4. Caricatures and Cartoons To-day.
5. A Good Cartoon.
6. A Good Cartoonist.
7. Of What Benefit to the World Are Caricatures and Cartoons?
ENGRAVINGS, ETCHINGS, PRINTS
When we visit an art gallery we find pictures in all mediums—oil, water color, pastel, charcoal, pencil, pen and ink; and then farther on we find photographs, etchings, engravings (steel, copper, and wood), and lithographs.
It takes much careful study and practice before we can expect to recognize the medium or process used. Most of us recognize water color, oil, pencil, charcoal, and pastel work, but prints made from engravings, etchings, and photographic plates are more difficult to distinguish.
At the time most of our famous old masters were painting, photography was unknown and the first etchings and engravings were laboriously done by hand and usually by the artists themselves. Now, the time and expense of hand work are so great that, although the important lines are still put in by hand, yet the camera plays an essential part in most etchings and engravings. Originally the artist drew direct on the steel, copper, or wood block, but as the drawing must be reversed, it required a great deal of skill to do this. It was only after much practice that the engraver could reverse his sketch as he drew it, and in most cases he either made a reversed study on paper to work from, or fastened his drawing opposite a mirror and drew from that. As soon as photography came into use all this was simplified, as the drawing was reversed in the photograph and much time was saved. In the case of wood engraving, which is the cheapest and most perishable, the picture is photographed directly upon the block of wood. The steel, copper, or zinc plates are often covered with some waxy substance and the design drawn upon them with fine engraver’s tools. After the drawing is completed there are three distinct processes of engraving:
1. The lines of the drawing are sunk below the surface of the plate, as in etchings and steel and copper-plate engravings.