Mezzotint

Sunshine V, mezzotint by PeterIlsted

Part of a series on theHistory of printing

Woodblock printing 200Movable type 1040Printing press c. 1440Etching c. 1515Mezzotint 1642Aquatint 1772Lithography 1796Chromolithography 1837Rotary press 1843Hectograph 1869Offset printing 1875Hot metal typesetting 1884Mimeograph 1886Photostat and Rectigraph 1907Screen printing 1910Spirit duplicator 1923Xerography 1938Phototypesetting 1949Inkjet printing 1951Dye-sublimation 1957Dot matrix printing 1968Laser printing 1969Thermal printing c. 19723D printing 1984Digital press 1993

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypointmethod.[1] It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be producedwithout using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple.Mezzotint achieves tonality by roughening the plate with thousands of little dots madeby a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker." In printing, the tiny pits in the platehold the ink when the face of the plate is wiped clean. A high level of quality andrichness in the print can be achieved.

Contents [hide] 1 History2 Dark to light method3 Light to dark method4 Printing5 Detailed technique6 Tone7 Mezzotint engravers8 Notes9 References10 External links

History [edit]The mezzotint printmaking method was invented by the German amateur artist Ludwig vonSiegen (1609c 1680). His earliest mezzotint print dates to 1642 and is a portrait ofCountess Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Mnzenberg. This was made by working from light todark. The rocker seems to have been invented by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a famouscavalry commander in the English Civil War, who was the next to use the process, and tookit to England. Sir Peter Lely saw the potential for using it to publicise his portraits, andencouraged a number of Dutch printmakers to come to England. The process wasespecially widely used in England from the mid-eighteenth century, to reproduce portraitsand other paintings. Since the mid-nineteenth century it has been relatively little used.Robert Kipniss and Peter Ilsted are two notable 20th-century exponents of the technique; M.C. Escher also made eight mezzotints.

British mezzotint collecting was a great craze from about 1760 to the Great Crash of 1929,also spreading to America. The main area of collecting was British portraits; hit oil paintingsfrom the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition were routinely, and profitably, reproduced inmezzotint throughout this period, and other mezzotinters reproduced older portraits ofhistorical figures, or if necessary, made them up. The favourite period to collect was roughlyfrom 1750 to 1820, the great period of the British portrait. There were two basic styles ofcollection: some concentrated on making a complete collection of material within a certainscope, while others aimed at perfect condition and quality (which declines in mezzotints aftera relatively small number of impressions are taken from a plate), and in collecting the many"proof states" which artists and printers had obligingly provided for them from early on.Leading collectors included William Eaton, 2nd Baron Cheylesmore and the Irishman John Chaloner Smith.[2]

Dark to light method [edit]This became the most common method. The whole surface (usually) of a metal, usually copper, plate is roughened evenly,manually with a rocker, or mechanically. If the plate were printed at this point it would show as solid black. The image is thencreated by selectively burnishing areas of the surface of the metal plate with metal tools; the smoothed parts will print lighterthan those areas not smoothed by the burnishing tool. A burnisher has a smooth, round end, which flattens the minutelyprotruding points comprising the roughened surface of the metal printing plate. Areas smoothed completely flat will not holdink at all; such areas will print "white," that is, without ink. By varying the degree of smoothing, mid-tones between black andwhite can be created, hence the name mezzo-tinto which is Italian for "half-tone" or "half-painted". This is called working from

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Early mezzotint by Vaillerant,Siegen's assistant or tutor. Young manreading, with statue of Cupid. Probablymade using light to dark technique.27.5 21.3 cm

The first known mezzotint, by Ludwigvon Siegen, 1642

"dark to light", or the "subtractive" method.

Light to dark method [edit]Alternatively, it is possible to create the image directly by only roughening a blankplate selectively, where the darker parts of the image are to be. This is called workingfrom "light to dark", or the "additive" method. The first mezzotints by Ludwig vonSiegen were made in this way. Especially in this method, the mezzotint can becombined with other intaglio techniques, such as engraving, on areas of the plate notroughened, or even with the dark to light method.

Printing [edit]Printing the finished plate is the same for either method, and follows the normal wayfor an intaglio plate; the whole surface is inked, the ink is then wiped off the surface toleave ink only in the pits of the still rough areas below the original surface of the plate.The plate is put through a high-pressure printing press next to a sheet of paper, andthe process repeated.

Because the pits in the plate are not deep, only a small number of top-qualityimpressions (copies) can be printed before the quality of the tone starts to degradeas the pressure of the press begins to smooth them out. Perhaps only one or twohundred really good impressions can be taken.

Detailed technique [edit]Plates can be mechanically roughened; one way is to rub fine metal filings over the surface with a piece of glass; the finer thefilings, the smaller the grain of the surface. Special roughening tools called 'rockers' have been in use since at least theeighteenth century. The method commonly in use today is to use a steel rocker approximately five inches wide, which hasbetween 45 and 120 teeth per inch on the face of a blade in the shape of a shallow arc, with a wooden handle projectingupwards in a T-shape. Rocked steadily from side to side at the correct angle, the rocker will proceed forward creating burrs inthe surface of the copper. The plate is then moved either rotated by a set number of degrees or through 90 degreesaccording to preference and then rocked in another pass. This is repeated until the plate is roughened evenly and will printa completely solid tone of black.

Tone [edit]Mezzotint is known for the luxurious quality of its tones: first, because an evenly, finelyroughened surface holds a lot of ink, allowing deep solid colors to be printed;secondly because the process of smoothing the plate with burin, burnisher andscraper allows fine gradations in tone to be developed. The scraper is a triangularended tool, and the burnisher has a smooth round end not unlike many spoonhandles.

Mezzotint engravers [edit]Ludwig von Siegen inventorPrince Rupert of the RhineBernhard Vogel (1683-1737)Johann Jacob Ridinger (1736-1784), youngest son of Johann Elias Ridinger, whoworked in mezzotint himself, tooJohn Dixon (about 17401811)John Young (17551825)Richard Josey (18401906), engraver of James McNeill Whistler's Whistler's MotherM. C. EscherPeter IlstedJohn Raphael SmithAlexander Hay RitchieT.F. SimonToru IwayaJohn SartainG. H. Rothe (19352007)Luke VehornFrancisco Souto

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Carol WaxRobert KipnissJulie NiskanenJorge MateosJohn Martin

Notes [edit]1. ^ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mezzotint2. ^ Griffiths, 134-137; 141-142

References [edit] Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "mezzotint". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Griffiths, Antony (ed), Landmarks in Print Collecting - Connoisseurs and Donors at the British Museum since 1753, p. 138,1996, British Museum Press, ISBN 0714126098Carol Wax, The Mezzotint: History and Technique (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990)

External links [edit]Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures , an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fullyavailable online as PDF), which contains material on mezzotintNational Portrait Gallery, London: The early history of mezzotint and the prints of Richard Tompson and AlexanderBrowneMetropolitan Museum of Art: The Printed image in the West: Mezzotint

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