Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

by comte Henri Delaborde

In France, then, line engraving has representatives numerous enough, and above all meritorious enough, to put to rout the apprehensions of those who believe, or affect to believe, the art irretrievably injured by the success of heliography. We have only to glance at the feats accomplished in our own day in engraving of another kind, and to examine those produced in France by contemporary French etchers, to be reassured on this question also. Might we not, even, without exaggeration, apply the term renaissance to the series of advances effected in the branch of engraving formerly distinguished by Callot and by Claude Lorraine? When, since the seventeenth century, has the needle ever been handled in France by so many skilful artists, and with so keen a feeling for effect and colour? But let none mistake the drift of our praise. Of course, we do not allude here to the thousands of careless sketches scrawled on the varnish, with a freedom to be attributed to simple ignorance, far more than to real dash and spirit; nor to those would-be "works of art," for which the skill of the printer and the tricks of printing have done the most. To the dupes of such blatant trickeries they shall be left. Still, it is only just to acknowledge, in the etchings of the day, a singular familiarity with the true conditions of the process, and generally a good knowledge of pictorial effect, solid enough and sufficiently under control to maintain a mean between pedantry and exaggerated ease.

Many names would deserve mention, were we not confined to general indications of the progress and the movement they represent. It is, however, impossible to omit that of Jacquemart, the young master recently deceased, who, in a kind of engraving he was the first to attempt, gave proof of much ingenuity of taste and of original ability. The plates of which his "Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne" is composed, and his etchings of similar models—sculpture and goldsmith's work, vases and bindings, enamels and cameos—all deserve to rank with historical pieces of the highest order; even as the still-life painted by Chardin a century ago still excites the same interest, and has a right to the same attention, as the best pictures by contemporary allegorical or portrait painters.

The superiority of the French school, in whatever style, has, moreover, been recently recognised and proclaimed in public. It has not been forgotten that the jury entrusted with the awards at the International Exhibition of 1878 unanimously decreed a principal share to the engravers of France. Without injustice this share might perhaps have been even greater if the jury, chiefly composed of Frenchmen, had not thought right to take full account of the special conditions of the competition, and the readiness with which the artists of other countries had responded.

Fig. 100.—JULES JACQUEMART.

Henri III. After a Sixteenth Century Bronze.

Since then the position of art in Europe, and the relative importance of talents in different countries of Europe, have not changed. If, to understand the state of contemporary engraving, it be thought desirable to confine our attention to the present moment, there can be no doubt whatever that the most cursory examination of the works representing the different processes of engraving must justify the above observations. These we should wish briefly to recapitulate.

We have said that etching has, within the last few years, returned so much into favour, that probably at no other time have its products been more numerous, or in more general demand. This is but fair; and it is not in France only that the public taste for etched work, large and small, is justified by the talent of the artists who publish it. To quote a few names only among those to be commended, in different degrees, for their many proofs of sentiment and skill, we have Unger in Austria; Redlich and Massaloff in Russia; Gilli in Italy; and Seymour Haden in England. By their talents they assist in the reform which the French engravers began, and which they now pursue with increasing authority and exceptional technical knowledge.

Fig. 101.—JULES JACQUEMART.