Etching revival
The etching revival was a mid-nineteenth-century movement that restored etching as an original creative medium rather than a trade of reproductive engraving. Champions like the English surgeon-etcher Francis Seymour Haden and his brother-in-law James McNeill Whistler argued that the bitten line could carry an artist's hand as directly as a drawing, and in France Maxime Lalanne's treatise and the Société des aquafortistes (1862) gave the campaign momentum. Collectors formed etching clubs and clubs flourished in Britain and America, and a generation of painter-etchers - Félix Buhot, Anders Zorn, David Young Cameron among them - made the small, atmospheric plate a prized collectible. The movement permanently changed the status of the printmaker's art.
Defining characteristics
- Original etching: the artist draws and bites the plate rather than copying a painting
- Free, sketch-like line that keeps the freshness of drawing
- Visible plate tone, wiped surfaces and drypoint burr used for atmosphere
- Varied biting and stopping-out for rich tonal contrast
- Small-format, often atmospheric prints made for a growing collector market
Key figures
- Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910) — Founder of the Etching Club and chief advocate of original etching in Britain
- James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) — Painter-etcher whose Thames and Venice plates defined the free etched line
- Maxime Lalanne (1827-1886) — French etcher whose treatise taught a generation the medium
- Félix Buhot (1847-1898) — French painter-etcher of moody, richly worked plates
Example works
- Breaking Up of the Agamemnon — Francis Seymour Haden (1870)
- Black Lion Wharf — James McNeill Whistler (1859)
Sources
- Etching revival - Wikipedia encyclopedia