Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/329

* LINE-ENGRAVING. 293 LINE-ENGBAVING. LINE-ENGRAVING. That which is done with the burin, the only tool iu common Use. The term iine-engraving' is almost wholly limited to such engraving as is intended for printing off upon paper. The burin is a slender steel bar, square, or more rarel}- triangular iu section, with this jjeculiarity, that its working end is cut off in the direction of the diagonal plane so that the most projecting point — that farthest from the handle — is a not very acute solid triangle bound- ed by three planes, which meet in very sharp edges. This steel bar is set in a short wooden handle having a rounded form so shaped that the hand maj' push it strongly, point on. When this tool is forced along the surface of a metal plate with the a.xis of the steel bar slightly in- clined to the surface of the plate, it cuts a groove, forcing out the metal in a curled shav- ing: and according as it is forced in more or less deep it makes the incision more or less wide. The artist having before him, let us say, a patch of shade iu the drawing which he is to copy, that patch having a definite size and the depth of the shade varying in an artistic gradation from light to dark, it is his business to reproduce that shade on the paper which is to be printed from his engraved plate by means of applied ink; and therefore, as he has at his disposal onlj- solid black lines by which to represent shade, he has to decide on the number, the direction, the fine- ness, and the closeness of the setting of those lines. Some burinists have worked with very fine lines, put in as simply as those of the etcher: short lines, nearly parallel, drawn with all the apparent ease of a pen and ink draughtsman. Others, especially the line-engravers of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, have used lines of varying breadth, very wide in some part of their length and tapering to a point, or nearly so; and these lines have been used in one sys'tem, nearly parallel to one another, and have also been used crossing each other like the cross- hatching recommended by some teachers of draw- ing in black and white. A still further develop- ment of the process has involved the putting of a dot or cut in the metal in each lozenge-shaped space left by such cross-hatching; but this has not been approved by the critics of later times and may be thought to be abandoned. Line-en- graving has not been in verj' common use since the middle of the nineteenth century, and this, in part, because of the strong feeling caused by the use of etching and dry-point work by artists to render their own thoughts, with the result that line-engraving, a process nuich too slow and mechanical to please the artist who is ac- customed to painting or drawing in monochrome, is neglected except for the reproduction of paint- ings and the like. The vei-y common use of line- engraving to do just such work as that, namely, the close copying of pictures and statues in the public galleries of Europe, has aided in this gen- eral condemnation of burin work as dull and un- interesting. The production, since 18:50, of a few works of the burin in wiiich great artistic in- telligence and much originality is shown has not sufficed to restore the popularity of the art. Moreover, the immense advance in photographic engraving of all sorts has helped in the com- parative abandonment of this with the other uses of the engraver's art. HiSTOBT. As stated in the article ENGEAVUfG, the custom of printing trial impressions of niello plates may have originated the art of engraving for printing upon paper. This origin must have taken place in the course of the fifteenth cen- tury, and the result of the newly invented proc- ess is found in such early work as that of Baccio Baldini. His prints are, of course, rare, but they do not need rarity to make them singu- larly valuable, both historically and in the way of artistic merit. Contemporary with them are a great many small prints, known to collectors as niello or niello prints, these being evidently made by rubbing with ink the coppers prepared for niello work and taking impressions on paper to show the design. From 14;50 until the close of the century these works and those of Robetta of Florence, those of Lombardy, and those of Martin Schongauer of Southeastern Germany, rep- resent a great part of the artistic movement of the time. The earliest engravings, whether of Italian or German origin, show a very imperfect knowledge of the power of the burin and the re- sources of the burinist's art. The outline is drawn on the metal with singular grace and charm, this extending even to the most refined qualities of facial e.xpression : but this outline is not supported by a complete system of light and shade. The burin is used for thin and light lines only, usually very short, hardly to be dis- tinguished from the lines of the etcher; and where there is opportunity for elaborate line work, as in the drawing of ilowing hair, the deli- cate, nearly parallel lines by which the effect is produced are evidently a habit of the skilled en- graver on metal for original decorative effect, without thought of printing. The work of .Jacopo dei Barbari (the master of the Caduccus), an artist of whom little is known, is among the most poetical of the time, and Sandro Botticelli, in his designs for the illustration for Dante — designs thought to have been engraved by Baccio Baldini — is supposed also to have enfrraved a few plates himself. In fact, the painters of the time experimented with the burin very nearly as the painters of the second half of the nineteenth centurv' worked with the etcliinsi-needlc. trying to familiarize themselves with the new process and to express their thoughts in black and white in this enduring form. It is important to note that the early engravers had no thought of the comparative lowering of their art to a process of mere copying. The sixteenth century is a time of amazing fertility and artistic results in line-engraving. Especially during the years previous to his death in 1.528 Albert Diirer produced designs of extraordinary originality and refined sentiment. His most famous pieces are the ''Melancholia" and the so-called "Xight and Death;" but his '•Adam and Eve" (one of his earliest works in black and white), the noble designs called the "Coat of Arms with the Skull" and the "Coat of Arms with the Cock." and several of the por- traits, are of equal artistic importance. (For de- tails, see Dt-RER, Albreciit.) In the Low Coun- tries Lucas Van Leyden worked until LiS."?. and his design in black" and white, as shown in his prints, though feeble compared with the mag- nificent strength of Diirer. is charming for its quaintness: and his portrait work has singular attractiveness because of its apparent fidelity to individual expression and to details of costume. Barthel Beham produced less work than his pre-