CategoriesMedium and Techniques
Intaglio
Printmaking from lines and tones sunk into a metal plate, including engraving, etching, drypoint, mezzotint and aquatint.
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About
Intaglio prints come from lines and tones sunk below the surface of a metal plate, usually copper. Ink is pushed into the recesses and wiped from the polished face, then damp paper is squeezed into the grooves under a heavy roller press. Telltale signs are a plate mark around the image and lines that stand slightly proud.
Engraving, cut with a burin, gives crisp, swelling lines, as in Albrecht Dürer's Knight, Death and the Devil (1513). Etching uses acid to bite lines drawn through a waxy ground, which Jacques Callot exploited in The Miseries of War (1633) and Giovanni Battista Piranesi in his imaginary prisons. Drypoint scratches a furry burr that prints velvety and wears quickly. Mezzotint and aquatint create areas of tone; Jean-Baptiste Le Prince helped develop aquatint in the 1760s. Rembrandt van Rijn combined etching and drypoint, reworking plates through many states.
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