Rubens may be summed up briefly as follows: (1) The Italian
outline had been discarded as the chief subject of attention, and
modelling had been substituted for it; (2) broad masses had
been substituted for the minutely finished detail of the northern
schools; (3) a system of light and dark had been adopted which
was not pictorial, but belonged especially to engraving, which it
rendered (in the opinion of Rubens) more harmonious.
The history of line-engraving, from the time of Rubens to the beginning of the 19th century, is rather that of the vigorous and energetic application of principles already accepted than any new development. From the two sources already indicated, the school of Raphael and the school of Rubens, a double tradition flowed to England and France, where it mingled and directed English and French practice. The first influence on English line-engraving was Flemish, and came from Rubens through Vandyck, Vorsterman, and others; but the English engravers soon underwent French and Italian influences, for although Payne learned from a Fleming, Faithorne studied in France under Philippe de Champagne the painter and Robert Nanteuil the engraver. Sir Robert Strange studied in France under Philippe Lebas, and then five years in Italy, where he saturated his mind with Italian art. French engravers came to England as they went to Italy, so that the art of engraving became in the 18th century cosmopolitan. In figure-engraving the outline was less and less insisted upon. Strange made it his study to soften and lose the outline. Meanwhile, the great classical Renaissance school, with Gérard Audran at its head, had carried forward the art of modelling with the burin, and had arrived at great perfection of a sober and dignified kind. Audran was very productive in the latter half of the 17th century, and died in 1703, after a life of severe self-direction in labour, the best external influence he underwent being that of the painter Nicolas Poussin. He made his work more rapid by the use of etching, but kept it entirely subordinate to the work of the burin. One of the finest of his large plates is “St John Baptizing,” from Poussin, with groups of dignified figures in the foreground and a background of grand classical landscape, all executed with the most thorough knowledge according to the ideas of that time. The influence of Claude Lorrain on the engraving of landscape was exercised less through his etchings than his pictures, which compelled the engravers to study delicate distinctions in the values of light and dark. Through Woollett and Vivarès, Claude exercised an influence on landscape engraving almost equal to that of Raphael and Rubens on the engraving of the figure, though he did not direct his engravers personally.
In the 19th century line-engraving received first an impulse and finally a check. The impulse came from the growth of public wealth, the increasing interest in art and the increase in the commerce of art, which, by means of engraving, fostered in England mainly by John Boydell, penetrated into the homes of the middle classes, as well as from the growing demand for illustrated books, which gave employment to engravers of first-rate ability. The check to line-engraving came from the desire for cheaper and more rapid methods, a desire satisfied in various ways, but especially by etching and by the various kinds of photography. Nevertheless, the 19th century produced most highly accomplished work in line-engraving, both in the figure and in landscape. Its characteristics, in comparison with the work of other centuries, were chiefly a more thorough and delicate rendering of local colour, light and shade, and texture. The elder engravers could draw as correctly as the moderns, but they either neglected these elements or admitted them sparingly, as opposed to the spirit of their art. In a modern engraving from Landseer may be seen the blackness of a man’s boots (local colour), the soft roughness of his coat (texture), and the exact value in light and dark of his face and costume against the cloudy sky. Nay more, there is to be found every sparkle on bit, boot and stirrup. Modern painting pays more attention to texture and chiaroscuro than classical painting did, and engraving necessarily followed in the same directions. But there is a certain sameness in pure line-engraving more favourable to some forms and textures than to others. This sameness of line-engraving, and its costliness, led to the adoption of mixed methods, extremely prevalent in commercial prints from popular artists. In the well-known prints from Rosa Bonheur, for example, by T. Landseer, H. T. Ryall, and C. G. Lewis, the tone of the skies is got by machine-ruling, and so is much undertone in the landscape; the fur of the animals is all etched, and so are the foreground plants, the real burin work being used sparingly where most favourable to texture. Even in the exquisite engravings after Turner, by Cooke, Goodall, Wallis, Miller, Willmore, and others, who reached a degree of delicacy in light and shade far surpassing the work of the old masters, the engravers had recourse to etching, finishing with the burin and dry point. Turner’s name may be added to those of Raphael, Rubens and Claude in the list of painters who have had a special influence upon engraving. The speciality of Turner’s influence was in the direction of delicacy of tone. In this respect the Turner vignettes to Roger’s poems were a high-water mark of human attainment, not likely ever to be surpassed.
The record of the art of line-engraving during the last quarter of the 19th century is one of continued decay. Technical improvements, it was hoped, might save the art; it was thought by some that the slight revival resultant on the turning back of the burin’s cutting-point—whereby the operator pulled the tool towards him instead of pushing it from him—might effect much, in virtue of the time and labour saved by the device. But by the beginning of the 20th century pictorial line-engraving in England was practically non-existent, and, with the passing of Jeens and Stacpoole, the spasmodic demand by publishers for engravers to engrave new plates remained unanswered. Mr C. W. Sherborn, the exquisite and facile designer and engraver of book-plates, has scarcely been surpassed in his own line, but his art is mainly heraldic. There are now no men capable of such work as that with which Doo, J. H. Robinson, and their fellows maintained the credit of the English School. Line-engraving has been killed by etching, mezzotint and the “mixed method.” The disappearance of the art is due not so much to the artistic objection that the personality of the line-engraver stands obtrusively between the painter and the public; it is rather that the public refuse to wait for several years for the proofs for which they have subscribed, when by another method they can obtain their plates more quickly. An important line plate may occupy a prodigious time in the engraving; J. H. Robinson’s “Napoleon and the Pope” took about twelve years. The invention of steel-facing a copper plate would now enable the engraver to proceed more expeditiously; but even in this case he can no more compete with the etcher than the mezzotint-engraver can keep pace with the photogravure manufacturer.
The Art Union of London in the past gave what encouragement it could; but with the death of J. Stephenson (1886) and F. Bacon (1887) it was evident that all hope was gone. John Saddler at the end was driven, in spite of his capacity to do original work, to spend most of his time in assisting Thomas Landseer to rule the skies on his plates, simply because there was not enough line-engraving to do. Since then there was some promise of a revival, and Mr Bourne engraved a few of the pictures by Gustave Doré. But little followed. The last of the line-engravers of Turner’s pictures died in the person of Sir Daniel Wilson (d. 1892), who, recognizing the hopelessness of his early profession, laid his graver aside, and left Europe for Canada and eventually became president of the university of Toronto.
If line-engraving still flourishes in France, it is due not a little to official encouragement and to intelligent fostering by collectors and connoisseurs. The prizes offered by the École des Beaux Arts would probably not suffice to give vitality to the art but for the employment afforded to the finished artist by the “Chalcographie du Musée du Louvre,” in the name of which commissions are judiciously distributed. At the same time, it must be recognized that not only are French engravers less busy than they were in days when line-engraving was the only “important” method of picture-translation, but they work for the most part for much smaller rewards. Moreover, the class of the work has entirely changed, partly through the
