reduction of prices paid for it, partly through the change of taste and fashion, and partly, again, through the necessities of the situation. That is to say, that public impatience is but a partial factor in the abandonment of the fine broad sweeping trough cut deep into the copper which was characteristic of the earlier engraving, either simply cut or crossed diagonally so as to form the series of “lozenges” typical of engraving at its finest and grandest period. That method was slow; but scarcely less slow was the shallower work rendered possible by the steel plate by reason of the much greater degree of elaboration of which such plates were capable, and which the public was taught—mainly by Finden—to expect. The French engravers were therefore driven at last to simplify their work if they were to satisfy the public and live by the burin. To compensate for loss of colour, the art developed in the direction of elegance and refinement. Gaillard (d. 1887), Blanchard, and Alphonse François (d. 1888) were perhaps the earliest chiefs of the new school, the characteristics of which are the substitution of exquisite greys for the rich blacks of old, simplicity of method being often allied to extremely high elaboration. Yet the aim of the modern engraver has always been, while pushing the capability of his own art to the farthermost limit, to retain throughout the individual and personal qualities of the master whose work is translated on the plate. The height of perfection to which the art is reached is seen in the triptych of Mantegna by Achille Jacquet (d. 1909), to whom may perhaps be accorded the first place among several engravers of the front rank. This “Passion” (from the three pictures in the Louvre and at Tours, forming the predella of the San Zeno altarpiece in Verona) not only conveys the forms, sentiment, and colour of the master, but succeeds also in rendering the peculiar luminosity of the originals. Jacquet, who gained the Prix de Rome in 1870, also translated pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and engraved fine plates after Paul Dubois, Cabanel, Bouguereau, Meissonier and Detaille. The freedom of much of his work suggests an affinity with etching and dry-point; indeed, it appears that he uses the etching-needle and acid to lay in some of his groundwork and outlines. Léopold Flameng’s engraving after Jan van Eyck’s “Virgin with the Donor,” in the Louvre, is one of the most admirable works of its kind, retaining the quality and sentiment of the master, extreme minuteness and elaboration notwithstanding. Jules Jacquet is known for his work after Meissonier (especially the “Friedland”) and after Bonnat; Adrien Didier for his plates after Holbein (“Anne of Cleves”), Raphael, and Paul Veronese, among the Old Masters, and Bonnat, Bouguereau, and Roybet among the new. Jazinski (Botticelli’s “Primavera”), Sulpis (Mantegna and Gustave Moreau), Patricot (Gustave Moreau), Burney, and Champollion (d. 1901), have been among the leaders of the modern school. Their object is to secure the faithful transcript of the painter they reproduce, while readily sacrificing the power of the old method, which, whatever its force and its beauty, was easily acquired by mediocre artists of technical ability who were nevertheless unable to appreciate or reproduce anything beyond mechanical excellence.
The Belgian School of engraving is not without vitality. Gustave Biot was equally skilful in portraiture and subject (engraving after Gallait, Cabanel, Gustave Doré, among his best work); A. M. Danse executed plates after leading painters, and elaborated an effective “mixed method” of graver-work and dry-point; and de Meerman has engraved a number of good plates; but private patronage is hardly sufficient in Belgium to maintain the school in a state of prosperous efficiency.
In Germany, as might be expected, line-engraving retains not a little of its popularity in its more orthodox form. The novel Stauffer-Bern method, in which freedom and lightness are obtained with such delicacy that the fine lines, employed in great numbers, run into tone, and yield a supposed advantage in modelling, has not been without appreciation. But the more usual virtue of the graver has been best supported, and many have worked in the old-fashioned manner. Friedrich Zimmermann (d. 1887) began his career by engraving such prints as Guido Reni’s “Ecce Homo” in Dresden, and then devoted himself to the translation of modern German painters. Rudolph Pfnor was an ornamentist representative of his class; and Joseph Kohlschein, of Düsseldorf, a typical exponent of the intelligent conservative manner. His “Marriage at Cana” after Paul Veronese, “The Sistine Madonna” after Raphael, and “St Cecilia” after the same master, are all plates of a high order.
In Italy the art is well-nigh as moribund as in England. When Vittorio Pica (of Naples) and Conconi (of Milan) have been named, it is difficult to mention other successors to the fine school of the 19th century which followed Piranesi and Volpato. A few of the pupils of Rosaspina and Paolo Toschi lived into the last quarter of the century, but to the present generation Asiolo, Jesi, C. Raimondi, L. Bigola, and Antonio Isac are remembered rather for their efforts than for their success in supporting their art against the combined opposition of etching, “process” and public indifference.
Outside Europe line-engraving can no longer be said to exist. Here and there a spasmodic attempt may be made to appeal to the artistic appreciation of a limited public; but no general attention is paid to such efforts, nor, it may be added, are these inherently worthy of much notice. There are still a few who can engrave a head from a photograph or drawing, or a small engraving for book-illustration or for book-plates; there are more who are highly proficient in mechanical engraving for decorative purposes; but the engraving-machine is fast superseding this class. In short, the art of worthily translating a fine painting beyond the borders of France, Belgium, Germany and perhaps Italy can scarcely be said to survive, and even in those countries it appears to exist on sufferance and by hot-house encouragement.
Authorities.—P. G. Hamerton, Drawing and Engraving (Edinburgh, 1892); H. W. Singer and W. Strang, Etching, Engraving, and other methods of Printing Pictures (London, 1897); A. de Lostalot, Les Procédés de la gravure (Paris, 1882); Le Comte Henri Delaborde, La Gravure (Paris, English trans., with a chapter on English engraving methods, by William Walker, London, 1886); H. W. Singer, Geschichte des Kupferstichs (Magdeburg and Leipzig, 1895), and Der Kupferstich (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1904); Alex. Waldow, Illustrirte Encyklopädie der Graphischen Künste (Leipzig, 1881–1884); Lippmann, Engraving and Engraving, translated by Martin Hardie (London, 1906); and for those who desire books of gossip on the subject, Arthur Hayden, Chats on Old Prints (London, 1906), and Malcolm C. Salaman, The Old Engravers of England (London, 1906). (P. G. H.; M. H. S.)
LINEN and LINEN MANUFACTURES. Under the name
of linen are comprehended all yarns spun and fabrics woven
from flax fibre (see Flax).
From the earliest periods of human history till almost the close of the 18th century the linen manufacture was one of the most extensive and widely disseminated of the domestic industries of European countries. The industry was most largely developed in Russia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, the northern provinces of France, and certain parts of England, in the north of Ireland, and throughout Scotland; and in these countries its importance was generally recognized by the enactment of special laws, having for their object the protection and extension of the trade. The inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves and Crompton in the later part of the 18th century, benefiting almost exclusively the art of cotton-spinning, and the unparalleled development of that branch of textile manufactures, largely due to the ingenuity of these inventors, gave the linen trade as it then existed a fatal blow. Domestic spinning, and with it hand-loom weaving, immediately began to shrink; the trade which had supported whole villages and provinces entirely disappeared, and the linen manufacture, in attenuated dimensions and changed conditions, took refuge in special localities, where it resisted, not unsuccessfully, the further assaults of cotton, and, with varying fortunes, rearranged its relations in the community of textile industries. The linen industries of the United Kingdom were the first to suffer from the aggression of cotton; more slowly the influence of the rival textile reached other countries.
