Morning journal and courier., 1885-01-06
The NIezzotInt Process,

|
 The principle on which the process of meg 1 zotint is founded, and the process itself, may | be thus described: A plate of bright copper 1 or steel is rocked" backward and forward and in all directions by tool having 8 sharp 1 seTrated edge till its whole surface is indent- l ed and torn up. A sort of warp -and-woof pattern is thus produced upon it, while q | pile like that of velvet is thrown up and evenly distributed over it's whole surface.
 This pile, if charged with printers ink, would print black; the pile removed by a ''scraper" and the warp-and-woof pattern
 laid bare, the plate would print gray; the warp and-woof pattern itself removed whlte-because the plain surface of the plate, would again be reached. If, however, in stead Of removing the whole of the pile only half of 1t be removed, a tint is obtained half way between black and gray-a meZZotint ihe art, therefore, of the mezzotint engraver consists in scfaplng away the metallic pile and in removing so much of the warp-and- wool pattern beneath it as he may find necessary to obtain the exact tints or tones ne requires; and his skill lies in the precise value which he is able to give to each of these tones and tints. The instruments nec- essary to the purpose are three-a ''rocker'' or cradle, with which to lay the ground: d sharp knife, or ''scraper" with which to cut
 away the pile, and a burnisher with which
 to remove partially or entirely the Warl5-and- wool pattern below it. There is. however
 no hard and-fas rule as to the exact fashion
 of these instruments, or even as to the meth
 od ot using them, the earliest meZzotinters
 having had recourse to a variety of methods
 fer laying their grounds Thus Claude
 who, like Rembrandt, seems to have heard
 of the process and tried it on one of his
 etched plates, rubbed it's surface with pum-
 ice stone, and then furnished away the tint
 rroduced by it; Everdingen used @ process
 which the nature of his work Goes not ren-
 der very obvious; Rembrandt employed the
 etching needle itself in such a way as to
 throw up with its point as much of the pile or 'burr'' as he required; Siegen had meth
 od of his own, which produced an effect not
 unlike ''stipple," Ia mode of engraving pre-
 vlously in use;) Rupert, whose work is sin gularly fne and painter-like, was contented
 to ground his plate as he went on, and in the
 degree necessary to each part of it, by the action of the burin or dry point with which
 he was actually working, his principle being not unlike that of Rembrandt Turner o5- talned his color sometimes by the roulette
 as in the etching of "Kirtstall Abbey" and sometimes, as in "The Calm," by granula-
 ted snbstratum analogous to the warp-and-
 wool pattern, produced by what is called
 'soft ground etching" Others again used special tools to obtain the effect of different
 tissues-a rocker with a plain chise1-like edge, for instance, for silken materials, a
 tool with serrated edge for grosser textures
 and so on. Altogether, therefore, it will be seen that in the hands of a man of genius the modus operandi of mezzotint admits of considerable variety, while this very latitude of procedure renders it again peculiarly a painters art.