LINE ENGRAVING, the process of incising lines in a metal plate from which it is intended to take an impression or print. It differs from other reproductive process in that : 1) the engraved line is that part which is printed, i.e., it is intaglio as opposed to surface printing (employed in woodcut, q.v.) ; (2) the line is incised without the use of chemical action (employed in etching, q.v.) ; (3) the line is incised with a burin or graver (fig. I), a sharp chisel-like tool of quadrangular section, which is pushed forward and removes a small shaving, leaving the edges at the furrow comparatively clean (as opposed to drypoint [q.v.], where the line is scratched by a needle drawn towards the oper ator, which in its passage leaves minute ridges on either side of the line, called burr). In line engraving the infinitesimal burr which is left by the graver (shown enlarged in fig. 2) is removed (as in fig. 3) by a sharp instrument called a scraper (fig. 4), whereas the effect produced by the burr is of the essence of drypoint.
The method of printing from an engraved plate is the same as from an etched plate. (See ETCHING.) There is very little doubt that engraving was first practised north of the Alps, but at what place or at what exact time must remain a matter of uncertain conjecture. That it was evolved in the workshops of the goldsmiths, subsequently to the more obvious process of woodcut, is generally admitted; a date some where between 1410 and 143o, and a place somewhere between the Alps and the North sea, in the basin of the Rhine, may be re garded as probable. The earliest engravings have generally been considered to be those of an artist named, from the subject of his most striking work, the Master of the Playing Cards. The place where this engraver, who was almost certainly a goldsmith, worked was probably South Germany or Switzerland. Engrav ing, in his hands, was already an elaborate medium, presupposing a previous development of some years. The Master of the Flagel lation of 1446, the first engraving to bear a date, worked in a very similar style and may be assumed to be the pupil of the Master of the Playing Cards. Contemporary with the latter, or
possibly even earlier, is an engraver who worked in the Nether lands or Burgundy, known as the Master of the Death of Mary. His ideas of distance and perspective were less advanced than those of his German contemporary, but this may have been an individual weakness not necessarily implying an earlier date. There were other engravers working about the same time or a little later whose work can be distinguished and localized in Burgundy or Flanders.
With the Master who signed with the initials E.S., and some of whose works are dated 1466 and 1467, engraving in Germany had reached a further stage of development. The dates on his engravings mark the end of what was probably a long career, and his earlier works show his derivation from the Master of the Playing Cards. The number of his surviving engravings, some thing over 300, implies that he was, at any rate, primarily an engraver by profession, and the influence of his style and tech nique on all subsequent engraving north of the Alps and even in Italy, can hardly be exaggerated. Martin Schongauer of Colmar (d. 1491) clearly derives from the Master E.S., and may even have been his pupil. He has developed from E.S.'s still rather tentative technique a regular system of cross hatching admirably suited to his purposes, and the precision and delicacy of his technical equipment, combined with the distinction and real power of his design, go to make his engravings among the most beautiful achievements of the 15th century. Contemporary with Schongauer, and the only engraver of the period at all com parable to him in importance, is the anonymous artist known as the Master of the Hausbuch (or of the Amsterdam cabinet), who probably worked somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mainz and is known as a painter and draughtsman ; he was presumably, unlike Schongauer, only secondarily an engraver. His work has almost the freedom and some of the character of drypoint and is very different in style from Schongauer's.