Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and HistoryDelaborde, Henri, comte
History
Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History
Delaborde, Henri, comte
Engravers -- Great Britain; Engraving -- Great Britain; Engraving -- History
teaching, or by his signed work--has had the effect of rejuvenating
engraving in France in more than one particular, and of awakening
talents, some of which, though plainly betraying their origin, have
none the less a weight and an importance of their own, and deserve an
honourable place in the history of contemporary art.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.--HENRIQUEL.
Alexander Tardieu. After a Drawing by Ingres.]
Several of his most distinguished pupils are dead: Aristide Louis,
whose "Mignon," after Scheffer, won instant popularity; Jules François,
who is to be credited, among other fine plates, with a real masterpiece
in the "Militaire Offrant des Pièces d'Or à une Femme," after the
Terburg in the Louvre; and Rousseaux, perhaps the most gifted engraver
of his generation, whose works, few as they are, are yet enough to
immortalise him. Who knows, indeed, if some day the "Portrait d'Homme"
from the picture in the Louvre attributed to Francia, and the "Madame
de Sévigné" from Nanteuil's pastel, may not be sought for with the
eagerness now expended on the search for the old masters of engraving?
The premature death of these accomplished craftsmen has certainly been
a loss to the French school. Fortunately, however, there remain many
others whose work is of a nature to uphold the ancient renown of French
art, and to defy comparison with the achievement of other countries.
Where, save in France could equivalents be found, for instance, of
the "Coronation of the Virgin," after Giovanni da Fiesole, and the
"Marriage of Saint Catherine," after Memling, by Alphonse François;
of the "Antiope," by Blanchard, after Correggio; of the "Vierge de la
Consolation," after Hébert, by Huot; of Danguin's "Titian's Mistress,"
or Bertinot's "Portement de Croix," after Lesueur; of several other
plates, remarkable in different ways, and bearing the same or other
names? What rivalry need Gaillard fear, in the sort of engraving of
which he is really the inventor, and which he practises with such
extraordinary skill? Whether he produces after Van Eyck, Ingres, or
Rembrandt, such plates as the "Homme à l'Œillet," the "Œdipus," and the
"Pilgrims of Emmaus," or gives us, from his own drawings or paintings,
such portraits as his "Pius IX." and his "Dom Guéranger," he, in
every case, arrests the mind as well as surprises the eye, by the
inconceivable subtlety of his work. Even when translating the works of
others he shows himself boldly original. His methods are entirely his
own, and render imitation impossible because they are prompted by the
exceptional delicacy of his perceptions; but, with all the goodwill in
the world, it would be no less difficult to appropriate his keenness of
sentiment or to gain an equal degree of mental insight.
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