The rise of stipple as a separate style took place in the middle of the eighteenth century, and although the coming of Bartolozzi to England gave it so great an impetus, it is necessary to point out that the works of the school which goes by his name by no means show the capabilities of the method. The aim of Bartolozzi and his followers was essentially prettiness; to this all their efforts tended, and for this stipple was a convenient medium. The very printing in red, recently so popular, is barbarous in its ineffectiveness, plates so printed being deprived of a great part of their proper ranges of light and shade. The more serious work in this method was accomplished by other engravers, of whom may be specially mentioned Thomas Gaugain, Anthony Cardon, Caroline Watson, and, later on in the present century, William Walker, who carried the style to the highest point ever reached or likely to be reached. Engraving in stipple—that is, putting dots into the plate in place of lines—was, however, no new invention; from early times line engravers had placed dots in the interstices of their crossed lines to give solidity and greater effect. Ottavio Leoni, a Roman painter, had used the method freely in a set of plates of distinguished artists, which he engraved in the years 1621ndash;5, executing the heads, with the exception of the hair, entirely in stipple; and early in the century French engravers made use of the same means to give effect to many of their flesh textures. The crayon style of engraving introduced by Demarteau, and the feeble English manner known as chalk, which had only a limited reign, are but modifications of the style.
Francesco Bartolozzi, the life-long friend of Cipriani (born in 1725 at Florence), was educated in engraving at Venice by Joseph Wagner, and like Cipriani, who had preceded him, came over to England in 1764. His reputation was already established there; he was appointed engraver to the king with a salary of £300 a year, became one of the first forty full members of the Royal Academy (1768), and was the only engraver admitted to the honour down to the year 1855. Bartolozzi remained in England for thirty-eight years, continuously producing his innumerable and well-known plates; at length, in 1802, seduced by the offer of a house, pension, and a knighthood, he went, at the age of seventy-seven, to Lisbon, where he died in 1815, having reached his ninety-first year, and working at his profession to the last. John Ogborn, Cheesman, Thomas Ryder, Chapman, Agar, T. Burke, and the delightful P. W. Tomkins—who, with the late C. H. Jeens, may be called the miniaturist of engravers—were all followers more or less of his school. An admirable draughtsman and perfect master of the graver, Bartolozzi was in addition able to infuse a certain grace and beauty into the trivial work by which he is best known; but he has done work of a higher stamp, and some of his line engravings, such as "Clytie," the "Death of Dido," the portraits of Lord Thurlow and Martin van Juchen in full armour (worthy of the graver of Pontius or De Jode), make all who care for the art regret that so talented an artist gave the greater part of his time and attention to producing prints which, though graceful and pleasing, charm but for the moment and leave no permanent impression.
This, the Augustan era of English engraving, saw also the rise of the talented and genial Thomas Bewick (born 1753, died 1828), who made the domain of natural history his own, and in addition to executing some interesting copper plates, has by his exquisite wood-cuts after his own drawings entitled England to claim her place amongst the greatest artists in that form of engraving. The Boydells, too, had established their celebrated firm; both were engravers, John in line, and Josiah, his nephew (a pupil of Earlom), in mezzotint. John Boydell was born in 1719, and established himself first (in 1752) at the sign of the "Unicorn," corner of Queen Street, Cheapside, afterwards at 90 Cheapside, and finally took additional premises in Pall Mall for the Shakespeare Gallery. Josiah was born in 1752, succeeded on his uncle's death (1804) to the business, and died in 1817. A great proportion of the best prints of this period will be found to bear the addresses of these famous publishers and engravers.
The last years of the eighteenth and the commencement of the present century witnessed the death of many of the famous engravers already mentioned. It was now that the Birmingham school of line arose, and, urged by the influence of J. M. W. Turner, executed their delicate line engravings after that famous painter. William Radelyffe was the founder of this school, and was followed by his son Edward, Robert Brandard, J. T. Willmore, E. Goodall, R. Wallis, William Miller, and others. Sharp, Anker Smith, James Heath, Earlom, Dickinson, Young, and J. R. Smith still remained for a time, but much of their best work was already done. William Ward, apprenticed to J. R. Smith, his brother James, the noted animal painter, Charles Turner and Samuel William Reynolds had also appeared to carry on and bring to its fullest development the great British school of mezzotint. William Ward, born in 1766, by his series of engravings after George Morland—whose sister he married—has made the names of the painter and engraver almost indissoluble, each having contributed to the immortality of the other. James, the painter and Royal Academician, born in 1769, studied under his brother, with whom he served an apprenticeship of nearly nine years; his plates of "Cornelius the Centurion" after Rembrandt, Sir Joshua's "Mrs. Billington as St. Cecilia," and the studies after nature of heads and feet of ducks, ducklings, geese, and calves, are among the finest works executed in the method. James lived to a great age, dying in 1859 in his ninety-first year, having survived his brother and also a nephew, William James Ward. The last-named was likewise a good mezzotint engraver, but unfortunately died in the prime of life in the year 1840.
Charles Turner was born in the same year as S. W. Reynolds (1773), and survived the latter by more than twenty years; his prints are very numerous, and comprise a great variety of subjects. The large upright mezzotint of Sir Joshua's group of the Marlborough family, with the two younger children in front, one holding a mask, the other shrinking back in fright, is deservedly well known, as is also his fine rendering of "The Shipwreck" after J. M. W. Turner, published in 1807. Other characteristic prints which may be mentioned are "Black and Red Game," after Elmer; "Pheasants," after Barenger; the portraits of "Alexandra, Empress of Russia," after Monier; "Lord Newton," after Raeburn; and a marvellous life-size head of Salvator Rosa's "St. Francis," engraved in 1805. Turner lived till the year 1857, when he died at his house in Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, at the age of eighty-three.
Samuel William Reynolds, one of the most gifted men who ever applied themselves to the engraver's art, studied mezzotint under C. H. Hodges; he commenced his comparatively short career both as painter and engraver, and exhibited for several years at the British Institution. Endowed with singular powers of fascination, Reynolds seems to have attracted and kept fast the friendship of all with whom he became acquainted, irrespective of their particular social surroundings. Samuel Whitbread, the distinguished Member of Parliament, of old Drury Lane Theatre renown, was his intimate and kindest friend; Sheridan and Edmund Kean played at Pope Joan with his daughters, and the very printer of his plates fifty years after Reynolds' death would grow bright when recalling his memory, saying, "He was the prince of engravers." He gave lessons in drawing to the daughters of George III., who wished to make him their equerry, and afterwards an important post with a salary of £900 a year was offered him, but both these offers were refused.
It is from the technical skill and firm daring which Reynolds displayed in his prints, and the intelligent use he made of the means at his command, that his name as an engraver remains pre-eminent; the "Falconer," "Vulture and Snake," "Heron and Spaniel," and "Leopards" after Northcote; the "Duchess of Bedford" after Hoppner; the "regal" whole-length of the unfortunate Princess Charlotte; the large and exquisitely finished etching from Rembrandt's famous picture of "The Mill;" and the "Land Storm"—known also as the "Mail Coach in a Storm"—after George Morland, are but a few of the many prints which show the power and versatility of the engraver. In the last-named print (published 1798), where the resources of mezzotint and etching combined have been used to fullest purpose, the familiar identity of the painter has been almost hidden under the massive effects of light and shade shown in the landscape, where amidst lightning flash and rushing wind the terror-stricken horses are seen dashing madly onward.
When Reynolds went to Paris in 1826, artists there were astonished at his paintings and the effects that he produced. Sixdeniers and Maile studied with him, and several plates bear their combined names; unfortunately both these engravers, excellent as they were as mezzotinters, chiefly engraved after painters whose productions partook of a frivolous and somewhat free character. Reynolds, however, left more permanent marks of his stay in the French capital by executing there the large plates of Géricault's "Wreck of the Medusa," Horace Vernet's "Mazeppa," and the masterly representations of Charlet's characteristic types, the "Village Barber" and the "Rag Picker." In the last two the technical handling is so free that it would almost seem as if the scraper had been used with the same facility as chalk on paper. In reference to this there is a story extant that Reynolds once scraped a large whole-length portrait in a day and a night; the story is true, but it is also true that it is one of his worst plates.
Shortly before his death Reynolds was greatly struck with Constable's picture of "The Lock," and resolved to engrave it at his own cost; writing to Constable on the arrival of the picture, he says:—"I have been before your picture for the last hour. It is no doubt the best of your works true to nature, seen and arranged with a professor's taste and judgment. The execution shows in every part a hand of experience; masterly without rudeness, and complete without littleness; the colouring is sweet, fresh, and healthy; bright not gaudy, but deep and clear. Take it for all in all, since the days of Gainsborough and Wilson no landscape has been painted with so much truth and originality, so much art, so little artifice." But he did not live to fulfil his intention, for while still full of hope and high purpose for the future, Reynolds was suddenly stricken with paralysis, and died at his house in Bayswater in the year 1835. This sudden ending was the cause of his son—likewise named Samuel William—forsaking painting to finish some of his father's plates, and ultimately continuing with success the practice of mezzotint on his own account. Reynolds' daughter Elizabeth, who married the stipple engraver William Walker—though chiefly known by her miniatures and other paintings—also engraved in early life.[64] Although there are no authentic records of the pedigree, S. W. Reynolds always asserted his collateral relationship to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his son often mentioned that his father, when quite a youth, called on Sir Joshua, who, during the conversation that ensued, remarked to Reynolds, "Then you are my cousin."
Other engravers of eminence that flourished during this period are, in line, the Bromleys, John Landseer and his sons, Charles Heath, William B. Cooke and his brother George[65] John Burnet (celebrated as painter, engraver, and author), Richard Golding, and John Scott; in stipple, William Bond, Thomas Woolnoth, and James Hopwood; in mezzotint, Henry Dawe, William Say, Henry Meyer, George Clint, and his pupil Thomas Lupton, who, for his introduction of soft steel instead of copper as the medium for mezzotint engraving, received in 1822 the gold Isis medal from the Society of Arts.