Engraving on Copper and Steel
Where be the equal now of those glorious editions of the poets, the “Annuals,” “Keepsakes,” “Books of Beauty,” and other delightful volumes that still charm the eyes and glad the hearts of those who have the taste and the wit to possess them? As works of the highest art quality, they have never since been equalled for beauty of work, with their engraved titles, frontispieces, and illustrations in the text, drawn by Stothard, Turner, Creswick, Stanfield, Harding, and a host of the first names in British Art, and engraved in the rarest and most exquisite manner by men equally eminent in their line. “Woodcuts,” however, cut them out for the time, owing to the excellence to which the art had attained, and the greater rapidity and cheapness in printing.
In all the changes and inventions in the modes of art reproduction the engraved plate has steadily held its own as the most finished and perfect. For Ex Libris it is particularly suitable; it is par excellence THE STYLE for the attainment of the highest art quality.
The Art Journal, supported by one or two similar publications, has heroically endeavoured to maintain the traditions of the best period of the Art in its steel-plate illustrations, but, except for pictures of this kind, and of larger size for framing, illustrations on steel and copper for books may be said to be practically extinct.
Time, however, has its revenges: wood engraving, in its turn, is being rapidly displaced by “process blocks” (of which more anon), and now, if we take up any recent illustrated book or journal, we find the bulk of the pictures and designs not wood engravings but process blocks.
In every good collection of Ex Libris the majority of examples will be found to be printed from engraved plates, very few relatively being from wood blocks. The reason is not far to seek. The wood engraving as practised in England previous to the opening of the present century was poor in execution, and did not lend itself sufficiently to working out minute details with the same ease and readiness with which they can be executed on copper.
That it was the favourite mode of producing these dainty little works is evident also from the fact that copper-plate pictures for book illustrations of every kind had almost entirely superseded wood engraving, which had indeed fallen completely into disfavour. Until the beginning of the present century, when Bewick and others had elevated it into a fine art, wood engraving was in an exceedingly rude condition, and little fitted for small works. Copper-plate engraving, on the contrary, had for several centuries flourished successfully; every goldsmith was able to “chase” and engrave the decorative and heraldic work upon silver plate and goldsmiths’ work, or upon metal of any kind, in relief, or intaglio, as in medals, coins, etc. That this is no mere assumption we know from historical evidence, as well as from a careful comparison of the “handling,” or the manner of cutting the lines upon silver work, which is identical with the style of cutting the lines in so very many engraved book-plates of the last and early part of the present century. Whatever may be thought of the vagaries of the accessories in the Jacobean, Chippendale, and other kindred styles—which are essentially silver engraving patterns—much of this class of work shows at least a true heraldic spirit in the treatment of the charges.
Benvenuto Cellini, whose works now bring fabulous prices in goldsmith work, was an expert engraver as well, as were probably most of the workers in the precious metals of his time. Hogarth, in the earlier part of his career, did much in the way of engraving arms, crests, etc., for the silversmiths; so did Bewick, who worked on wood and on metal indifferently. The writer has done a fair share of similar work in his younger days; and to his knowledge it was the custom in many establishments for the engravers to do both, as the exigencies of business required, though the tendency when work was plentiful was to specialise, each man doing that part for which he seemed to have an aptitude. This refers particularly to graver work; the pictorial engraver executing his work principally by means of the etching process, and only finishing up with the graver.
No doubt a life-long practice in one particular class of work of this kind is calculated to engender a stiff and formal manner, and set patterns to become stereotyped, were it not for the capricious changes of fashion; sometimes slowly developed, at other times, a new fashion suddenly sets in and changes all; the later chasing the earlier out of the field, only to be elbowed aside in its turn. Styles of ornament, as they course each other down the stream of time, invariably leave their high-water marks on the margin, which serve as valuable data for the student; the prevailing styles of decorative and heraldic art, having, like all mundane things, their periods of development, full-blossoming, and decadence, the dates of which, book-plate collectors, aided by dated specimens, arrive at with tolerable certainty.
The prevalence of a particular style, its vogue and duration, will account in a great measure for the family likeness observable in so many book-plates; the chief factors, however, may be set down to the general low state of the art, the paucity of designers and engravers of merit, and the ample supply of the ordinary article—the mechanical craftsman.
As to the history and development of styles in Ex Libris, a reference to the works of the Hon. J. Leicester Warren, J. Paul Rylands, F.S.A., Egerton Castle, M.A., F.S.A., W. J. Hardy, and the pages of the Ex Libris Journal, will find the subject fully and plainly set forth.
A word as to the origin and history of Copper-Plate Engraving. The art of engraving on metal plates, for taking impressions on paper, was first practised by Tommaso Fineguerra, a Florentine goldsmith, about the year 1460. Some writers have claimed the invention for Germany, but it is generally considered that the art was first practised in Italy, and had its origin in the workshops of the goldsmith. An assistant is said to have suggested to Fineguerra the possibility of taking an impression from an engraved design with ink on moistened paper. The first book printed at Rome was illustrated by the first plate engraving. This work is dated 1478, but was commenced in 1472. Engraving made rapid strides towards excellence in Germany. Albert Dürer was a man whose universality of talent extended the boundaries of every department of art, and carried all to a degree of perfection previously unknown. He had great command of the graver, and carried his plates to a higher state of finish than his Italian contemporaries. He is also believed to have invented the art of etching by corrosion: on examining his etchings, we see that they have all been corroded at one “biting-in,” which sufficiently explains their monotonous appearance, and proves that “stopping-out” was not then understood. To the Dutch and Flemish schools we owe many improvements in the art. The celebrity of the French school dates from the time of Louis XIV. Gerard Audran was the first engraver who successfully united to any extent the use of the graver and the etching point. The English school of engraving dates only from the middle of the eighteenth century, previous to which those who practised the art in England were chiefly foreigners. Hogarth engraved many of his own designs. Francis Vivares introduced the art of landscape etching: he, Woollet, and Brown produced some of the first landscape engravings extant. Sir Robert Strange excelled in portrait engraving. Of the moderns who have attained eminence in the various branches of the art, the very enumeration of them would lead to needless length, the present purpose being chiefly to describe the processes.