Reproduction stitch

The engraved reproduction is a form of reproductive prints. The reproduction engraving shows a replica of already existing works of art, which was made using the technique of copper engraving or etching .

Visentini (1742) reproduced Canaletto (1741)

target

The reproduction engraving served from an early age to communicate about art, hobby and systematic collecting. Long before the invention of photography , portfolios with replicas of works of art that were distant in time and space could be created. Reproduction engravings opened up the prospect of lost originals. One of the most famous reproduction engravings of all, the "Battle for the Flag" after Rubens , was a copy from Leonardo's cardboard for the Anghiari battle .

The ability was demonstrated in transferring the work of art created with other materials to the medium of an engraving. The work was based on sensitive copying, the literal "copying". The reproduction engraver was, so to speak, the intermediary who interprets the work of art and passes the artistic statements on to the viewer. As it says in the specialist book Facsimile and Mimesis : “That certainly does not mean that the engraver literally reproduced Raphael's original graphic text. He couldn't do it at all, because the grave engraver cannot grasp the graphic form of expression and its concrete material due to the technical work conditions. "

technology

A reproduction stitch was not traced, not transferred with a quadrature grid or cranesbill , but repeated true to the work with the steel graver or the etching needle .

Beginnings

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci , painting designs by Raphael and Marienleben by Albrecht Dürer were the first reproduced masters in art history.

Artist

The Italian engraver Marcantonio Raimondi founded his own engraving school in Rome and shaped the style of reproduction engraving until the 18th century. He worked closely with Raphael, so he was familiar with the plans and sketches for the “ Stanzen ” and “Loggias” of the Vatican, which he quoted in his engravings. Pietro Aquila , Nicolaus Beatricius , Luca and Francesco Bertelli , Pietro Santi Bartoli , Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione , Carlo Cesio , Giorgio Ghisi , Martino Rota , Benedetto Stefani , Antonio Tempesta , Pietro Testa , Enea Vico and Francesco Villamena found their livelihood in the trade of reproduction engravers.

“The Carracci ’ s painted different galleries in Bologna and Rome, some collectively, some individually. They have all been made famous by the most famous engravers. In general it can be said that the work of the Carracci's is the most interesting and instructive of all Italian schools, because almost all of the great engravers from all countries have engraved them and especially Annibal. Anyone who wants to get an idea of the large number of engraved sheets and works by and after the Carracci's will find almost all of them listed in the Dictionaire des Artistes de Heinecken. "

Carracci engraved the works of Venetian painters such as Paolo Veronese, as well as the complete works of Titian in copper. In Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens led his own circle of reproduction graphic artists such as Pieter Soutman , Paul Pontius, Schelte a Bolswert and Lucas Vorsterman . These engravers also reproduced a series by Antonis van Dyck called "Iconography" with portraits of great men.

In France, Robert Nanteuil and Claude Mellan used the dotting technique to reproduce portraits in order to achieve delicate transitions in brightness that could not be done with the customary cross-hatching. Gérard Edelinck worked after paintings by Raffael and Charles Le Brun . He made 14 engravings based on portraits of Louis XIV at different ages. In Flanders, the Haarlemer Hendrik Goltzius operated the high-circulation reproduction of works of art. The Venetian vedute of a Canaletto was reproduced by Antonio Visentini , while the vedutist Michele Marieschi engraved his painted scenes from the lagoon city itself.

Lorenzo Zacchia, after Leonardo da Vinci, The Battle of Anghiari, 1558, copper engraving, 37.4 × 47 cm

Peter Paul Rubens, around 1603, “Battle for the standard in the Battle of Anghiari”. Copy of a reproduction engraving, whose model Leonardo da Vinci created before 1550, black chalk, pen drawing with brown ink, overpainting with brown and gray ink, gray wash, heightened in white and gray-blue, dimensions 45.3 × 63.6 cm

literature

Caecilie Weissert: Reproduction , in: Ulrich Pfisterer (Hrsg.): Metzler-Lexikon Kunstwissenschaft: Ideas, Methods, Terms . 2nd Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02251-6 , pp. 382-385.
Keyword reproduction graphics , in: Peter Hawel: Lexicon on the art and history of occidental culture . Hawel, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-9810376-0-X , p. 622.

Individual evidence

↑ Ernst Rebel, Facsimile and Mimesis, Studies on German Reproduction Graphics of the 18th Century, Mittenwald 1981, p. 13
↑ Ernst Rebel, Druckgrafik, Stuttgart 2003, p. 233
↑ Michael Huber: Handbook for art lovers and collectors about the most distinguished engravers and their works, From the beginning of this art to the present time, chronologically and in schools, according to the French manuscript . Vol. 3, Zurich 1799, p. 266.
^ The Battle of Anghiari In: Albertina Collections online , accessed on March 15, 2017.

[1] Ernst Rebel, Facsimile and Mimesis, Studies on German Reproduction Graphics of the 18th Century, Mittenwald 1981, p. 13

[2] Ernst Rebel, Druckgrafik, Stuttgart 2003, p. 233

[3] Michael Huber: Handbook for art lovers and collectors about the most distinguished engravers and their works, From the beginning of this art to the present time, chronologically and in schools, according to the French manuscript . Vol. 3, Zurich 1799, p. 266.

[4] The Battle of Anghiari In: Albertina Collections online , accessed on March 15, 2017.