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
Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of anything less interesting,
except with regard to the particular nature of the process. The
outlines of the figures have none of that drawing, firm even to
stiffness, nor has the flow of the draperies that taste for abrupt
forms, which distinguished the productions of the German school from
its beginnings. The least feeble of these specimens, such as the "Saint
Barbara," in the Brussels Library, or the "St. George on Horseback,"
preserved in the Print Department of the Bibliothèque Nationale in
Paris, do indeed occasionally suggest some similarity of origin or
manner with the school of Van Eyck. But it is unnecessary to debate
the point at greater length. Whether produced in France, in the Low
Countries, or in Germany, the dotted engravings of the fifteenth
century add so little lustre to the land which gave them birth, that no
scepticism as to their origin need lie very heavily on the conscience.
In the general history of the documents on the origin of engraving,
the dotted prints form a series distinguished by the method of their
execution from any other earlier or contemporary specimens of work;
the date mark 1454, borne by one among the number, gives us authentic
information as to the time of these strange experiments, these
curiosities of handicraft rather than of art. This is as much as we
need to bear in mind upon the subject, and quite enough to complete the
history of the elementary attempts which preceded or which co-existed
for a few years with the beginning of engraving by incised line in
Italy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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