Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types of material. As a method of printmaking, it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains in wide use today. In a number of modern variants such as microfabrication etching and photochemical milling, it is a crucial technique in modern technology, including circuit boards.
In traditional pure etching, a metal plate (usually of copper, zinc or steel) is covered with a waxy ground which is resistant to acid. The artist then scratches off the ground with a pointed etching needle where the artist wants a line to appear in the finished piece, exposing the bare metal. The échoppe, a tool with a slanted oval section, is also used for "swelling" lines. The plate is then dipped in a bath of acid, known as the mordant (French for "biting") or etchant, or has acid washed over it. The acid "bites" into the metal (it undergoes a redox reaction) to a depth depending on time and acid strength, leaving behind the drawing (as carved into the wax) on the metal plate. The remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate. For first and renewed uses the plate is inked in any chosen non-corrosive ink all over and the surface ink drained and wiped clean, leaving ink in the etched forms.
The plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper (often moistened to soften it). The paper picks up the ink from the etched lines, making a print. The process can be repeated many times; typically several hundred impressions (copies) could be printed before the plate shows much sign of wear. The work on the plate can be added to or repaired by re-waxing and further etching; such an etching (plate) may have been used in more than one state.
Etching has often been combined with other intaglio techniques such as engraving (e.g., Rembrandt) or aquatint (e.g., Francisco Goya). The French name "eau forte" (lit. "strong water") for the technique and the resulting prints was sometimes used in English.
History Origin
Etching in antiquity
Etching was already used in antiquity for decorative purposes. Etched carnelian beads are a type of ancient decorative beads made from carnelian with an etched design in white, which were probably manufactured by the Indus Valley civilization during the 3rd millennium BCE. They were made according to a technique of alkaline etching developed by the Harappans, and vast quantities of these beads were found in the archaeological sites of the Indus Valley civilization.For the etching technique, see They are considered as an important marker of ancient trade between the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia and even Ancient Egypt, as these precious and unique manufactured items circulated in great numbers between these geographical areas during the 3rd millennium BCE, and have been found in numerous tomb deposits. Sumerian kings, such as Shulgi , also created etched carnelian beads for dedication purposes.
Early etching
Etching by goldsmiths and other metal-workers in order to decorate metal items such as guns, armour, cups and plates has been known in Europe since the Middle Ages at least, and may go back to antiquity. The elaborate decoration of armour, in Germany at least, was an art probably imported from Italy around the end of the 15th century—little earlier than the birth of etching as a printmaking technique. Printmakers from the German-speaking lands and Central Europe perfected the art and transmitted their skills over the Alps and across Europe.
The process as applied to printmaking is believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer (–1536) of Augsburg, Germany. Hopfer was a craftsman who decorated armour in this way, and applied the method to printmaking, using iron plates (many of which still exist). Apart from his prints, there are two proven examples of his work on armour: a shield from 1536 now in the Real Armeria of Madrid and a sword in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum of Nuremberg. An Augsburg horse armour in the German Historical Museum, Berlin, dating to between 1512 and 1515, is decorated with motifs from Hopfer's etchings and woodcuts, but this is no evidence that Hopfer himself worked on it, as his decorative prints were largely produced as patterns for other craftsmen in various media. The oldest dated etching is by Albrecht Dürer in 1515, although he returned to engraving after six etchings instead of developing the craft.Cohen, Brian D. "Freedom and Resistance in the Act of Engraving (or, Why Dürer Gave up on Etching)," Art in Print Vol. 7 No. 3 (September–October 2017), 17.
The switch to copper plates was probably made in Italy,the Italian term is , still occasionally used as a synonym for "etching" in English and thereafter etching soon came to challenge engraving as the most popular medium for artists in printmaking. Its great advantage was that, unlike engraving where the difficult technique for using the burin requires special skill in metalworking, the basic technique for creating the image on the plate in etching is relatively easy to learn for an artist trained in drawing. On the other hand, the handling of the ground and acid need skill and experience, and are not without health and safety risks, as well as the risk of a ruined plate.
Callot's innovations: échoppe, hard ground, stopping-out Jacques Callot (1592–1635) from Nancy in Lorraine (now part of France) made important technical advances in etching technique.
Callot also appears to have been responsible for an improved, harder, recipe for the etching ground, using lute-makers' varnish rather than a wax-based formula. This enabled lines to be more deeply bitten, prolonging the life of the plate in printing, and also greatly reducing the risk of "foul-biting", where acid gets through the ground to the plate where it is not intended to, producing spots or blotches on the image. Previously the risk of foul-biting had always been at the back of an etcher's mind, preventing too much time on a single plate that risked being ruined in the biting process. Now etchers could do the highly detailed work that was previously the monopoly of engravers, and Callot made full use of the new possibilities.
Callot also made more extensive and sophisticated use of multiple "stoppings-out" than previous etchers had done. This is the technique of letting the acid bite lightly over the whole plate, then stopping-out those parts of the work which the artist wishes to keep light in tone by covering them with ground before bathing the plate in acid again. He achieved unprecedented subtlety in effects of distance and light and shade by careful control of this process. Most of his prints were relatively small—up to about six inches or 15 cm on their longest dimension, but packed with detail.
One of his followers, the Parisian Abraham Bosse, spread Callot's innovations all over Europe with the first published manual of etching, which was translated into Italian, Dutch, German and English.
The 17th century was the great age of etching, with Rembrandt, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione and many other masters. In the 18th century, Piranesi, Tiepolo and Daniel Chodowiecki were the best of a smaller number of fine etchers.
In the mid-19th century interest in etching revived, especially in Britain and France, partly as a reaction against the industrial associations of lithography and reproductive engraving: because the design was drawn into a wax ground rather than cut into the plate, etching was seen as closer to drawing and to the artist's own hand. In 1862 the publisher Alfred Cadart and the printer Auguste Delâtre founded the Société des Aquafortistes to promote the medium; its members included Félix Bracquemond, and Charles Meryon's views of Paris served the movement as a model. The etching revival spread to Britain and the United States. James McNeill Whistler, who made nearly 500 etchings over five decades, published the Thames Set in 1871 and two sets of Venice etchings in the 1880s; the Metropolitan Museum of Art describes him as among the most inventive and influential printmakers in history. Through Eugène Delâtre, whose colour etching influenced Pablo Picasso's first prints, the revival carried etching into 20th-century modernism. Etching is still widely practiced today.
Variants Aquatint uses acid-resistant resin to achieve tonal effects.
Soft-ground etching uses a special softer ground. The artist places a piece of paper (or cloth etc. in modern uses) over the ground and draws on it. The print resembles a drawing. Soft ground can also be used to capture the texture or pattern of fabrics or furs pressed into the soft surface.
Other materials that are not manufactured specifically for etching can be used as grounds or resists. Examples including printing ink, paint, spray paint, oil pastels, candle or bees wax, tacky vinyl or stickers, and permanent markers.
There are some new non-toxic grounds on the market that work differently than typical hard or soft grounds.
Relief etching was invented by William Blake in about 1788, and he has been almost the only artist to use it in its original form. However, from 1880 to 1950 a photo-mechanical ("line-block") variant was the dominant form of commercial printing for images. A similar process to etching, but printed as a relief print, so it is the "white" background areas which are exposed to the acid, and the areas to print "black" which are covered with ground. Blake's exact technique remains controversial. He used the technique to print texts and images together, writing the text and drawing lines with an acid-resistant medium.
Carborundum etching (sometimes called carbograph printing) was invented in the mid-20th century by American artists who worked for the WPA. In this technique, a metal plate is first covered with silicon carbide grit and run through an etching press; then a design is drawn on the roughened plate using an acid-resistant medium. After immersion in an acid bath, the resulting plate is printed as a relief print. The roughened surface of the relief permits considerable tonal range, and it is possible to attain a high relief that results in strongly embossed prints.Medley-Buckner, C. (1999). "Carborundum Mezzotint and Carborundum Etching". Print Quarterly, 16 (1): 34–49.
Printmaking technique in detail
A waxy acid-resist, known as a ground, is applied to a metal plate, most often copper or zinc but steel plate is another medium with different qualities. There are two common types of ground: hard ground and soft ground.
Hard ground can be applied in two ways. Solid hard ground comes in a hard waxy block. To apply hard ground of this variety, the plate to be etched is placed upon a hot-plate (set at 70 °C, 158 °F), a kind of metal worktop that is heated up. The plate heats up and the ground is applied by hand, melting onto the plate as it is applied. The ground is spread over the plate as evenly as possible using a roller. Once applied the etching plate is removed from the hot-plate and allowed to cool which hardens the ground.
After the ground has hardened the artist "smokes" the plate, classically with 3 beeswax tapers, applying the flame to the plate to darken the ground and make it easier to see what parts of the plate are exposed. Smoking not only darkens the plate but adds a small amount of wax. Afterwards the artist uses a sharp tool to scratch into the ground, exposing the metal.
The second way to apply hard ground is by liquid hard ground. This comes in a can and is applied with a brush upon the plate to be etched. Exposed to air the hard ground will harden. Some printmakers use