The essayist Jan Vein called the art of engraving “A neglected chapter in the history of Dutch culture”. Interest in the graphic art has increased somewhat since his day, but on the whole it continues to occupy a very secondary place in the interest of connoisseurs and collectors. This means, however, that even in our time it is still within the reach of everyone to form a varied collection of prints of the ‘minor’ masters, and we must not forget that these ‘small’ masters have sometimes produced extremely great works of art in this genre.
The art of engraving is above all the art of black-and-white: colour seldom plays any part. The classic techniques are carving and engraving. The first genre is represented by the woodcut, in which, in a fine-grained block of wood, anything not forming part of the composition is cut away. The remaining surface is inked over with a tampon and printed off like a stamp. Wood-cutting is undoubtedly the oldest technique and already existed before the discovery of printing, which it perhaps inspired by means of the block book, in which each page, text and illustration together, was cut from a separate block.
Much use was later to be made of wood cutting in book illustration, since it offered the advantage of being able to print the illustration together with the set text. It was employed, in addition, for popular and devotional pictures which were painted with water colour. This sort of popular graphic art often obtains in this manner an attractively, one might say naively, primitive quality.
For engraving, polished copper plates are used in which deep lines are carved with the burin or some other instrument. Printing ink is rubbed into the little channels thus obtained in the smooth surface; then a sheet of paper, previously damped, is pressed upon the plate between metal rollers.
In this way the ink in the engraved lines is printed off on to the paper. The edges of the plate impress a certain mark upon the paper, and this mark is the sure sign of an engraving. A print should possess this mark in its entirety. The engraved line is strong and graceful, thin at the beginning, swelling out and then tapering off again. The technique of etching is more free in its methods. The plate is covered with a layer of wax–the etching ground–and upon this the artist draws freehand with a sharp needle. The whole is then laid in an acid which attacks the metal exposed in the drawing. This produces upon the plate deeply etched lines of constant thickness which lack the calligraphic character of engraved lines.
The artist can also allow certain parts on his plate to etch for a longer or shorter period. The polished plate thereby loses its smooth surface at these places and the ink gathers there, causing different tones to appear on the print. It is immediately obvious that much more pictorial effects can be achieved in etching than in engraving, and we should therefore not be surprised to find it preferred by Dutch artists. Engraving, however, allows the artist to achieve a magnificent silver tone by the pure contrast of black line and white background. But it is less suitable for landscape with its fanciful detail.
Rembrandt is undoubtedly the greatest Dutch master of etching; in the contrast of light and shade he obtains the same degree of artistry as in painting. Adriaen van Ostade runs him close, but he is more mild and romantic in style. For the rest, it is remarkable that nearly all the great Dutch masters have worked with the etching needle at one time or another. The productivity of the seventeenth-century graphic artists was very high, yet only a limited number of good prints could be made from a copper plate, since the pressure ended by dulling the sharpness of the lines. These plates were sometimes touched up later by deepening the lines again. The prints from such plates, however, lack the delicacy of the early specimens executed while the plate was still fresh.
An anonymous etching shows the Court of the Counts in The Hague on the occasion of the entry of the Earl of Leicester, sent by Queen Elizabeth to the Netherlands as her lieutenant-general in 1587. The ‘View of a harbour’, by R. Nooms, called Zeeman, is more than a topographical print: it is a poetic vision of a vital section of the port of the great merchant city of Amsterdam about 1640.
The ‘Seller of Spectacles’, by Adriaen van Ostade, shows clearly how successfully Dutch artists made use of contrasting black and white in their etchings. Jan van de Velde transports us to the country where the peasants are eating their meal in the open air during the hay harvest. This etching shows such a pure feeling for nature that it puts us in mind of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. It is open, bright, and bathed in sunlight. Willem Buytewech’s print ‘Bathsheba with David’s letter’ is an example of magnificent utilisation of space and of the skilful exploitation of the possibilities offered by the technique of etching.
This view of one of the town gates in Amsterdam gives an impression of the somewhat straggling but extremely picturesque outskirts of the city in those days. Allart van Everdingen resided for a time in Norway, where he sketched a great variety of subjects which he later recorded in his etchings, like the mountain hut reproduced here. Jan van Goyen also turned his hand to etching, as can be seen in his ‘Little Bridge near a Village Church’.
Paulus Potter did the same: two bony plough horses provided him in 1652 with the inspiration for a technically brilliant etching, a striking example of his skill. Rembrandt’s method was copied by his pupils and imitators, who however succeeded only in reproducing the outward forms of his style, seldom in recapturing anything of his spirit. This is clearly to be seen in an etching by Hendrik Heerschop of Haarlem of a Biblical subject in the manner of Rembrandt.
The art of etching undeniably reached its highest peak in the work of Rembrandt. In this technique he succeeded in obtaining a degree of emotional appeal, an effect of relief and chiaroscuro not achieved by any artist before or after him. In his earliest prints Rembrandt was much less pictorial: at this period he still sketched exclusively with the etching needle, whereas later he etched in whole sections of the plate, thus obtaining dark patches. ‘Self-portrait with the startled eyes’ (enlarged), of 1630. Portrait of Ferdinand Bol, of 1637. In about 1649 Rembrandt etched the magnificent print of the Christus Medicus, Christ healing the sick, known by the strange name of the ‘Hundred-guilder print’. The figure of Christ intersects the line of composition descending from left to right, which is intercepted by several parallel counter movements in the foreground and background and ends with the figure of the old man leaning on his stick and upon the light shining on the indistinct group behind him.
It is interesting to look at the ground-plans of old Dutch cities and aerial photographs. By doing so we can more readily see to what extent these old city nuclei were true works of art which have expanded not automatically but according to a well-thought-out and logical plan. Amsterdam, with its extremely regular girdles of canals is, even when seen from the air, one of the most beautiful cities of the world, growing up about the mouth of the Amstel, its first port, and, formerly at least, opening on to the stately IJ. It is thus much to be regretted that in the 19th century this waterfront was filled in by an artificial island upon which arose the Central Station. This meant that Amsterdam as a city was cut off from its view of the IJ, which throughout the centuries had been its window on the world. It is impossible to imagine a more damaging attack upon the appearance of this age-old commercial city.
The architect Cuypers was more fortunate in the site of the Rijksmuseum (at the bottom of the photograph) which became the symbolic link between the old city and the new Amsterdam South. The imposing edifices of the 17th century such as the Town Hall on the Dam, now the royal palace, were built to a scale which, in their proportions, succeeded in blending with the existent nucleus and its architecture.
The aerial photograph of the small town of Veere shows the dwindling built-up area within the walls and the domination of the entire town by the enormous Church of Our Lady, badly damaged during the course of history yet still remaining an imposing giant monument. This little town is also famous on account of its Town Hall and beautiful Gothic dwelling houses. The fortified town of Willemstad possesses the oldest Protestant church in the Netherlands, begun in 1597 and occupying a completely central position.
