Printmaking in Piranesi's Time

Описание: Dr Colin Holden, Exhibition curator of Rome: Piranesi's vision, outlines the extraordinary skill and artistry 18th-century master printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi used to create his works.

Rome: Piranesi's vision (http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/event/rome-...) is a free exhibition on display at the State Library of Victoria from 22 February to 22 June 2014, presented in partnership with the University Library, University of Melbourne.

Featured prints:
Denis Diderot (editor), Encyclopédie, ou, Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (Encyclopaedia)

Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Domenico Cunego, Portrait of Pope Clement XIII

Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Veduta del prospetto principale della Colonna Trajana (View of Trajan's Column)

Arco di Trajano in Ancona (Arch of Trajan at Ancona)

Veduta dell' Arco di Tito (View of the Arch of Titus)

Veduta interna del Tempio della Tosse (Interior View of the Temple of the Cough)

Avanzi d'un portico coperto, o criptoportico in una Villa di Domiziano (Ruins of a Covered Portico in a Villa of Domitian)

Veduta di Campo Vaccino (View of the Campo Vaccino)
Veduta interna della Basilica di S Pietro (Interior view of the Basilica of St Peter)

Altra veduta degli avanzi del Pronao del Tempio della Concordia (Another view of the Temple of Concord's vestibule)

TRANSCRIPT
Printmaking in Piranesi's time

What are the various print-making techniques that Piranesi used to create his prints? What are the differences between these techniques? We will begin by imagining that we are visiting his workshop in the Strada Felice near the Spanish Steps in Rome. What we see is a French workshop of the same period, but the range of activities that are being carried out here are no different from the ones that took place in an Italian workshop of the same period.
Engraving and etching are two different techniques, but both involve the working of lines into the surface of a metal plate -- nearly always copper -- using a variety of pointed tools. In engraving, the lines are worked directly into the plate with printmaking tools -- a burin or graver. The plate would generally be rested on a cushion in such a way that the artist could turn it at different angles while creating an individual line. However, the resistance of the metal makes anything like the free line of drawing impossible, and great discipline as well as ingenuity were needed to build up a pattern of lines that would create the illusions of tone, sometimes almost of colour, as well as depth and perspective. Many of Piranesi's prints, and many large prints by other artists, use a combination of engraved and etched lines on the one plate, but pure engraving was seen as the more technically difficult process. It was particularly favoured for use in portraits. In this collaborative portrait of Pope Clement XIII, the portrait itself, by Domenico Cunego, one of Piranesi's contemporaries, is engraved, while most of the other details have been etched by Piranesi.
Etching was in some ways a more complicated process than engraving, but allowed the artist to create a freer line, much closer to that of a drawn one. In our 18th-century French studio we can see all the major steps that went into making an etched plate. Firstly, the plate would be completely coated with a wax-based coating that is acid-resistant. This is called the 'ground'. Next, the ground would be blackened by waving a lit candle or taper across the surface. The artist would draw through the wax using pointed instruments of varying degrees of fineness, often termed 'needles'. Against the charcoal deposit left by the tapers, the lines created would show up as a pink copper colour.
The word etching comes from a German word meaning to eat or corrode, and the next step explains why. The lines would be deepened by immersing the plate in an acid bath. Here we see studio assistants preparing the acid, then the plate being submerged in the acid bath. The acid would only eat into the plate where the metal was exposed, and not through the wax-based coating. For delicate lines, just one immersion might be enough, and then these would be covered over -- the term is 'stopped out' -- with an acid-resistant substance and the plate would be immersed more times in order to create deeper, and then the deepest lines. Here we see studio assistants emptying acid from the bath.
If the printmaker were dissatisfied with any of the line-work at this stage, there were ways of making alterations. One was to work on the rear of the plate with small hammers or mallets, as we see here. There might also be some etched lines made directly onto the plate, and not worked through a ground -- known as 'drypoint'. The graver, used to draw on the plate, throws up a kind of metal furrow on each side of such lines. These catch the ink, resulting in rich, dark lines and an almost fuzzy overall effect.