Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

by comte Henri Delaborde

Although subdivided into smaller classes, the modern German school is composed—at least, in so far as historical painting and engraving are concerned—of a group of kindred talents, inspired by abstract reflection rather than the study of reality. Nevertheless this main idea has not everywhere been carried out with the same logical rigour. The Düsseldorf engravers, for instance, have not always confined themselves, like those of Munich, to the representation of figures and their accessories, as mere silhouettes, strengthened, if at all, by the palest of shadows. Even more elastic principles have prevailed elsewhere. Felsing of Darmstadt, Mendel of Berlin, and Steinla of Dresden, have proved by their engravings after Fra Bartolommeo, Raphael, and Holbein, that they have no notion of denying themselves any of the methods used by the masters of engraving for imitating in the highest perfection the relief and life of objects figured on canvas. But these and other efforts must be considered exceptional. As we have said, the dominant tendency of German art since the reform is rather towards deliberate, even systematic, conception than spontaneous expression of sentiment: it is, in fact, the mortification of the eye for the intelligence. In a word, German engravers trust too much to logic and analysis, and too little to their senses. It is only natural that they should. The qualities lacking in their works are also lacking in the pictures and drawings from which these are engraved. Still, their main principle once admitted, we must allow that it could not well be pushed to a more logical conclusion. In Germany, separate and independent talents do not exist, as in Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, and Russia. The end is the same for all, and is obtained by all in nearly the same degree. In England, also, engraving, considered as a whole, presents an incontestable unity; nevertheless, the difference between the schools is great. A trifle hypochondriacal by dint of privations and penance, German art is sustained by a feverish faith which lends to it the animation of life; while in spite of its flourishing looks, English art is really decayed in constitution. Its health is only apparent, and the least study of its vital sources compels the recognition of its frailty.

It has frequently been said that the arts are the expression of the moral tendency of a people. This is doubtless true; at all events, it is true of those people for whom the arts have always been a necessity—of Greece and Italy, for example, where they have been as it were endemic. Where, however, art has been diffused by contagion—as an epidemic—it may remain quite distinct from national tendencies, or only represent a part of them, or even suggest the presence of quite antagonistic influences. Strictly speaking, a school of painting has only existed in England since the eighteenth century; surely its characteristics, past and present, are in nowise a spontaneous expression of national feeling? Are all its most important achievements—the portraits of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence, and the landscapes of Turner—inspired by that practical wisdom, that spirit of order and love of exactness in everything, which characterise the English equally in private and in public life? On the contrary, the quest of spurious brilliancy and effect, exaggerated at the expense of accurate form and precision of style, is the one tradition of the English school of painting; and in spite of the inventive and tasteful work produced in the first half of the century by artists like Wilkie, Smirke, and Mulready, as of the more recent efforts of the Pre-Raphaelites, it would seem as if the school were neither able nor willing to change.

The æsthetic formula accepted and used, from one generation to another, by the English painters has influenced—and, perhaps naturally, with still more authority—their compatriots the engravers. Just now English engraving seems careless of further effort. It is as though its innumerable products had nothing whatever to reveal to those who buy them, and were bought from habit, and not from taste.

It has been seen that George III. did his utmost to encourage line engraving, and that the exportation of prints soon became a source of revenue. How could the country neglect those wares which abroad were made so heartily welcome? The aristocracy set the example. Men of high social position thought it their duty to subscribe to important publications. In imitation, or from patriotism, the middle class in their turn sought to favour the growth of engraving; and when, some years later, it became the fashion to illustrate "Keepsakes" and "Books of Beauty" with steel engravings, their cheapness put them within everybody's reach. People gradually took to having prints in their houses, just as they harboured superfluities of other kinds; and, the custom becoming more and more general, engravers could be almost certain of the sale of any sort of work. This is still the case. In London, every new print may reckon on a certain number of subscribers. Hence the facility of production, and the constant mechanical improvements tending to shorten the work; hence, too, unfortunately, the family likeness and purely conventional charm of the English prints of the last half-century.

A glance at any recent aquatints and mezzotints or into a new book of etchings, discovers nothing one does not seem to have seen a hundred times before. There are the eternal conflicts of light and darkness, the eternal contrasts between velvety and pearly textures. In its needless formality, this trickery resembles that of uninspired and styleless singers. A brief piano passage is followed by a crashing forte; the whole thing consists in abruptness of contrast, and depends for success entirely upon surprise. In both cases this element is soon exhausted by too frequent use. The novelty of their appearance might at first impart a certain charm to English engravings; but the unending repetition of the same effect has destroyed their principal merit, and it is difficult to regard them with attention or interest.

It would be unjust, however, to confine ourselves to the consideration of the abuse of general methods, and to say nothing of individual talents. England has produced some remarkable engravers since those in mezzotint formed by Reynolds and the landscape artists who were Woollett's pupils. Abraham Raimbach, for instance, was a fine workman, and a better draughtsman than most of his compatriots; his plates after Wilkie's "Blind Man's Buff," "The Rent-Day," and "The Village Politicians," deserve to be classed amongst the most agreeable works of modern engraving. Samuel William Reynolds, in his portraits after many English painters, and his plates from Géricault, Horace Vernet, and Paul Delaroche, and Samuel Cousins, in his engravings of Lawrence's "Master Lambton," "Pius VII.," and "Lady Gower and her Son," have succeeded in getting a good deal more from mezzotint than the eighteenth century masters.

In spite of the dissimilarity of their talents, Raimbach and Cousins may yet be compared as the last English engravers who attempted to invest their work with a character in conformity with the strict conditions of the art. Since them the London craftsmen have practised more or less skilfully an almost mechanical profession. They have only produced either the thousands of engravings, which every year proceed from the same source, or the prints that deal with still less ambitious subjects—animals, attributes of the chase, and so forth—on an absurdly large scale. They have, indeed, gone so far as to represent life-size dogs, cats, and game. There is even a certain plate, after Landseer, whose sole interest is a parrot on its perch, and which is much larger than the plates that used to be engraved from the largest compositions of the masters. To say the least, here are errors of taste not to be redeemed by improvements in the manufacture of tools, nor even by ingenious combinations of the different processes of engraving. However skilful contemporary English engravers may be in some respects, they cannot properly be said to produce works of art; because they insist on technique to an inordinate degree, and in like measure reduce almost to nothing the proportions of true art and sentiment.

One might, with still greater reason, thus explain the mediocrity of American prints in the present day. Few as they are, they do not rivet attention as the manifestations of an art which, young and inexperienced, is yet vital in its artlessness; on the contrary, they are depressing as the products of an art fallen into the sluggishness of old age. It is as though engraving in the United States had begun in decay—or rather, it may be, negatively, with no tendency to change, and no impulse to progress. Mostly mezzotints or aquatints, the prints sold in New York and New Orleans suggest that their authors only wished to appropriate as best they could the present fashions and methods of English engraving. As for work in line, it is almost entirely confined to the embellishment of bank notes and tradesmen's cards. Some of its professors are not without technical knowledge and a sort of skill; and if it were absolutely necessary to find a characteristic specimen of American art it should, perhaps, be sought amongst works of this sort. In any case, it is best to reserve a definitive opinion, and simply to state what American engraving is, and must be, till a master arise by whose influence and example it may be animated and renewed.

If, after considering the condition of engraving at the beginning of the present century, one should wish to become acquainted with its subsequent phases, assuredly one has to admit the pre-eminence of French talent. It may even be advanced that French engravers have maintained, and do still maintain, almost unaided the art of engraving within those limits from which it cannot deviate without the risk of becoming, as in Germany, a language of pure conventionality, or, as in England, the hackneyed expression of mere technical dexterity.

Without doubt, evidences of broader and more serious talent were not lacking even in that school which some years earlier seemed to have gone to decay. After Volpato and Morghen, and in opposition to their example, there were Italian engravers who worked to such purpose as to redeem the honour of the school. The plates by Toschi and his pupils, from pictures and frescoes by Correggio at Parma; Calamatta's "Vœu de Louis Treize," after Ingres; Mercuri's "Moissonneurs," after Léopold Robert, and many prints besides, either by the same artists or others of their race, assuredly deserve to rank with the most important achievements of French engraving in the first half of the nineteenth century. But the years that have lapsed since their publication, while barren for Italy, have brought a continued harvest to France. After the engravers who made their appearance in the last years of the Restoration their pupils became masters in turn; and, in spite of adverse circumstances, the indifference of a section of the public, and the increasing popularity of photography, their zeal seems no more likely to diminish than the value of their work.