CHAPTER VI.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FLAT BITING, AND BITING WITH STOPPING-OUT.
66. Two Kinds of Biting.—Now that you have become familiar with the secrets of biting, I say to my pupil, and are therefore prepared to be on your guard against the accidents to be avoided when you go to work again, I can make clear to you, better than if I had endeavored to do so at the outset, the difference between the two kinds of biting on which rests the whole system of the art of etching, and the distinctive characteristics of which are often confounded. The work thus far done will help you to a more intelligent understanding of this distinction. As it was impossible to explain to you, at one and the same time, all the resources of the needle as well as those of biting, between which, as I told you before, there exist very intimate relations, I had to choose a general example by which to demonstrate the processes employed, and which would allow me to explain the reasons for these processes.
There are two kinds of biting,—flat biting and biting with stopping-out. (See [Pl. III.])
These two kinds of biting resemble one another in this, that they involve only one grounding or varnishing, and consequently only one bath; they differ most markedly in this, that in flat biting the work of the acid is accomplished all over the plate at one and the same time, and with only one immersion in the bath, while in biting with stopping-out there are several successive, or, if you prefer the term, partial bitings, between each of which the plate is withdrawn from the bath, and the parts to be reserved are stopped out with varnish as often as it is thought necessary.
It follows from this, that, with flat biting, the modelling must be done by the needle, using either only one needle, or else several of different thicknesses.
67. Flat Biting.—One Point.—With a single needle the values are obtained by drawing the lines closely together in the foreground and nearer distances, or for passages requiring strength, and by keeping them apart in the off distances, and in the lighter passages of the near distances; furthermore, to obtain a play of light in the same distance, the lines must be drawn farther apart in the lights, and more closely together in the shadows. A single point gives a hint of what we desire to do, but it does not express it. It is undoubtedly sufficient for a sketch intended to represent a drawing executed with pen and ink or with the pencil; but it cannot be successfully employed in a plate which, by the variety of color and the vigor of the biting, is meant to convey the idea of a painting.
68. Flat Biting.—Several Points.—When several points of different thickness are used, the coarser serve for the foreground and near distances, the finer in gradual succession for the receding distances. They are used alternately in the different distances, and the lines are drawn more closely together here, or kept farther apart there, according to the necessities of the effect to be obtained; the depth of the biting is the same throughout, but the difference in thickness of the lines makes it an easy matter, by more elaborate modelling, to give to the etching the appearance of a finished design.
With a single point, as well as with several, the pressure used in drawing must remain the same throughout, so that the acid may act simultaneously, and with equal intensity on all parts of the plate. If there has been any inequality of attack, the values will be unequal in their turn, and different from what they were intended to be.