THE GRAPHIC ARTS: Drypoints and Aquatints

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 4, 2 October 1922, Page 32

THE GRAPHIC AR TS: Drypoints and Aquatints

T. V. GULLIVER

TJETWEEN drypoints and aquatints I have no hesitation in

making a choice, but with drypoint and etching, who knows which to put first? Collectors would, no doubt, name drypoint, but they would be influenced by the comparative rarity of their choice, — a rarity, be it said, not so much of work in the medium, as of

prints of individual plates. Artists, I think, would say that drypoint is the more difficult of the two

processes to carry to a successful issue, but that the really greater work has been, done in pure etching. For drypoint is not etching, although for convenience ’it is treated as if it were—-it is engraving of a kind which is as different from the hard, wiry, cross-hatched work ordinarily so-called, as chalk is from cheese. It is an old process which probably antedates etching. It was employed by Diirer at the beginning of the sixteenth century, by Rembrandt later, and almost certainly by some of the etchers who followed him;

but I can bring to mind no pure drypoints since Rembrandt, until the time of Geddes and Wilkie, at the beginning of the eighteenth

century. With these men, the medium came into its own again, and since the glorious period of Whistler, Legros and Seymour Haden, has become so popular with artists, that at the present time I believe there is as much of it being done as etching: and being very well done, too. The last twenty

I ' • , years have seen a real renaissance of drypoint, and everyone who knows the magnificent work of Muirhead Bone, D. Y. Cameron, E. Blanpied, Lee Hankey or Claude Shepperson—-to name but a —will agree, I think, that never before has the medium had such brilliant exponents. The charm of drypoint lies in the character of the line combined with a marvellous depth and quality in the blacks. All the reproductive processes give blacks of delightful quality—each peculiar to a medium; but I think that drypoint gives the finestit has the bloom that one associates with velvet pile, and for precisely the same reasonbecause it is due to shadow cast from raised surfaces. The engraving is made on bare polished copper with a steel tool sharpened to a cutting point, and held just as one would hold a pencil. Drawing is done directly upon the plate, and variations in width and depth of line are obtained by altering the pressure and angle at which the tool is held. Resistance to cutting naturally limits the freedom with which a drypoint can be made, for the pressure required to obtain a deep line is very great, and the tool then has a decided tendency towards a straight line mode of progression which is disconcerting, and hard to get away from. It is this “grip” between plate and tool which gives character to each line. The point, in cutting the copper, leaves a raised feather-edge of displaced metal, called

the burr, and this edge, catching and holding ink during printing, gives that softened or blurred appearance to the line, which is the glory of drypoint and at once proclaims the medium to one who knows. When a number of lines are drawn closely together and the burr is left, we get that velvety bloom referred to

above. If all the burr were left, a print from the plate would most likely have a smudged, unpleasant look, however well drawn, so the artist removes it, when necessary, with a scraper. The plate can be worked on continually burr scraped away or put back again false lines removed by burnishing, and so on—but will not stand many impressions, for both the wiping of the ink and the pressure of the press flatten out the burr, and in a short time practically remove it. This means that good proofs

from a drypoint plate are very limited in edition, and explains the reference, at the beginning of this article, to their comparative rarity. The first aquatints were made towards the end of the eighteenth century, and as - the process lent itself so perfectly to the imitation and production of wash drawings, it speedilymade i t s presence felt in a world which knew no ready method of reproducing tone. There was the mezzotint, it is true, but at the best this ' would yield but few impressions, and or the rest there were steel or

copper engraving and wood cutting j —line processes in which tone was ! suggested only. j HPHE direct result of the introS -*■ duction of aquatint into Engs land, at any rate, was the flooding j of the country with large volumes ! of Views, Antiquities, Ruins, and } so on, with their select contents f of ivy-clad towers, rustic bridges. I ruined abbeys or photographical I views of mostly uninteresting j towns. Sporting prints, too, were i in great demand, and that the * whole makes a dreary and not J very artistic showing is hardly to J be wondered at, since water-colour j itself had hardly passed the phase 5 of the tinted pencil or pen and ink I outline. The method employed by the J old aquatinters followed closely on their water-colour practice ; | the design was first etched with | the needle, and then bitten in flat conventional tones in such a manner that pictorial and atmospheric ! effect were subordinated to a true ’ rendering of the architectural or I topographical features of the subject. This was the accepted mannerism of a time which was not concerned with the emotional and ethical standards now applied to art, and among the early work, that which is most to be admired owes its charm to the combination of what is often superb draughtsmanship with an

engaging simplicity of tone. The real strength of the old workers, however, lies in their technical superiority—the brilliance of tone due to the purity of the early grounds is amazing, and, unfortunately, the secret of some has been lost altogether.

AFTER its first great flush of popularity, aquatint was allowed to fall into disuse, until in recent years it has been revived; this time as a medium of original artistic expression. In the hands of an artist of feeling, the process gives wonderfully subtle gradations of tone; it is sometimes used in conjunction with etching, but the modern tendency is towards using the process for its own sake, and I think that for rendering atmospheric indefiniteness, it occupies a place which is challenged by mezzotint only. The grounds used for aquatint are of a porous nature, and, if examined under a glass, are seen to be composed of exceedingly minute islands of acid-resisting substance, between which is the shiny surface of the copper plate. The two grounds used most often are the “dust ground” and the “spirit ground.” In the first a quantity of asphaltum nr resin dust is put into a box and agitated by a revolving paddle, or some such device: after time has been given the coarser particles to settle, a polished copper plate is introduced, and is quickly covered with the very fine dust still in suspension. The plate on removal is warmed

gently until the dust has partially melted, „ .and so become fixed. The spirit process uses resin dissolved in spirits of wine, and the solution is poured upon the plate; the spirit is then evaporated, leaving the resin behind in minute granulated particles. BOTH methods are difficult to use, and must be carried out in a very clean atmosphere, as the presence of dust ruins the ground. Another method which, although sure, gives a coarse granulation, is to coat a plate with ordinary etching ground and to lay over it a sheet of fine sand-paper, which is then pressed into the ground. If the paper is shifted a number of

times the prepared surface will be suitable for further work. A plate with its ground untouched, immersed in acid, would bite evenly all over, and if inked and printed would give a clean flat tint. To get drawing and gradation, an acid-proof paint is put on with brushes of varying size, and the design is built up in a series of bitings—light tones have a very short bite, and darks a much longer one. The bitten plate, when cleaned, looks somewhat like a brush drawing on frosted glass, except that the colour is different, and is inked and printed on a press in the same way that etchings are.