Talk:Old master print

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New page - work in progress & no pics yet Johnbod 20:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Old Master Print - Callot

I must be honest "Old Master Print" strikes me as a bit of a strange term; I had always thought the term more a product of the lingo of antique shops and uninformed collectors than of anything reasonably relevant to the study of prints. It seems rather nineteenth century to me,-- the sort of thing one says when one wants to invoke nostalgia, not careful analysis and study. Should this article be re-christened History of Prints? That is, at least to my understanding, the more traditional language for describing the field it is addressing and it does not have the awkward problem of creating an end point to a number of artistic movements which really were not more continuous one with another than are discontinuous with later developments in the prints.

I can see someone put a lot of work into this article, and it does seem at first glance to be quite interesting and to cover the ground very thoroughly (even if the title of the article is just too quaint altogether). However, it has very few notes and shifts often into a POV that seems to be that of its author and not necessarily that of Hind or Griffiths or of any other notable print historians. One or two of the judgments seem a little odd to me. Let me cite just one: the text here says that Callot was not trying to mimic engraving. Certainly his use of stopping out techniques has no corrollary in engraving, but his use of the epoche I had always been taught was meant specifically to mimic engraving. I'm willing to buy the notion that he was not trying, as Bosse certainly was, to mimic engraving, (and I can even see that looked at from that point of view something of the character of Callot's work makes more sense), but should this not have a note to tell me where to go to find the argument in full. Mddietz 21:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Old master prints is certainly still fully current in the art trade - Christies still calls its sales that. The term is used by this art historians website [1], Print Quarterly, and in the title of an Ashmolean exhibition of 2003 etc etc. The trouble is most people have very vague or different ideas of what a "print" is, thinking it covers reproductions, printing etc. One would at least have to call it "History of the artist's print" or "History of Printmaking" (another often misunderstood term). I certainly don't think there is any WP:OR re Callot or Bosse. If Callot was trying to make his prints look like engravings, he was making a rather poor job of it, I would suggest. Johnbod 22:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Johnbod, thank you for your response. And before I go any further, I have done some looking around and am rather impressed at how much good you have contributed to wikipedia. I hope you won't hold my little disagreement here with you against me (and I do think it a little disagreement and very much do not mean by it to belittle the excellent work you have done.)

On Old Master Print: I suppose you are right. I think, however, that what you tell me is a rather unfortunate thing for the status of prints in the art world. Prints have for so long been unwanted orphans,-- second class citizens to paintings and sculpture. I personally find something quite different and appealing about an etching or an engraving or a woodcut (whether or not it is the work of one who is old or a "master"-- whatever a master is). But, and I am sorry to say this, and I do not mean to be insulting, "old master prints" has always struck me as a vanity term for collectors. In the long run the term is, to my mind, terribly unfair to the artists.

I noticed you have contributed to an article on Hercules Segher; calling Segher an "old master" takes away from the rich spontanaeity and adventurous quality of his prints. I need not be told he is old, i.e. worked a long time ago, that he worked in the seventeenth century tells me that; as for being a master, to him that would have meant he held a certain position in the guild; in the nineteenth century, the term took on the ahistorical sense of an artist who had achieved a mastery no longer possible in the modern era (as such the term tells us more about the nineteenth century than it does about the "old masters"). To me the term also reeks of eighteenth century conoisseurship which was less interested in the artist than it was in the capacity that a work of art had for suggesting the taste of the collector.

So there you have it; that's my opinion. But it is only an opinion and hardly enough to warrant any change in what is otherwise a fine article.

On Callot, I would agree that his prints do not have the overall look of an engraving, but my understanding was that his desire was to get a line that looked like an engraved line and not an etched line. I thought, and I may be wrong on this, that he invented the echoppe (I had the word wrong and had to look it up). And that the echoppe was used to create etched lines that had the thin to thick effect that an engraved line has. The result was that his line had greater vivacity than the rather flat line that is typical of an etching. In any event, without any available research, is it appropriate to suggest that he was not interested in creating the effects of an engraving, particularly when the leading scholars have always indicated that he was? (Interestingly Callot's two most significant stylistic traits almost seem to work against each other. The use of stopping out creates background lines that have an airy feel to them creating a sense of aerial perspective; while the use of think-thin lines in the figures creates the more elegant almost decorative look of an engraving. The two should work against each other, but in the best of Callot's works, as I'm sure you know, they hold together quite beautifully.) Mddietz 19:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I have returned to the section on Callot and I think I may understand the problem in the article a little better. In the following sentences, it seems obvious to me that this was written by someone who is very familiar with the prints themselves and with general studies of print history, but who has never actually created an etching and probably does not have a deep understanding of the technical character of the work.

Equally multiple stoppings-out, enabling lines etched to different depths by varying lengths of exposure to the acid, had been too risky. Callot himself led the way in exploiting the new possibilities; most of his etchings are small but full of tiny detail, and he developed the sense of recession in landscape backgrounds by etching them more lightly than the figures in the foreground.

This does not quite make sense. Line depth in an etching is achieved through one of four means: different exposure times to the acid using stopout; local placement of acid; sharpness or shape of the etching needle (which effects the width of the line cut through the ground; micro-heating in which several lines placed close to one another heat up the acid in the general area and can cause the acid to be more effective and thus to cut deeper. There is a fifth, but it is a non-etching recourse; the etcher may, as Rembrandt did occasionally, use a burin and combine etching with engraving. Excepting the latter of these, the most easy to control is using a different shaped needle, followed by stopping out which is not particularly risky if you know what you are doing (this fact alone makes the first sentence a bit nonsensical). The sentences in the article suggest that Callot had found a more contorollable way to alter the depth of his lines, which would mean that he used a single exposure and a shaped needle (which we know he did) but which is countered by the crispness of the smaller detail lines in teh main figure by comparison with the background lines; or that he used a burin on the lines of his figures, which contradicts his use of the echoppe to achieve a burin-like effect. We can clearly rule out the use of a burin or the single exposure. Given the clarity of the lines (for etched lines that is, burin lines would be clearer still) in his figures and the vaugness of his background lines, particularly on late edition prints (they are the only ones I can afford, but late edition prints can tell you many things that early run impressions cannot), it seems clear that he used multiple exposure times which requires stopping out, although he may have used local placement of acid which is rather difficult to control and could account for some of the vagaries in his background lines (although clearly this is a more risky not less risky approach; nonetheless, it was common practice at the time). Finally, we can rule out closness of lines since Callot's drawings tend toward crisp outlines in which each line is clealry defined (when lines are close enough to produce micro-heating they are usually not clearly definable as separate lines.

Given this I think this sentence should be removed: "Equally multiple stoppings-out, enabling lines etched to different depths by varying lengths of exposure to the acid, had been too risky." Mddietz 19:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Johnbod, do you know any sources on the quality of Turner's Liber Studiorum. I know it has received mixed reviews over the years, but I also know that many notable commentators have spoken highly of it (and I frankly tend to agree with the latter). Nor does it seem quite relevant to be comparing his prints to his paintings in so off-had a way. Mddietz 19:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I am just back from holiday, and will respond on these points when I am settled in. I am not sure what the supposed "inaccuracies" you have removed are - it seems to me my old version and your new one make complementary points, and I don't see why you have removed the well known and significant points about his improved ground recipe. On the importance of this Hyatt Mayor is an easily accessible reference. Quotations as close as yours from Hind should be in quotes I feel. You misunderstand the point I am making about his different line-depths - I thought this was clear enough but will look at it again. Actually it it is not really clear from your point above what your problem with that section is. Before Callot etching ground was rather brittle and unpredictable. This made a) very detailed work of any sort, ands b) multiple exposures, too risky as many plates were ruined in the etching process - as can easily be seen on many older etchings that were printeed despite faults. Callot's recipe made the process predictable enough to justify very fully worked plates.

On Turner I think it is unarguable that compared with other painter-printmakers of comparable stature - Durer, Rembrandt & Goya say, his prints just aren't regarded as of crucial importance either to his work or to the history of printmaking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnbod (talk • contribs) 19:04, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Johnbod, welcome back from your holidays.

On Turner: Are you saying that all mention of Turner should be removed from the article (not sure how he can be seen as an Old Master anyway). In fact Turner's Liber Studiorum appears in most histories of prints, but if you put Turner up against Durer, Rembrandt and Goya,-- well every print maker will come up short by that comparison.

On Callot: I thought I had been pretty clear on the problems I found, and your comments on Callot's ground are still somewhat problematic. All grounds, even Callot's, are subject to foul biting. Callot's ground was more advantageous not because it was less likely to produce foul biting, but because it allowed him to get a crisper line. Etched lines are notoriously jagged by comparison with engraved lines. This accounts for Callot's use of the burin after etching (as Hind suggests). On the multiple bitings, I think the article may have simply not expressed the issue all that well, in any event I read it to say that Callot did not use mulitple bitings out of fear of foul biting, which, of course, would be incorrect. (Foul biting generally is the result of doing a poor job of setting the ground. In the Bosse print I'm sure you've seen that would be what the fellow holding the wick under the dangling plate is doing. And foul biting I can promise you did not disappear with Callot.)

On Callot and engraving: I have tried to rewrite the passage so that it does not say too strongly that Callot was trying to make his prints look like engravings. In a general sort of way I would agree with you that he was not. But in a very particular way, in his desire to get a line that looked like an engraved line, he undeniably was. Nonetheless, Hind clearly states that Bosse had a stronger desire to create an etched print that mimicked engraving (which is very consitent with what was already in the article).

On Hind: I've essentially ensured that the passage conforms to Hind but I did not think I was quoting him word for word, and therefore did not use quotation marks; I've always been taught that close is not enough to warrant quotations marks -- only when it is exactly word for word should quotation marks be used. With a summary such as I have provided the appropriate thing to do is to cite a reference. If I erred and accidentally quoted him word for word, then lets add the quotation marks. By the way, was this not how the rest of the article was produced, but someone left out the references? Mddietz 21:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course I am not saying Turner should be removed - you are the one who has problems with the current version. I don't mind a rephrasing, but I think the point that his contribution to printmaking is not on the scale one might expect is valid & hardly original.

I'm not sure how you read the original Callot passage to mean what you said; I hope it is clearer now. It is not true to say "Callot's ground was more advantageous not because it was less likely to produce foul biting ...." this was very much part of its importance - see Mayor and others. Pre-Callot etchings - Bellange's or Ribera's for example, are far more likely to have foul biting problems than later ones. Johnbod 22:11, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Your reading of Mayor is quite correct. And I like the fact that you have added in the reference. By the way, I hope you don't think I'm trying to be difficult. My understading is that these challenges are necessary to Wikipedia. They keep us all honest. When I read what you had originally written it appeared that you were saying that Callot did not use multiple stoppings out. I can see now that was not a correct reading. Please accept my apology.

One statement that you have added back, however, is not supported by Mayor. "...and in the long term spelt the end of artistic engraving." Mayor does not say this. I'm not even sure what you mean by the statement. What is artistic engraving? As engraving and etching moved together they took the label of engraving. Surely you are not saying that engraving disappeared in the 17th century. So I cannot see how to interpret this statement, nor is at all supported by Mayor, at least not in the section on Callot. Do you have another source for it?

As for Turner, two things: 1) I think it quite reasonable to question whether he belongs amongst "old masters", after all Ruskin's book was entitled "Modern Painters;" 2) who is it that has said Turner's contribution in printmaking is not up to the scale one might expect? You speak of it as common knowledge; I'm somewhat well-read in the literature on print-making and print history; I don't recall any such statement. I'm not trying to be difficult,-- I just don't recall ever reading that. I have read plenty of comments that either laud his efforts or point out its failures, but none that say what you are saying, that he failed somehow to live up to larger expectations. It sure seems to me that as there are multiple opinions on the matter amongst the accepted authorities, presenting a single value judgement as though it were an established position is probably not where we want to go on this. In any event, we owe the wikipedia readers a very specific reference and probably some mention of the scholarly equivocation. Frankly, without references, how is anyone to know that anything in this article is or is not verifiable? Considering how long the article is, it seems extraordinary that it only has seven footnotes.

At this point my recommendation is that we remove the phrase "that are rather disappointing compared to his paintings" until we can find a suitable alternative or a reliable source for it.

Again, I'm not trying to be difficult here. I suspect you and I can learn a lot from each other. If I'm wrong I'm always happy to admit it, because it means I have learned something new, and in this case I thank you, very much, for what I have learned from you (and Hyatt Mayor). And I am not being at all insincere in saying that, I mean it quite honestly. Mddietz 03:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

arbitary break

Firstly I don't think you are being difficult, and welcome the interest. I welcome suggestions for improvements, although the article is inevitably very compressed, & many things on individual artists really belong in their individual articles. The article is well referenced, but with few inline citations - a rather different thing. I have in fact got & read all the books both in the "references" & "further reading" sections - those in references are the ones I used most heavily in writing this (I have just reviewed the list & promoted some, as the split has not been changed since early days).

On Turner I don't mind a rephrasing, but I think there is a point there that needs to be made. His prints had little influence outside English-speaking countries, and how much on them is there in Ruskin? I think he clearly belongs at the end of the "old master" period - as we know, not an ideal term, but I think we are stuck with it. The end of pure engraving is easily referenced from any history of printmaking (either Hind or Mayor for example) & certainly followed from the ability of etching & a combined technique to achieve similar effects with less training and effort, beginning with Callot. You say - "As engraving and etching moved together they took the label of engraving" - no, only in popular usage. Rembrandt's prints are all called "etchings", though in fact few don't have some burin work. You say "Surely you are not saying that engraving disappeared in the 17th century" - well in a pure form for original prints, yes I am. See Hind's Ch 4 "The Decline of original Engraving" & his Ch 7. Or see Mayor no 408 & elsewhere, or the last pages of Griffith's section on the technique (51-6 in my edition). Johnbod 11:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad to see you are not upset with my questions. Frankly, I'm not sure I have the time or energy right now to continue. Ruskin wrote his book in defense of Turner and Turner occupies the central position in it. Clearly for Ruskin, Turner was the epitome of a modern painter. I will remove the citation needed, although I do not feel good about doing so. Your decision if you want to do something different with the judgement on Turner. Frankly it seems to me to be in very poor taste to bring him into the story only to kick him in the knees.Mddietz 15:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I have altered the Turner comment, which I hope is more acceptable to you. Obviously, what was modern for Ruskin (who was in any case mainly concerned with "modern" as opposed to Medieval or C15/16) is not always modern for us. When was the last major exhibition of Turner's prints, I wonder? Or monograph on them? Johnbod 17:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to check on the date, but several monographs have come recently from the British Museum and other sources. My impression is that these prints (and other Turner prints) are a major part of current Turner scholarship.

Is your rewrite acceptable to me? No comment. Well, one comment: where's the citation?Mddietz 20:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is a citation: "This set of prints [The Liber Studiorum] was only one among many that Turner would produce in his lifetime, but its title indicates its purpose as Turner's manual of landscape types, and its centrality within his oeurve as a statement of his philosophy of landscape." (pg. 522) from Linda Hults, The Print in the Western World: An Introductory History, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1996. [A footnote to the paragraph from which I took this sentence refers to Luke Hammer, 1990, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J. M. W. Turner. New York.]

With all due respect, I think the problem is that you are focused on the wrong aspect of the relationship between Turner's prints and his paintings. You are treating them as separate works that are meant to be competing with one another, when in fact Turner intended this set of prints to be commentaries on landscapes, including his own landscape paintings. I don't know whether these prints are more or less innovative or more or less "disappointing" than his paintings. And, in any event, my opinion would mean nothing. Only with Hults comment in front of us can we make a valid statement. I hope you will agree with me now that the comment in the article needs a more thorough revision.

Incidentally, Hults goes on to say, "Turner's Liber was enormously influential, especially for American landscape artists." (pg. 524) Hults also says: "Callot's etchings frankly imitate engravings." (pg. 205) I can find no major authority who says anything to contradict this. It may or may not be true, but with no citation the comment that Callot did not intend to mimic engravings did not belong in wikipedia. If you can find a citation, we can put it back in, along with a comment that many authortities express the contrary. Mddietz 23:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've no objection to you adding about Americans - I said English-speaking above, but just put British in the article as I don't know much about American prints. I had already removed the Callot comment, though I must say Hult's statement seems odd to me - he uses engraving styles in landscapes and buildings, but his figures are dependent on the freedom of the etched line, it seems to me. Plus the recession effects we have already covered at length are clearly not those of engraving. Whose engravings is he supposed to be imitating, I wonder? I wouldn't worry too much about what you think I think about Turner. Johnbod 23:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Johnbod, I have changed the article to reflect our available citations. Hults does mention the 71 prints in the series and the use of mezzotint, so I have left that in (actually the first few were in aquatint, but that seems an unnecessary detail). She does not specify that the influence was only English-speaking, therefore the mention of British would be inappropriate, and the detail about "particularly Americans" seemed more than was needed for this article. She does not say printmakers were influenced, she says landscape artists. She says nothing about these prints being disappointing or less innovative than Turner's paintings, so that comment MUST come out. The comment about the purpose of the prints seemed to me reasonably concise and important, so I added it in. I have included her name. Please DO NOT take it out as you did with Arthur Hind's name. Having the names of these authorities in the text establishes for the reader that this is a report of other's thoughts, not our own thoughts.

If you feel obliged to take anything out or add anything back in, please do me the favor I have done for you. Before taking action please explain your reasons on the talk page so that we may discuss them.

My apologies on my comment on what I think you think. But you have to admit you do keep pulling me into such discussions. I mean surely you do not want an answer to the non-sequitur question about whose prints Callot was imitating. Hults does not say he was imitating a specific artist; no one I have read says that. They all say he used the echoppe to imitate an engraved line. When they say he was imitating engraving, that's all they mean. You seem to want to make more of it than is really there, but I shouldn't have said that as it me commenting on what I think you think. I will say this about what I think you think; I think you think very well and have an excellent understanding of prints. I wish you would value the use of citation as highly as I do, but that just makes us different type of scholar, neither better nor worse, just different. But lets leave that hobby-horse alone now, shall we? Mddietz 16:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I can be too talkative by a long shot, so I cannot help but comment on something you have said relative to Callot. "He uses engraving styles in landscapes and buildings, but his figures are dependent on the freedom of the etched line, it seems to me." If you look at his large figures in particular, and the wonderful theatre figures he did, he uses the echoppe to great effect to get wonderfully swelling lines in his fiigures, and Hind may be correct that he reinforced these lines with a burin (the reason I had included Hind's name in the article was because I have not read anyone else saying that Callot used a burin, and it reads as if it is Hind's conjecture). At the same time, what you say is, to my mind, entirely correct: the lines in his figures have a more autographic feel, very free and lithe. And I think this is one of the things that makes them so wonderful. This is why, I think, Hind shakes his finger at Bosse and his followers for regressively trying to make an etching look too much like an engraving instead of realizing the advantages of an etching. But he does not include Callot in his disparagement, because (I would conjecture) he does not feel that Callot's interest in engraving is an interest in regressing the etching to an engraving, but of bringing forward something of value from an engraving. In other words, Hind is saying roughly what you are saying. Others, like Hults, are less subtle on this issue. Although Hults has a wonderfully subtle passage on why it is silly to ignore or disparage reproductive printmaking since all printmaking is essentially reproductive (this simple statement does not do justice to her wonderful argument on this head). Mddietz 16:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I'd certainly agree with that. I'm a big fan of the commedia del arte figures, though I was i suppose mainly thinking of the typical smaller ones in my comment. I was looking at a catalogue (LA/Paris French Renaissance prints, of some years ago) & was interested to see that several of Bellange's larger prints in fact use multiple stoppings-out and some burin work. Hind of course relegates Bellange (2 years younger than C) to his tables, as did Kristeller & all that generation. I think the difference between the line margins under a glass is enough to make Hind's judgement pretty certain. I have taken a fairly straight "peintre-graveur" line in the article (apart from the C16 sections) partly because there is already enough to cover, & the complexities of the history of reproductive print-making are considerable. Probably some more should be added re the C17 & 18. Plus nowadays most repro prints are a really obscure subject; oddly because so many articles are still pure 1911 EB, many mostly reproductive printmakers have short articles, as they were more respected then. Johnbod 18:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I have the impression that that respect may be returning to the reproductive printmakers to some extent, both in academic circles and collecting circles; in academic circles because they are running out of things to say about the big names and because more can be said about the reproductive printers in terms of their relationship to socio-cultural issues--they and not the peintre-graveurs were the producers of the mobile art museums of the 17th, 18th & 19th centuries, as a result their socio-cultural importance is arguably greater than that of the original print maker; in collector's circles reproductive prints are coming back in because big name prints have gotten too expensive and poor collectors, like me, have to go for the affordable stuff, -- although a lot of reproductive prints, particularly the mezzotints, have been shooting up in price. Mddietz 21:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)