes and figures of religious import,
painted upon the walls of the church. That same endeavor to stimulate
pious thoughts carried the miniature into liturgical books, into
religious manuscripts generally. The writing-room of the monastery was
all-sufficient to provide for the pious needs of clergy, rulers, and
nobles. Here the patient copyist drew again and again the outlines of
the large illuminated initials of his text, until he bethought himself
of the labor he might save by imitating the cloth-printer, and cutting
wooden relief-blocks of these outlines which he might stamp upon his
parchment. An early device this, adopted in the twelfth or thirteenth
century, but clearly foreshadowing the development which was soon to
follow.

Meantime, in that iron age religious enthusiasm had fired the
crusaders, the armor-clad Occident had met the Orient, bringing back
some of the wisdom of the ancient East into the scholar’s study and the
convent cell, and broadening man’s outlook upon the world.

We know how Gothic architecture grew up in the North, how in the Gothic
church the ample wall space, which had been heretofore the realm of
painting, was divided, reduced, suppressed. We know how the curtailed
pictorial art sought new spheres of expression, how the panel picture
took possession of the altars. Before long this picture, which could be
shifted from one position to another, was used independently of altars,
for the adornment of suitable wall spaces in the church, until finally
it found its way from the church to the home, henceforth to be one of
its indispensable adornments.

As painting made its way into the lay world, the impersonal,
traditional, dogmatic character of sacred subjects faded away. Not
that ecclesiastic art had lost its deeply religious sincerity, but
the artist saw nature with new eyes; he realized the beautiful world
around him, and lovingly painted the plants and flowers at the feet of
the Virgin. He removed her throne from the formal diapered background
of gold, and placed it in the midst of the actual living world.
The figures became more personal and lifelike; worldly subjects,
even portraits, or at least efforts in the direction of individual
differentiation, came within the artist’s sphere, while as yet the
sacred subject remained the one great theme of artistic expression.

The panel picture had come into the home as a means of decoration, but
the wealthy only could gratify their desire for this costly form of
artistic adornment. The burgher, the artisan, the economical household,
could not think of owning such painted luxury, not any more than they
could afford the costly miniatures painted on parchment. Then some
bethought themselves that they might cut the outline of figures on
blocks of wood, after the manner of the cloth-printers and of the
initial blocks which we have found in use in monastic writing-rooms.
These outlines could then be printed on parchment, or on that new and
cheaper product, paper, as an inexpensive substitute for panel picture
and miniature. In this manner the common people obtained their saints’
pictures or “Helgen” (_Heiligen_), more or less crude in design, clumsy
in the execution of knife-work, colored with the gayest pigments which
the _Briefmaler_ could find. With all their imperfections these early
woodcuts were prized and evidently found a ready market, as souvenirs
of pilgrimages, as fit embellishments of wayside shrines or altars of
the chapels and churches of poor parishes, as scapulars, or pasted in
books, as makeshifts for the unattainable miniatures, or else they were
simply fastened on the wall, as a decoration. Tastes were simple, and
with all their crudeness, these productions--of greatly varying size
and of every degree of careful or careless execution--are not without
charm even to the twentieth-century beholder.

The same artisans who cut and printed these saints’ pictures found
lucrative employment in a field quite remote from religious matters.
Playing-cards had been introduced into Europe from the Orient, probably
in the latter part of the thirteenth century. They quickly won
popular favor and were used by rich and poor with equal zest. Cards
exquisitely painted or charmingly engraved attest the favor accorded
the game by people of rank and wealth, but in making cards for the use
of the people at large, cheapness of production far outweighed any
æsthetic considerations which might have existed. Cards had to be sold
cheaply, and they had to be produced in large quantities to satisfy
the growing demand. How were these conditions to be met? One solution
of the problem was stenciling, another stamping the outlines on paper
by means of relief-blocks; both were resorted to by the artisans of
the fifteenth century, and their trade spread beyond the confines of
Germany, to the south of the Alps, causing Venetian craftsmen to clamor
for legislative protection of their home production.

In all these early manifestations, we saw woodcut in the service of
the common people; we saw it used instead of other means of production
for reasons purely utilitarian. But a change is at hand, for has not
the crusader sown a seed throughout the land; has not the human mind
been awakened from its mediæval lethargy? The humanist arises, seeking
enlightenment and the solution of life’s problems amid the meager
surviving relics and records of the art and thought of antiquity.
Feudal conditions are grudgingly modified, under pressure from a new
element, which brings about a gradual shifting of the balance of power,
intellectually as well as economically and politically: the rise of the
Town. During our early, turbulent centuries with their grim

                        “simple plan,
    That he shall take who has the power,
    And he shall keep who can,”--

misery not only loved company, as the old proverb has it, but
absolutely needed it. Groups of those, too weak singly to withstand
the attacks of that vast, lawless element which lived by oppression
and plunder, huddled themselves together, built themselves shelters,
and intrenched themselves against the common foe. In the course of
time, owing to an advantageous position or to intensity of commerce or
industry, these one-time shelters grew into towns, rising in wealth,
power, and independent spirit, girt about with strong walls and moats,
each town a state within the state, protected by imperial grants and
privileges, bound together by the common enmity of the feudal power,
and within the walls by an ardent local patriotism. Strong in their
guilds and associations, in touch with each other and with the world by
the constant travel of merchants and craftsmen, the towns became not
only centers of wealth, but also the bearers of progressive thought,
of art, of mental enlightenment. Here the graphic arts might well
originate and flourish, for here were their patrons, the burgher, the
craftsman, the people.

The time was at hand when the call for the multiplying arts would
become imperative--compelling. Man looked about, and beheld a world
full of beauty and abuses; he felt himself a unit, an individual,
not merely part of the mass of mankind, and he was going to think
for himself; he demanded to know, to learn, to grasp the truths and
probe the problems of his world. For the instruction of this untutored
multitude, eager for light, there were two modes of expression,
instantly intelligible: the simple spoken word, and that other--the
illustrative, explanatory picture. This latter must now go forth also
among the people, to help in the task of enlightenment; not the panel
picture, to be sure, nor the miniature in the costly manuscript, for
aside from their costliness they could never numerically satisfy
so universal a demand. In response to the call--we are now in the
fifteenth century--we see woodcut pictures pasted into manuscripts, to
form edifying picture books, the pictures printed from wood blocks, a
few lines of text added with the pen. Then both picture _and_ text are
cut into the same wood block in imitation of the picture manuscripts.
These early “block-books,” of Biblical or moralizing contents, were
intended for the use of pupils in the monastic schools which were then
the only educational institutions.

In the early days of woodcut, impressions were taken from the wood
block by laying a sheet of paper on the inked surface of the block and
rubbing the back of the paper with a stiff scrubbing brush, or with a
flat piece of wood, so as to bring it in close contact with the inked
ridges on the surface of the block. It is evident that neither the
quality nor yet the speed of this form of printing could long satisfy
even the most easy-going craftsman. A more perfect mode of printing
was needed and gradually evolved, culminating in the printing-press.
Similarly the cutting of letters of the text on the picture blocks--in
the so-called block-books--must soon have proved itself impracticable,
for the reign of these books is quite brief. One is tempted to let
fancy play around the bald facts, and to watch the artisan, wearily
cutting the same letters again and again into the wood block, until
he bethinks himself,--a half-dozen others likewise: “Why cannot I
saw off the lettering cut on another block, cut it up, word by word,
or, better yet, letter by letter, then put the letters together in
words and sentences as I need them, and use them with my newly cut
picture? It would save a deal of trouble!” Thus the next step was
movable type, used around, between, together with, the blocks bearing
the illustrations. The rapid spread of type-printing simultaneous
with these developments concerns us merely because the vast number of
illustrated books published during that period greatly favored the
development of woodcut illustration.

Throughout these developments, we always discern the same utilitarian
element which I have pointed out. Far from originating in any striving
for a higher, more ideal form of artistic expression, the devices for
printing both pictures and text were simply means to save labor and
expedite publication. The manuscript, the miniature, were the ideals
to be approached, and they were high ideals, to be sure. Distinguished
humanists like Pope Nicholas V, Poggio, Giannozzo Mannetti, and others,
being themselves experts in calligraphy, demanded the best efforts of
their scribes and miniaturists. It is a pleasure merely to look at
their books. The material used is invariably parchment, the bindings in
the Vatican and at Urbino, crimson velvet and silver. It could hardly
be expected that these men, who spared neither pains nor expense to
show their respect for the contents of a book, would view the advent of
printing with anything like satisfaction. Their collective feelings are
well summed up in the one remark of Federigo da Urbino, that he would
be ashamed to own a printed book.

Not by these nor for their use had type-printing and picture-printing
been called into life, but by the needs of the people, and at the
people’s call the world was flooded with a multitude of works,
informative or entertaining in character. Soon German printers set up
presses in Italian cities, and ere long the publishing centers of the
South, especially Venice, vied with Germany in importance of production.

Book illustration was considered from a very different point of view
in Germany and in Italy. German illustration grew out of a demand
for and pleasure in the explanatory picture. The demand for picture
books and for books consisting chiefly of illustrations came from
a public easily pleased, satisfied with crude outline cuts daubed
over with colors. In Italy illustration came in answer to a desire
for artistic illustrative ornamentation, on the part of a public of
cultivated taste. For this reason the German illustrated book bears
a character largely instructive, while the Italian illustration is
essentially decorative. Very few of the early books in the German
language are devoid of illustrations. The pictures constitute their
decoration,--they are used as chapter headings,--long before the advent
of purely ornamental embellishments. In Italy the printed book takes
over from the manuscript the idea of decorative embellishment. Borders
are stamped--with relief-blocks--upon the printed pages of early
Venetian books, and colored by hand. This craving for color is as old
as mankind; its demands are urged upon the graphic arts at all stages
of their development. The demand for color caused the manuscript to be
illuminated, and the pen-drawn outline of the early miniature to be
filled in with pigment; we have seen its call answered in the crudely
colored saint’s picture. The outline is explanatory, intellectual,
the coloring adds a sensual pleasure, and this additional feature of
bright color was soon demanded also of the printed book. The printer’s
answering endeavors are seen in the red initials printed into pages of
black text, in title-page designs, arms and ornaments, in borders and
diagrams printed in two, sometimes three colors. Another effort in this
direction of color is the _chiaroscuro_[3] woodcut, but that belongs
to a later period. A few illustrations will convey a more definite
idea of these early woodcuts. Here is a dignified, pleasing example
of the “Helgen,” cut in outline, as usual, and colored by hand (the
dark tones on the garments and elsewhere are due to this coloring). No
shade-strokes are as yet introduced, merely an outline; the rest is
left to the colorist. After that, inscriptions are cut into the block,
or written in, and this combination of lettering and picture carries us
to the block-books.

    [3] Pronounce: keearoskooro.

[Illustration: ST. MARGARET OF HUNGARY

Woodcut with hand coloring]

[Illustration: BLOCK-BOOK PAGE

Ars Memorandi]

[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE

Nuremberg, 1493]

A typical page from the “Ars Memorandi” (probably cut in the
Netherlands) shows the character of these school books. This is
designed to help theological students in memorizing the Holy Writ. The
pictures are good; the text, hard to read, was soon to be replaced by
movable type.

A page, from the Nuremberg “Chronicle” of 1494, shows us the state
of woodcut, technically as well as its use in books. Many examples
might be shown, from different parts of Germany, from schools swayed
by various currents of artistic thought. Common to them all, despite
their crudity, is a growing familiarity with woodcut, a realization of
its possibilities and of its limitations. Artistic talent of a high
order--compared with earlier productions--reveals itself, resulting
from a division of labor. The artisan of the playing-cards and early
saints’ pictures could never have risen to these heights of creative
independence. His simple figures were copied from manuscripts, or
from some other handy model, but when it came to supplying the
growing demands of book-illustration with material from fields without
precedent in past productions, the publishers were constrained to
entrust artists with these designs, and the woodcut maker was given the
task--not easy, though mechanical--of cutting with precision the lines
drawn by the artist.

[Illustration: VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN

Woodcut]

[Illustration: PAGE FROM HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI

Venice, 1499]

This development is common to Germany and Italy alike; but throughout
the early productions of the Southern country, we seem to hear an echo
of the sublime harmonies achieved in painting. For instance, in this
large “Helgen” of Italy: a simple outline woodcut, this Virgin and
Child with St. John, but in its simplicity what dignity and strength.
The accents introduced by slight decorative indications and the
shade-lines in the hair add charm to the simple, charming composition,
by contrast of tone. Excellent cutting, this, after a masterly design.
But in a country which has just reached the zenith of artistic
achievement, we may expect, likewise, such remarkable decorative
designs as the title-page border for the Venetian “Herodotus” of 1494,
which frames the title of this volume.

[Illustration: PAGE FROM MORGANTE MAGGIORE

Florence, 1500]

It is the golden era of typography, this last decade of the fifteenth
century. Brought to Italian towns by German printers, both type and
illustration soon fall in line with the prevailing high standard of
excellence. If further proof were needed, it would be found in this
page from a Venetian publication, the “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.”
See how well the beautiful type of the text harmonizes with the
illustration, how nicely the values of both are adjusted to form a
harmonious page. Simple, unpretentious outline is used to convey the
beauty of the artistic conception. These same characteristics will be
met again in engraving as it is used by Italian masters. Woodcut as
well as the other forms of reproductive art remain the servants, never
become the friends of artists in Italy.

For brevity’s sake, we must pass by northern Italy and turn to Florence
which was, next to Venice, the foremost southern publishing center.
In this example, taken from Pulci’s “Morgante Maggiore,” published in
1500, we notice a keener appreciation of the possibilities of woodcut.
Broad masses of white, with severe outline, scantily shaded, contrast
with bold masses of black, whose intensity of effect is modified and
blended by means of tenuous white lines, a manner likewise adopted in
illustrations for the forceful sermons of Savonarola, whose teachings,
widely read, necessitated a number of successive editions.




III

THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING


Having followed woodcut from its beginnings to the end of the fifteenth
century, it behooves us now to devote our attention to the earliest
intaglio process, namely, engraving.

Ever since the days of antiquity it had been the practice of
metal-workers to cut decorative designs into the surface of the metal.
Armorers and goldsmiths practiced this art of engraving in mediæval
and Renaissance times. For our present purposes the absorbing question
is this: How did the idea of printing from this decorated metal first
suggest itself? We may get a clue by watching the engraver at work.
With the graver he cuts a maze of lines into the metal; it is almost
impossible to see the design owing to the glitter of each new-cut
furrow. This troubles the engraver himself, and in order to see just
what he has done, he smears the plate over with a mixture of lamp-black
and oil, rubbing it well into the furrows. Then he wipes the plate
clean, and now the design stands out plainly in black lines upon the
shining metal surface. If he were now to take a piece of paper and
press it against the plate, the black color in the furrows would adhere
to the paper, and every line cut into the metal would be reproduced
there. In such an accidental way, no doubt, the possibility of
obtaining impressions from intaglio plates became known some time about
or before the middle of the fifteenth century. But, of course, such an
impression taken by hand pressure is bound to be very imperfect, and it
may have been some time before some goldsmith thought it worth while
to experiment with these printing possibilities. At first impressions
may have seemed useful as guides for further work on the metal, or they
may have served as memoranda of work done and delivered. As a matter
of fact, goldsmiths did make use of this new-found mode of printing,
and took impressions from their small decorative niello plates, before
filling in the engraved lines with the final black enamel,--the
“nigellum.”

If woodcut were dubbed the democrat among the graphic arts, certainly
engraving must be called the aristocrat of the family. It originates
in the goldsmith’s workshop, amidst a guild of skilled designers,
who not unfrequently practice painting together with their craft. No
wonder that in such hands engraving should shape itself along artistic
lines from the start. In Germany engraving finds a ready welcome
among other manifestations of an art essentially of the town, of the
burgher, while the art of the Italian quattrocento celebrates its great
triumphs in the erection or adornment of sumptuous edifices, under the
fostering care of princes and prelates. The German naïvely depicts,
with minute precision, the scenes and environments of his homely
sphere; all subjects, whatever their time or country, are shifted into
the familiar setting of his own time and his own surroundings. Hence
we see the crucifixion taking place in a clearing amidst firs; we find
German and Dutch burghers in the scenes of the Passion, or kneeling in
adoration--as Magi--before the new-born Child.

The Italian artist is no less zealous in his search for nature’s
truths, but at the same time he harks back to those remains of former
artistic perfection which are just then being reclaimed from the
soil, heirlooms from classical antiquity. Guided by both, he imparts
a semblance of life to his ideal forms, that they may appear real,
though belonging to a higher world. The cult of antiquity establishes
a retrospective tendency in the choice of subjects represented.
Traditional themes taken from the Bible, from legend and mythology,
are used again and again with changes in the composition, in costume,
lighting and color scheme, all in the constant endeavor to excel in
perfection of form and composition, and in harmonious, beautiful
coloring.

[Illustration: MADONNA OF EINSIEDELN

Master E. S.]

In Germany purses are more slender, customers are content to adorn
their homes with woodcuts or engravings instead of paintings.
Pictures are wanted, with figures carefully drawn, explicit pictures,
finished, natural in appearance, with plenty of detail in figures and
accessories, something appealing to their humor, to their piety, to
their own sphere of interest. Hence the tendency to carry every scene
into the familiar setting of actuality; hence the interest in the
natural surroundings of the scene; hence the predominance of Biblical
and religious subjects which appeal to the pious; and for others the
scenes of daily life, tournaments, soldiers, not to forget plates
and books of designs for the use of craftsmen. The production of
picture-like prints in which hand coloring was not to be considered,
necessarily brought about a speedy development of technique. Even in
early work it seems as though the German engraver realized, more than
his Italian contemporary, the possibilities of the engraved plate;
the figures are quaint, reminiscent of the Gothic past, but they are
well cut, in clear, sweeping outline. The shading is simple, but not
timid or awkward, and pleasantly follows and accents the form. Few
of these fifteenth-century engravers have left us as much as a name
or the most meager data as to their lives. In many cases we have not
even a date, a sign, or an initial placed somewhere on the print, as
a means of identification. We are conscious, in these early examples,
of the artistic spirit in which the engraver treats the saint’s
picture and the playing-card, extensive fields, exploited already by
primitive woodcut. A choice between eminent representatives among the
anonymous engravers would lie between the so-called Master of the
Playing-Cards, the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, and Master E.
S. An illustration of the excellence achieved by the last named artist
will be found in his presentation of the Madonna of Einsiedeln. Notice
the development of the picture element, the sureness with which the
graver is used, long strokes and delicate touches, varying with the
needs of modeling and design. This mastery over the medium is yet more
apparent in the engravings of Martin Schongauer, the leading figure in
fifteenth-century engraving. In his work we still discern the peculiar
characteristics of the period, long slim hands and feet, an emaciation
which brings the head into prominence, a tendency--reminiscent of
the Middle Ages--to treat each object independently, as a unit, as a
symbol of its kind; but then what purity and sincerity emanate from
his figures. In his “Death of the Virgin,” what a harmonious effect,
what keenness of observation. He knows little of the rendering of
nudity,--all Northern artists are hampered in that way,--but his
bodies, though lacking in structural skill, are wonderfully well
caught in pose and gesture. His observation and his resourceful
imagination were fully recognized by both Dürer and Raphael, who both
availed themselves of his achievements. The graver helps to round
the forms, by following the direction of the curves. Long, steady,
curving strokes, emphasized in the deep shadows, breaking up--in the
lights--into dots which blend into the high lights of white paper. No
hesitating, little criss-cross strokes here, but a dignified simplicity
of line which enhances the dignity and simplicity of his compositions.
Remember that in order to appreciate these essential qualities of
line and of resulting effect, you must consult the original prints;
half-tone illustrations cannot be expected to convey more than a
general idea of the originals.

[Illustration: DEATH OF THE VIRGIN

Martin Schongauer]

It would be unfair to attribute all this artistic development to German
initiative alone. Italy has practically no share in it, at this
period, but the close commercial relations existing between Germany
and the Burgundian Netherlands must have facilitated an artistic
intercourse most beneficial to the former country. The stupendous
creations of the brothers Van Eyck, of Van der Weyden, Memling, Van
der Goes, and others did induce workers in the artistic crafts to
visit the Low Countries. Their contemplation must have been a source
of stimulating inspiration to the German painters, and indirectly to
German engraving. Direct influence there could not be, since we look in
vain through the ranks of this flourishing school of Flemish painters
for any manifestation in the graphic arts. Only the arts of opulence:
painting, costly illuminated manuscripts with miniatures, or the woven
tapestries of Arras and Brussels, brocades, and laces, were produced in
the prosperous towns and at the brilliant ducal court of Burgundy.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: SIBILLA SAMIA

Florence, 15th Century]

[Illustration: CLIO, FROM THE SO-CALLED TAROCCHI

Northern Italy, 15th Century]

[Illustration: BATTLE OF NUDE MEN

Antonio Pollajuolo]

[Illustration: CHRIST BETWEEN TWO SAINTS

Andrea Mantegna]

Early Italian engraving begins with the niello of the goldsmith,
little silver plates for ornamental uses, with minute scenes and
figures, usually well cut, as might certainly be expected in a guild so
highly skilled. It is interesting to follow engraving as it broadens
beyond the neat and primarily ornamental sphere of the craft, into the
large field of art. Florence, the center of dignified, conservative
art, the Florence of Botticelli has given us the two classical series
of “Sibyls” and “Prophets.” The manner of execution, as we see in the
example shown, is still that of the goldsmith, fond of ornament, of
detail, shading with minute strokes, close together, which blend to
form a tone. The other example is selected from a North Italian series
of the same period. It forms part of what by some authorities is
thought to be a set of “Tarocchi,” a game of cards peculiar to Italy.
Less severe, more graceful than the Florentine example, it is another
triumph of the goldsmith in the field of the graphic arts. From him
engraving passes under the sway of the painter. If we compare
Italian and German graver-work of those days, a plate of Mantegna, for
instance, and a plate of Schongauer, we shall readily perceive that
in engraving the German master _thinks_ in line. The Italian painter
thinks, not in line, but in masses of light and shade, in terms of
the antique marbles, which he has studied with such enthusiasm. His
design goes on the copper as it would be jotted down on paper with
the pen, without consideration of the graver, except that it seems a
useful implement for multiplying his sketches, which are wanted in
many studios and workshops. A simple, even outline, and for shading,
parallel lines, straight and close together, generally in a uniform
diagonal direction,--that is all. Fine early impressions from plates
of this character have quite the charm of a drawing; deep shadow-tones
are then visible, caused by a system of slight, tone-giving lines
over the heavier shadings. When these have worn off, they leave only
a system of hard, wiry-looking shade-strokes; unfortunately the good
early impressions are very, very rare, so that we are accustomed
to look upon the gray, worn impressions usually found as being the
actual work of the artist, which is unfair. The absorbing interest of
antique bas-reliefs is evident in the large “Battle of Nude Men,” by
Antonio Pollajuolo, breathing the enthusiasm with which Italy told
anew the artistic message of the distant past, yet lacking the poise
and moderation which we admire in the grand classical sculptures. In
his eagerness to proclaim the beauty and power of the human body in
vigorous action, he far outstrips his powers of expression, yet his
muscular exaggerations need not materially lessen our enjoyment of this
powerful, expressive print. In Andrea Mantegna, we reach the central
figure of this early period of Italian engraving. In him are combined
the humanist’s devotion to classical art and the fiery energy of a
man of action, filled with his art, rugged, stern, taking from
nature and antiquity the forms of artistic expression. At his hands
the world is invested with a grandeur seldom achieved, inspiring to
his contemporaries, helpful and stimulating to young Dürer in his
strivings toward greater breadth, simplicity, and unity of composition.
In Mantegna’s “Christ between two Saints,” we find the same scant means
of graver-work which he employed in all his austere compositions: a
well-defined outline, even, without swelling, softening accents, simple
shading, generally in a uniform diagonal direction; nowhere an attempt
at texture, or differentiation of color. The subjects are all treated
as though they were cut in high relief on slabs of stone, without
variation of surface or suggestion of distance. Venetian influence
mitigates the ruggedness of Mantegna’s gaunt, imposing “John the
Baptist,” by means of the unusual, soft, stippling technique adopted
by Giulio Campagnola, which gives the print more the appearance of a
grainy wash drawing, in contrast with the usual pen-and-ink aspect
of early Italian prints. Scores of other important examples might be
adduced, but they can easily be found in any good history of engraving.

[Illustration: ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

Giulio Campagnola]




IV

ITALY


The sixteenth century brings new developments to be noted, new factors
to be considered. In Germany it rings in the culmination of artistic
development under the leadership of Albrecht Dürer, whose towering
personality lifts both engraving and woodcut to high levels of
excellence. The cultivation of the technique of engraving has carried
Germany far and away beyond the South, in a technical perfection duly
appreciated in Italy; and when the demand for prints grows, when they
become a marketable article, the Italian engraver copies German prints
in order to gain the requisite technical knowledge. This Italian
_engraver_, however, is not a painter-engraver as in Germany, an
artist, namely, engraving his own designs. We know that the Italian
artist continues intent on grander tasks and indifferent to the charms
of the graver, hence a division of labor: the busy painter jots down
the sketch or cartoon and the professional engraver undertakes the
lengthy task of transferring, of interpreting the artist’s drawing
by means of the graver. The subtle continuity of thought, from the
first conception to the finished plate, which we prize in original
engraving, is necessarily destroyed in such collaboration, but the
engraver, working exclusively on the copper plate, is able infinitely
to vary and develop the resources of the process by dint of practice. A
noted instance of such collaboration is found in the “Death of Dido,”
engraved after Raphael’s design by Marcantonio Raimondi. The lifework
of Marcantonio is mainly devoted to the reproduction of sketches of the
great Urbinate, whose genius inspires the engraver and lifts him to the
highest rank in sixteenth-century Italy. His pliable graver, trained
by much copying after Dürer and other Northern masters, delicately
outlines the figures. The shade-strokes follow and accent in
easy curves the rounding forms and the gradations of light and shade.
There is variety in the line, no longer the uniform diagonal shading
of the early period. It is, in a word, excellent engraving, which is
seen likewise in his “Adam and Eve,” after a figure sketch of Raphael.
The latter print shows also the pitfalls which await the thoughtless
copyist. Raphael’s cartoon for this print shows the two lovely figures
without any background whatever; Marcantonio, always at a loss without
a definite model to copy, looked for a suitable background, and found
it in a German print which he faithfully pieced in, peasant houses and
all, as a setting for Adam and Eve!

[Illustration: DEATH OF DIDO

Marcantonio Raimondi]

[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE

Marcantonio Raimondi]

About this time the publisher of prints appears, buying plates from
engravers and publishing them, centralizing a commerce which--before
this--had been carried on by the engraver himself or by the artist who
employed him. This commercial factor lowers the standard of engraving,
both by the choice of subjects demanded of the engraver, with a view
mainly to a ready sale, and by the quality of work tolerated. The
only excuse for some of the plates published must have been their
cheapness. Under these conditions and, moreover, at a time when
painting was rapidly declining, one cannot look to the graphic arts
for masterpieces. Venice, it is true, is yet in her glory; encouraged
by the interest of Titian, woodcut flourishes for a while at the hands
of Boldrini and others. As to engraving, Venetian art demanded of it
a technique strongly expressive of color; a new impetus was needed
for a revival of the medium. This was supplied by engravers from
the Netherlands, where the technique of engraving had been highly
elaborated in this the latter part of the sixteenth century. A noted
representative of this Italian revival is the painter-engraver Agostino
Carracci. If we examine this portrait of Titian, engraved after the
great master’s own painting, Carracci’s skill in engraving will be
at once apparent. Long parallel strokes, close together, give a rich
deep hue to cloak and cap. The brown fur trimming, with its loose,
broad handling, contrasts effectively with the delicate work on beard
and hair. The short, swelling stroke used in the light background,
the clear, transparent cross-hatching on the cheek, all denote great
advance in differentiating this variety of textures.

[Illustration: TITIAN

Agostino Carracci]

[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD

Federigo Barocci]

Thereafter, as engraving sinks into routine and commercialism, let
us turn to etching, a process likewise introduced from the North and
practiced in Italy since the sixteenth century. Its easy technique
offered many advantages to the artist over the intricacies which
had crept into engraving, to be mastered only by long practice. The
ease and freedom of the etched line, its expressiveness and--not
least--the accidental effects resulting from unforeseen action of
the acid, appealed to the artists, but the process came too late to
share with engraving in the reflected glory of the grand Renaissance
period. Etching is the medium used by Parmeggiano, Primaticcio, Guido
Reni, and many others, but they do not take the graphic arts any more
seriously than their predecessors in Italian art. Their plates are
hasty experimental jottings, which show that their main interest is
centered on more pretentious conceptions; only rarely do they attempt
the picture-like elaboration which we find in this “Madonna and
Child.” It is the work of Federigo Barocci, certainly one of the best
painter-etchers of the period, and reveals to some extent the rich,
effective accents, the freshness and freedom of line attainable in
etching, which is to find such splendid exponents in the Netherlands.
It is well worth while, though not within the scope of this condensed
review, to dally amidst these sixteenth-century etchings, and then,
proceeding to a later period, to linger over the powerful, direct
presentations of Giuseppe Ribera and to glance at the figure
sketches of Salvator Rosa. The eighteenth century brings us the spirits
compositions of the two Tiepolo, effective, with sharp, sparkling play
of light and shade, and Antonio Canale (Canaletto), who makes us feel
the very breeze which blows, in his etchings, and the warmth of the
sunshine which bathes his Venetian views. What more delightful glimpse
of the Italian coast than this “Torre di Malghera” with the dazzling
white watch-tower and the exquisite, luminous handling of sea, sky, and
distance. The same eighteenth century witnesses an intense revival of
activity in engraving. The technical triumphs then achieved in France
stimulate Italian engravers, whose mastery of an elaborate technique
is plentifully exemplified in the plates of Raphael Morghen, Volpato,
Longhi, Toschi, and a number of other well-known men in the large group
of “classical” engravers. Their energies and skill are mainly devoted
to the interpretation of those glorious creations of painters of the
Renaissance, which had entirely baffled the early engravers with their
limited technical resources. These thousands of plates were exceedingly
popular for many years, some of them--the “Last Supper” after Leonardo,
engraved by Morghen, for instance--is much sought for to this day
in fine impressions. Broadly speaking, while these engravings are
certainly skillful achievements in a highly systematized, elaborate
technique, their technical perfection is aggressive and imparts
a formal coldness, a lifelessness, and a metallic quality, which
doubtless explains--in part--their decline in popular favor during
recent years.

[Illustration: TORRE DI MALGHERA

Antonio Canale]

[Illustration: DIOGENES

Chiaroscuro woodcut by Ugo da Carpi]

Before leaving the South, we must yet cast a glance at an interesting
though minor manifestation of the graphic arts, the _chiaroscuro_.
Repeated allusions have been made to the demand for color on the part
of the general public. In response to this ever-present craving for
the joy of varied tones, the _chiaroscuro_ takes a step in the
direction of painting by translating color into several graded tones
giving the effect of a semi-colored wash-drawing. The process was used
in various ways, in various countries and at various times, but the
golden era of _chiaroscuro_ is the sixteenth century in Italy. The
example selected, “Diogenes,” by Ugo da Carpi, is one of the finest of
the period. It is impossible to render in this monochrome reproduction
the rich glow of superimposed tones of golden and greenish browns,
which constitute its greatest charm; _chiaroscuros_ must be seen
themselves to be appreciated. One can then see what manner of success
attended the wood-cutter’s endeavors, the endless possibilities of
variety of tones become apparent, also the difficulty attendant upon
the accurate placing (register) of the paper on the three or more
successive blocks printed from, one for each tone. A few scattered
experiments in Germany, during the period of extensive production in
northern Italy, and thereafter a short-lived appearance here and there,
such is--briefly--the history of the _chiaroscuro_ woodcut.




V

GERMANY


In former chapters, we have followed the origin of woodcut and
engraving in Germany, to the end of the fifteenth century; we have
seen woodcut grow from the crude conceits of the early craftsman to
illustrations of distinct artistic merit; we have followed engraving
from its origin in the goldsmith’s shop to the expressive beauty of
Martin Schongauer’s plates. Both are to culminate during the early
sixteenth century. At this time Maximilian reigned over the vast
German Empire: “Massimiliano pochi denari” the Italians called him,
because of the insufficiency of the imperial resources. Ambitious to
perpetuate the glory of his illustrious house, yet quite unable to
vie with the Pope and Italian princes in the erection of sumptuous
edifices, the Emperor saw in the effective and inexpensive woodcut
a means of transmitting to posterity a record of his own deeds and
adventures and of the virtues of his ancestors. The leading German
artists of the time were employed on designs for their imperial patron,
chiefly Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg, and Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg.
With Dürer we reach the zenith of the graphic arts in Germany. He
stands, a monumental figure, seen from afar, influencing--not only
his German contemporaries, but the artists of Italy and of the Low
Countries. Dürer was a thoughtful, forceful, imaginative leader; he
was more--he had thought out the resources, the latent possibilities
of engraving and of woodcut, he knew their limitations and the manner
of presentation most adequate for either process. These principles
of treatment are illustrated in his prints, set forth so clearly as
to be readily understood and applied by other engravers, by other
designers for woodcut. For this reason he has become a teacher for
all times. His development may be followed through many stages,
from his early manner, imitative of fifteenth-century masters, to the
pictorial finish and wonderful play of light in his grand “St. Jerome
in his Study.” Italian influence is felt in many of his early plates,
the “Effect of Jealousy,” for instance, the “Apollo and Diana,” or the
charming “Madonna with the Monkey”; but his vigorous individuality was
not swayed long nor impaired by these Southern charms which were soon
to overwhelm Northern art. Even in the days when young Dürer responds
with enthusiasm to the power, to the passionate energy of Mantegna,
his German characteristics are plainly apparent; I am thinking of his
famous series of illustrations to the Apocalypse. Take the powerful
print of the “Four Horsemen,” with their resistless onward rush,
violent action vividly expressed, every figure, every detail instinct
with close scrutiny and conscientious rendering of nature. Then as to
technique, see how outline and shade-stroke are made to yield their
full measure of expressiveness. None of the uniform diagonal shading
of early Italian masters is found in these woodcuts; nor shall we
find such summary treatment in Dürer’s engravings. If we turn to his
“Arms with the Skull,” for instance, we see there no mere suggestion
of shadow, every line tells. The outline swells and accents the
form, the shading-strokes curve and bend to accent the rounding, the
modeling of the figure; the quality, strength, tonality of the line
varies with every texture which is to be expressed, such as the metal
of the helmet, the feathers on the crest, the cloth, the leather,
the wood, the hair. The modest means of black lines and white paper,
which at first had seemed barely sufficient for suggestive outline
and indications of the rounding of form, are now becoming a medium
fit for the presentation of all the infinite phenomena of visible
nature. From the large, predominant figures massed in the immediate
foreground of early woodcut series like the Apocalypse, or the
large Passion, Dürer progresses to a deepening of the scene in the
serene woodcut illustrations of the “Life of the Virgin.” We are led
along the pleasant, peaceful paths of life, we are spared the anguish
and suffering of the previous series. In this illustration, for
instance, we see the Holy Family at rest in Egypt; Joseph is working
at his trade, while the Mother watches her sleeping Babe, and angels
busy themselves or gambol about the Holy group. The scene is laid in
a pleasing German landscape, among low hills, which carry out the
serenity of the composition.

[Illustration: APOCALYPSE: THE FOUR HORSEMEN

Woodcut. Albrecht Dürer]

[Illustration: ARMS WITH THE SKULL

Albrecht Dürer]

[Illustration: LIFE OF THE VIRGIN: REST IN EGYPT

Woodcut. Albrecht Dürer]

The fullness of Dürer’s powers as an engraver is manifested in the
three plates which typify man’s attitude toward life. First comes the
good, steadfast knight, the champion of righteousness, unmindful of
his weird escort of death and a hellish monster as he wends his way
through a dark defile to his home on a distant sunlit hill. We then see
despondent, bitter Melancholy, vainly demanding of science the answer
to life’s riddle. Finally, we come to St. Jerome, serene in his chosen
solitude: a mind resigned, at peace with the world which has been left
behind. These engravings take a very high rank, indeed, in German art.
Such technique of engraving as that here found had never before been
even approached: broad gleams of sunlight brighten the room, striking
the walls and floor; in the silvery half-light every texture, every
substance is expressed by differentiations of the graver-stroke. Yet
with all the infinite detail which abounds in the plate, the tonality
is so sustained and detail so discreetly introduced, that the general
feeling, after all, is one of simplicity.

[Illustration: ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY

Albrecht Dürer]

One other aspect of Dürer’s genius must be introduced, namely, his
mastery in portraiture. In the strong face of Cardinal Albrecht of
Mayence, the keenest observation of the man is revealed with means
astonishingly simple. Notice how far from extreme depth the
shadings have been kept; all in the range of silvery grays, which Dürer
sought in preference to dark shadows. The values in the figure, the
arms and the inscription have all received careful consideration from
this master whose genius was, indeed, the faculty of taking infinite
pains.

[Illustration: CARDINAL ALBRECHT OF MAYENCE

Albrecht Dürer]

From this brief glance at the great Nuremberg artist, we must turn
now to his Northern contemporary, Lucas van Leyden, likewise a
painter-engraver, and a solitary figure in the Netherlands at that
period. Bred in the realistic maxims of the fifteenth century, his
Northern origin asserts itself in the careful detail and truthful
presentation of nature, in the characteristic types of his figures.
Truthful rendering of natural facts--as has been mentioned before--is
a quality common to Northern artists. Dürer, in his fondness for
psychological themes, is in tune with the humanists of his time.
Leyden, though strongly influenced by the German master, has not
Dürer’s depth of thought. He does not infuse that deeper meaning
into his plates. Following the bent of his Germanic mind, he reverts
to the simple, daily scenes of life, and when he undertakes to render
scenes from other times and from distant places, he transforms them
into events of his own day and his own surroundings. He can thus
express himself with the directness of an eye-witness, and therein
lies much of the charm of his work, which was much appreciated even in
Italy. One of the few large plates of Lucas van Leyden will illustrate
his artistic and technical powers. The “Adoration of the Magi,”
broad in composition, sober and harmonious in the handling of the
graver, typically Northern in feeling, is perhaps the finest of his
achievements. Later in life his restless, searching mind was diverted
to the allurements of Italian grace of form, and gave itself up to its
influence without reserve.

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI

Lucas van Leyden]

A great wave of enthusiasm for Southern ideals swept over the
entire North about the third decade of the sixteenth century. It
established the supremacy of Italian standards of artistic merit,
which--as we know--were not such as to give new life to the graphic
arts. This wave of Italian influence was felt in the immediate
following of Dürer, in that group of painter-engravers, known to us as
the “little masters,” though _little_ only in the size of their plates.
A high standard of technique is common to them all, with variations in
their perfection. Variations there are also in the measure in which
they yielded to Italian influence. Their graver was devoted to the
rendering of a great variety of subjects; Northern characteristics
are still evident in their portraits, in their Biblical scenes with
German types of figures. Northern customs are depicted with Northern
minuteness; on the other hand, the study of Southern models has
developed in these Northern engravers an appreciation of the beauty of
the nude, which is freely introduced in mythological, allegorical,
Biblical, and other subjects, and very skillfully handled. We are
apt not to appreciate the gravity of this Italian invasion, of this
Southern supremacy in Northern art. Ideal perfection of form was a new
language to the Germanic artists, accustomed to the realistic, faithful
rendering of nature as they saw it, with all its facts, perfections,
and imperfections alike. The change often meant that the artist forgot
his native tongue, if the expression may be used--a harsh tongue, if
you will, but sincere and expressive; in return he acquired, often
but imperfectly, a new language in which his expression needs must be
imitative, not original.

[Illustration: TOURNAMENT

Woodcut. Lucas Cranach]

The true Northern spirit still greets us in the woodcut productions of
that period. Woodcut was used for subjects of wide popular interest,
for Passion series, portraits, religious subjects, and all manner
of illustration. Dürer had used the relief process extensively for
such purposes, likewise Burgkmair, who was, with Dürer, one of
the foremost designers for the extensive publications of Emperor
Maximilian. Lucas Cranach elected the strong, emphatic woodcut for
much of his graphic work, prominently employed in the service of
the Reformation. An example of his work, this tournament scene, is
a reminder of the times in which he dwelt, and an illustration of
his vivid power of presentation, typically Northern with its crowded
figures.

Other masters there are in plenty, whom we must neglect, as we shift
our abode to Basle for a moment. We find ourselves here, about 1516, in
the midst of a thriving publishing center. Enterprising printers seek
to secure pleasing decorations and illustrations for their scientific
and literary output. They look for a good draughtsman to design some
tasteful headings and end-pieces, borders and initials, and are well
pleased with the samples submitted by a young newcomer, by name Hans
Holbein. At first the cutting of his designs offers some difficulties,
but when the right man has appeared, when Hans Lützelburger has joined
his skill to the genius of Holbein, their joint productions attain
a peerless mastery. High summits in art always invite comparison;
this is true of Dürer and Holbein, even though these two great German
masters are so widely different from each other. Dürer is nowhere
greater than in engraving, while Holbein excels in painting; both are
masters of woodcut. Dürer, with his scholarly, analytical nature,
ponders over the deep, essential meaning which underlies the multitude
of his observations, and sets down his conclusions in types broadly
generalized. His St. Jerome--to quote but one instance--is not so
much a specific old man in his study as the expression of a mental
attitude common to mankind generally. Holbein is more a man of impulse,
quick to express himself in a direct manner full of life. He is more
sensual, and has much feeling for pleasing form and a beautiful flow
of lines. He accents the event itself more strongly than Dürer, who
is given to express himself rather by association of ideas. It is a
significant fact that Dürer chooses his subjects with preference from
the figurative New Testament, with its parables, while Holbein prefers
to illustrate the Old Testament, a book of essentially historical
character. Every scene is plainly told and intensely human in Holbein’s
Biblical illustrations, as well as in that masterpiece of his, the
“Dance of Death.” We cannot but marvel at the feeling of spaciousness
in these small prints, at the lifelike action of the expressive little
figures, at the perfect harmony of these figures and their surroundings.

At the time of Dürer’s death, in 1528, the long period of warfare,
devastation, and misery had begun which was to end only after the
Thirty Years’ War. Emperor Maximilian was dead; Charles V had broken
the power of France in Italy; his mercenaries had sacked Rome, and
incidentally ruined Marcantonio, the Italian engraver. His promising
school was dispersed. It was a period of decline, both north and south
of the Alps.

From that time on, the successive influences of Italy, of the
Netherlands, and of France sway the character of German art. A clever
superficiality develops, which adapts itself to the characteristics of
the art in vogue. Etching, the sister art of engraving, cannot boast
any signal triumphs during this period of German art, although, from
the early days of its adoption, it was used to a considerable extent
by the Hopfer family. Dürer experimented with the process, but soon
returned to engraving. The greatest German etcher of the following
(seventeenth) century, Wenzel Hollar followed the Earl of Arundel to
England, there to build up his fame.




VI

THE NETHERLANDS


The seventeenth century, which witnesses German art in its decline,
brings about a wonderful flowering of art in the neighboring
Netherlands. This country had passed from Burgundian rule to the
Hapsburg dynasty. With the advent of Charles V, it passed under the
rule of Spain. The master hand of that emperor had been able to curb
the feeling of unrest and ferment caused by the Reformation, but the
oppressive measures of his somber successor, Philip II, drove the Dutch
and Flemish people to rise in arms for the defense of their liberties.
A long, cruel war of emancipation ensued, and near its close there came
a parting of the ways which bears directly upon our subject. In 1598,
the division occurred; the southern--Flemish--provinces remained true
to the House of Hapsburg, true also to the long-established Catholic
faith. Consequently their art retained its strongly religious element,
tinged with Italian traditions. The great exponent of this Flemish
trend of art is Peter Paul Rubens, of whom more presently.

The northern (Dutch) provinces adopted the teachings of Calvin, and
soon established their independence. Their churches were bare of any
pictorial adornment; their art was forced, therefore, to develop mainly
in the sphere of home life. If we term Rubens the leader of Flemish
art, Rembrandt stands for the highest development of Dutch art. Between
these two leaders lies a broad field with many blending, interweaving
influences, many local characteristics, in this magnificent epoch.
The only way to approach the subject in a few brief sentences is by
considering as one vast unit the whole period of seventeenth-century
art in the Netherlands, both Dutch and Flemish.

[Illustration: JOHANNES ZURENUS

Hendrik Goltzius]

It will ever be a matter for surprise that this small country
should burst into the full glory of a great period of art at a time
of incessant, strenuous warfare. First the long, exhausting war with
Spain; then a war with England; finally, a war with the powerful France
of Louis XIV. Within the time limit of these wars lie the dates of the
birth of Rubens, and of Rembrandt’s death, marking the culmination
of art in the Netherlands. If we look back to earlier days of Dutch
engraving, we discern the isolated figure of Lucas van Leyden, the
only painter-engraver of fame in the Netherlands at the time of Dürer.
After his death no master of similar merit arose to carry on his
traditions. Engraving, deprived of eminent guidance, sank to levels of
commercialism. Saints’ pictures being always in great demand throughout
Christendom, engravers in the Netherlands devoted their energies
largely to this field, and that country became the center of production
of all kinds of engraved devotional prints. Trained by daily routine
practice, the engravers acquired a high degree of dexterity in handling
the graver. Whole families of engravers--the Wierix, the Van de Passe,
the Galle--devoted themselves to this work, which assumed the character
of a _manufacture_ of engravings. One did the figures, another the
backgrounds, another again the draperies, ornaments, etc., according
to their respective aptitudes. Toward the close of the sixteenth
century, this Northern skill in handling the graver was communicated
to Italy, and there mastered by Agostino Carracci. In Holland manual
dexterity was carried to its height by a virtuoso of the graver,
Hendrik Goltzius. His “Pietà” in the manner of Dürer, and a series of
large plates, in which he exhibits, in turn, characteristics of this
and other noted artists, reveal his technical mastery. They disclose
also his power of close observation, which appears to best advantage
in portraits such as that of Zurenus. Excellent judgment is shown
in the selection of line; the effect is sparkling, brilliant; in fact,
this very brilliancy, this cleverness in the telling use of the line,
becomes an end to be striven for, and no longer the means only employed
to express an artistic thought. This worship of technique carries
Goltzius and his numerous followers to extremes of mannerism, where we
must leave them and turn to the engravers grouped around Rubens.

[Illustration: PETER PAUL RUBENS

Paul Pontius]

[Illustration: JAN BRUEGHEL

Anthony van Dyck]

Peter Paul Rubens perceived the advantages which prints might bring
to a painter by the propagation of his compositions. So he surrounded
himself with experienced engravers, whom he guided by suggestions and
corrections. How well they interpreted the work of the master may be
seen in Rubens’s portrait of himself, engraved by Paul Pontius, one of
the noted engravers of this group. A stride toward the expression of
color is to be perceived in this plate; great variety in the rendering
of cloth, hair, lace, the face, the background and frame. The problem
of expressing color, as well as form, now enters more and more into
the sphere of engraving; a problem much more difficult than would
appear at first thought. Here is the task which faces the engraver: he
must keep true to the original he reproduces, true in form, true in
color values, by a judicious gradation of tone. At the same time he
must strive to make his plate interesting, spirited, brilliant, and
apparently easy and free in handling. Singly these qualities are not
uncommon, but that engraver is far from common, who, having the power
to do such brilliant work, has moreover the wish and ability to efface
himself, and let only the artist speak, whose work he interprets. It is
a claim to distinction for many engravers of the Rubens group that they
came so near to solving this problem. Whether or not Rubens made use
of the etching-needle himself remains a matter for speculation; there
is no doubt, however, that his great pupil--Anthony van Dyck--used
etching very effectively, as will be seen by this portrait taken
from his famous “Iconography.”[4] The likeness is sketched with his
characteristic sureness and ease upon the grounded copper plate. The
biting was doubtless left to the engraver who was to finish the plate.
Neither Rubens nor Van Dyck seems to have been interested in etching
or engraving as such; to them the graphic arts were excellent means of
reproduction, nothing more.

    [4] A large series of portraits after Van Dyck, engraved by a
        number of the Rubens engravers.

[Illustration: GELLIUS DE BOUMA

Cornel Visscher]

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS

Rembrandt]

[Illustration: THE THREE TREES

Rembrandt]

You will notice that the engraver has begun his work in fine, parallel
lines, close together, in the upper corner of the plate. The print thus
presents one aspect of the use--conjointly--of etching and engraving,
which had then come into universal use. Another example of the combined
use of the two processes, blended into a rich harmonious tone, is the
portrait of Gellius de Bouma by one of the great portrait engravers
of the seventeenth century, Cornel Visscher, an artist who tolerated
no hard-and-fast system in the graphic arts. Here is a vigorous,
well-modeled figure, broadly treated in so interesting a manner that
the means of expression are quite forgotten in the enjoyment of the
effect achieved. A new element now enters the sphere of our interest:
the problem of light, bright or subdued, in infinite gradations.
Interiors with the light focused on one spot; night effects partially
brightened by a torch or lantern, or by a fire, all else enfolded in
darkness. The pioneer in this _clair-obscur_ manner is the painter,
Adam Elzheimer, but no one made more effective use of this play of
light and shade in the graphic arts than Rembrandt. Take the “Adoration
of the Shepherds” as an instance, with the feeble light of the lantern
and the rich tone of surrounding darkness, with indistinct forms of
figures and objects half seen and half guessed, which gain shape as we
look more closely. In the famous plate known as the “Three Trees”
our attention is at first attracted by the vast expanse of threatening
sky, with its lofty thunder-clouds, and the immense plains, with dikes
and level fields stretching to the distant horizon. As we look at the
picture, details appear,--the team behind the trees, the people in
the fields, the couple in the bushes. They are overlooked, then seen,
just as they would be in nature; they keep their subordinate places,
and do not intrude and disturb the general effect of grand simplicity.
Color is so well suggested by differentiations in handling and varying
intensities of tone that one almost forgets the simple black and
white presentation of the scene. As an example of Rembrandt’s mastery
in etching applied to portraiture, no better print could be chosen
than the “Janus Lutma,” especially if we can see it in the glorious
richness exhibited by the first state of the plate. All the resources
of the process are in evidence here,--they are seen in the subtle
modeling, in the insensible gradations of tone, in the brilliancy of
the accents, in the depth of the velvety shadows. It will be readily
understood that such delicate, almost breathlike differences in
shading, cannot long withstand the wear and strain to which they are
subjected at each successive impression. Every print taken from the
plate means rubbing the ink into every one of these delicate incisions
in the copper; then comes the severe pressure as the plate passes
through the press. A soft metal like copper soon shows the effect of
these wearing influences: the delicate ridges of the dry-point work
flatten down, and the edges of the etched lines become blunt. After
a very little while the difference in the impressions grows more
and more noticeable; then comes the touching-up of the plate, in an
endeavor to restore--in a measure--its former brilliancy and freshness;
naturally this modifies the appearance of the print to some extent.
The first of these retouches are probably made by the artist himself;
later on, as the plate again wears, it may have passed into the
hands of dealers, who, in turn, have the copper touched up repeatedly
for further printing. Thus you may have a Rembrandt print, from the
original copper, yet without even the echo of that which the great
master had originally expressed. This applies not to Rembrandt etchings
only, but to prints in general; whatever the print, the first essential
must always be to secure a good impression of it.

[Illustration: JANUS LUTMA

Rembrandt]

[Illustration: TOBIT BLIND

Rembrandt]

We cannot leave Rembrandt without glancing at one of those sketchy
little prints which, upon examination, reveal to us his big-hearted
knowledge of human nature and his keen powers of observation. Here is
the old Tobit, a groping figure, eloquently described by means of a
few telling lines in its pathetic, helpless blindness, the little dog
acting as a guide.

[Illustration: THE SPINNER

Adriaen van Ostade]

[Illustration: THE TRAVELERS

Jacob Ruysdael]

The influence of Rembrandt on his contemporaries and on subsequent
artistic productions is very great indeed; none of his followers,
gifted though they be, approach him in excellence and universality.
To the Northern mind there is a great fascination in presentments
of the life of the common people. Brouwer, Brueghel, Teniers are
among those partial to this theme, and each of them has done some
experimental work with the etching-needle. In Germany we find plates
relating to peasant life among the prints of Dürer, Holbein, and the
little masters. Rembrandt has devoted a good many plates to character
sketches of beggars and of peasants. Among the other Dutch etchers the
greatest interpreter of the peasantry is without doubt Adriaen van
Ostade. He shows them to us at their homes, or at the tavern, smoking,
drinking, dancing, merrymaking. The gay, sunny side of their existence
is revealed in his fifty etchings, which display a thorough command of
the medium employed. In the scene which has been chosen as an example
of his powers, we discern the sympathetic interest in country
life which characterizes all his work. Jacob Ruysdael, the landscape
painter, has sketched on the copper a number of characteristic
subjects, none, perhaps, finer than this clump of sturdy, gnarled oaks,
with roots bathed in a shallow pool. The distant trees are flooded
with sunlight, while the foreground is toned down to a lower key. All
this is done in the simplest possible manner. The whole plate speaks
of close, careful observation, and truthfully, suggestively expresses
actual nature. Another notable feature is the subordination of the
figures. Here, as in Rembrandt’s “Three Trees,” the figures are quite
subordinate; the quiet beauty of the scenery presented is the main
theme of the artist’s message. Passing by numerous other delightful
landscape etchers, Everdingen, Waterloo, Saftleven, likewise the
gifted etcher of animals, Paul Potter, we must turn now to Nicolas
Berghem, who combines animal life with landscape. In his masterpiece,
known as the “Diamond,” there is apparent the close study of nature,
characteristic of the period, also much clever _mise en scène_, but as
we examine the plate more closely, we realize the admixture of Italian
inspiration. The vigor of home influences is weakening, and the art of
the South again asserts itself as we approach the eighteenth century.
The same Southern influence pervades the landscapes of Jan Both;
they are very pleasing, technically fine, but the evil which creeps
into Dutch art is quite evident here. The ideal landscape of Titian,
Poussin, and Claude Lorrain gradually warps the former frank realistic
rendering of nature; elegance, hollow display gradually take the place
of the good, wholesome naturalness of Dutch art.

With the advent of the eighteenth century, painting and the graphic
arts decline to levels which we may pass by in this rapid survey.

[Illustration: THE DIAMOND

Nicolaes Berghem]




VII

FRANCE


Having considered the fate of the graphic arts in Italy, Germany, and
the Netherlands, our attention must dwell for a while on developments
of the printed picture in France. In each of the countries above
mentioned, we have witnessed a definite era of excellence in the sphere
of prints; in Germany and in Italy, this zenith was reached in the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In the Netherlands, as we have
just seen, the great awakening took place fully a century later. In
this same seventeenth century, toward its close, as art declines in the
Low Countries, French engraving rises to its highest perfection.

We needs must deal briefly with early French productions in relief
and intaglio processes. Woodcut first: some few examples of early
playing-cards which have survived destruction to these days, prove the
trade of the card-printer to have flourished in France as well as in
Germany. Book-printing speedily grew to important proportions; great
printing firms were founded in Lyons and elsewhere, and carried on
an extensive trade. Men of artistic originality, like Geoffroy Tory,
knew how to infuse a distinctive character into type and illustration
of their books; but apart from a few choice spirits, artistic France
is not conspicuous in these early productions. Not only is printing
largely carried on by printers from Germany and Switzerland, but these
countries likewise furnish a large share of the relief-blocks needed
for illustration. The Holbein “Dance of Death” is a notable instance
of this practice. That series of wood-blocks had passed to Lyons, and
there one edition after another was printed from the blocks, until
they were quite worn out. Woodcut never was, in France, the important
means of artistic expression which we have found it to have been in
Germany. Its days sped by unheeded. The chief field of usefulness of
the woodcut, the decoration and illustration of books and the sphere
of the devotional print, were invaded by the intaglio processes. The
woodcut lost ground everywhere in the seventeenth century; it had
practically no share in solving the problems set to the graphic arts
by the rising schools of Dutch, Flemish, and French painters. It sank
to mere imitation of the fashionable book-decorations done in etching
or engraving. The true, bold language of woodcut, spoken during the
sixteenth century, finds no counterpart in the seventeenth; we must,
therefore, turn to engraving, to vindicate France as a great center of
development in the graphic arts.

[Illustration: TOUR DE NESLE

Jacques Callot]

In the early sixteenth century we meet in Jean Duvet an engraver of
original merit. He adopts in his work the style of certain early
Italian engravers. In his compositions he harks back to Dürer’s
imaginative genius. A little later Etienne Delaune appears, affecting
the elongated figures of contemporary Italians, while in his
graver-work one discerns a resemblance with the manner of the German
“little masters.” In etching a vital impulse is given to French work
about the middle of the sixteenth century. At that time Francis I
called Italian artists to France for the decoration of his castle of
Fontainebleau. Many of these Italian artists--Primaticcio, Fantuzzi,
and others--made use of etching occasionally in a hasty, sketchy style.
The sensuous charm of their lithe, long figures appealed to French
taste, and elicited a response in the plates etched by Jean Cousin,
for instance. In all this early production we feel the dominating
influence of Italian art, with an occasional echo of German thought or
German technique. France seeks her own language in the graphic arts,
and timidly ventures forth in an original manner of expression. This
diffidence is of brief duration, however, and by the end of the
seventeenth century we find her a leader in engraving, and by no means
in engraving only. As we enter upon this broad development, we must
cast a glance on two personalities of distinct originality, namely,
Jacques Callot and Claude Lorrain. Both are natives of Lorraine,
both are schooled in the art centers of Italy. Callot, endowed with
an impulsive, expressive style, full of personal qualities, vividly
describes in his plates the habits, customs, pleasures, the life, in
short, of France and Italy at his time. He peoples his plates with
multitudes of minute figures, with well-accented gestures. These
little figures are written down, as it were, with consummate skill;
they are expressive in their concerted action; in their grouping,
these peasants, soldiers, beggars, cripples, actors, courtiers, as
they troop across the scene, unfold a bird’s-eye view of the world
in the midst of which the artist lived. From the vast number of his
prints, let us select for illustration one of his views of old Paris,
with the Tour de Nesle prominent in the foreground. In his hundreds
of plates we see the miseries of warfare described as well as the
gayety of public festivities and the pomp of ceremonies of state which
he witnessed in Florence. Claude Lorrain, an originator and gifted
exponent of landscape, has occasionally taken up the etching-needle,
largely in an experimental spirit, modifying his technique at different
times, and showing himself, like other noted painters and occasional
etchers, infinitely more clever in the design than in the actual
etching. The plate chosen for illustration, called “Le Bouvier,” is
the most famous of his prints; in it we perceive (provided we see a
fine early impression) the rich tonal effect, the sense of airiness,
of space, the delightful composition, the knowledge of nature’s forms
and of atmospheric aspects, which appear far more markedly still in the
paintings of this master.

[Illustration: LE BOUVIER

Claude Lorrain]

The new awakening in French engraving in the seventeenth century
is especially notable in portrait engraving. Germany has lost its
leadership in the graphic arts; the great days of Italian engraving
are likewise over, though Italy continues a source of inspiration
to painters of all nations, she can add no vital, helpful impulse
to engraving. Such life-giving influences could only come from the
Netherlands, where the great tide of art is now at its height, where
painting _and_ the graphic arts have unfolded all their glory. Here
the etcher’s and the engraver’s technique, very highly developed, is
growing yet in perfection. What could be more natural than the powerful
stimulus exerted by such excellence on French engraving? Its greatest
triumphs coincide, in point of time, with the period of political
supremacy of France during the reign of Louis XIV. The “Grand Monarque”
infused grandeur into all the arts. The stately graver is the medium
aptly chosen for numerous portraits of the “roi soleil” himself. In
this period of teeming fertility in portraiture, we find an abundance
of likenesses of statesmen, generals, princes, nobles, of leaders in
art, science, literature, and of distinguished churchmen. One cannot
look through these prints without being struck by the prevalence, among
them, of an element of stately aloofness which removes these men and
women from the everyday sphere of life. They lack some of the freedom,
some of the lifelike appearance, which characterize the achievements of
the Netherlanders.

[Illustration: DUC DE GUISE

Claude Mellan]

In glancing through the ranks of the French engravers, we come
upon Claude Mellan, an artist-engraver of striking originality. He
departs from the beaten track of cross-hatching, and develops a
manner of shading which relies--for the rendering of shadows--solely
on the swelling line peculiar to graver-work. His technique is seen
in the portrait of the young Duc de Guise here reproduced. Lines
very lightly traced in the lighted portions, grow in strength and
swell proportionately to the depth of shadow to be expressed.
The direction of the line and its degree of heaviness are the means
of expression used by Mellan. The difficulties inherent in such a
technique are evident, and it is equally evident that the elimination
of cross-hatching is a heavy handicap to an engraver. Naturally enough,
Claude Mellan did not have any following to speak of among engravers.

[Illustration: ANTOINE VITRÉ

Jean Morin]

From this peculiar but fascinating artist, we pass on to another
engraver of marked individuality, Jean Morin, an excellent technician
who studied with profit the works of his Dutch and Flemish
predecessors. He combines etching and graver-work in his plates,
modeling the flesh exquisitely by means of minute stipple-like touches.
Among his best productions the portrait of Antoine Vitré stands forth
as a plate of great effectiveness and power, with rich, dark tones of
shadow and brilliant lights.

The school of Philippe de Champaigne, which disciplined the powers
of Morin, set upon his way the greatest of French portrait engravers,
Robert Nanteuil. A finished draughtsman, known by his pastel portraits,
and an engraver who carried the technique of the graver to perfection;
he knows how to blend delicacy and strength in plates like this
portrait of Pompone de Bellièvre. The longer one studies such a
print, the more one realizes the unerring faculty of this master in
the selection of line; each stroke fits the substance which it is
meant to express. The eloquence of the graver is a matter too subtle
for language, and far transcends the possibilities of reproduction,
however skillful; a half-hour spent with some good, early impressions
of Nanteuil prints will prove the truth of this assertion. Everything
is expressed there, and wondrously well expressed, yet one is quite
unconscious of any display of virtuosity. Nanteuil was too great an
artist not to subordinate the beauty of line, the marvelous finish
of elaborate detail, to the main consideration, namely, the beauty of a
well-balanced, well-harmonized _ensemble_. He was an artist-engraver in
the true sense of the word, since many of his finest plates have been
drawn from life, as well as engraved by him.

[Illustration: POMPONE DE BELLIÈVRE

Robert Nanteuil]

[Illustration: PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE

Gérard Edelinck]

It is usual, in reviews of this period of art, to find the name of the
noted Fleming, Gérard Edelinck, mentioned side by side with Nanteuil.
With a technique akin to that of the Rubens school, in long, easy
strokes, he models his figures and his draperies, and while he lacks
the creative originality of Nanteuil, working always after the designs
of other artists, his range of subjects is far more extended. In the
striking likeness of the painter Philippe de Champaigne, he has left
us a splendid example of his powers. His plate after the “Madonna of
Francis I,” by Raphael, is a model of interpretative engraving, and
when he undertakes to reproduce the canvases of Lebrun, he produces
prints admittedly more attractive and brilliant than the originals.

Another man whom we cannot afford to omit from even this hasty
enumeration is Antoine Masson, were it only for that superb
“gray-haired man,” the portrait of Guillaume de Brisacier, brilliant,
powerful, revealing an absolute mastery of the graver. The fact
is, that we are drifting now toward an ever-growing worship of
technique, at the expense of higher issues, artistically. Many names
claim our notice, as we continue our survey, and a few will not be
denied,--Gérard Audran, with his great series of the “Triumphs of
Alexander,” a series, which, for breadth and beauty of treatment,
assures him a place among the leaders, near Edelinck.

[Illustration: BOSSUET

Pierre Imbert Drevet]

As we glance at portrait engraving farther afield, there is at least
one name, among the notables of the eighteenth century, which demands
recognition here: Pierre Imbert Drevet, a member of that well-known
family of engravers. Perhaps his greatest title to fame is the
portrait--here shown--of Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, the prelate, writer,
and orator. Many regard this plate as the greatest engraving of the
century. In a manner typical of those pomp-loving times, the eminent
churchman is represented amidst columns and sweeping draperies. Here,
indeed, we have the last word of technical resourcefulness in expanses
of gorgeous silks and delicate laces, and many other textures and
substances. If one should feel that all this elaboration of the setting
distracts the attention from the portrait itself, he must blame the
epoch and the painter whose design the engraver needs must follow.

Now the reign of Louis XIV is over, and we come to the Regency, and
to Louis XV. Sensitive art, always the expression of the prevailing
attitude of mind, shifts to that well-known sphere of light-hearted,
trifling, idyllic, _galant_ subjects, a sphere which we naturally
connect with Watteau and Lancret, with Boucher and Greuze: subjects of
which the illustration “Champs Élysées,” after Watteau, by Tardieu,
is a fairly typical example. Playful shepherd scenes abound, dainty
figures masquerading as housekeepers, school-teachers, laundresses; or
else we have glimpses of the intimacy of the boudoir and chamber with
sensuous allusions more or less veiled. It is clear that such scenes
required a medium other than the serious, dignified form of engraving,
which we have seen heretofore. Such light, gay, piquant scenes demanded
a freer medium of expression; also they required the merry touch of
light, joyous coloring.

[Illustration: CHAMPS ÉLYSÉES

Nicolas Henri Tardieu]

In response to these demands, Gilles Demarteau perfected a process
admirably suited to rendering the effect of sketchy crayon drawing.
Leprince devised the process known as “aquatint,” by means of which
the washes of water-color or sepia might be closely imitated upon the
copper. Both these media came into frequent use, and often a brown
ink was used in the printing, being deemed more appropriate to the
subjects than the usual black, or the copper plate was painted with
colors for each impression, a lengthy and delicate operation, and these
color-prints--not to be confounded with prints colored by hand--are
prized by many amateurs. A word here on these color-prints: LeBlon
evolved a cumbersome method of three-color printing, engraving one
plate for each color; often a fourth plate was added, as a foundation
for the other three. The other method, mentioned above, was generally
adopted, quite a number of engravers devoting themselves to this
color-work.

Now again temptation spreads out a world of enticing themes for
discussion, which we must pass by: ornaments, elaborate decorations
of theses, emblems, armorial designs, calendars. Even the teeming
field of book decoration must not keep us long, entrancing though it
be as a field for specializing study. It has already been remarked
that in this field, formerly held by woodcut, the intaglio processes
had assumed a monopoly. Artists of great repute were called upon for
designs to ornament the elegant volumes offered to literary amateurs.
The character of the illustration and ornamentation was dictated, not
so much by the contents of the books as by the predilections of the
buying public. A very high degree of technical efficiency prevailed
among the engravers who busied themselves with illustrations for
literary productions; they entered so thoroughly into the spirit of the
designs that their own individual characteristics are hard to discern
in the mass of light, dainty embellishments of the printed page. The
fine harmony which blends together type and ornamentation in the books
of that period, would be well worth imitation in our own advanced
days. The subjects are amorous for the most part, as well befits a
time when Venus ruled in French society. If you glance through the
illustrated editions of the “Fables,” or the “Baisers” of Dorat, the
“Temple de Gnide” of Montesquieu, the “Henriade” of Voltaire, the
“Contes nouveaux” of Marmontel, or the “Chansons” of Delaborde, you
will find there the best efforts of such masters of illustration as
Eisen, Choffard, Gravelot, Moreau, and others, who struck the note
demanded by the social _élite_ of their day. They idealize a hollow,
shamming society, which they carry into fairyland by an art true in
its rendering of a play-acting world. The dimpled, rosy Venus, the
shepherdess of well-rounded, shapely figure,--these ideals of beauty
are not Greek, nor of the great Renaissance period. Such divinities are
found in Versailles gardens; their prototypes are Jeanne Dubarry and
her like, the ladies of the court, the beauties of the stage; and for
this reason French art of the eighteenth century is genuine and true,
because it does not seek its ideals in the dim past, but chooses them
in contemporary life.

As we follow engraving, it declines from a spontaneous exercise of
the thinking, artistic mind into drudgery of systematized routine.
Engraving becomes petrified into a thing of tradition, with elaborate
systems of lines and dots, to be dutifully acquired during long years
of apprenticeship. Originality is frowned down by rigid precept,
selection is made subservient to accepted prescription. In this
so-called “classical” style of engraving, Georg Wille moves at ease,
among the most perplexing technical intricacies. A virtuoso, and a
purist, Wille deems the burin the one and only admissible tool of an
engraver. The careful detail, the minutely finished paintings of Gérard
Dou, Mieris, or Netscher give play to his powers. The plate reproduced
here is the famous “Satin Gown” after Terborch, so called because of
the wonderful rendering of the girl’s dress, with its silvery sheen and
glossy shadows. The lighting of the scene, the modeling of forms,
the translation of color-values into terms of black and white, have
all received careful consideration, nor do we feel in the work of this
leader the cold metallic hardness and monotony which often wearies in
the immense output of the classical engravers. The names of Bervic,
excellent but slow and excessively systematic, Boucher Desnoyers, the
brilliant technician, come to mind among Frenchmen. Italy, however,
became the real home of classical engraving, and names such as Longhi,
Raphael Morghen, Toschi, with their large plates, chiefly dealing with
religious subjects, must be familiar to any amateur of prints. Their
fame, the great favor which they enjoyed with the art-loving public
for a while, brought pupils from all parts of Europe to these Italian
leaders.

[Illustration: INSTRUCTION PATERNELLE (The “Satin Gown”)

Georg Wille]

In France the triumphs which painter-etching achieved in the
Netherlands had but a faint echo: Callot and Claude Lorrain have
already been mentioned. Painters like Lebrun or Largillière left the
graphic arts to the engravers; they viewed their skillful translations
of painting into black and white as the work of colleagues,
not craftsmen. We have noted the influence of Watteau on the
“etcher-engravers”; he himself handled the etching-point at times, in a
few sketchy plates; Boucher, Fragonard, and others dabbled in etching
a little, nothing more. Jean Jacques de Boissieu and Jean Pierre
Norblin, the latter an enthusiastic student of Rembrandt’s perplexing
technique, should be mentioned as leading exponents of etching before
the great nineteenth-century revival to which we shall presently turn.
Now we must leave France, with the classical engravers at the helm,
their formula spreading far and wide and with the vignettists busy on
their portrayal of French society at the end of the _ancien régime_.
As Watteau had shown us the customs of the grandfathers, at the
beginning of the century, so Saint-Aubin, Eisen, Moreau, and other
clever artists show us the life of the grandchildren: a society bound
up in the pursuit of pleasure, blindly rushing on toward exile or the
guillotine of the French Revolution.

[Illustration: PLATE FROM THE CAPRICHOS

Francisco Goya]

Before proceeding to English prints, let us glance at the one prominent
figure in Spanish etching: Francisco Goya. A painter-etcher of intense
feeling, fiery, impulsive, he feels acutely the evils under which his
country is groaning. In an art largely allusive and bitterly satirical,
he conjures before us an abyss of human wretchedness, greed, and
misrule in those strange “Caprichos” from which an illustration has
been selected. In other series he shows with the same graphic power
the hazards of the bull-fight, and again the fearful consequences of
warfare. Filled with his thought, he compels the copper to express the
intensity of his conception. His medium is whatever will convey the
message, usually an etched outline, modeled into with aquatint in a
bold sketchy manner. His few, rare lithographs have the same powerful
characteristics, and it is this energy of expression which makes his
prints distinctive and desirable.




VIII

ENGLAND


In point of time England is last, among European countries, in
bringing forth any important manifestation in the realm of prints.
During the early centuries of engraving the artistic demands of the
country were supplied by foreigners. In the seventeenth century Wenzel
Hollar accompanied the Earl of Arundel to England, and the name of
this prolific etcher is, without a doubt, the most important for that
period. Among his 2750 plates are landscapes, views, portraits, plates
of costumes and events of the day, allegories, and what-not: all done
with the skill of the practiced etcher, though not exalted by the
master-touch of genius. Other foreign-born engravers are not lacking;
among native Britons, Faithorne, Robert White, and George Vertue are
the most noted. A portrait by William Faithorne gives an idea of
early English work. It cannot offer anything new, relying as it does
on the art of the Continent for every artistic impulse; imitative, not
yet creative. Even well-known men of the eighteenth century--Robert
Strange, William Sharp, and William Woollett, with his large ideal
landscapes--hark back to the teachings of the Continent and follow
in the beaten track. One personality stands out prominently in this
period, a man with a message delivered by means of his prints, the
painter-engraver William Hogarth, who, like Goya, uses the needle
and graver as a medium for a powerful crusade against the social
evils of his day. These he castigates with biting satire and forceful
preachment. His might be called a literary art, with the stress laid on
the moral theme, not on technical perfection.

[Illustration: CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA

William Faithorne]

[Illustration: THE HON. MISS BINGHAM

Francesco Bartolozzi]

Among the foreign talent Francesco Bartolozzi is preëminent as a
stipple engraver in England. He is the foremost interpreter of the
dainty compositions of Angelica Kauffmann and of Cipriani. Our
illustration, “The Hon. Miss Bingham,” after Sir Joshua Reynolds,
shows the Italian engraver at his best. The whole plate is a mass of
minute dots which form the lines and the tones of the portrait. An
adaptation, in a more minute grain, of the French crayon-manner, the
English stipple lends itself admirably to the smooth blendings and soft
modeling of the sweet allegorical plates, which Bartolozzi produced
with indefatigable industry. Stipple prints quickly gained the favor
not only of the British public, but also held sway for a while on
the Continent. The process was eminently suited, and often used, for
color-printing, or for slight suggestions of color introduced in the
printing, to add to their charm.

The medium most particularly fostered in England is mezzotint
engraving; originary from Germany, it found in the island kingdom a
happy soil for its speedy growth. When Lely, Kneller, Gainsborough,
Reynolds, and all that famous group of painters gave to the world
their magnificent array of portraits, there existed no school of line
engravers in England, no group of masterly engravers or etchers such
as those of the Netherlands or of France. The field, therefore, was
clear for mezzotint, and it seems as though no other process could have
more adequately interpreted the achievements of the great portraitists.
Their prevalent breadth of treatment, devoid of small, niggling
detail, their numerous women’s portraits, with soft, rounded forms,
subtle transitions of tone, sparkling accents of light and blending
depths of shadow, were admirably suited to the “black art.” Hence the
rise, during the eighteenth century, of a large school of mezzotint
engravers, who attained great perfection in their chosen medium,
progressing from prints of a sooty, black appearance to plates of
clear, fine texture, like the portrait of Mrs. Carnac here reproduced,
an engraving by John Raphael Smith. One is apt, quite naturally, to
accord to engravings like this the credit due to the painter for his
graceful composition. Quite aside, however, from matters of composition
and beauty of subject, the mere charm of intense shadow and brilliant
high light, with transitions of breath-like delicacy, rendered with the
velvety richness peculiar to mezzotint, will readily explain the vogue
and costliness of such prints. No half-tone reproduction, however good,
can convey an idea of the texture of mezzotinting. An examination of
good, early impressions of mezzotint portraits by such men as McArdell,
Watson, Ward, Green, Reynolds, or other notables of the scraper, will
prove their merits much more convincingly than words.

[Illustration: MRS. CARNAC

John Raphael Smith]

While portraiture is the field _par excellence_ of mezzotint
achievement, other possibilities of the process are evidenced by plates
like the flower and fruit piece here shown, in which Richard Earlom
proves himself a gifted interpreter of Huysum. The varied surfaces,
the delicate bloom on the fruit, and all those little touches dear to
the Dutch painter--sparkling dewdrops, insects, the velvety underside
of an overturned leaf--are faithfully reproduced. We almost seem to see
the actual colors of the painting, so carefully have the values been
gauged. In no other process could the painting have been transcribed
more pleasingly. The mention of Earlom as the engraver of a large
series of landscape plates, the “Liber Veritatis,” after sketches by
Claude Lorrain, leads us to J. M. W. Turner, to whom these plates
suggested the well-known “Liber Studiorum,” but of this more in our
review of the nineteenth century.

[Illustration: FLOWER AND FRUIT PIECE

Richard Earlom]

In the matter of woodcut, little need be said in this brief outline,
aside from Jackson’s _chiaroscuros_, until we come to Thomas Bewick
and with him to an important revival of the relief process in modified
form. Bewick recognized the possibilities of the wood block, if cut
across the grain, instead of plank wise as used for the old woodcut.
The plank block necessitates the use of the knife; a cross-grain
block of boxwood on the other hand, permits the use of that king of
instruments, the graver. Wood-engraving once established by Bewick, and
elaborated by his followers, rapidly spread over Europe, ultimately to
reach its highest form of technical perfection in the United States.




IX

THE UNITED STATES


In early days, the American colonies were indifferent if not
inhospitable to the fine arts. Only portraiture and expressions of
patriotism found a welcome, both in painting and engraving. These,
with some maps, diagrams, and views, gave partial employment to a few
engravers, with such additions to their number as landed from time to
time from Europe for a sojourn more or less prolonged. Prominent among
early arrivals was Peter Pelham, an artist of good abilities, who
portrayed in mezzotint a number of New England ministers.

[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON

David Edwin]

Passing on to the Washington period, we find in Charles Willson Peale
an American painter-engraver of merit. Such mezzotint portraits as
General and Lady Washington, Lafayette, Franklin, and others easily
rank among the best native productions of that period. David Edwin,
an immigrant from England, brought proficiency in stipple engraving.
His merits can be judged from the best of his plates, the portrait of
Thomas Jefferson, appropriately simple and dignified in execution.
With the advancing nineteenth century, engraving becomes plentiful in
this country. Publishers require many portraits, views, subjects of
all kinds, nor must we forget the important and flourishing branch of
bank-note engraving. This teeming activity brings with it a commercial
sameness of execution, a workmanlike, metallic sleekness, not quite
absent even in the charming vignettes of John Cheney, which adorn the
gift-books of the forties and fifties. A portrait of Chief Justice
Marshall, engraved by Asher Brown Durand, after Inman’s painting, is
shown as an illustration of good nineteenth-century work. Generally
speaking, portrait engraving had fallen into a rut, suggested by the
tonality of photographs, a development shared by wood-engraving.

[Illustration: CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL

Asher Brown Durand]

The ingenious innovation of the Englishman Thomas Bewick--which
rejuvenated and refined the mishandled and discredited woodcut, by
substituting cross-grained blocks of boxwood and the graver, for
planks and the knife--was championed in America by Dr. Alexander
Anderson. None of the early American wood-engravers were endowed with
great artistic gifts, but ere long the steady demand by publishers
brought to the fore men of acknowledged ability. Their achievements
are plentifully illustrated in books and magazines; the “Still-life
with the Peacock,” engraved by W. J. Linton, a well-known writer on
wood-engraving, is reproduced here as a reminder of their skill.
Originally the tendency of wood-engraving, or white-line engraving, as
it is sometimes called, had been to obtain effects by white lines (the
natural expression of the graver on the black surface of the block) and
by black and white masses. As the wood-engraver grew proficient in
his technique, he widened his field by imitating the effect of etching
or engraving on copper, in rivalry with this form of illustration.
In this he succeeded so well that the other, more expensive modes of
adornment were largely driven from the field of book illustration.
With the advent of photography, the design could be fixed upon the
wood block mechanically, accurately, without the trouble of a careful
drawing. The values of tone in the photograph relieved the engraver
from the work of translating color-values into black and white. The
blending half-tones of the photograph invited close imitation, and
thus _tone-engraving_ developed, with its masses of fine lines, close
together, merging into tone. Beautiful results were achieved in this
way by men like Jüngling, French, Timothy Cole, Wolf, and many other
engravers; but soon the human hand was dispossessed altogether by
the half-tone plate which makes the photographic image printable by
mechanical means alone.

[Illustration: STILL-LIFE WITH THE PEACOCK

Wood-engraving. W. J. Linton]

The great European revival of etching extended to the United States in
the seventies. It proved a fruitful period, with names like the Morans,
Ferris, Farrar, Duveneck, Charles Platt, and many others which might
be mentioned. The vogue of etching, it will be remembered, was short
because mediocrities soon glutted the market and sent purchasers to
other fields for a while. Interest in the process has awakened again of
late, but that is matter of too recent date to be discussed in these
few pages.




X

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY


From a survey of prints in their varying national aspects, we have
arrived now at that vast period of an art increasingly cosmopolitan,
the nineteenth century. In these last hundred years nationality has
blended together to a great extent; travel is not the serious matter
of former times, a pastime rather than a venture; all races have
intermingled in the great world-centers; students from far and near
congregate in the centers of art. All these factors, and many others,
contribute in making artistic expression individual, less and less
national in character. No sudden phase, this, rather an insensible
general trend toward individuality as the great requisite in an
artist’s work. The masterpieces of the fine arts had been interpreted
by means of prints since the sixteenth, and especially since the
advent of the “classical” engravers in the eighteenth, century. The
increasing number of these reproductive prints made it ever easier for
an artist to acquaint himself, in a way, with the great achievements
of the past. Finally photography, and in its wake the photo-mechanical
processes, brought a flood of exact documents invaluable for study, a
lure to imitation for the unimaginative or indolent, a spur to the real
artist, helpful in forming his own powers.

[Illustration: PLATE FROM THE BOOK OF JOB

William Blake]

Individuality seems the keynote of the nineteenth century; hence it
may be as well not to bind ourselves to headings and subdivisions,
but rather to roam at large through this enormous sphere. Goya, of
whom we spoke in a preceding chapter, belongs here by right, and with
Fortuny forms the Spanish contingent in the new awakening of the
graphic arts. In England there lived, about the turn of the century, a
visionary poet and great artist, William Blake, who fluently expressed
himself in strangely fascinating compositions of religious or
fantastic import, doubtless familiar to us all. Our concern is not
with Blake’s drawings, in which he adds the charm of exquisite color
to his command of expressive form. A plate taken from his remarkable
series of illustrations to the Book of Job, shows his powerful, poetic
conception of the beginning of life, when the world was young and the
morning stars sang together. In a totally different way, illustrative
of another phase of this same new awakening, the work of Daniel
Chodowiecki shows a man concerned with the world which surrounds him.
We see him here, at work in the midst of his family, on his little
illustrations which went forth in their hundreds to embellish the
bountiful stream of German literature.

[Illustration: THE HOME OF A PAINTER

Daniel Chodowiecki]

Goya’s vivid, realistic allegories, Blake’s fantastic, powerful
conceptions, Chodowiecki’s living portrayal of the world of his day,
no longer follow the beaten track of imitative work,--all these
activities point to a new phase in art. All this seems a reaction,
a protest against the mental attitude, the set standards and ideals
of the eighteenth century. The vignette, so gay and graceful in the
hands of Eisen, Gravelot, or Moreau, had lost much of its _esprit_ in
the heavier, more sober style of the Empire. The classical engraver
was still in power, on the Continent as well as in England, where
Boydell issued, in 1803, his monumental series of illustrations
to Shakespeare’s plays in large folio plates. On the other hand,
Constable had broken away from the accepted standards of landscape
composition; he painted his native countryside as he saw it. England
frowned upon him for this heresy, but his art was joyfully acclaimed in
France. There arises everywhere a buoyant, youthful spirit, conscious
of infinite possibilities, filled with unbounded aspirations. The
leaders in the movement emancipate themselves from the sterile cult
of precedent; they blaze new trails into the vast unknown, in their
search for truth. Kant’s philosophy, Darwin’s theory of evolution,
sufficiently denote the trend of the times; in literature, this is the
period of Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, of Manzoni, of Goethe, of Nodier,
Balzac, Victor Hugo. Barrye carries realism into his sculpture and such
men as Delacroix, Decamps, and Célestin Nanteuil carry romanticism into
French painting and French prints. Men, these, whose imaginative souls
rebel against petrified classicism and formal, abstract beauty, and
this protest of the young and ardent against the tyranny of the “old
and accepted order of things” has been heard ever since,--sometimes
the voice of coteries, sometimes that of individuals: Constable’s, for
instance, which helped France in its remarkable awakening. His simple
creed was faithfully transposed in terms of mezzotint by David Lucas.
Unfortunately these effective landscape mezzotints are so fleeting in
their delicate effects that they can be appreciated only in engraver’s
proofs. The relative position of Constable and Turner, in English
landscape, has been, not inaptly, compared with that of Van Dyck and
Rubens in Flemish art. Certainly J. M. W. Turner was a sun in the
English firmament, the painter of imposing canvases and water-colors of
haunting loveliness; the leader likewise in a stupendous development of
landscape engraving revealed in series like his “England and Wales” and
his vignettes for “Roger’s Italy” among others of equal fame. Supreme
among his prints stands a set known as “Liber Studiorum,” undertaken
in rivalry with Claude Lorrain, whose memoranda sketches of pictures
painted constitute the “Liber Veritatis,” engraved subsequently in
England by Earlom. In his “Liber”[5] Turner proceeds to display his
art in all its versatility, engraving some of the plates himself
and closely supervising the mezzotinting of the others. This “Inverary
Pier,” his own throughout, is a glorious vision of morning on the
shores of Loch Fyne. The night mists are clearing in the sunlight; a
luminous haze still trails along between the hills, beyond the quiet
water. The scene suggests unbounded space and calm, peaceful beauty.
Another plate, “Æsacus and Hesperie,” carries us into the depth of
the woods. The figures are mere accessories: what we potently feel is
the fragrant shade, emphasized by a slanting shaft of sunlight, which
gleams on soil, branch, and leaf, and builds a pathway of light amidst
the luminous shadows.

    [5] A series of one hundred plates, seventy-one of which
        were published by the artist, then discontinued, because
        financially unsuccessful.

[Illustration: INVERARY PIER

From “Liber Studiorum.” J. M. W. Turner]

[Illustration: ÆSACUS AND HESPERIE

From “Liber Studiorum.” J. M. W. Turner]

       *       *       *       *       *

In the early nineteenth century two new processes demand recognition:
wood-engraving and lithography. The former, reviewed in the preceding
chapter with reference to its development in America, speedily gained
in technical perfection at the hands of English engravers. It spread
far and wide in Europe, adapting itself to the charming illustrations
of Ludwig Richter and doing full justice to the expressive, accurate
line of Adolph von Menzel’s pen-and-ink work. Light and vivacious
in the vignettes of Tony Johannot, Gigoux, Célestin Nanteuil, it
grows somber in Doré’s designs for the Bible and for Dante’s “Divina
Commedia.”

[Illustration: CHRIST DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS

Adolph von Menzel]

Shortly after the advent of wood-engraving, lithography appears, and
offers the tempting inducement of utmost technical simplicity to
the artist. The drawing is made on the stone or on transfer paper
with lithographic ink or crayon; the transferring and preparation of
the stone (or metal plate) with acid, gum, and water is left to the
printer. No wonder that the process found wide favor and that it was
put to a great variety of uses: innumerable portraits, endless series
of views, costume plates, music titles, reproductions of pictures. In
the hands of artists the process proves its merit by such prints
as “Christ Disputing with the Doctors,” by Adolph von Menzel, that
untiring pioneer of realism in Germany. The scene with its masterly
characterization is astonishing in the play of expression on each face
and figure. In France both processes burst into profuse bloom with
the awakening of romanticism. The thirties and forties bring a wealth
of notable lithographic productions, the work of Delacroix, Isabey,
Géricault, Decamps, Diaz, and a host of other artists. Gavarni uses
this easy medium to portray in thousands of sketches the life of all
Paris. Daumier portrays the frailties of humanity in his cartoons
for “Charivari” and “La Caricature,” or else wields his crayon as a
formidable political weapon; in the print selected for illustration he
shows us Louis Philippe at the death-bed of a political offender “who
can now be released, being no longer dangerous.”

[Illustration: CARTOON ON LOUIS PHILIPPE

Honoré Daumier]

The fortunes of France, fraught with conquest under the first
Napoleon, sink to humdrum levels with the Restoration. For years all
recollection of the Emperor and his _Grande Armée_ is embittered by
the final disaster. But passing years restore the luster of former
great exploits, and gradually these become a favorite subject for
illustration. The field is well covered by Charlet’s military scenes,
though none of these approach the grandeur and skill displayed by
Auguste Raffet. In his “Midnight Review” we see innumerable hosts of
shades, passing in review before the phantom emperor on his white
charger; an immense concourse insensibly merging into the mists of
night.

In the forties there is a welcome revival of etching, Charles Jacque
being one of the pioneers, skillful alike in his handling of acid and
dry-point. His theme is the peasant’s life, his setting the wooded,
undulating region about Barbizon: broad, sunny fields, thriving
farms, pastures with cattle, sheep, and pigs, for which he shows an
especial predilection. The peasant, here, is no longer the joyous,
carousing, merry being of Ostade’s fancy. In the plates of Millet and
Jacque we see him at his daily labors and the woman at her household
tasks, as in the “Woman Churning,” by Jean François Millet, drawn in
sober, telling lines, and evoking by some subtle magic a sense not
only of the scene before us, but of her surroundings and her whole
labor-laden life.

[Illustration: MIDNIGHT REVIEW

Auguste Raffet]

[Illustration: WOMAN CHURNING

J. F. Millet]

We must pass with a mention even such masters as Corot and Daubigny,
both of whom have left us spirited examples, in etching, of their
masterly interpretation of nature. The period we now reach brings a
flood of etching, and it is but natural that the sketchy freedom,
the suggestiveness sought by this new school, should conflict with
the set, time-honored traditions of engraving. That serious old
gentleman--Engraving--did not approve of the rollicking youngster who
knocked at the gates of the Academy and the Institut for admission.
The battle, after all, was not so much a quarrel between etching
and engraving; rather a contest between formula _versus_ original
thought. Both in England and France the same conflict arose, the
etchers calling the other side mechanical, petrified; the engravers
retorting that etching, “even in the hands of Rembrandt, is uncertain,
blundering.” This dictum of Ruskin and the fiery rejoinder by Sir
Seymour Haden are matters of history. Our illustration, the dry-point
“Sunset in Ireland,” will sufficiently show that the president of the
Painter-Etchers’ Society was as apt with the etching-point as he was
formidable in debate. The painter-etcher is an originating artist,
but the success of his creations on the copper depends a good deal on
the skill of the printer, who can, by differences of inking, wiping,
pressure, and heat make an impression hard or soft in effect, rich and
dark or pale and silvery at wish. To a man of James McNeill Whistler’s
exquisite sensibilities and refined taste this thought of
dependence on another for his subtle effects of light and tone could
not but prove unendurable. Therefore he installed a press at his home
and did his own printing of choice impressions, realizing in these,
to the fullest extent, the possibilities of effectiveness and beauty
which we admire in his etchings. Art has been defined as a selection
from the truth, and, indeed, the elimination of unimportant detail and
the accenting of the essentials make for the great charm in Whistler’s
etchings as well as in his numerous lithographs. From this versatile
genius, delightful in his rendering of the human figure and likeness,
who evokes with equal facility the shimmering vistas of Venetian
lagoons or the quaintness of an old French street, who can fascinate
with a fleeting glimpse of a fish-shop, or make a lovely vision of a
foggy reach of the Thames, we must now turn to one who has forever
fixed in his plates a truthful yet ideal likeness of old Paris. “Le
Petit Pont” by Charles Meryon is a characteristic plate with heavy
shadows, fine feeling for structural essentials, endless modifications
of light, and with Notre Dame made duly impressive by lifting it high
above the nearer buildings. Every plate has a character of its own,
with here and there a weird reminder of the artist’s ultimate mental
doom. Only a poet could have conceived a plate like the “Stryge,” that
evil figure on Notre Dame, surveying the vast field of his conquests.

[Illustration: SUNSET IN IRELAND

Sir Seymour Haden]

[Illustration: THE DOORWAY. VENICE

James McNeill Whistler]

[Illustration: LE PETIT PONT

Charles Meryon]

       *       *       *       *       *

As we survey the reproductive processes, they are drawn, one and all,
into the current of new, original expression. Innovators appear even in
the conservative camp of engraving; Ferdinand Gaillard, for instance,
an _engraver_, in that he _uses_ the graver, though he uses it in a
manner to him particular, expressive of minutest detail. “My aim,” he
says, “is not to charm but to be truthful. My art consists in saying
all.” And he expresses “all” in this wonderful portrait of Dom
Prosper Guéranger. No detail has escaped him in his scrutiny of this
strong, bright face with its searching, clear eyes. A counterpart of
Gaillard--a painter-engraver similarly minute and precise with his
burin--is Stauffer-Bern, a Swiss of German training.

[Illustration: DOM PROSPER GUÉRANGER

Ferdinand Gaillard]

[Illustration: GIRL BATHING

Anders Zorn]

[Illustration: EXPULSION FROM PARADISE

From “Eva und die Zukunft.” Max Klinger]

Now, if we compare a print of the early times with the technical
creations of our present day, we cannot but realize the increased
demands made upon the artist. The phenomena of light must be ever
studied anew, in the endeavor to attain new, effective, convincing
ways of expression--not merely of color and form as heretofore, but of
atmosphere, of light, of vibrating, living, I had almost said “moving,”
nature. Hence impressionism; hence, also, daring experiments like this
girl bathing, by Anders Zorn, the Swedish painter-etcher. Here is a
distinct _outdoor_ feeling; the breeze and sun, the modeling of rock,
and the softly rounded nude body against its hard face. Everything is
done with long, slashing strokes, with hardly any definite outline; a
wonderful display of skill. Another illustration, the “Expulsion from
Paradise,” by that German master of many arts, Max Klinger, shows us an
effect of most intense expression of light in the glaring foreground,
where a merciless sun beats down on the first couple: a world all the
more arid by contrast with the cool, shady woodland behind the huge,
guarded gateway.

The nearer we approach to the present day, the more difficult, even
painful, becomes the work of selection; painful because of the many
gems barred from inclusion by the necessary restriction of space. A
longer review, including men like Lalanne, Legros, Lepère, Schmutzer,
Gevger, Munch, Liebermann, Bone, Cameron, Bauer, would needs have to
include many others, and disproportionately swell this closing chapter.

If the few prints mentioned--a very few picked from a field immensely
rich--should awaken in the reader a desire for further exploration
in this world of prints, the purpose of these pages will have been
achieved.


THE END




BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR STUDY OF PRINTS


To those bent on further inquiry into the subject of prints, two books
of prime importance can be most warmly recommended, namely:--


  _Hind, Arthur M._ A Short History of Engraving and etching, with
    full bibliography, classified list and index of engravers. Boston,
    Houghton Mifflin Co., 1908.

    (An excellent, comprehensive book, with exhaustive lists and
    indexes, dealing with intaglio prints up to the present day.)

  _Kristeller, Paul._ Kupferstich und Holzschnitt in vier
    Jahrhunderten. Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1905.

    (A masterly review of the whole field of prints, including
    woodcuts, but unfortunately exclusive of the nineteenth century.
    This also contains an extensive bibliography.)

The careful perusal of either book will provide a good foundation, and
the excellent lists of books at the end of each of them will safely
guide the reader in his subsequent studies.




  The Riverside Press
  CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
  U.S.A




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaired quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unpaired.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations.