Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Echinoderma" to "Edward, prince of Wales": Volume 8, Slice 10Various
Science
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Echinoderma" to "Edward, prince of Wales": Volume 8, Slice 10
Various
Encyclopedias and dictionaries
See Eddius, _Vita Wilfridi_ (Raine, _Historians of Church of York_,
London, 1879-1894), 14; Bede, _Hist. Eccl._ (Plummer, Oxford, 1896),
iii. 2.
EDELINCK, GERARD (1649-1707), Flemish copper-plate engraver, was born at
Antwerp. The rudiments of the art, which he was to carry to a higher
pitch of excellence than it had previously reached, he acquired in his
native town under the engraver Cornelisz Galle. But he was not long in
reaching the limits of his master's attainments; and then he went to
Paris to improve himself under the teaching of De Poilly. This master
likewise had soon done all he could to help him onwards, and Edelinck
ultimately took the first rank among line engravers. His excellence was
generally acknowledged; and having become known to Louis XIV. he was
appointed, on the recommendation of Le Brun, teacher at the academy
established at the Gobelins for the training of workers in tapestry. He
was also entrusted with the execution of several important works. In
1677 he was admitted member of the Paris Academy of Painting and
Sculpture. The work of this great engraver constitutes an epoch in the
art. His prints number more than four hundred.
Edelinck stands above and apart from his predecessors and contemporaries
in that he excelled, not in some one respect, but in all respects,--that
while one engraver attained excellence in correct form, and another in
rendering light and shade, and others in giving colour to their prints
and the texture of surfaces, he, as supreme master of the burin,
possessed and displayed all these separate qualities, in so complete a
harmony that the eye is not attracted by any one of them in particular,
but rests in the satisfying whole. Edelinck was the first to break
through the custom of making prints square, and to execute them in the
lozenge shape. Among his most famous works are a "Holy Family," after
Raphael; a "Penitent Magdalene," after Charles le Brun; "Alexander at
the Tent of Darius," after Le Brun; a "Combat of Four Knights," after
Leonardo da Vinci; "Christ surrounded with Angels"; "St Louis praying";
and "St Charles Borromeo before a crucifix,"--the last three after Le
Brun. Edelinck was especially good as an engraver of portraits, and
executed prints of many of the most eminent persons of his time. Among
these are those of Le Brun, Rigaud, Philippe de Champagne (which the
engraver thought his best), Santeuil, La Fontaine, Colbert, John Dryden,
Descartes, &c. He died at Paris in 1707. His younger brother John, and
his son Nicholas, were also engravers, but did not attain to his
excellence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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