OTAGO ART SOCIETY’S EXHIBITION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19020, 16 November 1923, Page 7

OTAGO ART SOCIETY’S EXHIBITION.

The Otago Art Society’s exhibition of pictures was visited yesterday afternoon and evening by a largo number of those interested in art. During the afternoon te,a was provided by the lady members of the society. The following additional works have been disposed of: —Pewter and enamel bag, Mr Dunham, £3 3s; pewter frame and mirror, Mrs A. Lees, £7 7s; floating flower stand, Mrs P. L. Ritchie, £5 ss; “A Country Lane,” A. Reid, £4- 4s; “livening Afloat.” R. T. Little. £3; “Courts -of Justice.” Mrs E. B. Friberg, £4 4s; “The Hutt Valley,” E. Spicer. £5 os; and “Our Coastline,” W. Allen Pollard, £6 6s. The exhibition will be open again this afternoon and evening. During the afternoon Mrs Scott Stevenson delivered an address on “Bypaths in Art.” with a special reference to wood block printing. Mrs Stevenson in the course of her address said that engraving was a design cut on a metal plate with a small steel rod called a burin, which was used with a pushing movement and cut a clear sharp V-shaped furrow in the metal. Etching was a form of engraving where the lines were bitten into a metal plate with acid. Dry paint was usually included with etching, though no acid was used for “dry paints,” the design being cut or scratched into the plate with sharp steel needles. Mezzotint was a means of engraving in lone, a copper plate being roughened with a special instrument, and a steel tool used to reduce the roughness and get the various tones. Wood cutting, or wood engraving, was a relief process. The design was drawn on, or transferred to, the surface of the block of wood, and a knife was used to cut away the surface of the block between the lines. It was the wood that was left untouched that printed. Later on an engraver’s burin was used as well as the knife, and a still later development was the white method where the design was cut into the wood so that the print therefrom showed as white lines on a black ground. Jhis latter was wood engraving. The art of wood block printing had been receiving more and more attention during the last 10 years, though it was about 25 years since the first attempts were made to recapture this lost medium from the Japanese, who amongst the nations had been unequalled m the art of printing in colour on wood. lo any student of pictorial art, especially of designing, or decorative nature, no work gave such instruction in economy of design. Tho actual value of wood block prints for use in the homo was a matter of taste and appearance. Mrs Stevenson went on to refer to the stages gone through in order to obtain the finished print (the design, the cutting of the blocks, and the printing) and the implements required, and at the conclusion of her remarks exhibited examples, tools, and the process.