Category: engraving

Anne Louis Girodet de Roussy Trioson

Anne -Louis Girodet de Roussy Trioson, Engraving, “Aeneas’ Sacrifice”, 1827

Anne-Louis Girodet was a French painter, born in 1767, whose works eemplified the first phase of Romanticism in French art. He began to study drawing in 1773, later becoming a student of the Neoclassical architect Étienne-Louis Boullée. With Boullée’s encouragement, Girodet joined in late 1783 the studio of Jacques-Louis David, a celebrated painter of the neo-classical and realistic style.

In 1789 Girodet won the Prix de rome for his painting “Joseph Recognized by His Brothers”, which showed David’s neo-classical influence. For Napoleon’s residence Malmaison, Girodtet painted in 1801 the composition “Ossian and the French Generals’, which melded images of legendary Irish heroes with images of the spirits of the generals who died during the French Revolution of 1789.

Girodet’s literary interests greatly influence his subject choices for his artwork. In 1808 he painted “The Entombment of Atala”. Girodet used a traditional composition of Christian iconography, The Entombment, for this canvas. Yet, in the manner of his master, David, his figures are aligned in a frieze-like manner and his drawing is precise. The dead Atala is somewhat unrealistically portrayed as an ideal beauty, and Girodet reuses the chiaroscuro effect of his earlier work “The Sleep of Endymion”: the light caresses Chactas’ back and Atala’s bust and lips. The picture, foreshadowing romanticism, is steeped in sensuality, emotion and religiosity, and the scene’s exotic setting and vegetation are a far cry from David’s austere decors.

Translation of Latin  text on engraving: “How acceptable was the long column of cups. The serpent tasted the food which was interposed between the bowls and polished cups, then turned and went beneath the tomb, leaving the altars where he fed.”

The Tempest

Benjamin Smith, “Act One, Scene One of the Tempest by William Shakespeare”, Untinted Engraving based on the Original Painting by George Romney, September 29, 1797, Published by J & J Boydell at the Shakespeare Gallery, Pall Mall, London

This engraving depicts the destruction of King Alonso’s ship caused by the tempest conjured by Prospero, seen on the right, who sent spirits to create the storm. Prospero caused the tempest in an act of revenge against his brother Antonio, one of the ship’s passengers, who had ursurped Propero’s position as Duke of Milan. Prospero’s daughter Miranda clings to him, begging for the lives of those on the ship. Prospero assured his daughter that he used his magic to prevent anyone from dying.

Benjamin Smith was a British engraver, publisher and print seller who was born in 1754 in London. He studied the art of stippling engraving under Francesco Bartolozzi,  one of the most famous engravers of the 1700s. During his career from 1786 to 1833, Smith engraved many plates from designs by William Hogarth, William Beechley, and George Romney. He also created portraits of the aristocracy such as the Marquis Cornwallis and King George III.

Employed for many years by J & J Boydell Publishing, Benjamin Smith was commissioned to engrave many plates for the Shakespeare Gallery and for the poetical works of John Milton in the years between 1794  and 1797. These are considered his best works and included the image above based on the painting by George Romney. Smith continued his engraving work until five years before his death in 1833, producing many works now in the collections of the British Museum and National Portrait Gallery.

Bernard Buffet

Bernard Buffet, Illustration for “Les Chants de Maldoror”, 1952, Drypoint Etching, Edition of 125

“Les Chants de Maldoror” was published by Les Dix of Paris and was printed by Atelier Daragnes in 1952. It was presented in-folio with leaves loose in two black cases with a limited edition of 125 copies. The 125 original etchings enclosed, each in a 12 x 16 inch format, were by Bernard Buffet. “Les Chants de Maldoror” was Buffet’s first illustrated book.

Gustave Doré

Gustave Doré, “Death of Eleazer”,1866, Engraving for the La Sainte Bible

According tothe Bible, during the Battle of Beit Zechariah, Eleazar identified a war elephant that he believed to carry the Seleucid King Antiochus V, due to the special armor the elephant wore. He decided to endanger his life by attacking the elephant and thrusting a spear into its belly. The dead elephant then collapsed upon Eleazar, killing him as well.

Eleazar’s death was a popular subject for art in the Middle Ages, where it was given significance as prefiguring Christ’s sacrifice of himself for mankind. This illustration by Gustave Doré is from the 1866 La Sainte Bible.

William Blake

William Blake, “God Judging Adam”, 1795, Copper Etching, 42.5 x 52.7 cm, Tate Museum

A nude and aged Adam, newly aware of his own nakedness and mortality, hangs his head before a fiery chariot bearing the divine maker whom he resembles exactly. For many years, this image was thought to represent Elijah in the fiery chariot. Recently, it has been connected to a passage in Genesis 3:17-19 in which God condemns Adam for tasting the forbidden fruit.

The print was made using a unique method of Blake’s invention. A plate etched in relief was used to print the design; then colors were painted onto millboard, or a similar surface, and printed onto the sheet like a monotype. Finally, Blake enhanced the print by hand with watercolor and ink.

Sonia Gechtoff

Sonia Gechtoff, Top Image: “Children of Frejus”, 1959, Oil on Canvas, Denver Art Museum    Bottom Image: “Tropics”, 1983, Color Etching with Embrossing, Edition of 50, Antique-White German Etchng Wove

Sonia Gechtoff was a prominent Abstract Expressionist painter who experimented with styles and materials throughout her life. She was born in 1926 in Philadelphia, into a family with art it its genes. Her father was a painter and her mother was a gallery owner. Gechtoff received her BA in Fine Arts from the Philadelphia Museum School of Art in 1950. At that time she abandoned figurative art in favor of the abstract.

Sonia Gechtoff also at this time started working with a palette knife to apply her paint on canvas rather than the traditional brush. Sonia refined her palette knife technique, and by the late 1950s, the slashing marks, often applied in a vortexlike way, were a hallmark of her work. In the 1980s, she expanded that technique with increasingly larger and less-controlled acrylic paintings that had elements of realism, architectural and landscape images. She continued to experiment and produce new work in a range of media throughout her life.

Sonia Gectoff, a mainstay of the New York art scene, passed away in February, 2018, at a hospice center in Bronx, New York at the age of 91.

Calendar: April 28

A Year: Day to Day Men: 28th of April

A Road Well Traveled

April 28, 1879 was the birthdate of Edgard Tytgat, the Flemish painter and etcher.

Edgard Tytgat was a Belgium based artist: a painter, author, and engraver.  He studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts where he discovered the new movements of symbolism and  post-impressionism. It was artists like Cezanne and Bonnard that influenced his work.

One of the publications with woodcuts that he produced in 1917 after the death of his friend, Wouters, is the volume “Quelques Images de la Vie d’un Artiste” (Some Images of an Artists’ Life), of which he singlehandedly printed forty numbered copies. By every one of the sixteen intentionally naïve prints Tytgat wrote a short text about the life of Rik and Nel Wouters, whom he knew so well.

Tytgat’s style evolved from local Fauvism to a wayward Expressionism with a popular and naïve character. During his career Edgard Tytgat painted nearly five hundred canvases and made countless watercolors, woodcuts, etchings and drawings. Even though he belonged to the group of artists associated with the journal Sélection, his work cannot be placed in any one particular camp. It is difficult to divide his work into well-defined periods, and it lacks clear chronological development. His earliest works are considered impressionistic, while later works can be described as expressionistic or naive.

Tytgat’s world was bittersweet. He was thoroughly familiar with art history and often drew inspiration from classic themes. His works are often bathed in an atmosphere of lost innocence or youth, fantasies, and eroticism. Everyday life and incidents from his own environment were also a great source of inspiration. However, Tytgat’s real strength was his virtuoso manner of storytelling. He invested images that at first glance seem naive, childlike and cheerful with a dark side. In this way he was able to create a complex web of meanings. A multitude of scenarios play out within a single image.

Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton, “He Foresaw His Pale Body”, 1990, Photo Etching, Aquatint and Engraving on Paper, 51.8 x 37.5 cm, Tate Museum

Richard Hamilton’s project to illustrate “Ulysses” began in the late 1940′s and to date comprises seven etchings and a digital print “The Heaventree of Stars”. In 1981 he made the decision to create one illustration for each of the novel’s eighteen chapters and a nineteenth image of Leopold Bloom destined as a frontispiece.

In this version, which was to form the basis for the final heliogravure print owned by the Tate Museum, the Richard Hamilton inverted and foreshortened Bloom’s body in a pose reminiscent of Andrea Mantegna’s famous image of the “Dead Christ” painted in 1480. As Hamilton explained: ‘The key word “foresaw” demands an interior perspective, foreshortened as though seen from an inner eye’.

‘He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved’ -Joyce, “Ulusses”

The image shows a bath viewed from above and behind, so that the taps are at the top of the page, partially cropped out of the image. Bloom lies in the bath, his naked body extending down the page from his feet, just below the taps, to his upper body and shoulders filling the bath at the bottom of the picture, crowned by an aerial view of his bald head. The area around the bath is dark and empty; the colour is all in the flesh tones of Bloom’s body and the brass yellow of the taps. A round yellow object, half concealed under Bloom’s right knee, recalls the yellow flower with no scent that Bloom receives in the letter from his erotic correspondent Martha Clifford, as described in the ‘Lotus Eaters’ episode of Joyce’s novel.

For this etching, a few adjustments were made to the original composition: a greater part of Bloom’s right hand was raised out of the water; the alignment of the bath taps was reversed and the chain of the bathplug was lengthened so that a section appears to sit on the floor of the bath. By cropping the top of the taps, Hamilton creates a sense of the intimacy of internal contemplation; at the same time the viewer looks down at Bloom’s body from an external position, evoking an out-of-body experience.

Raphael Sadeler II

Raphael Sadeler II , “Saint Michael the Archangel”, Engraving, 1604

The Sadeler family were  the largest, and probably the most successful of the dynasties of Flemish engravers that were dominant in Northern European printmaking in the later 16th and 17th centuries, as both artists and publishers. As with other dynasties such as the Wierixes and Van de Passe family, the style of family members is very similar, and their work often hard to tell apart in the absence of a signature or date, or evidence of location. Altogether at least ten Sadelers worked as engravers, in the Spanish Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Bohemia and Austria.

Reginald Marsh

Reginald Marsh, “Flying Concellos” , Etching and Engraving, Date of Plate 1936, Edition of 100, 8 x 10 in. Collection of the Art Students League of New York

Reginald Marsh is one of the best known chroniclers of 1930s and 40s New York. It has been said that Marsh was to New York what Daumier was to Paris and Hogarth was to London. His paintings, drawings, and prints capture the aura and pace of the ever-changing city at a particularly exciting time in its history.

Marsh was fascinated with the seedier aspects of New York, and he was an obsessive explorer of the great metropolis. It was in places such as Coney Island, the burlesque parlors and dance halls of Fourteenth Street, the Bowery, the streets, and the subway that the Yale educated, financially comfortable Marsh found the subjects he was looking for – Bowery bums, burlesque queens, musclemen, bathing beauties, and streetwalkers. Marsh returned repeatedly to his favorite locations, usually working on the spot with sketchbooks and taking photographs that were used as the source material for completed works back in his Fourteenth Street studio.

Dan Hiller

Engravings by Dan Hillier

Dan Hillier is a professional artist based in Stoke Newington, England. He produces his own pictures as well as making commissioned artworks for various clients including Neil Gaiman. Most of his work is made from collaging found Victoriana with his own ink drawing, as well as producing original ink drawings using dip-nib pen and ink.

Dan is acclaimed for his black line engravings that embody the ‘Steampunk’ aesthetic, combining Victorian sensibilities with a fascination for animal attributes. His work is characterized by depictions of fantastical human/animal hybrids, spliced together from late-1800s imagery. These beautiful, classically rooted images find their power in their unsettling effect, as they seamlessly blur distinctions normally implied by reality.

Visit his site if you get a chance: http://www.danhillier.com

Crispijn de Passe the Elder

Crispijn de Passe the Elder, “Apollo, Sol”

Crispijn van de Passe the Elder was a Dutch publisher and engraver and founder of a dynasty of engravers comparable to the Wierix family and the Sadelers, though mostly at a more mundane commercial level. Most of their engravings were portraits, book title-pages, and the like, with relatively few grander narrative subjects. As with the other dynasties, their style is very similar, and hard to tell apart in the absence of a signature or date, or evidence of location. Many of the family could produce their own designs, and have left drawings.

Marcantonio Raimondi

 

Marcantonio Raimondi, “The Climbers”, Engraving, 1510

Marcantonio Raimondi,was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists mainly of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figure in the rise of the reproductive print. He also systematized a technique of engraving that became dominant in Italy and elsewhere.

Around 1510, Marcantonio travelled to Rome and entered the circle of artists surrounding Raphael. This influence began showing up in engravings titled “The Climbers” (in which he reproduced part of Michelangelo’s “Soldiers Surprised Bathing”, also called “Battle of Cascina”). After a reproduction of a work by Raphael, entitled “Lucretia”, Raphael trained and assisted Marcantonio personally.

Around 1524, Marcantonio was briefly imprisoned by Pope Clement VII for making the I modi set of erotic engravings, from the designs of Giulio Romano, which were later accompanied by sonnets written by Pietro Aretino. At the intercession of the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, Baccio Bandinelli and Pietro Aretino, he was released, and set to work on his plate of the “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” after Bandinelli.