Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

by P. H. Emerson

Wood engraving.

Wood engraving.—In wood cutting the parts left uncut print dark, and those that are hollowed out or cut away do not print at all; thus, the white is cut out from a dark ground. The workman cuts with special graving tools on a block of box-wood, cut sectionally. Durer’s woodcuts are simply drawings on wood, parts of the wood being cut away, for in this way many could be readily printed. They were simply fac-similes of the lines of Durer’s drawing, and had no artistic aim of their own. |Bewick.| With Bewick, however, the matter was different. He saw the limits of wood engraving, and kept resolutely within those limits, like the true artist he was.

American wood engravers.

With Bewick the flat black and white spaces were the limitations, as we consider they are and always will be for original work, notwithstanding the American school of wood engraving, of which we shall have something to say presently. The scale in wood engraving is limited by the ink and paper, and the suggestion of tone is got by representing the light greys as white, and the darker darks as blacks. There is no subtle tonality in Bewick’s work, and though there is much suggestion of nature and truth, the expression is limited. But here, as in other arts, directly the legitimate limit is overstepped the work becomes bad. Bewick, of course, and a few of his pupils, did original work, but the modern wood engraver, though he expresses greater subtlety of tone, is, after all, only a fac-simile worker. In the American magazines the perfection of this fac-simile work is to be seen, and, in our opinion, this school started with the intention of imitating the delicacies of photography. That such work is most useful no one can doubt, but in our opinion it has outstepped the proper limits of wood engraving, and therefore no longer interests us. It must not be forgotten, too, that the works are fac-simile work and not original. In fact, a good fac-simile wood engraver may be no artist at all. It serves a certain use certainly, but, judged by artistic standards, an intaglio copper-plate print produced by photography is far more satisfactory. Would, however, that all the art-craftsmen who work in fac-simile, kept up to the standard of the American engravers, for the feeble works of this class to be seen in this country in the book and paper illustrations of the day are lamentable. They are travesties of nature; but what more can be expected when a block is often cut into separate pieces, and engraved by different workmen? Lamentable, too, is it that many a good photograph, brought home by travellers from abroad, should be botched and ruined by these wood engravers.

A great deal of cant has been talked lately about the harm done to engraving by photography. The harm was done long ago, when artists ceased to practise the art of engraving as an original art, as was done by Bewick and some few others, and when the work of cheap reproduction fell into the hands of craftsmen. If photographic processes do anything, they will either raise the standard of fac-simile art-craft by competition, or, which would be, perhaps, as well, kill it altogether. For artists in wood engraving like Bewick there is always room; and among the first to appreciate such work and to foster it, will be the artist who works in photography; he will understand the limits of the art, and appreciate any artist who uses it artistically.

Etching.

Etching.—As the public become more educated in art matters, we find etching rapidly replacing line engraving, just as we think original photo-etching will in time replace etchings.

Etching is drawing on zinc or copper with a needle, the plate being first prepared with a ground, the nature of which varies with different practitioners. Wax, burgundy pitch, and asphaltum form a common combination for producing a ground. This ground is often smoked to produce a uniform surface, and then the artist sketches on it as freely and lightly as he would on paper. The lines are afterwards bitten in by immersing the plate in acid. Some etchers assert that they etch whilst the plate is in the bath, but we cannot imagine such a method being very successful, for want of proper control over the work. Tone is produced by thickness of lines and by cross-hatching, and also by the printer in the manner of wiping the plate, and finally touches are often added with a dry point. In addition separate bitings can be given to a plate by “stopping out” the portion not requiring further biting, with some substance which resists the acid, usually a varnish. Another method is to silver the plate and cover it with a white wax ground, so that the etcher gets a dark line on a white surface. The plate is finally covered with a thin coating of steel by electricity, this process being called “acierage.” This facing is given to the plate to resist the wear and tear of printing.

Etching, it will be seen, is far more amenable to the artist’s will than line engraving and wood-cutting. Still it has its limits, for in it all the subtleties of tone are wanting, and there is, therefore, imperfect modelling. The values cannot be relatively truly rendered, nor is texture well rendered. All this great artists have recognized and have therefore resolutely confined themselves within the legitimate limits. The masters of etching, as Rembrandt in the past and Whistler in the present day, never try for delicacies of tone in their plates, but by line and cross-hatching, like an artist in pen and ink, they express themselves, and their works are beautiful and priceless. But as with all the other arts, so with etching, inferior men have tried by this method to rival more complete methods, and the result has been failure. By complicated line work and by printing flat tones, etchers are daily striving to express in translation the perfect technique of painting, and the results are unsatisfactory. Here, again, we find that the art-craftsmen, the translators of pictures, and not original artists, are the chief sinners, and this is a fact to be carefully remembered. A good etching by Rembrandt or Whistler gives us a satisfaction we cannot well express; but carefully elaborated etchings from pictures give us no satisfaction; on the contrary, they have gone so far that they compel us to compare the work with a more complete technique, and the result is great disappointment.

As mere art-craft for the translation of pictures, photo-etching will give etching points (points not of taste but of artistic facts), and beat it hollow, as any first-rate judge will allow. The best etchers we have met are unanimous in condemning elaborated work in etching, and they themselves work within the limits of its technique. Equally averse are they to the hybrid process of combining etching with photo-etching, a hybrid only practised by inferior men and appreciated by the untrained.