MEZZOTINTO is a peculiar mode of en graving designs of any description upon plates of copper or steel. In this style of engraving, essentially differs from every other, the surface of the plate is first indented or hacked all over by the action of an instrument some thing like a chisel, with a toothed or serrated edge, called a cradle, or mezzotinto grounder. This tool, being rocked to and fro in many directions, indents or barbs the plate uniformly over its face, and produces what is called the mezzotinto grain or ground. The barb or nap thus produced retains the printing-ink; and if in this state of preparation an impres sion were taken from the plate upon paper, it would be uniformly of a deep black colour.
The mezzotinto ground having been laid, the business of the artist properly commences. Having traced or drawn, with a pencil or other instrument, his outline upon the paper (un less, indeed, as is sometimes the case, this should have been etched by the ordinary pro cess previous to the mezzotinto ground having been laid), he proceeds to cut away the nap or ground, in conformity with the design, from all those parts which are not intended to be perfectly black in the impression. The instru ments required for this purpose are scrapers and burnishers. With the former he scrapes away more and more of the ground in pro portion to the brightness of the light, and the burnishers are used to produce perfect white ness where it is required, as tho high lights on the forehead or tip of the nose, or white linen in a portrait, ekc. As the:work proceeds
it may be blackened with ink, applied with a printer's ball or otherwise, to ascertain the effect; after which the scraping may be again proceeded with, the artist taking care always to commence where the strongest lights are intended to appear.
The great facility with which mezzotintos are executed, as compared with line engravings, will be obvious, seeing that it is much easier to scrape or burnish away parts of a, dark ground corresponding with any design sketched upon it than it is to form shades upon a white ground by an infinite number of strokes, hatches, or points, made with the graver or etching needle. Herein consists the leading, difference between this and all other modes of engraving ; for, while the process in each of these is invariably from light to dark, in mezzotinto it is from dark to light ; and even the very deepest shades are produced, as we have seen, before the design is commenced. The characteristic or distinguishing excellence of mezzotinto engraving would seem to con sist in the rich profundity of its shadows, and its chief defect seems to be a corresponding poverty in the lights. Lithography has of late years, in a great degree, superseded mezzotint.