Etching Craft: A Guide for Students and Collectors - W. P. Robins, Paperback

• Release Date   8/21/2019
• ISBN-13   9781687756756 | 978-1-68775-675-6
• ISBN   1687756759 | 1-68775-675-9
• Format   Paperback
• Author(s)   W. P. Robins
• From the INTRODUCTION.The importance of the Graphic Arts to-day is beyond question, and the appreciation of drawings and prints seems to gather strength rather than to diminish. The discriminating collection of drawings, etchings, lithographs and wood-engravings was never more eagerly pursued. The number of print-collectors increases astonishingly, their zest being stimulated by the informed work of numerous writers who have successfully engaged the sustained and enthusiastic interest of the lover of fine prints in achievements of the Masters of the past equally with those of the modern artist. Especially definite at the moment is the wide appreciation of etchings, not only by wealthy connoisseurs whose collections embrace the finest and rarest of prints, but also by collectors with limited means, whose discernment enables them to acquire, at a moderate price, work that will stand the test of later judgment. Much has been written about the qualities that distinguish a fine etching, but these are best ascertained by studying closely and sympathetically the finest examples. Some knowledge of technical qualities and methods is most necessary to the would-be connoisseur, for every one of the processes by which prints are made has a definite character entirely its own, the appreciation of which should govern the formation of the collection. It is most instructive to compare fine examples in various mediums — for example, the hard brilliance of a burin line with the more expressive bitten line, whether it be the free open line so insisted upon by Haden, or the rigid line of Meryon. Only by this study and comparison can the collector understand the great gulf between the beautiful deep tonal qualities of Samuel Palmer's few prints and the delicate web-like tracery of Whistler's etchings, or the sonorous strength of Brangwyn's great plates and the rich bur of an early impression in a dry-point by Muirhead Bone, to discover the fine qualities of each. In the same way will be learned the distinction between the inherent qualities of an aquatint, depending as it should on the correct relation of its bitten tones, and of a fine mezzotint wrought with subtle gradations. To what end the modern etcher's expression is tending it is difficult to predict. certainly it has been but little affected by the recent movements that have so violently disturbed the traditions of painting. The value of an etching as decoration is well understood to-day, for though collectors may still place their best-loved prints in solander box or portfolio, yet their treasures are much more likely to be hung upon a wall. A fine etching, in addition to the beauty of its line, will to a great extent suggest colour. Perhaps this may account for the great attraction that etching has exercised on so many fine painters who have, with a just recognition of the limitations of the medium and a correct selective faculty, frequently obtained through the etched or dry-point line a perfectly expressed individuality.