Iron etching

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While other etchings are mainly deducted from copper plates, the iron etching is printed from an etched iron plate.

Procedure

A polished iron plate is coated with a lacquer ("etching base"), which is drawn with a needle. When treated with acid, deep etching traces form in the metal at these scratches. After removing the etching base, they easily absorb ink and form the printing areas. Iron etching is also a gravure printing process . The line of iron etching often appears blurred, which often distinguishes it from that of copper etching, but the two techniques cannot always be clearly distinguished. The reason for the faltering, fraying line is the almost unavoidable concentration differences ( segregation ) in the iron sheets of the early modern period , which led to varying etching results. Acetic acid mixed with salt was used as the etching agent until the early 16th century, and later nitric and sulfuric acid. The steel stitch is a different graphic technique.

history

Emperor Charles V, iron etching by Hieronymus Hopfer, 1520

With the beginning of the modern era in the 16th century, printmaking gained extraordinary importance among the various genres of the visual arts. The previously known techniques (woodcut, copperplate engraving) were perfected and others, such as etching, were newly developed and tested. The oldest etchings were made in iron, which was easy to etch. Daniel Hopfer (1470–1536), an Augsburg armorer who decorated armor and weapons with etched ornaments, is considered to be the first to use this technique for graphic reproductions as early as 1493 (Battle of Thérouanne 1479) and perfect it in the early 16th century . Albrecht Dürer created six important works in this technique around 1515-18 , Albrecht Altdorfer etched in iron from 1519, as did Hieronimus , Daniel Hopper's son, as well as Hans Lautensack, Jacob Binck, Hans Sebald Beham around 1520-1540 and Hans Burgkmair (1520) . Dutch iron etchings are by Hans Gossaert († 1532), Lucas van Leyden († 1533), later by Jan Swart van Groningen (1553, 1557). What role iron etching played in the creation of Italian etching has not been definitively clarified. Because of technical limitations, the susceptibility of iron plates to rust and because of the finer lines possible in copper, iron etching hardly played a role after the middle of the 16th century compared to that on copper plates. Isolated works, such as that of Gerard Janssen (1717/1722), remained the exception in the 17th and 18th centuries, as did attempts by individual expressionists such as Emil Nolde or Conrad Felixmüller .

literature

  • Wolfgang Wegner: Eisenradierung , in: Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte , Vol. 4, Stuttgart 1957, Sp. 1140–1152
  • Anne Röver-Kann: Drawn with a quick needle. Experiment etching in Dürer's century . (Exhibition catalog Kunsthalle Bremen) Bremen 2008, 2 volumes.
  • Christof Metzger: Daniel Hopfer. An Augsburg master of the Renaissance. Iron etchings, woodcuts, drawings, weapon etchings . (Exhibition catalog Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München) Munich 2009 (on the invention of iron etching, see pp. 20–21)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Using beeswax as an intaglio ground . 21st Century Renaissance Printmaker, August 7, 2014, accessed January 18, 2018.