Engraving

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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 decorative object in itself, as when silver or gold are engraved, or in art may provide an intaglio printing plate in printmaking, of copper or another metal.

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Hercules fighting the Centaurs , engraving by Sebald Beham

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An assortment of hand engraving tools

1 The engraving process
2 History and usage
3 Modern engraving
4 Biblical references
5 Noted engravers
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

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.

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St Jerome by Albrecht Dürer 1514

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 jewellery 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 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 long cheaper to use in printing than photographic images. Engraving has also always been used as a method of original artistic expression.

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Sudarium of Saint Veronica by Claude Mellan (1649)

Traditionally, engravers created darker areas by having thin lines intersect each other at high density, 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 spiralling line that starts at the tip Jesus's nose.

Modern 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. 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 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 of industrial uses like production of Intaglio plates for commercial applications hand engraving was replaced with milling using CNC engraving/milling machines.

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

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The Farnese Hercules by Hendrik Goltzius 1591

Prints (see also List of Printmakers):

Of Guns:

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.

Wikipedia information about Engraving
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