VIIIENGLAND
Inpoint 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 Faithornegives 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.
CATHARINE OF BRAGANZAWilliam Faithorne
CATHARINE OF BRAGANZAWilliam Faithorne
CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA
William Faithorne
THE HON. MISS BINGHAMFrancesco Bartolozzi
THE HON. MISS BINGHAMFrancesco Bartolozzi
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 RaphaelSmith. 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.
MRS. CARNACJohn Raphael Smith
MRS. CARNACJohn Raphael Smith
MRS. CARNAC
John Raphael Smith
While portraiture is the fieldpar excellenceof 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 agifted 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.
FLOWER AND FRUIT PIECERichard Earlom
FLOWER AND FRUIT PIECERichard Earlom
FLOWER AND FRUIT PIECE
Richard Earlom
In the matter of woodcut, little need be said in this brief outline, aside from Jackson’schiaroscuros, 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.