Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-02-13
THE MezzoT,NT PROCESS.
Something About a style of Pictures Which
Was Once Very Popular.

Something About a style of Pictures Which
Was Once Very Popular.
The principle on which the process
i ST m~czzotint is founded, and the pro-
cess itself, may be thus described: A
plate of bright copper or steel is
"rocked' backward and forward and
in all directions by q tool having a
sharp serrated edge till its whole sur
face is indentcd and torn up. A sort
Of warp-and-woof pattern is thus pro-
duced upon it. while a pile like that Of
velvet is thrown up and evenly d:strib-
uted over its whole surface. This pile,
if charged with printers ink, would
print black; the pile removed by q
~"scraper'' and the warp-and-woof pat
tern laid bare, the plate would print
gray; the warp-and-woof pattern itself
removed, white-because the plain sur
face OF the plate would again be
reached. If, however. instead OF re-
moving the whole OF the pile, only halt
of it be removed, a tint is obtained
halfway between the black and gray
a mezzotint. The art, therefore, of the
mezzotint engraver consists in scraping
away the metallic pile and in removing
so much of the warp-aud-woof pattern
beneath it as he may find necessary to
obtain the exact tints or tones he re-
quires, and his skill lies in the precise
value which he is able to give to each
of these tones and tints.
The instruments necessary to the
purpose. are three-a ''rocker" or
s'cradle," with which TO lay the ground;
a sharp knife or ''scraper," with which
to cut away the pile, and a bu%rnisher,
with which to remove partially or en.
tirely the warp-and-woof pattern below
it. There is, however, no hard and
fast rule as to the exact fashion OF
these instruments, or even as to the
method of using them, the earliest
mezzotinters having had ecour to a
variety Of methods for ''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 its surface with pumice-
stone, and then FURNISHED away the
tint produced by it; Everdingen used a
process which the nature of his work
does not render very obvious; Rem
brandt employed the etching-needle
itself in such a wayas to throw upwith
its point as much of the pile or ''burr, y
as he required; Siegen had a method
of his own, which produced an
effect not unlike 'stipple" Ga mode
of engraving previously in use); Rup-
ert, whose work is singularly fine and
painter-like, was contented to ground
his plate as he went on, and in the de-
gree necessary to each part of it, by
the action Of the BURN OF dry point
with whic he was actually working,
his principle being not unlike that OF
Rembrandt. Turner obtained his color
sometimes by the roulette, as in the
etching of "Kirtstall Abbey.n and
sometimes, as in "Thc Calm" by a
granulated substratum analogous to
the warp-and-woof pattern, produced
by what is called ''soft ground etch'
ing" Others, again, used special tools
to obtain the effect of different tissues
"a rocker with a plain chisel-like edge,
for instance, for silken materials, a too
with a serrayed edge for grosser tex.
lures, and so on. Altogether, there.
fore, it will be seen that in the hands
of a man of genius the modus oper.
andi of mezzotint admits of consider.
able variety, while this very latitude OF
procedure renders it, again, peculiarly
a painters art.-Seymour Hadcn, III
Hdrpcr's Magazine.