The same causes of decorative effect are found in the smallest engravings. Thus, in a cluster of grass-blades or flower-sprigs incised upon a Japanese plate of bronze or steel, as in the sur faces of some inch-long netsukes, it will be noted that a single cut of the graver has varied in the width of the incision made, while retaining the depth very closely from end to end. A combina tion of such simple incisions gives a play of light and shade of an artistic effect almost incredible when the small size and simple means are con sidered. The same effect is produced on a much larger scale, and generally with tar less delicacy, in engraved silverware of European and American makers. Thus a silver tea-kettle may have no decoration upon its body except engrav ing, and this engraving will take the form of bunches of roses with leafage and flowing scrolls intended perhaps to inclose letters, as a name or the initials of a name, but still intended for decorative effect, and a similar but slighter adornment will appear on spout and handle.
As to engraving that is made for printing upon paper, the use of it in Europe dates from the fifteenth century, and there is much uncer tainty as to the exact date of the earliest pieces. The story commonly told of the practice of cer tain engravers in niello (q.v.) I if printing impres sions upon paper as they worked. in order to judge of the progress of their engraving, is prob able. In fact, it must have been the custom among engravers in all hard substances at all times to take impressions. either upon wet paper. plaster, or wax, or with ink or color upon scraps of paper or cloth. About the middle of the fif teenth century the process of printing for the multiplication of copies was introduced, and since that time printing from metal upon paper has been constantly carried on by filling the hollows with ink and pulling it out of the hollows by con tact. with the dampened paper. As to the other process. that of pulling off on the paper the ink which clings to the unchanged surface. while the parts hollowed out have not taken the ink or at least do not receive the pressure of the paper, this, which is called printing from relief, has also been in use continually. It is the process used in all the taking of prints from wood-engravings, and Iron those metal plates which in very early days were engraved on the same principle as wood blocks. the desired pattern left in relief, and the ground sunk.
printing according to the first method is under the separate heads DRY POINT: ETCHING: LINE-ENGRAVING MA N I 1:1;F. Caint.c:E: STIPPLE. The engraving for print ing from relief is described under ING. There are also processes. such as mezzotint, or manii\re noire, in which the ink is held on the surface of the plate and is taken from that surface, although the plate is of metal, and the process in many ways resembles that of ordinary ngraving in intaglio. (See SOFT-GROUND ETCH
I NG. ) There are also mixed processes, as when a plate etched in line is then charged with mezzo tint, or with aquatint, and the printing involves the the ink at once from the incised line-, and from the roughened surface. For this see Limn ST FDIORT.71I, under which is described the most elaborate instance of this mixed process. For the making of the impressions on paper, see PRINT; PROOF.
Wood-engraving and also engraving on copper. which are the two most common forms of the art of engraving for printing, were both at first orig inal arts. Such copying as theirs was only that which is inseparable from the growth of all fine art, which in all epochs of advance and original power has constantly followed tradition, improv ing upon it year by year. The engravings of the fifteenth century by the Italians and Germans. the woodcuts by early and as yet unidentified masters, and those a little later signed by Albert 1)iirer and his compeers, were original works in the same sense that a painting of the time was original, and the moderns have invented a term painter-engraver (q.v.) for such an original ar tist as this. It appeared, however, that famous paintings which could not be moved from the walls which they adorned could be very easily copied in black and white by means of prints taken front wood blocks or copper plates, and as an early consequence of this the art of engrav ing in all its forms became alinost exclusively an art of copying. Although this copying was not always done with great accuracy, and although the engraver would take lihmties with his orig inal, unjustifiable if he is considered as a copyist, but perfectly legitimate if he is considered as an original artist, yet. the tendency through the six teenth, Seventeenth, aml eighteenth centuries was continually away from original thought on the part of the engraver. and constantly toward mere reproduction which soon became largely me chanieal. The result is that the great volumes of cosily plates illustrating this and that European gallery have lost their interest for moderns, who have at their disposal far more accurate repro dnetions of paintings and sculptures in those gall. ries. \ few of the great copyist engravers retain their held On the modern student, of art, and this beeause of the beauty of their work. Thns Jan at the close of the sixteenth een iutt. Johann von Ml7grcr and his son Friedrich in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen t u 1: a plow] Morohen ( 1758-18331, Volpa to te.17:I3 are men whose most famous work i in the supposedly faithful reproductions of paintings, but who keep their place as artists in the estimation even of critical students.