The Seventeenth Century.—By the beginning of the 17th century engraving has come definitely to be regarded as a repro ductive medium. Original engraving is now an exceptional phe nomenon. Generally speaking, however, during this and the succeeding centuries the engravers are either independent or employed by publishing firms to engrave after miscellaneous artists, some living and some deceased. A feature of the 17th century is the increasing popularity of portrait engraving, which now became practically the most important branch of the art. (See SCULPTURE : Portrait.) The engravers formed in the school of Rubens derive tech nically from Goltzius and his successors. Their brilliant but formal and inelastic technique, though sponsored by the master himself, was, it must be admitted, unsuited for the rendering of the spontaneity and exuberance of Rubens. The engravings are, in fact, dull, certainly the one fault of which Rubens himself could not be accused. But the best of these engravers, Pieter Soutman (1580-1657), Lucas Vorsterman the elder (1595–c. 1675), and his pupil, Paul Pontius (1603-1658), and the brothers Boetius (c. 1580-1634) and Schelte (c. 1586-1659), a Bolswert, are admirable engravers in their way. Some of these also con tributed to the famous series of engravings known as Van Dyck's Iconography. Eighteen of these plates were in the first place etched by Van Dyck himself, to be finished in some examples but not improved by the regular engravers. These elaborated plates suffer in contrast to Van Dyck's masterly etchings, but they are, in fact, sound examples of engraving, and exercised a considerable influence on subsequent engravers of portrait. In Holland, at the same time, an interesting and important school of portrait en graving came into existence, which was not without influence on the French school of engravers.
It was in France, and mainly in the special branch of portrait, that engraving in the 17th century attained its greatest perfec tion. The 16th century Netherlandish style of portrait engraving practised by T. de Leu, Leonard Gaultier and others, survived into the beginning of the 17th century. It was the influence of painting as practised by Rubens, Van Dyck and Philippe de Champaigne, which altered the conception of portrait painting, and consequently of portrait engraving. The earliest engravers to show the new influences at their fullest extent were Jean Morin (d. 1650) and Claude Mellan (1598-1688), though the former's work is mainly etched. Mellan, in particular, founding his tech nique on that of the engravers of the Italian school, evolved a very distinctive and effective style from which cross-hatching was entirely eliminated, and which depended on the variation in the breadth of the individual parallel lines. Robert Nanteuil (1623?– 1678), unlike Morin and Mellan, not only engraved, but himself drew the vast majority of his portraits, which adds greatly to their liveliness and lifelikeness. His style, deriving from that of Mellan and the engravers of the school of Rubens in the first place, was later improved by the addition of elements borrowed from engravers like Morin. He models his faces in a series of small wedge shaped strokes, cunningly contrived to reproduce the desired texture. Gerard Edelinck (1640-1707), though lacking Nanteuil's extraordinary sincerity, is an engraver of great ability, and his interpretation of pictures by Lebrun and portraits by Rigaud and Largilliere are typical examples of the art of the grand siecle at its apogee, while Antoine Masson (1636-1700) may be regarded as the third great portrait engraver of the century.
The 17th century in England produced one engraver of a merit, not comparable to that of Nanteuil, but still considerable, William Faithorne the elder (about 1616-1691), whose models are Claude Mellan, and later Nanteuil. But line-engraving in England was superseded in popularity towards the end of the century by the newly-invented process of mezzotint (q.v.), and Faithorne formed no school and had few successors of lasting influence.
The Eighteenth Century.—The pre-eminence of French en graving in the 17th is still more marked in the succeeding century. France has now become the artistic centre of Europe. The tech nique developed by Gerard Edelinck and Gerard Audran is con tinued and, if possible, further refined by the Drevet family, their scholars and successors, until engraving has been reduced to an almost mechanical formula, perfect in its way, but without life or individuality.
Portrait painting is not considered, however, as the most im portant product of the i8th century. It is in the engraving of society genre that we have to seek what is newest and most typical of the century. Watteau's elegant world of society, its most characteristic creation, is faithfully reflected in contemporary en graving. A number of skilful engravers were employed by Wat teau's friend, Julienne, to engrave the master's complete works after his death. These engravers succeed in rendering in line the shimmer and the grace of Watteau's painting, as far as this was translatable.
The style of engraving which was formed in the interpreta tion of Watteau's works was obviously well adapted for illustra tion, which now begins to have an importance which it had not enjoyed since the 16th century. There arose at the same time, in cultivated and fashionable society, a new desire to possess beautifully illustrated volumes, and new editions of standard works illustrated by the leading engravers of the day found a ready sale. It was the professional engravers in the Watteau tradition who were employed not only to engrave but also to design these illustrations. In many, if not in most cases, indeed, pressure of work made it impossible for them actually to en grave what they had designed, and they were necessarily forced to employ others to do this. But even in the latter case so close is the connection between the designer, who is an engraver him self, and the executant engraver, that engraving has ceased to be merely reproductive and has again become a medium of direct and original expression. A characteristic of reproductive line engraving from the beginning of the i8th century onward (it is especially important in the case of the French illustrators and of the engravers of the Turner school) is the use of etching for the preliminary laying in of the design subsequently gone over and completed with the graver. The number of able illustrators who worked in France during the latter part of the century is very large and their excellence extremely uniform. Two artists may be singled out for especial mention, J. M. Moreau the younger (1741-1814), and Augustin de St. Aubin (1736-1807).