Looking at Prints, Drawings, and Watercolours: A Guide to Technical Terms PDF
Preview Looking at Prints, Drawings, and Watercolours: A Guide to Technical Terms
Looking at / Drawings and Prints, Watercolours A Guide to Technical Terms Paul Goldman Looking at Drawings and Prints, Watercolours ^^ ^60 Looking at Drawings and Prints, Watercolours A Guide to Technical Terms Goldman Paul British Museum Publications in association with the Paul Getty Museum, Malibu J. Cover Paul Cezanne (1839-1906): Still Life (detail), c.1900-1906. mm Watercolour and graphite, 480 x 631 (i8tI X24gin). JPGM, 83.GC.221. Titlepage John Everett Millais (1829-96): Lost Love, 1859. Watercolour and bodycolour with gum arabic, 103 x 85 mm Urg X 3§hi)- BM, 1937-4-10-3. ©1988 TheTrusteesoftheBritishMuseum PublishedbyBritishMuseum PublicationsLtd 46BloomsburyStreet, London wcib 3qq inassociationwith The PaulGettyMuseum J. 17985 PacificCoastHighway Malibu, California 90406 Copyrightoftheillustrationsisindicatedinthecaptions bytheinitialsBM (BritishMuseum) orJPGM PaulGettyMuseum). Theillustrationonp.58 is©FrederickWarne(J&. Co. 1986. British LibraryCataloguingin Publication Data Goldman, Paul Lookingatprints, drawingsandwatercolours aguide totechnicalterms. : 1. Graphicarts. Terminology I. Title II. BritishMuseum III. J. Paul GettyMuseum 760'.014 isbn0-7141-1638-6 (BritishMuseumPublications) LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldman, Paul. Lookingatprints, drawings, andwatercolours. — 1. Art Dictionaries. I. Title. N33.G65 1988 76o'.03'2i 88-13241 isbn0-89236-148-4 (GettyMuseum) DesignedbyCinamonandKitzinger TypesetbyWyvernTypesettingLtd, Bristol PrintedinItalybyArtiGraficheMotta Foreword Many art-historians and museum cura- torsassume,oftenwrongly, thattheterms which they employ to describe prints, drawings and watercolours are readily understood by the majority of visitors to exhibitions and readers of catalogues. Definitions of these terms are invariably difficult to find in reference books, and therefore the aim of this publication is to bring together many of the most com- monly found ones and attempt to clarify their meanings. This book has grown out of two earlierpublications by the author, Looking at Drawings (1979) and Looking at Prints (1981). Although this is more ambitious in scale, the purpose remains the same: to be as accurate as possible within the confines of space. Thebookisdirectedatthepersonlook- ing at traditional collections of prints, drawings and watercolours and hence deals only briefly with photomechanical Jost Amman (1539-91): Tmhme Woodcutter, processes and some modern develop- 1568. Woodcut, 79 x 59 [3^ x 2^in). ments in original printmaking. BM, 159.d.ii, 1904-2-6-103(19). I have relied heavily on the help of my colleaguesintheDepartmentofPrintsand Drawingsat theBritishMuseum, notably Antony Griffiths, Nicholas Turner, Lind- say Stainton, Martin Royalton-Kisch and Frances Carey. I am also indebted to Eric Harding and Alan Donnithorne in the Western Pictorial Art Section of the Department of Conservation. Aquatint: enlarged detail. Aquatint Paul Sandby (1730-1809): The Encampment in the Museum Garden, 1783. Aquatint, 340 x 478 mm (13s x i8ilin). BM, 1904-8-19-732. Note Words printed in small capitals refer to otherentriesin thebook. Termswhichdonot haveseparateentriesareininvertedcommas. Aquatint A variety of etching and parts of the ground where he wishes to essentially a tone process which can be obtainpurewhite. Gradationsoftone can used to imitate the appearance of water- be achieved by careful repetition of the colour washes. The chief element of the biting and varnishing process or by process, which was invented in France in burnishing. This has the disadvantage of the 1760s, is the partial protection of the being a 'negative' process, since the surface of the plate with a porous ground 'stopped-out' areas remain white. throughwhichtheacidcanpenetrate.The An alternative 'positive' process is plateiscoveredwithagroundofpowdered 'sugar' or 'lift-ground' aquatint. The plate resin which is attached to the plate by is covered in resin as inordinaryaquatint heating. In etching, the acid bites tiny and the artist draws on the surface in a rings around each resin grain, and these solution of sugar and water. A varnish is hold sufficient ink when printed to give then laid over the entire plate, which is the effect of a wash. The printmaker will then immersed in water. This causes the 'stop out' with a protecting varnish any sugar under the varnish to swell and lift, exposingthe aquatintground; theplate is licence from Baxter, most notably by Le thenbittenandprintedinthenormalway. Blond, andfell into disuseafter 1865. (See C. T. Courtney Lewis, George Baxter the Artist's proof In twentieth-century print- Picture Printer, London, 1924.) making, an artist's proof is an impression signedbytheartistandannotated'AP'(or Bodycolour Any type of opaque water- something similar) which is extra to the soluble pigment. At an early period the ordinary numbered edition. The practice opaque medium employed was lead of signing proofs began, however, in the white. In 1834Winsorand Newton intro- nineteenth century. ducedChineseWhite,whichiszincoxide, and this was marketed as a substitute for Ascribed A drawing is 'ascribed' to an lead white. artist when it has been given to him by The bodycolour medium was known in tradition, mostfrequentlybyan inscrip- the late fifteenth century when Diirer tiononthedrawingoronitsmount. The madedrawingsoflandscapes,animalsand term, however, suggests some doubt in flowers in a combination of bodycolour the mind of the cataloguer as to the cor- and watercolour. Later artists such as rectness of this tradition. Rubens and Van Dyck also made exten- sive use of bodycolour, but it reached its greatestpopularityinthe 1820sand 1830s Attributed Adrawingis'attributed'toan in England when watercolourists, most artistonthegroundsofstyleorsomegood notably Turner, exploited it to the full, external evidence; however, some doubt combining the opacity of the lights with remains about its authorship. the transparency of the washes of colour. Sometimes they executed works in body- Baxter Print In 1835, George Baxter colour alone. Drawings loosely termed patented a printing technique under his 'watercolours' are frequently found to be own name. It involved overprinting an done in a combination of transparent intagliokey-platewithnumerouswood pigments with opaque ones. See also or metal blocks inked in oil colours. The TEMPERA,WATERCOLOUR, GOUACHEand technique was used by others under HEIGHTENING. Baxter Print George Baxmtemr (1804-67): Gems of the Great Exhibition No. 2, 52. Baxter Print, 120 x 241 (4? x 92in). BM, 1901-11-5-20.
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