engraving

 

in its broadest sense, the art of cutting lines in metal, wood, or other material either for decoration or for reproduction through printing. In its narrowest sense, it is an intaglio printing process in which the lines are cut in a metal plate with a graver, or burin. Furrows are cleanly cut out, raising no burr, and then filled with ink which is transferred under high pressure to the printing surface of the press. The earliest known engravings printed on paper date from about the middle of the 15th cent. Among the early master engravers were Dürer, Schongauer, and Lucas van Leyden. Wood engraving differs from true engraving in that it is a relief process. During the 19th cent., steel engraving enjoyed a short popularity as a reproduction process because it made possible a large number of proofs, but it was superseded by photomechanical processes (see photoengraving). See also drypoint, etching, and mezzotint.

Bibliography

See A. M. Hind, History of Engraving and Etching (1923, repr. 1963); A. Gross, Etching, Engraving, and Intaglio Printing (1970); G. Duplessis, Wonders of Engraving (1989).

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Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold or steel are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper, which are called engravings. Engraving was a historically important method of producing images on paper, both in artistic printmaking, and also for commercial reproductions and illustrations for books and magazines. It has long been replaced by photography in its commercial applications and, partly because of the difficulty of learning the technique, is much less common in printmaking, where it has been largely replaced by etching and other techniques. Other terms often used for engravings are copper-plate engraving and Line engraving. These should all mean exactly the same, but especially in the past were often used very loosely to cover several printmaking techniques, so that many so-called engravings were in fact produced by totally different techniques, such as etching.

The engraving process

Engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate.[1] Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types. The burin produces a unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. The angle tint tool has a slightly curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines incised into them, used to do fill work on larger areas. Flat gravers are used for doing fill work on letters, as well as most musical instrument engraving work. Round gravers are commonly used on silver to create bright cuts (also called bright-cut engraving), as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel. Burins are either square or elongated diamond-shaped and used for cutting straight lines. Other tools such as mezzotint rockers, roulets and burnishers are used for texturing effects.

History and usage

For the printing process, see printmaking. For the Western art history of engraving prints, see old master print and line engraving

In antiquity, the only engraving that could be carried out is evident in the shallow grooves found in some jewelery after the beginning of the 1st Millennium B.C. The majority of so-called engraved designs on ancient gold rings or other items were produced by chasing or sometimes a combination of lost-wax casting and chasing.

In the European Middle Ages goldsmiths used engraving to decorate and inscribe metalwork. It is thought that they began to print impressions of their designs to record them. From this grew the engraving of copper printing plates to produce artistic images on paper, known as old master prints in Germany in the 1430s. Italy soon followed. Many early engravers came from a goldsmithing background. The first and greatest period of the engraving was from about 1470 to 1530, with such masters as Martin Schongauer , Albrecht Dürer , and Lucas van Leiden.

Thereafter engraving tended to lose ground to etching, which was a much easier technique for the artist to learn. But many prints combined the two techniques - although Rembrandt's prints are generally all called etchings for convenience, many of them have some burin or drypoint work, and some have nothing else. By the nineteenth century, most engraving was for commercial illustration.

Before the advent of photography, engraving was used to reproduce other forms of art, for example paintings. Engravings continued to be common in newspapers and many books into the early 20th century, as they were cheaper to use in printing than photographic images. Engraving has also always been used as a method of original artistic expression.

Traditionally, engravers created darker areas by making an area of many very thin parallel lines (called hatching). When two sets of parallel line hatchings intersected each other for higher density, the resulting pattern was known as cross-hatching. Claude Mellan is well-known for his technique of using parallel lines of varying thickness. One notable example is his Sudarium of Saint Veronica (1649), an engraving of the face of Jesus from a single spiraling line that starts at the tip of Jesus's nose.

Modern commercial engraving

Because of the high level of microscopic detail that can be achieved by a master engraver, counterfeiting of engraved designs is well-nigh impossible, and modern banknotes are almost always engraved, as are plates for printing money, checks, bonds and other security sensitive papers. The engraving is so fine that a normal printer can not recreate the detail of hand engraved images, nor can it be scanned. In the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, more than one hand engraver will work on the same plate, making it nearly impossible for one person to duplicate all the engraving on a particular banknote or document.

Many classic postage stamps were engraved, although the practice is now mostly confined to particular countries, and/or used when a more "elegant" design is desired and a limited color range is acceptable.

The modern discipline of hand engraving, as it is called in a metalworking context, survives largely in a few specialized fields. The highest levels of the art are found on firearms and other metal weaponry, jewelry and musical instruments. In most industrial uses like production of intaglio plates for commercial applications hand engraving has been replaced with milling using CNC engraving/milling machines.

Another application of modern engraving is found in the printing industry. There, every day thousands of pages are mechanically engraved onto rotogravure cylinders, typically a steel base with a copper layer of about .1 mm in which the image is transferred. After engraving the image is protected with an approximately 6 µm chrome layer. Using this process the image will survive for over a million copies in high speed printing presses.

Typically the image is created in some PDF like format and enters a work flow where it is processed and automatically imposed to the huge printing cylinders. Today up to 192 pages can be engraved on the same cylinder. Since the cylinder serves to print one color, four cylinders are typically used to print one side of the substrate. Rotogravure has a major share in publication, packaging and decorative printing.

Engraving machines such as the K500 (packaging) or K6 (publication) by Hell Gravure Systems use a diamond stylus to cut cells. Each cell creates one printing dot later in the process. A K6 can have up to 18 engraving heads each cutting 8.000 cells per second to an accuracy of .1 µm and below. They are of course fully computer controlled and the whole process of cylinder making is fully automated.

The engraving process with diamonds is state of the art since the 1960s.

Today laser engraving machines are in development but as per today still the mechanical cutting has proven its strength in economical terms and quality. More than 4,000 engravers make approx. 8 Mio printing cylinders worldwide per year.

Biblical references

The earliest allusion to engraving in the Bible may be the reference to Judah’s seal ring. (Ge 38:18), followed by (Ex 39.30). Engraving was commonly done with pointed tools of iron or even with diamond points. (Jer 17:1).

Each of the two onyx stones on the shoulder pieces of the high priest’s ephod was engraved with the names of six different tribes of Israel, and each of the 12 precious stones that adorned his breastpiece was engraved with the name of one of the tribes. The holy sign of dedication, the shining gold plate on the high priest’s turban, was engraved with the words: “Holiness belongs to Jehovah.” Bezalel, along with Oholiab, was qualified to do this specialized engraving work as well as to train others.—Ex 35:30-35; 28:9-12; 39:6-14, 30.

Noted engravers

Prints (see also List of Printmakers):

• Jacopo de' Barbari active 1500-1515
• William Blake (1757 - 1827)
• Giulio Campagnola active c1505-15
• Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528)
• Master ES active c1450-70
• Maso Finiguerra (1426-1464)
• Theodore de Bry (1528 - 1598)
• Hendrick Goltzius (c.1558-1617)
• William Hogarth (1697 – 1764)
• Lucas van Leyden
• Andrea Mantegna
• Claude Mellan (1598-1688)
• Israhel van Meckenem d.1501
• Matthäus Merian (1593 - 1650)
• Paul Revere
• Jan Saenredam (1565-1607)
• Bertil Schmüll
• Martin Schöngauer (c.1450-1491)
• Czesław Słania
• Maerten de Vos (1532-1603)
• Anthonie Wierix (1552-1624)
• Hieronymus Wierix (1553-1619)
• Hristofor Zhefarovich (unknown-1753)
• Gustave Doré (1832 – 1883)

Of Guns:

• A. B. Bradshaw (Firearm Engraver)
• Thierry Duguet
• Geoffroy Gournet
• Ken Hunt (engraver)
• Harry Kell
• Harry Morris (sometimes Henry Morris)
• Jack Sumner

See also

• Toreutics
• Laser engraving
• Drypoint
• Music engraving
• Photogravure
• Photoengraving
• Firearm Engraving
• Printmaking
• Relief engraving
• Resingrave
• Steel engraving
• Chalcography
• Sugar lift
• Line engraving
• Wood engraving
• Etching

References

• A. M. Hind (1923, repr. 1963). History of Engraving and Etching. Dover.
• A. Gross (1970). Etching, Engraving, and Intaglio Printing.
• G. Duplessis (1989). Wonders of Engraving.

H.S.Walsh & Sons Ltd - Jewellery Tool Suppliers. www.hswalsh.com

External links

• Engraving from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History
• Links to thousands of museum online images of engravings from Bodkin Prints
• Blog on Old Master Engravings and Etchings
• Japanese traditional hand engravings on blades

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