The 18th Century English School.—Af ter Blooteling, and during the 18th century, a remarkable school of English mezzo tinters became prominent, and did such distinguished work that abroad the process became known as La maniere anglaise. This pre-eminence was due, not only to their remarkable skill and the great beauty of their work, but also to the fact that there were in England at that time, several portrait painters of the very first rank for them to interpret. We owe the existence of the finest mezzotints ever done to the inspiration of men like Lely, Reynolds, Lawrence, Romney, Hoppner, Constable and several others of lesser reputations.
The numerous mezzotints made by Valentine Green 1813) are all of the highest order of excellence. He was especially successful in his rendering of the beautiful full length figures of ladies, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and he frequently printed his engravings in brown ink.
John Raphael Smith began his artistic career as a miniature painter, but eventually became one of the foremost mezzotint engravers. He worked mainly after Sir Joshua Reynolds, but was very happy in his interpretation of Romney's graceful work. Smith made several engravings after his own drawings.
S. W. Reynolds made a series of 357 small mezzotints of por traits by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mezzotints, however, are not satisfactory when done on a small scale. S. W. Reynolds was, in larger subjects, a highly skilful artist, and engraved many ex cellent plates after his own work. He did mezzotinting on some of
the plates in Turner's Liber Studiorum.
William Say used etching as an adjunct to most of his fine mezzotints, but he was never satisfied with the small number of prints that could properly be made from a copper plate. He was the first mezzotinter to experiment with the use of steel instead, but he did not carry his ideas out successfully. Shortly afterwards, however, T. G. Lupton carried farther the experi ments, with the use of steel instead of copper. Say seems to have tried with hard steel and Lupton used soft steel very successfully. Instead of being able to print only about 5o proofs of the highest excellence from copper, it was found possible to print about 1,500 from steel, without any appearance of deterioration. The dark places on a mezzotint are those to be looked for in worn prints. They ought to look like black or brown velvet. Steel engravings on mezzotint are often very delicate and charming, but they have a tendency to hardness. The method was also carried out by D. Lucas, but not so successfully as by Lupton. Now copper engravings can be steeled over several times and prints from such plates can never become rare.
Samuel Cousins was an apprentice to S. W. Reynolds, and used etching and line engraving freely with his mezzotint, so much, indeed, that his method is known as the "mixed" style. But his work is effective and very popular. Cousins killed the art of line engraving in England by reason of his fine plate of Bolton Abbey, after Sir Edwin Landseer, published in 1837. This plate proved that such a picture could be produced much more easily and effectively by mezzotint than it could by line engraving.
Among modern mezzotint engravers many are highly skilled, and most of them have chosen particular artists for their especial study. Sir Frank Short has been particularly successful in his interpretation of G. F. Watt's powerful work; C. W. Campbell with the delicate fancies of Sir E. Burne Jones; J. D. Miller follows Lord Leighton; G. P. Robinson, Sir Frank Dicksee; Norman Hirst, W. Draper, and now the process of photogravure has reached such a high state of excellence that; little room is left for the earlier art. (See also ETCHING; ENGRAVING.)