Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

by comte Henri Delaborde

Fig. 85.—GÉRARD AUDRAN.

"La Noblesse." After Raphael.

One would hardly venture to say that Gérard Audran was an engraver of genius, because it does not seem permissible to apply the term to one whose business it is to interpret the creations of others, and subordinate himself to models he has not himself designed; yet how else can one characterise a talent so full of life, so startling a capacity for feeling, and a method at once so large, so unstudied, and so original? Do not the plates of Gérard Audran bear witness to something more than mere superficial skill? Do they not rather reveal qualities more subtle—a something personal and living, which raises them to the rank of imaginative work? Their real fault, perhaps—at least the fault of those after Lebrun or Mignard—is that they are not reproductions of a purer type of beauty. And even these masters are so far dignified by the creative touch of their translator as almost to seem worthy of unreserved admiration. We can understand the mistake of the Italians, who thought, when they saw the "Batailles d'Alexandre," in black and white, that France, too, had her Raphael, when, in reality, allowing for difference of manner, she could only glory in another Marc Antonio.

Fig. 86.—GÉRARD AUDRAN.

"Navigation." After Raphael.

Gérard Audran was born in Lyons in 1640, and there obtained from his father his first lessons in art. Afterwards he went to Paris, and placed himself under the most famous masters of the day, by whose aid he was soon introduced to Lebrun, and at once commissioned to engrave one of Raphael's compositions. When Audran undertook the work, he had not the picture before him, as Edelinck had when he engraved the "Vierge de François I." His original was only a pencil copy which Lebrun had brought back from Italy; hence no doubt the modern character and the French style which are stamped on the engraving. Feeling dissatisfied with his work, the young artist did not publish it, but determined to study the Italians in Italy, to educate himself directly from their works, and thenceforth to engrave only those pictures of which he could judge at first-hand without the danger of an intermediary. He set off therefore for Rome, and remained there for three years, during which time he produced several copies painted at the Vatican, many drawings from the antique, several plates after Raphael, Domenichino, and the Carraccis, and the engraving of a ceiling by Pietro da Cortona, which last he dedicated to Colbert.

By this act of homage he acquitted himself of a debt of gratitude to the minister who had favoured him ever since his arrival in Paris, and who, at Lebrun's request, had supplied the means of his sojourn in Italy. On Colbert's part it was only an act of justice to recall Audran to France, and to entrust him with the engraving of the lately finished series of the "Batailles d'Alexandre," for the great publication called the "Cabinet du Roi." To the engraver, then twenty-seven years old, a pension was granted, with a studio at the Gobelins, then the customary reward of talents brilliantly displayed. It may be added that six years (1672–1678) sufficed him to finish the stupendous task.

Treated as a friend, and almost on an equal footing, by Lebrun, who for no one else departed from the routine of his official supremacy, Audran exerted over the king's chief painter a considerable, if a secret, influence. In spite of all that has been said[40] Lebrun was not the kind of man to openly question his own infallibility, nor to advertise his deference to the advice of an artist so much younger than himself, his pupil, so to speak, and consequently without the authority of any higher degree; yet he frequently consulted him, and took his advice, in private. Also (and this is significant) when the engravings of the "Batailles" appeared—engravings to a certain extent unfaithful, inasmuch as they differed decidedly from the originals—the fact that the painter made no complaint points to his recognition in Audran of the right to correct, and to his implicit submission to Audran's corrections.

In this respect Lebrun conducted himself as a man of the world, and one well able to understand the true interests of his reputation. He had everything to gain by giving full liberty to an engraver by whose perfect taste the blunders of his own were corrected, and who harmonised his frequently harsh and heavy colouring, and strengthened in modelling and design his often undecided expression of form. Thus the plates of the "Batailles," in addition to the high quality of the composition of the originals, present, alike in general aspect and in detail, a decision which belongs to Audran alone. Force and transparency of tone, largeness of effect, and, above all, a distinctly marked feeling for characteristic truths, are conspicuous in them. Not a single condition of art is imperfectly fulfilled. Marc Antonio himself drew with no more certainty; the Flemings themselves had no deeper knowledge of chiaroscuro; the French engravers, not excepting even Edelinck[41] have never treated historical engraving with such ease and mäestria. In a word, none of the most famous engravers of Europe have been, we believe, so richly endowed with all artistic instincts, nor have better understood their use.