CHAPTER I.
DEFINITION AND CHARACTER OF ETCHING.
1. Definition.—An etching is a design fixed on metal by the action of an acid. The art of etching consists, in the first place, in drawing, with a point or needle, upon a metal plate, which is perfectly polished, and covered with a layer of varnish, or ground, blackened by smoke; and, secondly, in exposing the plate, when the drawing is finished, to the action of nitric acid. The acid, which does not affect fatty substances but corrodes metal, eats into the lines which have been laid bare by the needle, and thus the drawing is bitten in. The varnish is then removed by washing the plate with spirits of turpentine,[2] and the design will be found to be engraved, as it were, on the plate. But, as the color of the copper is misleading, it is impossible to judge properly of the quality of the work done until a proof has been taken.
2. Knowledge needed by the Etcher.—The aspirant in the art of etching, having familiarized himself by a few trials with the appearance of the bright lines produced by the needle on the dark ground of smoked varnish, will soon go to work on his plate confidently and unhesitatingly; and, without troubling himself much about the uniform appearance of his work, he will gradually learn to calculate in advance the conversion of his lines into lines more or less deeply bitten, and the change in appearance which these lines undergo when transferred to paper by means of ink and press.
It follows from this that the etcher must, from the very beginning of his work, have a clear conception of the idea he intends to realize on his plate, as the work of the needle must harmonize with the character of the subject, and as the effect produced is finally determined by the combination of this work with that of the acid.
The knowledge needed to bring about these intimate relations between the needle, which produces the drawing, and the biting-in, which supplies the color, constitutes the whole science of the etcher.
3. Manner of Using the Needle.—Character of Lines.—The needle or point must be allowed to play lightly on the varnish, so as to permit the hand to move with that unconcern which is necessary to great freedom of execution. The use of a moderately sharp needle will insure lines which are full and nourished in the delicate as well as in the vigorous parts of the work. We shall thus secure the means of being simple. Nor will it be necessary to depart from this character even in plates requiring the most minute execution; all that is required will be a finer point, and lines of a more delicate kind. But the spaces left between the latter will be proportionately the same, or perhaps even somewhat wider, so as to prevent the acid from confusing the lines by eating away the ridges of metal which are left standing between the furrows. Freshness and neatness depend on these conditions in small as well as in large plates.
4. Freedom of Execution.—It is a well-known fact that the engraver who employs the burin (or graver), produces lines on the naked copper or steel which cross one another, and are measured and regular. It is a necessary consequence of the importance of line-engraving, growing out of its application to classical works of high style, that it should always show the severity and coldness of positive and almost mathematical workmanship. With etching this is not the case: the point must be free and capricious; it must accentuate the forms of objects without stiffness or dryness, and must delicately bring out the various distances, without following any other law than that of a picturesque harmony in the execution. It may be made to work with precision, whenever that is needed, but only to be abandoned afterwards to its natural grace. It will be well, however, to avoid over-excitement and violence in execution, which give an air of slovenliness to that which ought to be simply a revery.
5. How to produce Difference in Texture.—The manner of execution to be selected must conform to the nature of the objects. This is essential, as we have at our disposition only a point, the play of which on the varnish is always the same. It follows that we must vary its strokes, so as to make it express difference in texture. If we examine the etchings of the old masters, we shall find that they had a special way of expressing foliage, earth, rocks, water, the sky, figures, architecture, &c., without, however, making themselves the slaves of too constraining a tradition.
6. The Work of the Acid.—After the subject has been drawn on the ground, the acid steps in to give variety to the forms which were laid out for it by the needle, to impart vibration to this work of uniform aspect, and to inform it with the all-pervading warmth of life. In principle, a single biting ought to be sufficient; but if the artist desires to secure greater variety in the result by a succession of partial bitings, the different distances may be made to detach themselves from one another by covering up with varnish the parts sufficiently bitten each time the plate is withdrawn from the bath. The different parts which the mordant is to play must be regulated by the feeling: discreet and prudent, it will impart delicacy to the tender values; controlled in its subtle functions, it will carefully mark the relative tones of the various distances; less restrained and used more incisively, it will dig into the accentuated parts and will give them force.
7. The Use of the Dry Point.—If harmony has not been sufficiently attained, the dry point is used on the bare metal, to modify the values incompletely rendered, or expressed too harshly. Its office is to cover such insufficient passages with a delicate tint, and to serve, as Charles Blanc has very well expressed it, as a glaze in engraving.
8. Spirit in which the Etcher must work.—Follow your feeling, combine your modes of expression, establish points of comparison, and adopt from among the practical means at command (which depend on the effect, and on which the effect depends) those which will best render the effect desired: this is the course to be followed by the etcher. There is plenty of the instinctive which practice will develop in him, and in this he will find a growing charm and an irresistible attraction. What happy effects, what surprises, what unforeseen discoveries, when the varnish is removed from the plate! A bit of good luck and of inspiration often does more than a methodical rule, whether we are engaged on subjects of our own invention,—capricci, as the Italians call them,—or whether we are drawing from nature directly on the copper. The great aim is to arrive at the first onset at the realization of our ideas as they are present in our mind. An etching must be virginal, like an improvisation.
9. Expression of Individuality in Etching.—Having once mastered the processes, the designer or painter need only carry his own individuality into a species of work which will no longer be strange to him, there to find again the expression of the talent which he displayed in another field of art. He will comprehend that etching has this essentially vital element,—and in it lies the strength of its past and the guaranty of its future,—that, more than any other kind of engraving on metal, it bears the imprint of the character of the artist. It personifies and represents him so well, it identifies itself so closely with his idea, that it often seems on the point of annihilating itself as a process in favor of this idea. Rembrandt furnishes a striking example of this: by the intermixture and diversity of the methods employed by him, he arrived at a suavity of expression which may be called magical; he diffused grace and depth throughout his work. In some of his plates the processes lend themselves so marvellously to the severest requirements of modelling, and attain such an extreme limit of delicacy, that the eye can no longer follow them, thus leaving the completest enjoyment to the intellect alone.
Claude Lorrain, on the other hand, knew how to conciliate freedom of execution with majesty of style.
10. Value of Etching to Artists.—Speaking of this subordination of processes in etching to feeling, I am induced to point out how many of the masters of our time, judging by the character of their work, might have added to their merits had they but substituted the etcher's needle for the crayon. Was not Decamps, who handled the point but little, an etcher in his drawings and his lithographs? Ingres only executed one solitary etching, and yet, simply by virtue of his great knowledge, it seems as if in it he had given a presentiment of all the secrets of the craft. And did not Gigoux give us a foretaste of the work of the acid, when he produced the illustrations to his “Gil Blas,” conceived in the spirit of an etcher, which, after thirty years of innumerable similar productions, are still the chef-d'œuvre and the model of engraving on wood. And would Mouilleron have been inferior, if from the stone he had passed to the copper plate? It would be an easy matter to multiply examples chosen from among the artists who have boldly handled the needle, or from among those who might have taken it up with equal advantage, to prove that etching is not, as it has been called, a secondary method. There are no secondary methods for the manifestation of genius.
11. Versatility of Etching.—The needle is the crayon; the acid adds color. The needle is sometimes all the more eloquent because its means of expression are confined within more restricted limits. It is familiar and lively in the sketch, which by a very little must say a great deal; the sketch is the spontaneous letter. It all but reaches the highest expression when it is called in to translate a grand spectacle, or one of those fugitive effects of light which nature seems to produce but sparingly, so as to leave to art the merit of fixing them.
12. Etching compared to other Styles of Engraving.—By its very character of freedom, by the intimate and rapid connection which it establishes between the hand and the thoughts of the artist, etching becomes the frankest and most natural of interpreters. These are the qualities which make it an honor to art, of which it is a glorious branch. All other styles of engraving can never be any thing but a means of reproduction. We must admire the knowledge, the intelligence, and the self-denial which the line-engraver devotes to the service of his art. But, after all, it is merely the art of assimilating an idea which is foreign to him, and of which he is the slave. By him the chefs-d'œuvre of the masters are multiplied and disseminated, and sometimes, in giving eternity to an original work, he immortalizes his own name; but the part he has assumed inevitably excludes him from all creative activity.
13. Etching as a Reproductive Art.—These reserves having been made in regard to the engraver, whose instrument is the burin, justice requires that the reproductive etcher should come in for his proportional share, and that his functions should be defined. Some years ago, a school of etchers arose among us, whose mission it is to interpret those works of the brush which, by the delicacy and elegance of their character, cannot be harmonized with the severity of the burin. This school, to which Mr. Gaucherel gave a great impulse, has been called in to fill a regrettable void in the collections of amateurs. Every one knows those remarkable publications, Les Artistes Contemporains, and Les Peintres Vivants, which, for the last twenty years, have reproduced in lithography the chefs-d'œuvre of our exhibitions of paintings. To-day etching takes the place of lithography; it excels in the reproduction of modern landscapes, and of the genre subjects which we owe to our most esteemed painters. It is not less happy in the interpretation of certain of the old masters, whose works make it impossible to approach them with the burin. The catalogues of celebrated galleries which have lately been sold also testify to the important services rendered to art by the reproductive etcher. His methods are free and rapid; they are not subjected to a severe convention of form. He may rest his own work on the genius of others, so as to attain a success like that of the painter-etcher; but the latter, as he bathes his inspiration in the acid and triumphantly withdraws it, finds his power and his resources within himself alone. He is at once the translator and the poet.