“HALF-TONE” PROCESS.
The next process to consider is the method of reproducing wash drawings and photographs on blocks suitable for printing at the type press, commonly known as the Meisenbach or “half-tone process;” a most ingenious and valuable invention, which, in clever hands, is capable of artistic results, but which in common use has cast a gloom over illustrations in books and newspapers.
First, as to the method of making the blocks. As there are no lines in a wash drawing or in a photograph from nature, it is necessary to obtain some kind of grain, or interstices of white, on the zinc plate, as in a mezzotint; so between the drawing or photograph to be reproduced and the camera, glass screens, covered with lines or dots, are interposed, varying in strength according to the light and shade required; thus turning the image of the wash drawing practically into “line,” with sufficient interstices of white for printing purposes.
“THERE IS THE PRIORY!”
Thus, all drawings in wash, chalk, pencil, etc., that will not reproduce by the direct line processes, already referred to, are treated for printing at the type press; and thus the uniform, monotonous dulness, with which we are all familiar, pervades the page.
The conditions of drawing for this process have to be carefully studied, to prevent the meaningless smears and blotches (the result generally of making too hasty sketches in wash) which disfigure nearly every magazine and newspaper we take up. There is no necessity for this degradation of illustration.
The artist who draws in wash with body colour, or paints in oils in monochrome, for this process, soon learns that his high lights will be lost and his strongest effects neutralised, under this effect of gauze; and so for pictorial purposes he has to force his effect and exaggerate lights and shades; avoiding too delicate gradations, and in his different tones keeping, so to speak, to one octave instead of two. Thus, also for this process, to obtain brightness and cheap effect, the illustrator of to-day often avoids backgrounds altogether.
In spite of the uncertainty of this system of reproduction, it has great attractions for the skilful or the hurried illustrator.