Engraving. History and technique of creating engraving ▲

What are engravings? This question is of interest to many. Some people associate a sonorous foreign word with the image of a biblical story on a metal or stone board, while others believe that this is just a drawing carved with a knife on the surface of the table.

Nevertheless, to the question: "What are engravings?" - it is impossible to answer unequivocally, since the technologies for creating drawings are quite complex. But one thing is certain. Engraving is a special kind of graphic art, which has its own outstanding artists and consummate craftsmen.

Engraving technique

The art of painting does not imply any technical means other than a set of artistic brushes, a palette and an easel. Another thing is engravings, which require multi-stage technical training, with many trial attempts. But then why is it necessary? Isn't it easier to draw one picture and not waste time and effort on copying it multiple times? Moreover, the real does not tolerate repetition. However, this principle does not work here. The effect of the engraving lies in its uniqueness, the structure of the drawing is mesmerizing.

Graphic images obtained by printing are called "prints". However, a print is a print from any original, and an engraving is an print from an engraved board. What are engravings in terms of manufacturing technology? Simple manipulations, during which it is necessary to press a sheet of paper against a board on which paint was previously applied. Then this sheet is carefully separated from the board - and the engraving is ready.

Metal and wood

The art of engraving is not about printing, but about making an original, from which you can then make any number of copies. The stronger the material from which the "board" is made, the more impressions you can get. There are two types of engravings: letterpress and gravure printing. The first method consists in artistic cutting of the original in a mirror image, so that the paint passes onto the paper from the outer surface of the cut pattern. And the second method provides that the paint will transfer to the paper sheet from the recesses filled with it on the "board".

Art originated in the 15th century, since then it has been repeatedly modified. Engraving boards were originally made from copper sheets as the softest metal. Later, woodcut technologies appeared, according to which the board was carved from hard wood. This method was less time consuming, moreover, it was possible to create multi-color prints. To do this, it was necessary to make several boards with different arrangement of pattern elements. The sheet was applied in turn to each board, with intermediate drying, as a result of which the image turned out to be colored.

Vintage engravings

Prints became widespread in the 15th century. The most valuable engravings were created at the same time, in the workshops of the German artists Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dürer. Italians Andrea Mantegna and Antonio Pollaiolo did not lag behind them.

In the 16th century, the art of artistic printing gained wide recognition; in Europe, engraving was elevated to the rank of high art, mainly thanks to Dürer's masterpieces, such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Coat of Arms of Death, and Melancholy.

The end of the 16th century was marked by a breakthrough in artistic engraving, simple drawings became a thing of the past, expressive plasticity appeared, cutting technologies became much more complicated, parallel and cross-hatching made it possible to achieve fantastic results in achieving a volumetric effect and in playing chiaroscuro. The drawing acquired signs of sophistication, which served as an incentive for further improvement of methods.

Development of engraving

Artists began to use etching of a metal base and received the technology of etching, which flourished in full force only in the 17th century. The brilliant portrait painter Rembrandt also took up engravings and achieved significant success in this field. The artist Jean Callot devoted his life entirely to the art of engraving and created a whole gallery of portraits of his contemporaries. carried away with the translation of his paintings into engravings. And Rubens organized a special workshop in which his paintings were reproduced.

Popularity

The 17th century became a golden time for the development of a new art - engraving and etching. The list of genres in which the artists worked was expanding. These were portraits and landscapes, pastorals, battle scenes, still lifes, animals, and many artists of that time considered it an honor to try their hand at the art of engraving. Whole albums appeared, united thematically, by plot and art. Hogarth's satirical etchings, Chodovetsky's miniatures, and a series of prints by Francisco Goya became famous in no time.

The art of engraving in Japan

The Land of the Rising Sun, known for its artistic traditions, did not stand aside. Japanese engraving is a whole layer of the country's culture, part of its national fine arts. The history of the appearance of the first prints "ukiyo-e" goes back to the 17th century. Then the Japanese prints were printed in black and white. In the early 18th century, artists introduced color printing and the ukiyo-e was transformed.

Engravings in Japan were inexpensive and were in steady demand. They depicted scenes from the life of the common people. First of all, these are beautiful geisha (this was the main theme), then sumo wrestlers walked, and in third place were the famous actors of the kabuki theater. After some time, landscape engraving became fashionable.

Protection of especially valuable copies

The most famous etchings, both old and recent, are systematized. The engraving, the photo of which is available to the public, has its own registration number and, as a rule, is registered. This is necessary in order for its artistic value to remain inviolable. Rare copies such as the masterpieces of Albrecht Durer are protected by UNESCO. The world famous or especially valuable engraving, photos and reproductions of which are placed in special reference books of Interpol, are protected by special services.

Modernity

At the beginning of the 20th century, the development of engraving as an art form continued. Under Soviet rule, a whole generation of talented artists appeared who successfully worked in the field of etchings and prints. During this period, engraving experienced its next rise, the drawing became even more complicated, its expressiveness came to its climax. In the 30s, the Russian and then the Soviet school of engraving was formed, represented by talented artists, as well as their students. The prospect for the further development of the art of etching was bright. Then, already in the pre-war years, the engraving became poster, and its popularity declined noticeably.

After World War II, for almost 20 years, prints were issued only as a means of inexpensive but effective Soviet propaganda. Currently, the art of engraving is in a state of some stagnation, there are no new enthusiasts, and older artists are busy with commercial projects. Although today any Russian is able to give an exhaustive answer to the question of what engravings are. Perhaps, in the future, new types of engravings will appear, because art tends to revive in new guises.

History of engraving

Here is a description of the word "Engraving" from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia: engraving(from French gravure), 1) a printed print on paper (or on a similar material) from the plate ("board") on which the drawing is cut; 2) a form of graphic art, including various methods of manual processing of boards (engraving) and printing impressions from them. Depending on which parts of the board are covered with ink during printing, convex and in-depth engraving are distinguished: lithography ("flat engraving") is also referred to engraving.

The emergence of engraving is associated with handicrafts where engraving processes were used: woodcut - with carving, including on heel boards, incisor engraving - with jewelry, etching - with decoration of weapons. Paper - the material for prints - appeared at the beginning of our era in China (where the engraving is mentioned from the 6-7 centuries, and the first dated engraving dates back to 868), and in Europe in the Middle Ages. The first European woodcuts of religious content, often hand-colored, appeared at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries. in Alsace, Bavaria, Czech Republic, Austria ("St. Christopher", dated 1423); then satirical and allegorical sheets, alphabets, calendars were performed in this technique. Around 1430 "block" ("woodcut") books appeared, for which the image and the text were carved on the same board. Around 1461 the first typesetting book, illustrated with woodcuts, was printed; such books were printed in Cologne, Maipz, Bamberg, Ulm, Nuremberg, Basel; in France, watch books were often illustrated with convex metal engravings. German and French engraving of the 15th century was distinguished by decorativeness, contrasts of black and white, underlined contours, and Gothic fragility of the stroke. By the end of the 15th century, two directions of book engraving had developed in Italy: in Florence, interest in ornament played a significant role, and Venice and Verona tended to clarity of lines, three-dimensional space and plastic monumentality of figures.

Chisel engraving originated in the 1440s. in Southern Germany or Switzerland ("Master of Playing Cards"). In the 15th century. German anonymous masters and M. Schongauer used thin parallel shading, delicately simulating chiaroscuro. In Italy, A. Pollaiolo and A. Mantegna used parallel and cross-hatching, achieving volume, sculptural forms, heroic monumentality of images. A. Dürer completed the quest of the Renaissance masters, combining the virtuoso subtlety of the stroke characteristic of German engraving with the plastic activity of images inherent in Italians, filled with deep philosophical meaning; drama and lyrics, heroic and genre motifs also appeared in woodcuts based on his drawings. The engraving served as a weapon of acute social struggle in Germany ("flying leaves") and the Netherlands (engravings of the circle of P. Bruegel the Elder).

At the beginning of the 16th century in Italy, a reproduction engraving with a chisel was born, reproducing painting (M. Raimondi); as a reaction to its impersonal smooth shading, clearly revealing its form, etching with its freedom of stroke, emotionality, picturesqueness, the struggle of light and shadow developed (A. Dürer, A. Altdorfer in Germany, W. Graf in Switzerland, Parmigianino in Italy) and “ Chiaroscuro ”- color woodcut with generalized molding of the form, close shades of tone (U. da Carpi, D. Beccafumi, A. da Trento in Italy, L. Cranach, H. Burgkmair, H. Baldung Green in Germany). The freedom and sometimes dramatic nature of the idea was distinguished by the engravings of the Dutchman Luke Leiden and the Frenchman J. Duve. In the 16th century. book woodcuts appear in the Czech Republic, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine in connection with the publishing activities of Francisk Skorina, Ivan Fedorov, Pyotr Mstislavets, etc.

In the photo: an engraved copper plate for printing an engraving, fixed on a wooden base.

In the 17th century, reproduction engraving with a chisel prevailed (in Flanders - P. Sautman, L. Vorsterman, P. Pontius, who reproduced paintings by P.P. Rubens; in France - K. Mellan, R. Nanteuil and other masters of portrait engraving, the best examples of the subtlety of understanding of characters, the purity of the linear style) and etching, in which the diversity of individual searches was widely manifested - the acutely grotesque perception of the variegation and contradictions of modern life by the Lorraine master J. Callot, the interaction of light and atmosphere in the classicist landscapes of the Frenchman C. Lorrain and in pastoral scenes of the Italian G. B. Castiglione, the immediacy of perception of psychological states in the portraits of the Flemish A. van Dyck. The most integral was the Dutch school of etching (which was not inferior to painting in importance), which is characterized by an intimate feeling of life and nature, small format, calculation for close examination, subtlety of chiaroscuro, picturesque composition, clear division of genres (animalistic etchings by P. Potter, genre - A . van Ostade, landscape - A. van Everdingen, etc.). A special place belongs to landscape etchings by H. Segers, who expressed a dramatic feeling of the gigantic scale of the world, and J. Ruisdael, who conveyed the heroic spirit of the wild, and especially to Rembrandt's etchings, in which the free dynamics of a stroke, the movement of light and shadow express both the psychological formation of characters and the rise spiritual creative energy, and the conflict of ethical principles. In the 17th century. Metal engraving, sometimes with realistic motives, spread in Russia (S. Ushakov, A. Trukhmensky, L. Bunin), in the Ukraine (A. and L. Tarasevichi, I. Shchirsky), in Belarus (M. Voshchanka). From the end of the 17th century. the Russian popular print was developing.

The engraving of the 18th century is characterized by an abundance of reproduction techniques: for reproduction of painting and drawing, chisel engraving is masterly used (P. Dreve in France, G. Volpato and R. Morgen in Italy), often with an etching preparation (N. Koshen, F. Boucher in France, Engraving by F. Schmidt in Germany); invented in the 17th century. tone engraving mezzotinto (portrait engravings by English masters J.R. Smith, V. Green, landscape - R. Irlom) and new tone techniques - dotted line (F. Bartolozzi in England), aquatint (J. B. Leprince in France) , lavis (J. Ch. François in France), pencil style (J. Demarto, L. M. Bonnet in France); brilliant masters of colored aquatint were the French F. Janinet, C. M. Decurti and especially L. F. Debucourt. The original etching was distinguished by its softness, fluidity of lines, and a subtle play of light (A. Watteau, O. Fragonard, Engraving de Saint-Aubin in France, G. B. Tiepolo, A. Canaletto in Italy). Etchings and chisels were used to create satirical works by W. Hogarth (England), genre, including books, miniatures by D. N. Chohovetsky (Germany), grandiose architectural fantasies by G. B. Piranesi (Italy). Engraving was used in books and albums, as interior decoration and as a form of artistic journalism (etchings by English caricaturists - J. Gillray, T. Rowlandson; popular prints from the time of the Great French Revolution). In Russia in the 1st half of the 18th century. the chisel engraved patriotic allegories, battle scenes, portraits, city views (A. F. Zubov, I. A. Sokolov, M. I. Makhaev); in the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries. the masters of portrait (E.P. Chemesov, N.I. Utkin), landscape and book (S.F.Galaktionov, A. Engraving Ukhtomsky, K.V. and I.V. . Skorodumov), mezzotinto (I. A. Selivanov), lavis (N. A. Lvov, A. N. Olenin); architects (V.I.Bazhenov, M.F. Kazakov, J. Thomas de Thomon), sculptors and painters (M.I.Kozlovsky, O.A. Kiprensky), the first Russian caricaturists (A. I. I. Terebenev, I. A. Ivanov).

In the 18th century, Japanese woodcuts flourished, the first impulses of which were received from China (where illustrations, albums, popular prints, and from the 16th century color woodcuts were distributed). In the 17th century, illustrated books ("Ise-monogatari", 1608), engraved calendars, guidebooks, posters, greeting cards ("surimono") appeared in Japan, and since the 1660s. - secular prints associated with the Ukiyo-e Democratic Art School. Japanese engraving, performed successively by a draftsman (author of an engraving), a carver and a printer, is rich in poetic associations, symbols, and metaphors. Hisikawa Moronobu produced the first black-and-white prints depicting beauties and street scenes, using energetic silhouettes, decorative lines and spots. In the 18th century, Okumura Masanobu introduced 2-3-color printing, and Suzuki Harunobu, in his multi-color engravings with a few figures of girls and children, embodied the finest shades of feeling with the help of exquisite halftones and a wealth of rhythms. The largest masters of the late 18th century are Kitagawa Utamaro, who created a type of lyrical ideal female portrait with a flat composition, unexpected angles, bold framing, with a subtle play of smooth thin lines, soft shades of color and black spots, and Chosusai Sharaku, whose grotesquely sharp, expressive and dramatic portraits of actors are distinguished by intense contrast of rhythm and color, the embodiment of a character-symbol. In the first half of the 19th century, the leading role was played by the masters of landscape engraving - Katsushika Hokusai, who expressed with extraordinary freedom of imagination the complexity, variability, inexhaustibility of nature, the unity of the world in large and small, and Ando Hiroshige, who strove to accurately capture the beauty of his country.

At the turn of the 19th century, F. Goya (Spain), in his series of etchings with aquatint, discovered new ways of engraving, combining political satire and almost documentary accuracy with subjective expression, tragic grotesque and uncontrollable imagination. The combination of vital persuasiveness and fantastic character is also inherent in the convex engraving on copper by W. Blake (England). In the 19th century, the predominant reproduction end engraving on wood (invented in the 1780s by the Englishman T. Buick), carried out by specialist carvers (in Russia - E.E.Bernardsky, L.A. Seryakov, V.V. Mate) for line and then tone illustrations ("polytypes") in the book and magazine. Reproduction engravings with a chisel (in Russia by F.I. Jordan, I.P. Pozhalostin) and etching (in France by F. Braquemond) were of lesser importance. In the revival of the original etching, a significant role was played not so much by specialists - C. Merion in France, S. Hayden in England, as many painters who sought to spread their artistic ideas more widely, and often looking for a way to capture the living variability of nature, the play of light and air (J.F Millet, C. Corot, C. F. Daubigny in France, T. Engraving Shevchenko and L. M. Zhemchuzhnikov in Ukraine, I. I. Shishkin, I. E. Repin, V. A. Serov in Russia). Etching attracted the opportunity of impressionistic plein air and the transmission of instant impressions (Dutchman J. B. Jongkind, French E. Manet, E. Degas, American artists J. M. Whistler, J. Pennell, German - M. Lieberman, L. Corinth, M . Slevogt, Swede A. Zorn). At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. social and philosophical content was introduced into their etching compositions by both the Symbolists (J. Ensor and J. de Breuiker in Belgium, M. Klinger in Germany) and representatives of democratic realism (the cycles of K. Kollwitz imbued with the spirit of revolutionary protest in Germany, etchings by the Englishman F Brangwin on the theme of the city's working life). Since the 1890s. revived and original (including edged) woodcut - easel (O. Leper in France) and book (W. Morris in Great Britain). New paths were outlined by the engravings of P. Gauguin (France), with their generalization, expressive contrasts of white and black; later, a type of decorative-simplified type, built on the rhythmic play of silhouettes of woodcut and linoleum engravings, including colored ones (F. Vallotton in Switzerland, W. Nicholson, Craig in Great Britain, A.P. Ostroumov-Lebedev in Russia); characteristic of many artists of the 20th century. intense expression, tragic contrast of spots (like signs of an object or figure) in a cut engraving with its vibrating board texture (E. Munch in Norway, E. Nolde, E. L. Kirchner in Germany). The tradition of old folk engraving was also widely used (H. Posada in Mexico, V. Skochilas, T. Kulisevich in Poland). Woodcuts and linoleum engravings of the 20th century acquire a wealth of expressive possibilities in depicting people's life, publicistic passion in promoting liberation ideas, in protest against imperialist oppression and wars (K. Kollwitz, Belgian F. Maserel, Mexican engravers L. Mendes, A. Beltran, A. Garcia Bustos, Chinese - Li Hua, Gu Yuan, Japanese - Ueno Makoto, Tadashige Ono, Brazilians R. Katz, K. Skliar, Chilean K. Hermosilla Alvarez). The expressiveness of lines, silhouette and color was revealed in a new way in book engravings and prints by P. Picasso, A. Matisse, R. Dufy, J. Rouault. Among the major contemporary masters of realistic engraving are R. Kent (USA), A. Grant (Great Britain), L. Norman (Sweden), H. Finne (Norway). Technique was significantly enriched (especially metal engraving), new materials and technical methods of engraving were introduced.

In 1798, the German Johann Senefelder invented a completely new way of printing - lithography... Impressions are obtained by transferring ink under pressure from a printing plate (lithographic stone) to paper. The image is applied to the stone with bold ink or lithographic pencil. Moreover, the circulation with this method of printing could, in terms of the number of prints, many times exceed all methods of printing images that existed at that time. The first workshop using the lithography method was opened in 1806 in Munich. In Russia, the experience of color lithographic printing from several stones (chromolithography) was tested by I. Shchedrovsky, who published Scenes from Russian Folk Life in 1845.

A method for reproducing multi-color images was also invented - chromolithograph, in which for each paint a separate printing plate is made manually on a stone (or zinc plate); an outline is preliminarily applied to the surface of each stone. In a print, it is possible to overlay one ink on another with the formation of intermediate color tones. Later, chromolithography was superseded by photomechanical processes for making plates for flat printing.

An example of chromolithography printing with nine lithographic stones in different colors.

At the end of the XIX, beginning of the XX century, the term came into use photogravure(phototype, light type, etc.), for the general public, conceptually ranked the latest technologies of graphic production printing to the traditional methods of creating engravings, but technologically radically different from them.

Soviet engraving reflected the life and history of the people in various ways, achieving great success in various forms and genres - in printmaking and books, in revolutionary journalism and lyrical landscape, in portraiture and thematic composition. It is distinguished by a wealth of national schools and creative directions, united by the general principles of communist ideology and socialist realism.

Online store site sells antique engravings in baguette frames. Each of our engravings is unique and deserves to become not only an excellent decoration for your interior, but also your family heirloom. Any antique sheet on which a magnificent rare engraving is captured reveals the secrets of its historical era, an eternally young past, filled with the mysterious charisma of "bygone days."

In our store you can buy not only an old engraving, but also an antique map or book - rare original gifts, fascinating collectibles and the most suitable objects for a profitable investment. Our engravings cover almost the entire history of printing: these are examples of engravings, etchings, aquatints, lithographs, and heliogravings ... In our catalogs you will also find rare old books, first printed sheets of the 15th - 16th centuries, manuscripts.

All product groups are located in separate catalogs, which are easy and convenient to browse: you can familiarize yourself with our assortment by building old engravings of a particular subject by date of origin and by price. Welcome to the vintage engraving shop!

Literature: Rovinsky D.A., Detailed dictionary of Russian engravers of the XVI-XIX centuries, v. 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1895-99; Christeller P., History of European engraving, trans. from it., M. - L., 1939; Essays on the history and technique of engraving, M., 1941: Russian engraving of the 16th-19th centuries, L. - M., 1950; Sidorov A.A., Old Russian book engraving, M. - L., 1951; Turova V.V., What is engraving, M., 1963; Japanese engraving, M., 1963: Leont'ev Engraving K., Dear search, M. - L., 1965; Deiteil L., Le peintre graveur illustre, v. 1-30, P. 1906-30; Hillier J., Japanese masters of the color print, L. 1954; Laran J., L "estampe. V. 1-2, P., 1959; Bersier JE, La gravure, P., 1963; Hind A. M., An introduction to a history of woodcut, v. 1-2, Boston - L., 1963; his, A history of engraving and etching ..., NY, 1963: Les plus beiles gravures du monde occidental 1410-1914, P., 1966; Adhemar J., La gravure originale au XX siecle , P., 1967. ES Levitin, Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Engraving Engraving

(from French gravure), 1) a printed print on paper (or on a similar material) from the plate ("board") on which the drawing is applied. 2) A form of graphic art, including various methods of manual processing of "boards" and printing from them prints. Often, lithography ("flat engraving"), the creation of which is not associated with engraving processes, is also referred to as engraving. Engraving uses the means of artistic expression inherent in the graphic arts (contour line, stroke, spot, tone, sometimes color) and is used for purposes characteristic of graphics - for performing illustrations, type and decorations in books and other printed publications, albums, easel sheets (prints) , popular prints, leaflets, bookplates, works of applied purpose, etc. The specific features of the engraving lie in its circulation (that is, in the ability to obtain a significant number of equivalent prints), as well as in its peculiar style associated with work in more or less solid materials.

Depending on which parts of the board are covered with ink during printing, convex and in-depth engravings are distinguished. In a convex engraving, all areas of the board free from the pattern are deepened by 2-5 mm with the help of knives, chisels, chisels or cutters (gravers). The drawing, therefore, rises above the background, forming a relief with a flat surface. The paint is applied with tampons or rolled with a roller, after which the paper is evenly pressed against the board manually or with a press, onto which the image is transferred.

Embossed engraving includes woodcuts (woodcuts) and linoleum (linocut), as well as used until the end of the 15th century. relief engraving on metal (plates of copper, brass, tin or lead were processed with a graver).

In an in-depth engraving, a drawing by mechanical or chemical (acid etching) means is deepened in a metal plate (made of copper, brass, zinc, iron, steel); ink is tamped into the recesses, and the board, covered with damp paper, is rolled between the shafts of the printing press. The incisor engraving (cutting lines in the metal surface with a graver) has a clear, purely linear structure, and the direction and intersection of the lines, their varying thickness, expressively convey the plastic of the depicted object. Free pictorial play of lines in etching (scratching a drawing with an engraving needle in an acid-resistant varnish covering the board followed by etching the board) and dry-needle engraving (scratching a drawing with a needle directly on a board) allows to express movement, subtle light-air and emotional nuances. The richness of tonal shades is achieved in the engraving with aquatint (etching the board through the pores of the resinous powder adhered to it), the dotted manner (combinations of dots punched into the board with punches or applied through the varnish with needles and tape measures, and then etched), lavis (drawing on the board with acid, applied with a brush), mezzotinto (smoothing with a smoother the light areas of the image on the board, which was given a continuous roughness with the help of a lapidary). Many types of in-depth engraving were often used for reproductive purposes. They directly imitate a pencil drawing of an engraving in a pencil manner, (a kind of dotted manner) and soft varnish (drawing with a pencil on paper laid on a board covered with a greasy varnish; the varnish adheres to the paper in places of the drawing and is removed with it, exposing the surface of the board for etching). Traditional materials in the XX century. replaced by new ones: wood - plastic, metal - plexiglass, etc. Both convex and in-depth engraving can be colored. The paints are applied with tampons on different parts of the same board. In another method, each paint is applied to a special board, treated only in the corresponding parts, and the image appears as a result of sequential imprinting of all boards on one sheet. The stage of the engraver's work on the board, fixed in the print, is called the "state". Some artists know up to 20 states of one engraving.

The emergence of engraving is associated with crafts where engraving processes were used: woodcut - with carvings, including on printed boards; carving engraving - with jewelry; etching - with decoration of weapons. Paper - material for impressions - appeared at the beginning of the century. NS. in China (where engravings are mentioned from the 6th-7th centuries, and the first dated engraving refers to 868), in Europe - in the Middle Ages. Public interest in engraving with its print run manifested itself in Europe at the beginning of the Renaissance - with the growth of self-awareness of the individual, with an expanded need for the dissemination and individual perception of ideas. The first engravings (of religious content) in Europe, made using the woodcut technique, appeared in the 14th-15th centuries. In the Middle Ages, the books of hours were often illustrated with convex metal engravings in France in the Middle Ages.

German and French engravings of the 15th century. They were distinguished by decorativeness, contrasts of black and white, underlined contours, and Gothic fragility of the stroke. By the end of the 15th century. two directions of book engraving developed in Italy: in Florence, interest in ornament played a significant role, and in Venice and Verona they tended to clarity of lines, three-dimensionality of space and plastic monumentality of figures.

Chisel engraving originated in the 1440s. in southern Germany or Switzerland (the so-called Master of Playing Cards). In the XV century. German anonymous masters and M. Schongauer used thin parallel shading, delicately simulating chiaroscuro. In Italy, A. Pollaiolo and A. Mantegna used parallel and cross-hatching, achieving volume, sculptural forms, heroic monumentality of images. A. Dürer completed the searches of the masters of the late Gothic and Renaissance, combining the virtuoso subtlety of the stroke characteristic of German engraving with the plastic activity inherent in Italians of images filled with deep philosophical meaning. During the Reformation, engraving served as a means of social struggle ("flying leaves") in Germany and the Netherlands.

At the beginning of the XVI century. in Italy, a reproduction engraving with a chisel was born, reproducing painting (M. Raimondi); as a reaction to its impersonal smooth shading, clearly revealing its form, etching with its freedom of stroke, emotionality, picturesqueness, the struggle of light and shadow developed (Dürer, A. Altdorfer in Germany, W. Graf in Switzerland, Parmigianino in Italy) and "chiaro- skuro "- color woodcut with generalized molding of the form, close shades of tone (U. Da Carpi, D. Beccafumi, A. da Trento in Italy, L. Cranach the Elder, H. Burgkmair, H. Baldung in Germany). The freedom and sometimes dramatic nature of the idea was distinguished by the engravings of the Dutchman Luke Leiden and the Frenchman J. Duve. In the XVI century. in a number of Eastern European countries, including Russia, book woodcuts are being developed.

In the XVII century. Reproduction engravings with a chisel dominated (in Flanders - P. Southman, L. Vorsterman, P. Pontius, who reproduced paintings by P.P. Rubens; in France - K. Mellan, R. Nanteuil and other masters of portrait engraving, distinguished in the best examples by the purity of linear style, the desire to convey the character of the model) and etching, in which the variety of individual searches was widely manifested - the sharp-grotesque perception of the diversity and contradictions of modern life by the Lorraine master J. Callot, the interaction of light and atmosphere in the classicist landscapes of the Frenchman C. Lorrain and in the pastoral scenes of the Italian J. B. Castiglione, the immediacy of perception of psychological states in the portraits of the Flemish A. van Dyck. The most integral was the Dutch school of etching (which was not inferior in importance to painting). Rembrandt's etchings, characterized by free stroke dynamics, effects of light and shadow, achieve dramatic expression, psychological disclosure of characters. A new sense of nature is expressed in the landscapes of H. Segers and J. R Vanøisdael; animalistic etchings were created by P. Potter, genre ones - by A. van Ostade. In the XVII century. metal engraving spread in Russia (S. Ushakov, A. Trukhmensky, L. Bunin), in the Ukraine (A. and L. Tarasevichi, I. Shchirsky), in Belarus (M. Voshchanka). From the end of the 17th century. the Russian popular print was developing.

Engraving of the 18th century. characterized by an abundance of reproduction techniques: to reproduce painting and drawing, chisel engraving is masterly performed (P. Dreve in France, G. Volpato and R. Morgen in Italy), often with etching preparation (N. Cochin, F. Boucher in France, G. F Schmidt in Germany), invented in the 17th century. tone engraving mezzotinto (portrait engravings by English masters J.R. Smith, V. Green, landscape - R. Irlom) and new tone techniques - dotted line (F. Bartolozzi in England), aquatint (J. B. Leprince in France) , lavis (J. Ch. François in France), pencil style (J. Demarto, L. M. Bonnet in France). Brilliant masters of colored aquatint were the French F. Janinet, C. M. Decurti and especially L. F. Debucourt. The original etching was distinguished by its softness, fluidity of lines, and a subtle play of light (A. Watteau, J. O. Fragonard, G. de Saint-Aubin in France, G. B. Tiepolo, A. Canaletto in Italy). Etchings and chisels were used to create satirical works by W. Hogarth (England), genre, including books, miniatures by D. N. Chohovetsky (Germany), grandiose architectural fantasies by G. B. Piranesi (Italy). Engravings were used in books and albums, as interior decoration and as a form of artistic journalism (etchings by English caricaturists J. Gillray, T. Rowlandson; popular prints from the time of the Great French Revolution). In Russia in the first half of the 18th century. the chisel engraved patriotic allegories, battle scenes, portraits, city views (A. F. Zubov, I. A. Sokolov, M. I. Makhaev); in the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries. masters of portrait (E.P. Chemesov, N.I. Utkin), landscape and book (S.F.Galaktionov, A.G. Ukhtomsky, K.V. and I.V. G. I. Skorodumov), mezzotinto (I. A. Selivanov), lavis (N. A. Lvov, A. N. Olenin); architects (V.I.Bazhenov, M.F. Kazakov, J. Thomas de Thomon), sculptors and painters (M.I.Kozlovsky, O.A. Kiprensky), the first Russian caricaturists (A.G. Venetsianov , I. I. Terebenev, I. A. Ivanov).

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the art of woodcutting is widely developed in Japan. In the XVIII century. Okumura Masanobu introduced 2-3-color printing, and Suzuki Harunobu, in his multi-color engravings with a few figures of girls and children, embodied the finest shades of feeling with the help of exquisite halftones and rich rhythms. The largest masters of the late 18th century. - Kitagawa Utamaro, who created a type of lyrical ideal female portrait with a flat composition, the play of thin smooth lines, soft shades of color and black spots, and Choshusai Sharaku, the author of dramatic portraits of actors. The complexity and inexhaustibility, the beauty of Japanese nature was revealed in their landscapes by Katsushika Hokusai and Ando Hiroshige in the first half of the 19th century.

At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. F. Goya (Spain) in a series of etchings with aquatint opened new ways of engraving, combining the almost documentary accuracy of the image with the tragic grotesqueness of images. The combination of vital persuasiveness and fantasticness is inherent in the convex engraving on copper by W. Blake (England). In the XIX century. predominantly reproductive end engraving on wood (invented in the 1780s by the Englishman T. Buick), carried out by specialist carvers (in Russia - E.E.Bernardsky, L.A. Seryakov, V.V. Mate) for hatching, and then tone illustrations ("polytypes") in the book and magazine. Reproduction engraving with a chisel (in Russia - F.I. Jordan, I.P. Pozhalostin) and etching (in France - F. Braquemond) were of lesser importance. In the revival of the original etching, a significant role was played by painters who sought to capture in it the living variability of nature, the play of light and the feeling of plein air (J. F. Millet, C. Corot, C. F. Daubigny, C. Pissarro in France, T. G. Shevchenko and L. M. Zhemchuzhnikov in Ukraine, I. I. Shishkin, I. E. Repin, V. A. Serov in Russia). With its sharpness of expressiveness and breadth of pictorial possibilities, etching attracted artists from different directions of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. (Dutch J. B. Jongkind, French E. Manet, E. Degas, American artists J. M. Whistler, J. Pennell, Germans M. Lieberman, L. Corinth, M. Slevogt, M. Klinger, Swede A. Zorn , Belgians J. Ensor and J. de Bruyker). In the etching technique, the cycles of K. Kollwitz (Germany) and etchings by F. Brangwin (Great Britain) dedicated to the life of workers were created, imbued with the spirit of revolutionary protest. In the 1890s. a revival of woodcuts begins, which attracts the emerging Art Nouveau style with the possibilities of decorative stylization of lines and spots (W. Morris in Great Britain, P. Gauguin in France, F. Vallotton in Switzerland, A. P. Ostroumov-Lebedev in Russia). At the beginning of the XX century. woodcuts played an important role in the addition of the style of expressionism (E. Munch in Norway, E. Nolde, E. L. Kirchner in Germany).

Woodcut and linocut of the 20th century acquire a wealth of expressive possibilities in depicting popular life, publicistic passion in promoting liberation ideas, in protest against imperialist oppression and wars (Belgian F. Maserel, Mexican engravers L. Mendes, A. Beltran, A. Garcia Bustos, united in the "Workshop of folk graphics ", Chinese Li Hua, Gu Yuan, Japanese Ueno Makoto, Ono Tadashige, Brazilians R. Katz, K. Skliar, Chilean K. Hermosilla Alvarez). The expressiveness of lines and color was revealed in a new way in book engravings and prints by the French P. Picasso, A. Matisse, R. Dufy, J. Rouault. Among the major contemporary masters of realistic engraving are R. Kent (USA), A. Grant (Great Britain), L. Norman (Sweden), H. Finne (Norway). Technique has significantly enriched (especially in metal engraving), new materials and technical methods of engraving are being introduced.

Soviet engraving reflected the life and history of the people in various ways, achieving great success in various forms and genres - in printmaking and books, in revolutionary journalism and lyrical landscape, in portraiture and thematic composition. It is distinguished by a wealth of national schools and creative directions, united by the general principles of communist ideology and socialist realism. Along with the continuation of the traditions of tone engraving of the XIX century. (I. N. Pavlov, I. A. Sokolov), woodcut and color engraving of the early XX century. (P. A. Shillingovsky, V. D. Falileev), new tendencies arose in woodcut and linoleum engraving, characterized by romantic tension, contrast, freedom of imagination (N. N. Kupreyanov, A. I. Kravchenko), psychologism and synthetic wholeness of style (V.A.Favorsky) and in many ways influenced the development of Soviet art in general. These tendencies were developed in printmaking and especially in bookblock printing by P. Ya. Pavlinov, N. I. Piskarev, P. N. Staronosov, A. D. Goncharov, M. I. Pikov, F. D. Konstantinov, G. A. Echeistov, S. B. Yudovin, G. D. Epifanov. I. I. Nivinsky and G. S. Vereisky played a significant role in the development of Soviet etching. Engraving with a chisel was revived (D.I.Mitrokhin). Large schools of engraving have developed in Ukraine (V.I. Kasiyan, M.G. Deregus, E.L. Kulchitskaya), in Lithuania (using the folk traditions of woodcuts and linocuts by I.M.Kuzminskis, V.M. Yurkunas, A.A. . Kuchas), Estonia (engraving on metal by E. K. Okas, A. G. Bach-Liimand), Latvia (woodcuts by P. A. Upitis, etchings by A. P. Apinis). In the middle of the XX century. in Soviet engraving, print began to play a leading role, gravitating towards the breadth of generalizations, bright decorativeness, a wealth of textures and techniques in woodcut and linoleum engraving (G.F. Zakharov and I.V. Golitsyn in the RSFSR, G.V. Yakutovich in the Ukraine, G. G. Poplavsky in Belarus, A. A. Rzakuliev in Azerbaijan, M. M. Abegyan in Armenia, D. M. Nodia, R. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi in ​​Georgia, L. A. Ilyina in Kyrgyzstan, S. Krasauskas, A. I. Makunaite, A. P. Skirutyte, V. P. Valius in Lithuania, G. E. Krollis, D. A. Rozhkaln in Latvia), in metal engraving (V. V. Tolly, A. F. Kutt, A. Yu. Keerend in Estonia).

Etchings by R. Bergander and woodcuts by V. Klemke (GDR), etchings by D. Hintz and A. Würz (Hungary), etchings and woodcuts by M. Schwabinsky (Czechoslovakia), woodcuts by V. Zakhariev and V. Staykov (Bulgaria), J. Andreevich-Kuhn (Yugoslavia) and B. Guy Szabo (Romania).

T. n. Master of playing cards. "Lady with a Mirror". Copper engraving. Mid 15th century

A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva. "Mining Institute". Woodcut for the book "The Soul of Petersburg" by NP Antsiferov. 1920.

I. V. Golitsyn. "In the morning at V. A. Favorsky's." Engraving on linoleum. 1963.
Literature: D. A. Rovinsky, Detailed Dictionary of Russian engravers of the 16th-19th centuries, vols. 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1895-99; P. Kristeller, History of European engraving, (translated from German, M.), 1939 Essays on the history and technique of engraving, M., 1941; Russian engraving of the 16th-19th centuries, (Album), L.-M., 1950; A. A. Sidorov, Old Russian book engraving, M., 1951; V.V. Turov, What is engraving, 2nd ed., M., 1977; (B. Voronova), Japanese engraving. (Album), M., 1963; V.K. Makarov, Russian secular engraving of the first quarter of the 18th century, L., 1973; V. V. Turov, K. V. Bezmenova, Soviet color engraving, M., 1978; Deltell L., Le peintre graveur illustr. (XIX et XX siècles), v. 1-31, P. 1906-30; Laran J., L "stampe, v. 1-2, P., 1959; Hind AM, A history of engraving and etching ..., NY, (1963); Les plus belles gravures du monde occidental. 1410-1914. (Catalog), P., 1966: Adhémar J., La gravure originale au XX siècle, P., 1967; Rouir E., La gravure des origines au XVI siècle, P., 1971; Bersier JE, La gravure, P. , 1974.

Engraving (French. gravure, from graver - cut; German graben- dig) -
1) any image made with the use of engraving, that is, cutting, scratching out on a stone, on a wooden board or on metal;
2) a type of graphic art, which includes works (engravings) created by printing from an engraved form (board); 3) a print () on paper (or some similar material) from the plate on which the drawing was cut.

According to the established tradition, engraving is also called, in which engraving (cutting, scratching) is not used. Depending on the method of processing the printing plate, a distinction is made between convex ( , ), in-depth(metal engravings) and flat(lithograph) engraving. In turn, in metal engraving, there are mechanical methods of creating a printing plate (, "dry point", mezzotinto) and chemical methods - by etching the image with acid (, "soft varnish", lavis, dotted line). The specificity of engraving as an art form lies in its circulation - the ability to get many prints from one printing plate.

The engraving has been known for a very long time. The simplest prints are still made by children, printing embossed drawings or tint coins and pressing them on paper. By their nature, all engraving techniques came from crafts: from the carved heels with which the design was applied to the fabric, from the jewelry making, which uses metal carving and etching, from the techniques of decorating weapons. It is no coincidence that engraving moved from crafts to paper - a person always wanted to repeat a drawing, picture, ornament, sign without changes, preserving their accuracy and beauty. Therefore, first in China, and then in Europe, they began to engrave what they wanted to replicate - images of saints, popular leaflets, playing cards and books. And now there is engraving in every home - these are stamps, and paper money, and illustrations in some old books, and the books themselves.

The most ancient woodcuts - woodcuts () - appeared in the 6th-7th centuries in China and then in Japan. And the first European prints began to be printed only at the end of the XIV century in southern Germany. They were absolutely simple in design, without frills, sometimes they were painted by hand with paints. These were sheets with pictures of scenes from the Bible and church history. For the population who did not know how to read, such leaflets and sermons were the only source of knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and, probably, allegorical images, alphabets, and calendars appeared at the same time. Around 1430 the first "block" (xylographic) books were made, during the publication of which the image and the text were carved on one board, and around 1461 the first book was typed, illustrated with woodcuts. In fact, the printed book of the time of Johann Gutenberg was itself an engraving, since the text in it is laid out and multiplied by prints from relief clichés.

The desire to make a color image and "draw" not only with lines, but also with a spot, "sculpt" chiaroscuro and give tone led to the invention of color woodcut " chiaroscuro", In which the printing was carried out from several boards using the main colors of the color spectrum. It was invented and patented by the Venetian Hugo da Carpi (c. 1455 - c. 1523). This technique, however, was laborious, and it was rarely used - its "rebirth" took place only at the end of the 19th century.

So, woodcut allows you to make many impressions - until the "original" is erased. And the further history of inventions in engraving was in direct proportion to the desire to increase the number of prints, to bring the drawing to greater complexity and even more accurately reproduce the smallest details. So, almost following the woodcut - at the end of the 15th century. - appeared metal engraving(a copper board), which made it possible to work more flexibly in the drawing, vary the width and depth of the line, convey light and mobile outlines, make the tone condensed with different shadings, more accurately reproduce what the artist intended - in fact, make a drawing of any complexity. The most significant masters who worked in this technique were the Germans - Albrecht Durer, Martin Schongauer and the Italians - Antonio Pollaiolo and Andrea Mantegna.

If the woodcuts of Dürer, made by him at the end of the 15th century, were sold by his wife from a cart directly on the market, then his "master engravings" made 20 years later with a chisel on metal (including dry needle), were already recognized masterpieces and were valued as genuine works of art. So, finally, the 16th century appreciated engraving as a high art - similar to painting, but using graphic design with its technical intrigue and peculiar beauty. So, the outstanding masters of the XVI century. turned engraving from a mass applied material into a high art with its own language, its own themes. These are the engravings by Albrecht Durer, Luke Leiden, Marco Antonio Raimondi, Titian, Peter Bruegel the Elder, Parmigianino, Altdorfera, Ursa Graf, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Baldung Green and many other eminent masters.

By the end of the 16th century, chisel engraving on metal reached perfection: a simple drawing was replaced by rich plastic, the most complex methods of parallel and cross-hatching, with which artists achieved original effects of chiaroscuro and volume. This general desire for sophisticated light and shadow effects and more sophisticated design led to experiments with chemical action on the board - etching, and, ultimately, contributed to the birth of a new technique - etching, which flourished in the 17th century. It was the time of the best master engravers, different in temperament, tastes, tasks and attitude to technology. Rembrandt made separate prints, achieving the most complex light and shadow effects by etching and shading on different paper. Jacques Callot made etching his life and engraved a whole universe of portraits, scenes, human types; Claude Lorrain reproduced all his paintings in etchings so that they would not be forged. He called the book of etchings he had collected "The Book of Truth." Peter Paul Rubens even set up a special workshop where copies of his paintings were made in engravings; Anthony van Dijk engraved a whole series of portraits of his contemporaries with an etching needle.

At this time, a variety of genres were represented in etching - portrait, landscape, pastoral, battle scene; the image of animals, flowers and fruits. In the 18th century, almost all major masters tried their hand at etching - A. Watteau, F. Boucher, O. Fragonard - in France, G. B. Tiepolo, G. D. Tiepolo, A. Canaletto, F. Guardi - in Italy. Large series of engraving sheets appear, united by themes, plots, sometimes they are collected into whole books, such as, for example, satirical sheets by W. Hogarth and genre miniatures by D. Chodovetsky, architectural books by J. B. Piranesi, or a series of etchings with aquatint by F. Goya.
The flourishing of engraving techniques is largely due to the need for rapidly developing book publishing. And the love of art, which constantly required more and more accurate reproductions of famous paintings, contributed to the development of reproduction engraving. The main role that engraving played in society was comparable to photography. It was the need for reproduction that led to a large number of technical discoveries in engraving at the end of the 18th century. This is how the varieties of etching appeared - dotted line(when tone transitions are created by thickening and rarefying stuffed with special pointed rods - punches - points), aquatint(i.e. colored water; a drawing on a metal board is acid etched through the applied asphalt or rosin dust), lavis(when the drawing is applied with a brush dampened with acid directly on the board, and when printing, the ink fills the etched places), pencil manner(reproduces a rough and grainy pencil stroke). Apparently, a second time at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, a tone engraving invented in 1643 was discovered mezzotint .

The invention of the Englishman Thomas Buick in the 1780s contributed even more to the development of reproductive technology end engraving on wood... Now the artist did not depend on the structure of the wood fibers, as he was before when he dealt with longitudinal sawing, now he worked on the cross-cut of hardwood and could create more complex and sophisticated compositions with a chisel.

The next "revolution" took place in 1796, when Aloysius Senefelder invented lithography- flat print from stone. This technique saved the artist from the mediation of the reproductionist - now he himself could apply a drawing on the surface of the stone and print it without resorting to services carvers-engravers... From the second quarter of the 19th century, with the growing popularity of lithography, the era of mass printed graphics began, and this was associated, first of all, with book publishing. Engravings were used to illustrate fashion magazines, satirical magazines, albums of artists and travelers, textbooks and manuals. Everything was engraved - botanical atlases, regional history books, "booklets" with city attractions, landscapes, poetry collections and novels. And when, in the 19th century, the attitude towards art changed - artists were finally no longer considered artisans, and graphics left the role of the servant of painting, a revival of the original engraving began, intrinsically valuable in its artistic features and printing techniques. Representatives of romanticism - E. Delacroix, T. Gericault, French landscape painters - C. Corot, J. F. Millet and C. F. Daubigny, impressionists - Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and Pizarro played their role here. In 1866, a society of aquafortists was created in Paris, whose members were E. Manet, E. Degas, J.M. Whistler, J. B. Yongkind. They were engaged in the publication of author's albums of etchings. This is how an association of artists was created for the first time, dealing with the actual problems of engraving art, the search for new forms, which designated their occupations as a special kind of artistic activity. In 1871, such a society was founded in St. Petersburg with the participation of N. Ge, I. Kramskoy and. Shishkin.

Further, the development of engraving was already in line with the search for its original language. By the 20th century, the history of engraving techniques and this art itself seemed to have closed a cycle: from simplicity, engraving came to complexity, and having reached it, it again began to look for the expressive sharpness of a laconic stroke and generalization to a sign. And, if for four centuries she tried to avoid exposing her material, now she is again interested in its possibilities.

A significant phenomenon in the history of printed graphics at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries was the flourishing of the Russian and Soviet school of engraving, represented by a large number of talented artists and several major phenomena of artistic life on a European scale, such as the St. Petersburg association "World of Art", avant-garde movements of the first years of the 20th century , form-making searches for Favorsky's circle charts and unofficial art of the 1960s-80s.

Engraving (fr.gravure from German.graben - to dig or fr.

graver - cut, create relief) is a type of graphic art, the works of which are represented in the final form by printed prints, and classified (as opposed to those created in non-printed graphics techniques) by such a concept and term as printmaking, combining different types of printed graphic works created in various techniques of letterpress and gravure printing.

Shtikheli - tools for end engraving

The prints of the engraving are obtained from "boards" (this is how metal printing plates are also called), which are used to replicate the image in various ways of printing from their embossed surfaces - on zinc and gilding presses or on an etching machine (for manual printing, from small boards - lapping), in color engraving, chiaroscuro from several boards. Each print obtained from a printing plate is considered a work of authorship (even in cases where the board was cut by an engraver according to the artist's drawing). Sometimes printing techniques such as lithography and silk-screening are mistakenly referred to as engraving. In fact, they are types of prints, but not engravings.

The specific features of the engraving lie in its circulation (that is, in the ability to obtain a significant number of equivalent prints), as well as in its peculiar style associated with work in more or less solid materials.

Classifications

Depending on the method of obtaining an impression, this type of graphics is divided into main types:

• Letterpress engraving- where the ink is rolled and transferred onto the printed paper from the plane of the board. This is a print from relief, the printing elements of which are with ink above the gaps. The production of a printing plate in this case is reduced to deepening in one way or another those places of the form that should leave the paper white during printing. Engravings of this type include: woodcut (woodcut), linocut, high metal engraving, autozincography ( this technique also has other names: living space, gratography, etching, high etching) and plastic engraving.
• Gravure engraving- here the paint is transferred from the grooves of the strokes. This is a printing in which the ink is in the recesses, and the gaps are higher (from them, the ink applied to the entire surface of the form before printing is erased and remains only in the recesses). Pressed with great pressure on such a form, wet paper absorbs ink from these depressions. The production of a printing plate consists in applying an image on the surface of the form in the form of deepened strokes, dots and other irregularities that can hold the printing ink. Intaglio gravure prints are divided into two groups. The first group includes those whose printing plates are made mechanically. These are incisor engraving, drypoint engraving, dotted engraving and mezzotinto. The second group includes printing plates made by a chemical method by etching. These are all types of etching: aquatint, lavis, reserve.
• Flat print- printing from a form, the printing elements and gaps of which are in the same plane and differ from each other in the property of accepting or repelling ink. The process of making a printing plate consists in such a chemical treatment, as a result of which its surface is divided into oleophilic areas that accept oily printing ink, and hydrophilic areas that repel it. All types of lithography.

Depending on the material of the printing plate, engraving techniques differ as follows:

• metal engraving,
• linocut,
• woodcut,
• engraving on cardboard, wax, etc.

Depending on the processing method (engraving and etching) when drawing a pattern, the form of engraving on metal is also divided into types: engraving with a chisel on copper, steel, etching, mezzotinto, aquatint, drypoint, etc.

To create a relief pattern for this purpose, either a mechanical method is used (applying a mirror image to the image implied in the subsequent imprint): scratching with a needle or other special tools, including those similar to gravers for end engraving, but slightly different from them in shape (more a sharp bend of the blade and sharpening of the working part) - the so-called steeples, etc.), or chemical (etching with acid or ferric chloride, the vapors of which are less toxic than nitric acid vapors).

Lyrics

Engraving is the youngest of the fine arts. If the birth of painting, sculpture, drawing, architecture is lost in prehistoric eras, then the time of the appearance of engraving is more or less precisely known to us - this is the turn of the 14th - 15th centuries (in the East, in China, engraving appeared much earlier, in the 8th century, but there it is remained a local phenomenon that did not go beyond the borders of this country). And although the main types of engraving have their technological prototypes that existed in earlier times (for woodcuts, these are stamps and prints, for carving engravings this is the craft of goldsmiths, for etching - armourers' workshops), engraving in the true sense of the word is like an imprint on paper, an image cut on a special board appears only at this time.

This phenomenon, exceptional for history, the birth of a completely new kind of art, was determined by several reasons - technological, aesthetic, social. In order for the engraving to develop, first of all, a suitable and easily accessible material had to appear on which the engraving could be printed.

There are cases in history when an engraving was printed on parchment, satin, silk, linen, but all these materials are either unsuitable for printing or expensive. Only with the widespread use of paper did engraving find the basis of its technology, a malleable, easily accepting various kinds of images, a cheap material. And paper, which began to be made in Europe in the 12th century, became common by the end of the 14th century. This coincided with the collapse of the medieval highly synthetic type of art. By the 15th century, in the visual arts, the desire for a more visually accurate reflection of nature, interest in a scientific perspective is growing more and more; secular, mundane themes are increasingly attracting artists. And the fine arts in a sense polarizes: the tendencies of naturalness, visual accuracy and persuasiveness are developed primarily by painting, and the newly appeared engraving takes on the qualities
symbolism, abstraction. In medieval art, these properties were integral to naturalistic features, but with the departure of naturalism mainly to painting, they demanded new ways of embodiment.

Finally, with the Renaissance, stable, often even static, human communities come into motion. Content with earlier altar images in local churches, sculptural decorations of city cathedrals, people of the new era tend to have images of local and personal saints that not only hang on the walls in their homes, but can also accompany them on travel, on business trips. And this goal was perfectly suited to a cheap and portable engraving.

The emergence of a replicated art form was of great general cultural significance. Before the engraving was born, people had no other way to communicate about a phenomenon, about any object or device, about an unusual appearance or nature of the area, except to describe all this in words, for all the vagueness of the verbal description. The engraving made it possible to use a visual image, and the inherent property of its circulation made it possible to widely disseminate such an image. In the second half of the 15th century, books appear with illustrations showing various tools or device of the solar system, the specifics of certain plants, types of cities. Concrete knowledge, an idea of ​​the world was given to mankind by engraving. And this continued until the middle of the 19th century, when photography and photomechanics appeared, replacing engraving in this sense.

History

The emergence of engraving is associated with handicrafts where engraving processes were used: woodcut - with carving, including on heel boards, incisor engraving - with jewelry, etching - with decoration of weapons. Paper - material for impressions - appeared at the beginning of the century. NS. in China (where the engraving is mentioned from the 6-7 centuries, and the first dated engraving refers to 868), and in Europe in the Middle Ages. Public interest in engraving with its circulation appeared in Europe at the beginning of the Renaissance - with the growth of self-awareness of the individual, with an expanded need for the dissemination and individual perception of ideas. At the same time, the gravitation of engravings to the generalization and symbolism of the artistic language was determined.

The first European woodcuts of religious content, often hand-colored, appeared at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. in Alsace, Bavaria, Czech Republic, Austria ("St. Christopher", dated 1423); then satirical and allegorical sheets, alphabets, calendars were performed in this technique. Around 1430 "block" ("woodcut") books appeared, for which the image and the text were carved on the same board. Around 1461 the first typesetting book, illustrated with woodcuts, was printed; such books were printed in Cologne, Maipz, Bamberg, Ulm, Nuremberg, Basel; in France, watch books were often illustrated with convex metal engravings. German and French garvure of the 15th century. it was distinguished by its decorativeness, contrasts of black and white, emphasized contours, and gothic fragility of the stroke. By the end of the 15th century. two directions of book engraving developed in Italy: in Florence, interest in ornament played a significant role, and Venice and Verona tended to clarity of lines, three-dimensionality of space and plastic monumentality of figures.

Chisel engraving originated in the 1440s. in Southern Germany or Switzerland ("Master of Playing Cards"). In the 15th century. German anonymous masters and M. Schongauer used thin parallel shading, delicately simulating chiaroscuro. In Italy, A. Pollaiolo and A. Mantegna used parallel and cross-hatching, achieving volume, sculptural forms, heroic monumentality of images. A. Durer completed the quest of the Renaissance masters, combining the virtuoso subtlety of the stroke characteristic of German engraving with the plastic activity of images filled with deep philosophical meaning inherent in Italians; drama and lyrics, heroic and genre motifs also appeared in woodcuts based on his drawings. G. served as a weapon of acute social struggle in Germany ("flying leaves") and the Netherlands (engravings of the circle of P. Bruegel the Elder).

At the beginning of the 16th century. in Italy, a reproduction engraving with a chisel was born, reproducing painting (M. Raimondi); as a reaction to its impersonal smooth shading, clearly revealing its form, etching with its freedom of stroke, emotionality, picturesqueness, the struggle of light and shadow developed (A. Dürer, A. Altdorfer in Germany, W. Graf in Switzerland, Parmigianino in Italy) and “ Chiaroscuro ”- color woodcut with generalized molding of the form, close shades of tone (U. da Carpi, D. Beccafumi, A. da Trento in Italy, L. Cranach, H. Burgkmair, H. Baldung Green in Germany). The freedom and sometimes dramatic nature of the idea was distinguished by the engravings of the Dutchman Luke Leiden and the Frenchman J. Duve. In the 16th century. book woodcuts appear in the Czech Republic, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine in connection with the publishing activities of Francisk Skorina, Ivan Fedorov, Pyotr Mstislavets, etc.

In the 17th century. Reproduction engraving with a chisel prevailed (in Flanders - P. Southman, L. Vorsterman, P. Pontius, who reproduced paintings by P.P. Rubens; in France - K. Mellan, R. Nanteuil and other masters of portrait engraving, distinguished in the best examples by subtlety understanding of characters, the purity of the linear style) and etching, in which the diversity of individual searches was widely manifested - the acutely grotesque perception of the diversity and contradictions of modern life by the Lorraine master J. Callot, the interaction of light and atmosphere in the classicist landscapes of the Frenchman C. Lorrain and in the pastoral scenes of the Italian J. B. Castiglione, the immediacy of perception of psychological states in the portraits of the Flemish A. van Dyck. The most integral was the Dutch school of etching (which was not inferior to painting in importance), which is characterized by an intimate feeling of life and nature, small format, calculation for close examination, subtlety of chiaroscuro, picturesque composition, clear division of genres (animalistic etchings by P. Potter, genre - A . van Ostade, landscape - A. van Everdingen, etc.). A special place belongs to landscape etchings by H. Segers, who expressed a dramatic feeling of the gigantic scale of the world, and J. Ruisdael, who conveyed the heroic spirit of the wild, and especially to Rembrandt's etchings, in which the free dynamics of a stroke, the movement of light and shadow express both the psychological formation of characters and the rise spiritual creative energy, and the conflict of ethical principles. In the 17th century. metal engraving, sometimes with realistic motives, spread in Russia (S. Ushakov, A. Trukhmensky, L. Bunin), in the Ukraine (A. and L. Tarasevichi, I. Shchirsky), in Belarus (M. Voshchanka). From the end of the 17th century. the Russian popular print was developing.

18th century engraving. characterized by an abundance of reproduction techniques: for reproduction of painting and drawing, incisor G. (P. Dreve in France, G. Volpato and R. Morgen in Italy), often with etching preparation (N. Koshen, F. Boucher in France, G. F. Schmidt in Germany); invented in the 17th century. tone engraving mezzotinto (portrait engravings by English masters J.R. Smith, V. Green, landscape - R. Irlom) and new tone techniques - dotted line (F. Bartolozzi in England), aquatint (J. B. Leprince in France) , lavis (J. Ch. François in France), pencil style (J. Demarto, L. M. Bonnet in France); brilliant masters of colored aquatint were the French F. Janinet, C. M. Decurti and especially L. F. Debucourt. The original etching was distinguished by its softness, fluidity of lines, and a subtle play of light (A. Watteau, O. Fragonard, G. de Saint-Aubin in France, G. B. Tiepolo, A. Canaletto in Italy). Etchings and chisels were used to create satirical works by W. Hogarth (England), genre, including books, miniatures by D. N. Chohovetsky (Germany), grandiose architectural fantasies by G. B. Piranesi (Italy). Engravings were used in books and albums, as interior decoration and as a form of artistic journalism (etchings by English caricaturists - J. Gillray, T. Rowlandson; popular prints from the time of the Great French Revolution). In Russia in the 1st half of the 18th century. the chisel engraved patriotic allegories, battle scenes, portraits, city views (A. F. Zubov, I. A. Sokolov, M. I. Makhaev); in the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries. masters of portraiture (E.P. Chemesov, N.I. Utkin), landscape and book (S.F. Galaktionov, A.G. Ukhtomsky, K.V. and I.V. . I. Skorodumov), mezzotinto (I. A. Selivanov), lavis (N. A. Lvov, A. N. Olenin); architects (V.I.Bazhenov, M.F. Kazakov, J. Thomas de Thomon), sculptors and painters (M.I.Kozlovsky, O.A. Kiprensky), the first Russian caricaturists (A.G. Venetsianov , I. I. Terebenev, I. A. Ivanov).

In the 18th century. Japanese woodcuts flourished, the first impulses of which were received from China (where illustrations, albums, popular prints, and from the 16th century color woodcuts were distributed). In the 17th century. illustrated books appeared in Japan ("Ise-monogatari", 1608), engraved calendars, guidebooks, posters, greeting cards ("surimono"), and from the 1660s. - secular prints associated with the Ukiyo-e Democratic Art School. Japanese engraving, performed successively by a draftsman (author of an engraving), a carver and a printer, is rich in poetic associations, symbols, and metaphors. Hisikawa Moronobu produced the first black-and-white prints depicting beauties and street scenes, using energetic silhouettes, decorative lines and spots. In the 18th century. Okumura Masanobu introduced 2-3-color printing, and Suzuki Harunobu, in his multi-color engravings with a few figures of girls and children, embodied the finest shades of feeling with the help of exquisite halftones and rich rhythms. The largest masters of the late 18th century. - Kitagawa Utamaro, who created a type of lyrical ideal female portrait with a flat composition, unexpected angles, bold framing, with a subtle play of smooth thin lines, soft shades of color and black spots, and Chosusai Sharaku, whose grotesquely sharp, expressive and dramatic portraits of actors rhythm and color, the embodiment of character-symbol. In the first half of the 19th century. the leading role was played by the masters of landscape engraving - Katsushika Hokusai, who expressed with extraordinary freedom of imagination the complexity, variability, inexhaustibility of nature, the unity of the world in big and small, and Ando Hiroshige, who strove to accurately capture the beauty of his country.

At the turn of the 19th century. F. Goya (Spain) in his series of etchings with aquatint opened new ways of engraving, combining political satire and almost documentary accuracy with subjective expression, tragic grotesque and irrepressible imagination. The combination of vital persuasiveness and fantastic character is also inherent in the convex engraving on copper by W. Blake (England). In the 19th century. The predominant reproduction end garvure on wood (invented in the 1780s by the Englishman T. Buick), carried out by specialist carvers (in Russia - E.E.Bernardsky, L.A. Seryakov, V.V. Mate) for hatching, and then and tone illustrations ("polytypes") in the book and magazine. Reproduction engraving with a chisel (in Russia F.I. Jordan, I.P. Pozhalostin) and etching (in France F. Braquemond) were of lesser importance. In the revival of the original etching, a significant role was played not so much by specialists - C. Merion in France, S. Hayden in England, as many painters who sought to spread their artistic ideas more widely, and often looking for a way to capture the living variability of nature, the play of light and air (J.F Millet, C. Corot, C. F. Daubigny in France, T. G. Shevchenko and L. M. Zhemchuzhnikov in Ukraine, I. I. Shishkin, I. E. Repin, V. A. Serov in Russia). Etching attracted the opportunity of impressionistic plein air and the transmission of instant impressions (Dutchman J. B. Jongkind, French E. Manet, E. Degas, American artists J. M. Whistler, J. Pennell, German - M. Lieberman, L. Corinth, M . Slevogt, Swede A. Zorn). At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. social and philosophical content was introduced into their etching compositions by both the Symbolists (J. Ensor and J. de Breuiker in Belgium, M. Klinger in Germany) and representatives of democratic realism (the cycles of K. Kollwitz imbued with the spirit of revolutionary protest in Germany, etchings by the Englishman F Brangwin on the theme of the city's working life). Since the 1890s. revived and original (including edged) woodcut - easel (O. Leper in France) and book (W. Morris in Great Britain). New paths were outlined by the engravings of P. Gauguin (France), with their generalization, expressive contrasts of white and black; later, a type of decorative-simplified type, built on the rhythmic play of silhouettes of woodcut and linoleum engravings, including colored ones, developed (F. Vallotton in Switzerland, W. Nicholson, G. Craig in Great Britain, A. P. Ostroumov-Lebedev in Russia); characteristic of many artists of the 20th century. intense expression, tragic contrast of spots (like signs of an object or figure) in a cut engraving with its vibrating board texture (E. Munch in Norway, E. Nolde, E. L. Kirchner in Germany). The tradition of old folk engraving was also widely used (H. G. Posada in Mexico, V. Skochilas, T. Kulisevich in Poland). Woodcut and linocut 20th century acquire a wealth of expressive possibilities in depicting popular life, publicistic passion in the propaganda of liberation ideas, in protest against imperialist oppression and wars (K. Kollwitz, Belgian F. Maserel, Mexican engravers L. Mendes, A. Beltran, A. Garcia Bustos, Chinese - Li Hua, Gu Yuan, Japanese - Ueno Makoto, Tadashige Ono, Brazilians R. Katz, K. Skliar, Chilean K. Hermosilla Alvarez). The expressiveness of lines, silhouette and color was revealed in a new way in the book paintings and prints by P. Picasso, A. Matisse, R. Dufy, and J. Rouault. Among the major contemporary masters of realistic engraving are R. Kent (USA), A. Grant (Great Britain), L. Norman (Sweden), H. Finne (Norway). Technique has significantly enriched (especially in metal engraving), new materials and technical methods of engraving are being introduced, which, however, are often used for self-sufficient formal effects. Modernist individualistic tendencies play a significant role in engravings in bourgeois countries.

Soviet engraving reflected the life and history of the people in various ways, achieving great success in various forms and genres - in printmaking and books, in revolutionary journalism and lyrical landscape, in portraiture and thematic composition. It is distinguished by a wealth of national schools and creative directions, united by the general principles of communist ideology and socialist realism. Along with the tradition of tone engraving of the 19th century. (I. N. Pavlov, I. A. Sokolov) and decorative and graceful woodcut of the early 20th century. (A.P. Ostroumova-Leoedeva, P.A. Kravchenko), psychologism and synthetic integrity of style (V.A.Favorsky). These tendencies were developed in printmaking and especially in bookblock printing by P. Ya.Pavlinov, N.I. Piskarev, P.N. Staronosov, A.D. Goncharov, M.I. Echeistov, S.B. Yudovin, G.D. Epifanov. I. I. Nivinsky and G. S. Vereisky played a significant role in the development of Soviet etching. Engraving with a chisel was revived (D.I.Mitrokhin). Large schools of engraving have developed in Ukraine (V.I.Kasiyan, M.G. Deregus, E.L. Kulchitskaya), in Lithuania (using the folk traditions of woodcuts and linocuts by I.M. Kuzminskis, V.M. Yurkunas, A.A. . Kuchas), Estonia (G. on metal by E. K. Okas, A. G. Bach-Liimand), Latvia (woodcuts by P. A. Upitis, etchings by A. P. Apinis). In the middle of the 20th century. in Soviet engraving, print began to play a leading role, tending to the breadth of generalizations, bright decorativeness, richness of textures and techniques: engraving on wood and linoleum by G.F. Zakharov, I.V. Golitsyn (RSFSR), G.V. Yakutovich (Ukraine) , G. G. Poplavsky (Belarus), A. A. Rzakulieva (Azerbaijan), M. M. Abegian (Armenia), D. M. Nodia, R. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi (Georgia), L. A. Ilyina (Kyrgyzstan), A. I. Makunaite, A. P. Skirutyte, V. P. Valius (Lithuania), G. E. Krollis, D. A. Rozhkalna (Latvia): metal engraving V. V. Tolly, A. F. Kyutta, A. Yu. Keerenda (Estonia). Etchings by R. Bergander and woodcuts by V. Klemke (GDR), etchings by D. Khipts and A. Würz (Hungary), etchings and woodcuts by M. Shvabinsky (Czechoslovakia), woodcuts by V. Zakhariev and V. Staykov (Bulgaria), woodcuts by G. Andreevich-Kuhn (Yugoslavia) and B. Guy Szabo (Romania).

Types of engravings

Engraving is a special kind of fine art and it has its own language, its aesthetics, its own capabilities, which are different from other types of art. And to a very large extent this originality of the engraving is determined by its technological side.
In engraving, there are a huge number of types, subspecies, and varieties of technology. They are born in certain epochs, often die off after several decades, and are transformed and reborn at another time. And all this diversity is designed to expand the expressive possibilities of engraving, to enrich its language. After all, engraving, in principle, has a much more limited range of means than, say, painting: line and tonal spot - only these elements underlie each engraving sheet. And the appearance of each new technique gives rise to a kind of new shade in the use of these constant elements. But in their totality, engraving techniques are extremely expressive. Moreover, each of them has its own special capabilities.

The following types of engravings are determined:

• Convex engraving
• In-depth engraving
• Flat engraving
• Color engraving

Convex engraving:

Woodcut, or woodcut, linoleum engraving and relief metal engraving

Woodcut. The oldest engraving technique. In the East, the earliest print on paper is dated 868. Appears in Europe at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries, the first dated woodcut dates back to 1418.

Until the end of the 18th century, only edged, or longitudinal, woodcut.: a flat polished board (cherry, pear, apple tree), by all means longitudinal cutting, along the grain of the tree, primed, a drawing is applied over the ground with a pen, then the lines on both sides are cut off with sharp knives, and the tree between the lines is selected with a special chisel to a depth of 2- 5 mm. When printing, the paint is applied (first with tampons, later - with a roller) on the convex part of the board, a sheet of paper is placed on it and evenly pressed down - with a press manually, in this way the image from the board is transferred to the paper. With cut engraving, the composition turns out to be a combination of black lines and contrasting spots that contrast as much as possible with white paper. This sonority of the juxtaposition of black and white already determines in advance the great decorativeness of the cut engraving, and the contrasts of black and white planes, especially when working with white on black, create emotional tension.

In the last quarter of the 18th century, the Englishman Thomas Buick (1753-1828) introduced the method end, or transverse, woodcut where the board is cut across the trunk so that the grain of the tree runs perpendicular to the surface of the board. For end-face woodcuts, a dense and hard wood (beech, palm, boxwood) is used and cut with a special cutter - a graver, the trace of which in the print gives a white line. End woodcuts allow you to work with a finer stroke, the different degrees of saturation of which allows you to vary the tone. Woodcut produces 1500-2000 good prints.

End engraving reproduces pen drawings with amazing accuracy - sweeping strokes, a grid of fine shading, spectacular juicy spots. In the second half of the 19th century, not only drawings, but also paintings began to be made in woodcuts. Such an engraving, built on combinations of parallel, sometimes monotonous strokes, conveys the general tone of the picture, light and shadow. The 19th century tone engraving is of a purely reproductive, handicraft nature.

Woodcut Masters:

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) - German painter
Lucas van Leiden (1494-1533) - Dutch painter
Jean-Michel Papillon (1698-1776) - French graphic artist
Thomas Buick (1753-1828) - English engraver and ornithologist
Edmund Evans (1826-1905) - English engraver
Cholewinski, Jozef (1848-1917) - Polish artist, graphic artist, printmaker
Vasily Vasilievich Mate (1856-1917) - Russian artist, engraver
Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva (1871-1955) - Russian and Soviet artist
Pavel Yakovlevich Pavlinov (1881-1966) - Russian and Soviet graphic artist
Dmitry Isidorovich Mitrokhin (1883-1973) - Russian graphic artist
Vladimir Andreevich Favorsky (1886-1964) - Russian Soviet graphic artist

Relief engraving on metal. This type of engraving was in use in the 15th and 16th centuries. Copper, brass, tin, or lead were used as materials. The metal plate was processed with gravers and, in the case of soft metal, with knives, as in a cut engraving. In appearance, the prints from such boards looked like an edged woodcut. Sometimes, with this technique, punches of various shapes were used, that is, metal rods, one end of which is thinned and has a section of a circle, an asterisk, or some other. By hitting the opposite end of this rod with a hammer, recesses are knocked out in the metal of the shape that the working end of the punch has. This results in white circles or stars on a black background in the print. The use of punches was especially widespread in the last third of the 15th century. Engravings of this kind are called punch engravings. They are usually silhouette images, worked out with a white stroke and decorated with small white circles and stars.

It was used only until the beginning of the 15th century. As a result of engraving, it becomes similar to a woodcut edged board; is printed as the last one.

Engraving on linoleum. It arose at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Well polished linoleum is used for this type of engraving. The form is engraved with corner and round chisels (graters). The work process is essentially the same as with modern longitudinal woodcuts, and the final result is almost indistinguishable from a woodcut.

V. Favorsky. Donkeys. From the "Samarkand Series". 1943. Linocut

Linoleum is processed with incisors, which look like small curved chisels, just like in edged woodcuts. The paint is rolled with a roller, printed like a woodcut. An engraving on linoleum gives about 500 good impressions.

Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Frans Maserel, German Expressionists (Fritz Bleil, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff),

Maurice Asher, Sybil Andrews, Angel Botello, Valenti Angelo, Hans Ashenborn, Torsten Billman, Carlos Cortes, Janet Erickson, American group Folly Cove Designers, Jacob Gnezdovsky, Helmi Juvonen, William Kermode, Cyril Ruesshibli, Everett ... Among contemporary artists, linocut is actively used by Georg Baselitz, Stanley Donwood, Bill Fike.

In Russia, Ivan Pavlov developed the technique of linocut in detail. Since 1909, Pavlov, working in the printing house of Ivan Sytin, began to use linocut for covers and illustrations in children's books instead of the previously used lithography and zincography. In 1914, the calendar for 1916 "Tsar Bell" was issued with 12 colored linocuts by Pavlov.

In-depth engraving

All other types of metal engraving.

In a metal plate (copper, brass, zinc, iron), mechanical or chemical methods deepen the pattern in the form of combinations of lines and dots. Then paint is driven into the recesses with tampons, the board is covered with damp paper and rolled between the rollers of the printing press.

Carving engraving. Appeared in the first quarter of the 15th century. The first dated engraving with a chisel dates back to 1446. The drawing is cut into a metal board with a square steel cutter with a diamond cut. This method allows you to work only with combinations of clean lines. An engraving with a chisel gives up to 1000 impressions.

The cutter engraving is characterized by great physical stress of the master during work: the steel graver with effort overcomes the resistance of the metal plate. Saving efforts forces the engraver to strive for the strictest discipline of hatching, to use systems of parallel lines, which, as it were, hatch, obscure the plasticity of the depicted figures. But in addition to completeness, the minting of the form, the physical tension itself during work, as it were, turns into a plastic tension of the image. And as a result, the very manner of engraving, the technology itself determines and limits the figurative specificity of incisor engraving: it always strives to create an image characteristic of physical activity, plastic energy, an image of a person acting. This is probably why the highest achievements of carving engraving date back to the Renaissance (A. Mantegna, A. Dürer). The very nature of Renaissance art is close to this understanding of the image of a person.

The most remarkable master of the 15th century is the German engraver Martin Schongauer, who worked in Colmar and Breisach. His work, combining late Gothic and early Renaissance, had a significant impact on German masters, including Albrecht Dürer. Among the masters of the first half of the 16th century, apart from the aforementioned A. Dürer, it is worth noting, in addition to the aforementioned A. Dürer, the remarkable Dutchman Luka Leiden. Of the Italian masters of the 15th century, the most important are Andrea Mantegna and Antonio del Pollaiolo.

In the same Italy, in the 16th century, a direction arose that predetermined an important milestone in the development of European engraving - it was the reproduction of paintings. The emergence of reproduction engraving is associated with the name of Marcantonio Raimondi, who, working until the end of the first third of the 16th century, created several hundred reproductions from the works of Dürer, Raphael, Giulio Romano and others using a chisel. In the 17th century, reproduction engraving was extremely common in many countries - in Flanders, where many canvases were reproduced, especially by Rubens. And in France at this time, Claude Mellan, Gerard Edelinck, Robert Nanteuil and others contributed to the flourishing of the art of the reproductive classic engraved portrait.

Etching. It arose at the beginning of the 16th century. The first dated impressions from etched steel boards date back to 1501-1507 - the work of a master from Augsburg, Daniel Hopfer. Around the same time, the Swiss carver and engraver W. Graf performed several etchings, the most famous of which dates back to 1513. In the years 1515-1518, Albrecht Durer created six etchings on steel boards, including his famous "Big Cannon".

The board is covered with acid-resistant varnish, the pattern is scratched with a needle in the varnish, exposing the metal surface. The plate is then placed in acid, which etches the metal in the areas exposed to the varnish. After etching, the rest of the varnish is removed from the plate. Before printing, ink is applied to the plate, and then the smooth surface of the printing plate is cleaned of it, as a result of which the ink is retained only in the etched grooves. During printing, this ink is transferred from the recessed printing elements onto the paper. Thus, etching is a kind of intaglio printing.
The etching produces about 500 prints.

In the late 20th century, growing concern about the effects of acids and solvents on the health of artists and printers using this technique led to the development of less toxic etching techniques. An early innovation was the use of flooring wax as a hard base for covering the plate, and later, for the same purpose, acrylates.

Etching from a technological point of view is the polar opposite of the incisor. The etching needle scratches through a thin film of varnish with extreme ease, which itself already provokes the master to maximum mobility and freedom of line. An etcher with equal ease can work with a long flowing stroke and short strokes of the needle, he has at his disposal repeated etching, creating a wide scale of tonality, he can always make changes and corrections to the drawing in the process. That is why in etching there is an interest in the light-air environment, which is transmitted by the range of tonality, and in the mobility of the characteristics, which is associated with some uncertainty, fluency of plastic.

The image characteristic of etching is always in the making, in the process. It may not be physically complete, but it is dynamic, psychologically profound. And this technological difference between the cutter and the etching determines the difference between their typical genres and completely different spheres of application. A chisel engraving is characterized by a subject composition or a representative portrait. For etching - landscape, psychological scene, intimate portrait, instant sketch. If the incisor is internally close to the sculptural relief, then the etching aesthetics is akin to the drawing.

Etching masters:

Albrecht Durer
Harmens Rembrandt
Salvator Rosa
Jacques Callot
G.F. Zakharov
E. P. Chemesov
Francisco Goya
Theophile Steinlen
A. L. Zorn
Vasily Mate
Kete Kollwitz
Elizaveta Krasnushkina
G. S. Vereisky
Dmitry Mitrokhin
Giorgio Morandi

Drypoint engraving

Drypoint has been known since the end of the 15th century as an addition to etching, but as an independent technique it has been widespread since the 19th century. A. Dürer, Rembrandt, A. Zorn, V.A.Serov worked in this technique.

The dry needle technique was especially popular in the 17th century. Often this technique has been used in conjunction with etching to achieve a rich tonal range.

Copper or zinc boards are scratched directly with an etching needle, without varnishing and etching. During printing, ink gets stuck in scratches and burrs ("barbs"). Due to the fact that the lines are often shallow when engraving with a needle, and the barbs are wrinkled when ink is erased and pressure during printing, the circulation of such an engraving is small - up to 100 prints.

When correcting the finished engraving, it is rubbed with paint in order to more clearly identify both the strokes that need to be weakened and the under-engraved strokes that need to be reinforced with a needle. Improperly applied or overly energetic strokes can be completely destroyed or at least significantly weakened by scraping them with a scraper and then smoothing them with a trowel.

Preparing the board for printing and printing is done in the same way as in etching. But there is also a difference: it is impossible to hammer the board with paint using a tampon in this technique, this is done with a large bristle brush. The dry needle technique is sometimes used not independently, but as an addition, refinement of the etched stroke.

A distinctive feature of prints with a shape engraved in this way is the "softness" of the stroke: the needles used by the engraver leave deepened grooves on the metal with raised burrs - barbs. The strokes also have a thin beginning and end, as they are scratched with a sharp needle. These barbs trap the paint as it is applied to the mold, thus creating a special effect on the print.

Drypoint engravings differ from the rest of the intaglio printing in this very way. In the process of engraving, the nature of the stroke, the techniques of using a sharp needle approach the techniques of drawing with a pen. Drypoint engraving in its graphic texture is always closer to a full-scale drawing. In each of its lines one can feel the hand of the engraver, modeling the stroke with a barely noticeable change in the pressure on the tool.

Rembrandt made extensive use of the capabilities of the dry needle. It was used by A. Durer, Rembrandt, F. Rops, J. M. Whistler and others; from the Soviet masters - G. S. Vereisky, D. I. Mitrokhin.

Dotted manner. As an independent technique, it appeared in England in the second half of the 15th century, and became widespread in the 18th century. The pattern, consisting of a combination of condensed or thinned dots, is applied to a varnished board with special needles and tape measures, then the board is etched. Sometimes varnish and etching are not used: the pattern is knocked out only with punches.

This method of engraving consists in the fact that the image is created by a system of dots-indentations applied to the copper plate with punches. This tool is a steel rod with a tapered point on one side. The opposite end is blunt and is struck with an engraving hammer. The punch cuts into the surface of the metal and leaves a depression, which gives a black dot during printing. From a combination of such points, sometimes densely located in dark places, sometimes rarely in light ones, an image is obtained.

The dotted engraving uses:

A punch is a steel rod with a tapered point on one side. The opposite end is blunt and is struck with an engraving hammer. The punch cuts into the surface of the metal and leaves a depression, which gives a black dot during printing. From a combination of such points, sometimes densely located in dark places, sometimes rarely in light ones, an image is obtained.

Roulettes - wheels of various shapes with teeth, mounted on the handle. A whole strip of dots-recesses is applied with such wheels.

Matuar is a tool for engraving on metal. It looks like a steel pistil with a spherical or clavate thickening with thorns, which are applied to the engraving board with recesses (dots and lines).

A stipple is a tool for engraving on metal in a dotted manner. It looks like a steel cutter with a steeply bent end, leaving triangular points or short angular strokes on the metal surface. The system of points obtained during the work of S. achieves a particularly soft, picturesque elaboration of the sheet. The school of the steeple is often referred to as the school of English engravers of the 18th century, who worked in a dotted manner.

The print run of the dotted engraving is the same as that of the incisal one, i.e. about 1000 copies.

Dotted line engraving

The engravings, executed in a dotted manner, are distinguished by the softness and tenderness of the shades of light and shade. The dotted technique was used mainly for color or black and white reproduction of painting.

The dotted prints were almost exclusively of a reproductive nature. Her soft, light techniques were especially suitable for reproducing the graceful and sentimental images characteristic of the art popular in the English society of this era (Angelica Kaufman, Cipriani and others).

A special kind of dotted style is the pencil style, invented in the middle of the 18th century. The stroke in this technique consists of individual dots etched into the metal, imitating the trail of a chalk pencil or sanguine.

Personalities:

F. Bartolozzi
T. Burke
W. Ryland - in England
G. I. Skorodumov - in Russia

Soft varnish. The technique originated in the 18th century. As a printing technique, soft varnish began to be used in France in the late 17th - early 18th centuries. The most actively used by engravers only in the 19th and 20th centuries. The engraving with soft varnish resembles a pencil or charcoal drawing and is characterized by a soft, picturesque, grainy touch.

The surface of the metal plate is coated with a special acid-resistant varnish with a tampon or roller, which contains lamb or pork fat, which makes it soft and sticky. The board thus primed is covered with a sheet of paper, preferably with a large texture and not too thick. Draw on paper with a pencil. When you press down on the pencil, the varnish sticks to the back of the paper. Then the paper is removed along with the adhering pieces of varnish, exposing the surface of the board.

After that, the printing plate is etched with nitric acid or ferric chloride solution. When pickling, the acid acts on the board only in places that have been freed from varnish. It turns out an engraving that conveys the texture of a drawing on paper.

The circulation of this technique is about 300-500 copies, depending on the texture of the paper and the thickness of the strokes.

In Russia, he described the technique of soft varnish at the beginning of the 19th century. N.F. Alferov. This technique was used in

Russia: O. A. Kiprensky, K. P. Bryullov, V. D. Falimov, A. G. Venetsianov, A. E. Egorov, I. A. Ivanov, I. I. Terebenev, V. K. Shebuev, A. E. Martynov, E. S. Kruglikova; in Germany - K. Calwitz.

Aquatint. Invented in France in the middle of the 18th century for reproduction of ink tones in engraving.

This type of etching makes it possible, like mezzotinto, to convey a tone image. Only the graining of the board is obtained here not mechanically, but with the help of etching. For this, the surface of the metal plate is coated with a thin layer of very fine rosin or asphalt powder. The board so dusty is heated, the powder particles melt and adhere to the metal. If such a plate is etched, then the smallest gaps between the rosin dust will deepen, and we will get a uniformly grained surface. When printed, this shape will give an even tone, the intensity of which will depend on the depth of etching.

F. Goya. One is worth the other (Capriccios). 1797-1799. Etching, aquatint, drypoint

With this technique, the heated board is evenly coated with a resinous powder, the individual grains of which adhere to the warm metal and to each other. During etching, the acid penetrates only into the pores between the grains, leaving a trace on the board in the form of a mass of individual dotted depressions. Then the board is etched and the places that should have a light tone are again varnished, and again the sections of the board not covered with varnish are etched. Several tones are obtained by such successive etching. With each etching, more and more dark areas of the image are formed. Then the rosin and varnish are removed with gasoline and printed from the board in the usual way.

There are many additional techniques that enrich the tonal characteristics of aquatint (for example, intermediate methods of processing boards with sandpaper, salt, granulated sugar are used, the so-called "offset" primer is used, steel graining, "printing", toning with a steel brush and other types of mechanical impact on the surface of the printing plate). The lack of the possibility of drawing a drawing stroke, a line, and makes this technique, rich in effects, auxiliary, forces it to be used in etching only in combination with the main methods and manners of working on the board; All these features determine what aquatint is usually combined with an etched stroke and a dry needle, and already very rarely - in its pure form. Such etching creates, in one-color printing, the effect of a tone pattern, in addition to the graphically named techniques, which also resembles grisaille. Colored aquatint etchings printed from multiple boards may resemble lithographic prints or pencil drawings.

Aquatint gives from 500 to 1000 impressions.

Aquatint Masters:

J.-F. Janine
Sh.-M. Dekurti
A.F. Girard
Francisco Goya
K. Kunz
F. Fleischman
E. Manet
T.-A. Steinlen
F. Rops
M. Klinger

Lavis. Invented by a French artist of the 18th century. JB Leprinz, later used as a means of toning in other varieties of in-depth etching. Engravings in the Lavis technique resemble a drawing with a brush with a wash. The boundaries of the tone spot are sharply defined.

This engraving technique, like aquatint, reproduces the tonal relationship of the image. It is based on the fact that the metal, having a heterogeneous, granular structure, when etched gives a slightly rough surface that retains paint. The whole process of work consists in applying an etching liquid (usually a 20-30% solution of nitric acid) with a glass fiber brush directly onto the surface of the metal plate. The duration of the etching determines the tone of the brushstroke.

Another type of lavis is similar in technique to aquatint. In this case, the same sequential opening and etching is performed as in aquatint, but without dusting the board with rosin.

In print, Lavis engraving gives gentle brush strokes and light fills.

In modern engraving, lavis is a technique that combines the techniques of aquatint and lavis. On a board covered with rosin dust, an etching liquid is applied with a brush, as it is done in lavis.

Jean-Baptiste Leprince. Izba engraving

Lavis can be used to complement other etching techniques. There are many varieties of this technique, which are sometimes kept secret by their authors, but their essence is the same - the direct effect of the etching solution on the surface of the future printing plate and the use of a brushstroke when creating an image. The circulation of Lavis is very small, only 20-30 copies.

In Russian art, Lavis engravings were created sporadically, the most famous are the works of A.N. Olenina, N.A. Lvov, I.Kh. Myra.

Mezzotint, or black manner. This engraving technique was first performed in 1642.

The inventor of this technique is a Dutch self-taught artist Ludwig von Siegen who worked in Kassel, Germany.

The pre-polished surface of a metal board is subjected to graining - it is covered with the help of a "rocker" (cutter) with many smallest depressions, acquiring a characteristic roughness. Pilling is a long and very laborious process. When printed, such a board ("blank") gives a solid black tone. There are others, including through etching, ways of granulating the board.

The board acquires an even roughness, resulting in a thick, velvety tone when printed. The drawing on the board prepared in this way is smoothed and sanded with a "smoother", and the more the board is smoothed, the weaker the paint adheres to it, and in the print these places turn out to be lighter.

The rocker is a steel plate with a rounded bottom side, on which small teeth are applied. This plate is fixed in the handle, and the whole tool looks like a wide, short chisel with an arcuate blade. Pressing the teeth on the metal surface and wiggling the tool from side to side, they pass in different directions over the entire surface of the plate until the future printing plate is covered with frequent and uniform notches. If such a board is filled with ink, then when printed, it will give an even velvety black tone. Further processing of the board consists in smoothing the grain of the board in the light areas of the pattern with a trowel (steel rod with a rounded spoon-shaped end). Fully ironed, non-rough spots will not retain the ink and, when printed, will give a white tone in the print, where the grain of the board is slightly smoothed, there will be a gray tone, and places not touched by the ironer will give a black tone. This creates a tonal image.

Mezzotinto-engraved boards produce only 60-80 full-fledged impressions when printed. With further replication, the roughness of the printing plate is quickly smoothed out and the image becomes gray, its contrast decreases. The total number of prints is up to 200.

The drawing on the board prepared in this way is smoothed and sanded with a "smoother", and the more the board is smoothed, the weaker the paint adheres to it, and in the print these places turn out to be lighter.

The main fundamental difference from other etching manners is not the creation of a system of indentations - strokes and dots, but the smoothing of light places on the grain board. The effects achieved by mezzotinto cannot be obtained with other "tonal" manners. In other words, the image required in the print is created due to the different gradation of light areas on a black background.

Mezzotinto conveys tonal transitions from deep black to white.

Personalities:

Richard Earlom
Maurits Cornelis Escher
Johann Peter Pichler
Jean Francois Janinet
John Farber (Sr.)

Reserve... The reserve first appeared in France in the second half of the 19th century. Since then, the engraving technique has been continuously improved. New compositions of painting paint, new compositions of covering varnish appeared, tools, brushes, feathers (various birds and reeds) were changed, new, more perfect working methods were developed, aimed at preserving the author's drawing as accurately as possible and to the fullest extent possible. form.

The reserve appeared as a result of improving the methods of engraving in aquatint and introducing etched strokes into this style. The characteristic features of the reserve are the free movement of broad brush strokes or a movable stroke of the pen, with their peculiar thickenings, a thin end when detached from the surface and small splashes.

This method of engraving consists in drawing on the surface of the metal with a pen or brush with special ink containing sugar and glue dissolved in water. When the drawing is finished, it is covered with an even layer of acid-resistant varnish. Then the board is lowered into water. Water dissolves the sugar and glue in the ink and the varnish swells over the design. With careful movements of a cotton swab, the swollen varnish is removed and thus the metal is exposed. In the case of a feather pattern, the board is etched, as in conventional needle etching. When working with a brush, the surface of the exposed metal is powdered with rosin powder and etched in the future, like aquatint. This technique is characterized by the fact that it directly conveys the artist's work to

A. Zuev. Zhiguli, Molodetsky Kurgan. Reserve on board

The impression obtained from the form reserve brush, resembles a drawing with a brush, only strokes on it of a uniform tone, without stretch marks, with smooth, clearly defined edges. If drawing with a brush was carried out on a slightly degreased board, then the edges of the strokes acquire an uneven splash-like shape. Rolled paint on the borders of the strokes gives a characteristic silhouette, which some artists use as a kind of graphic texture. This technique also characterizes the print as an engraving made in a reserve-brush manner.

Impression obtained from the printing plate pen reserve, differs from the engraving of the reserve brush in that the nature of the strokes on the etched metal precisely retains the expressive features of the drawing with a metal or bird feather. The technological process (opening, flushing and etching) is similar to the process of the reserve-brush style, with the only difference that there is no need to use aquatint techniques, since drawing with a pen does not expose large surfaces of pure metal. The manner of the reserve-pen differs from the etched stroke in that the nature of the drawing with an engraved needle is completely opposite to the nature of the drawing with a pen.

There are a number of other techniques of this technique, but in principle they boil down to the same - the ability to reproduce a direct drawing in an imprint.

Flat engraving

Lithography and its varieties

Technique lithographs invented in 1796 in Germany by A. Senefelder in Bohemia, and it was the first fundamentally new printing technique after the invention of engraving in the 15th century. Lithography exploits the ability of certain limestone rocks to not take on paint after etching with a weak acid.

The process of working on lithography is as follows: a limestone plate is smoothed, polished or evenly roughened (this texture is called "root", or "root"). On the stone prepared in this way, draw with a special pencil or pen and brush, using lithographic ink. The finished stone is etched with a mixture of acid and gum arabic. As a result of etching, the patterned areas are easy to accept the printing ink; the clean surfaces of the stone repel it. The board is coated with paint using a roller and printed on thick paper in a machine. Sometimes, instead of limestone, specially prepared zinc or aluminum plates are used. Often they draw with a lithographic pencil or ink, not on a stone, but on a special, so-called autograph, or transfer, paper, after which the drawing is squeezed onto a stone. The whole subsequent process is the same as in classical lithography. Lithography produces several thousand prints.

There are several methods and techniques for applying an image to a lithographic stone, giving various effects:

1. Drawing with a pen or a brush with lithographic ink is done on a smoothly polished stone, just like a regular line drawing on paper.

2. Drawing with a lithographic pencil, i.e. of different hardness with special fat chalk, usually inserted into the holder. For drawing, the surface of the stone is made rough by graining with sand or crushed glass. Such a stone is called radicular, or rooted. On a rough stone, a lithographic pencil leaves a soft, juicy line. In the print, a drawing is obtained that is similar in appearance to a drawing with a charcoal pencil on paper.

3. Scraping on asphalt. A stone with a grained surface is covered with asphalt, dissolved in turpentine, and after drying, the pattern is scraped with a scraper and a needle. Where the scraper slightly scrapes the asphalt, only the tops of the roughness are exposed and a dark tone is obtained. Where the asphalt layer is removed deeper, the tone is lighter. Areas with completely scraped asphalt will appear white in the print. Black areas will be those where the asphalt layer has remained intact.

After the end of the work, the stone is treated with etching and, without washing off the asphalt, they start printing.

4. Stone engraving. The stone is pre-etched over the entire surface and covered with a pound of dark pigment and dextrin. On the stone prepared in this way, the image is favored with needles of various sections and sharpening. After completing the work, the engraved image is greased with wood oil. After removing the pound and wetting the paint roll, it will only linger in the engraved lines.

5. On the radicular stone, treated with a special wax emulsion, wash with ink. The work is carried out with a brush with Litofaf ink, diluted to the desired tone with water. Further processing does not fundamentally differ from pencil lithography, but it is somewhat complicated due to the fact that the blurred image is very easy to bleed off.

There are other techniques for applying an image to a stone, such as spray painting, with a tangier, an airbrush, and others.

6. Work on autograph or transfer paper. Drawing with this method is made not on a stone, but on special paper, thanks to which the artist can work from nature, dispensing with a heavy lithographic stone.

This paper is covered with an adhesive layer and must have some kind of texture. The drawing is applied with an ordinary lithographic pencil. After that, the autograph paper is placed face down on a moistened, smoothly polished stone and pressed against it. The patterned paper is glued to the stone, and the strokes of the lithographic pencil grease the corresponding places of the stone. Then the paper is soaked and removed, and the image translated in this way is processed on the stone, as usual.

In a similar way, translations of images from one stone to another or prints of engravings and text on stone are made. For this, transfer paper is used. Unlike autograph paper, the transfer paper is smooth. The so-called bold print is imprinted on it with printing ink, and then it is transferred to the stone, as well as from the autograph paper.

Lithography is extremely neutral in relation to the work of the master: you can draw on a stone with the same ease as on paper - with a pencil, ink, scratch, shade, etc. However, lithography is not just a way to reproduce a drawing. A completely different character of lithographic paint, very dense and rich, work with a scraper, which allows you to create a movable white line, the ability to nullify the tone - all this creates very rich opportunities for conveying the dynamics of light, for expressing the romantic principle, for creating a special, picturesque tonality.

Currently, lithographic stone is almost universally replaced by metal plates due to the greater ease of processing.

Lithographic masters:

Salvador Dali
Eugene Delacroix
Odo Dobrovolsky
Honore Daumier
Evgeny Adolfovich Kibrik
John McLaughlin
Henri Matisse
Dmitry Isidorovich Mitrokhin
Alphonse Maria Mucha
Napoleon Orda
Pablo picasso
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Robert Rauschenberg
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Valentin Alexandrovich Serov
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Mark Shagal
Maurits Cornelis Escher

Color engraving

Color woodcut originated at the very beginning of the 16th century. For quite a long time, the North Italian engraver Hugo da Carpi was considered its inventor: since then in the Republic of Venice it was possible to patent his invention, he announced this in 1516, calling the printing technique "Chiaroscuro". Although this technique was used in Europe before - since 1506, color engravings from several boards were printed by Lucas Cranach, and then by Hans Burgkmayr and other prominent artists.

Color engraving is produced in two different ways:

In the first case, paint of different colors is applied to one board with tampons, after which the board is printed. With this method, the color in the engraving is approximate and each print is different from the other.

Another way is to use a separate board for each color or tone, which is processed only in the appropriate places. These boards, each covered with its own paint, are successively printed on one sheet of paper.

Giving a certain color tension to an engraving is achieved by using colored linings (dies) in the printing process, which are glued in and printed simultaneously on an etching machine. A colored pasted-in strip can be found at the border of the print, on the chamfers with a strong magnifying glass. It should be noted that the die is cut out of moistened paper, smeared with glue and precisely placed on an engraving board filled with paint, after which it is covered with a sheet of paper; followed by the actual printing process. The subtle color shades of the backing plate unite the engraving pattern and fit very well into the overall sheet of white paper.

There is also a method for monotypic painting of an engraving board. In various ways, a board intended for black and white etching is painted as a monotype. In this case, the gravure printing elements are poorly visible, only in the light areas of the engraving.

Colored etching from one board acquires a different character in the case when the drawing recesses are filled with black paint, the board is carefully wiped off and only then is painted as a monotype. Most often, the use of this method creates the impression of a colored background for a one-color print and is very easy to recognize - for this you need to make sure that the engraving is not printed from several boards, but from one.

Outwardly, the method of filling one board with etching paints of different colors is more effective and clean. With this method, each color is individually stuffed into grooves on the metal, the surface of which is then carefully wiped off, after which the next color is stuffed, etc. The impression obtained as a result of printing from such a board is an engraved pattern printed in different colors in one run. One line along its length can be painted in several different colors. This is the most characteristic feature of this, not the most difficult of the printing methods.

One of the varieties of color engraving - chiaroscuro- the woodcut technique, which developed mainly in the 16th century.

Each board differs from another not only in color, but also in shade of tone, and most often only part of the composition is cut out on each board: the whole of the latter appears on the print only as a result of printing from all boards. One of the first masters in the chiaroscuro (chiaroscuro) technique was the Italian engraver Ugo di Carpi (c. 1480-1532), who printed his works from three boards of different colors. The 16th century gave us the best chiaroscuro masters, but in the 17th century this technique in Italy began to fade away, and practically degenerated by the 18th century.

At the beginning of the 17th century, color woodcuts appeared in the countries of the Far East. The heyday of Japanese color woodblock printing dates back to the 18th and early 19th centuries. At this time, such remarkable masters as Harunobu, Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige, Sharaku, whose work influenced European art, worked.

State. The stage of the engraver's work on the board, fixed in the print, is called the "state". Some artists, especially etchers, know up to twenty states of one engraving.