Stipple engraving
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Stipple engraving is a technique used to create tone in an intaglio print by distributing a pattern of dots of various sizes and densities across the image. The pattern is created on the printing plate either in
engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...
by gouging out the dots with a burin, or through an
etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...
process.
Stippling Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists. Art In printmaking, stipple engraving is ...
was used as an adjunct to conventional
line engraving Line engraving is a term for engraved images printed on paper to be used as prints or illustrations. The term is mainly used in connection with 18th- or 19th-century commercial illustrations for magazines and books or reproductions of paintings. ...
and etching for over two centuries, before being developed as a distinct technique in the mid-18th century. The technique allows for subtle tonal variations and is especially suitable for reproducing chalk drawings.


Early history

Stipple effects were used in conjunction with other engraving techniques by artists as early as
Giulio Campagnola Giulio Campagnola (; c. 1482 – c. 1515) was an Italian engraver and painter, whose few, rare, prints translated the rich Venetian Renaissance style of oil paintings of Giorgione and the early Titian into the medium of engraving; to further his ...
(c.1482 – c. 1515) and
Ottavio Leoni Ottavio Leoni (1578 – 1630) was an Italian painter and printmaker of the early-Baroque, active mainly in Rome. Life Ottavio Leoni (sometimes spelled 'Lioni'), draughtsman and engraver was in his day the most fashionable portraitist in Rome. H ...
(1578–1630), although some of Campagnola's small prints were almost entirely in stipple. In Holland in the seventeenth century, the printmaker and goldsmith Jan Lutma developed an engraving technique, known as ''opus mallei'', in which the dots are punched into the plate by an awl struck with a hammer, while in England the faces of portraits were engraved with stippled dots by William Rogers in the sixteenth century and
Lucas Vorsterman Lucas Vorsterman (1595–1675) was a Baroque engraver. He worked with the artists Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, as well as for patrons such as Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel and Charles I of England. Biography Vorsterman wa ...
in the seventeenth.


Eighteenth century

An etched stipple technique known as the crayon manner, suitable for producing imitations of chalk drawings, was pioneered in France. Gilles Demarteau used in 1756 goldsmith's chasing tools and marking-wheels to shade the lines in a series of ''Trophies'' designed by
Antoine Watteau Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, a ...
. Jean-Charles François who was a partner of Demarteau further developed the technique and used it to engrave the whole plate. François engraved in 1757 three etchings directly on copper in crayon manner. He then used the technique to etch three plates using different-size needles bound together. Other people who contributed to this new engraving technique included Alexis Magny and Jean-Baptiste Delafosse.Gerald W. R. Ward, 'The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art', Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 153
William Wynne Ryland William Wynne Ryland (1732 or July 173829 August 1783) was an English engraver, who pioneered stipple engraving and was executed for forgery. Life and work Ryland was born in London, the eldest of seven sons of Edward Ryland (died 1771), an ...
, who had worked with Jean-Charles François, took the crayon manner to Britain, using it in his contributions to Charles Roger’s publication ''A Collection of Prints in imitation of Drawings'', and developing it further under the name of "stipple engraving". The process of stipple engraving is described in T.H. Fielding's ''Art of Engraving'' (1841). To begin with an etching "ground" is laid on the plate, which is a waxy coating that makes the plate resistant to acid. The outline is drawn out in small dots with an etching needle, and the darker areas of the image shaded with a pattern of close dots. As in
mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonali ...
use was made of ''roulettes'', and a ''mattoir'' to produce large numbers of dots relatively quickly. Then the plate is bitten with acid, and the etching ground removed. The lighter areas of shade are then laid in with a
drypoint Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically identical to engraving. The ...
or a stipple graver; Fielding describes the latter as "resembling the common kind, except that the blade bends down instead of up, thereby allowing the engraver greater facility in forming the small holes or dots in the copper". The etched middle and dark tones would also be deepened where appropriate with the graver. In France the technique fed a fashion for reproductions of red chalk drawings by artists such as
Antoine Watteau Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, a ...
and
François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...
.
Gilles Demarteau Gilles Demarteau or Gilles Demarteau the Elder (19 January 1722, in Liège – 31 July 1776, in Paris) was an etcher, engraver and publisher who was active in Paris for his entire career.Madeleine Barbin. "Demarteau, Gilles." Grove Art Online. O ...
etched 266 drawings of Boucher in stipple, for printing in an appropriate
sanguine Sanguine () or red chalk is chalk of a reddish-brown colour, so called because it resembles the colour of dried blood. It has been popular for centuries for drawing (where white chalk only works on coloured paper). The word comes via French fr ...
-coloured ink and framing. Griffiths, Antony, ''Prints and Printmaking: An Introduction to the History and Techniques'', pp 81, British Museum Press (in UK), 2nd ed., 1996 ; Mayor, Hyatt A., ''Prints and People'', Metropolitan Museum of Art/Princeton, 1971, no. 587-588, These prints so resembled red chalk drawings that they could be framed as little pictures. They could then be hung in the small blank spaces of the elaborately decorated paneling of residences. In England, the technique was used for "furniture prints" with a similar purpose and became very popular, though regarded with disdain by producers of the portrait mezzotints that dominated the English portrait print market. Stipple competed with mezzotint as a tonal method of
printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...
, and while it lacked the rich depth of tone of mezzotint, it had the great advantage that far more impressions could be taken from a plate. During the late eighteenth century, some printmakers, including
Francesco Bartolozzi __NOTOC__ Francesco Bartolozzi (21 September 1727, in Florence – 7 March 1815, in Lisbon) was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London. He is noted for popularizing the "crayon" method of engraving. Early life B ...
, began to use colour in stipple engraving. Rather than using separate plates for each colour, as in most colour printing processes of the time, such as
Jacob Christoph Le Blon Jacob Christoph Le Blon, or Jakob Christoffel Le Blon, (2 May 1667 – 16 May 1741) was a painter and engraver from Frankfurt who invented the system of three- and four-colour printing, using an RYB color model which segued into the modern CMY ...
's three-colour mezzotint method, the different colours were carefully applied with a brush to a single plate for each impression, a highly skilled operation which soon proved economically unviable. This method is also known as ''à la poupée'' after the French term for the small cotton pads used for the inking.NGA Washington
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References


External links

* {{Authority control Engraving Printmaking Etching