Pressing Matters

A Treatise on Etching by Maxime Lalanne (François Antoine Maxime Lalanne) is available as an e-book, a free download from Project Gutenberg.

It is in English – a translation from the original (1880) French second edition. The writing has stood the test of time rather well – with just a few allowances for the language – the English of 1880 needs some translation to our contemporary understandings – the book is informative and remains quite entertaining.

The work focuses on etching of landscapes and gives a good understanding of the aesthetics and attitudes of the day. Lalanne’s approach to etching was to use line – he tends to see dry point as a method of correcting mistakes, and makes scant use of aquatinting. There’s a purity and clarity in his work – refined lines, and plate tone more than sufficient to provide rich contrast. This kind of clarity preempts impressionist and the widespread use of photography for print purposes, and yet Lalanne’s work hints at the artistic and technological developments to follow.

Some aesthetic and attitude advice:

Spirit in which the Etcher must work. — Follow your feeling, combine your modes of expression, establish points of comparison, and adopt from among the practical means at command (which depend on the effect, and on which the effect depends) those which will best render the effect desired: this is the course to be followed by the etcher. There is plenty of the instinctive which practice will develop in him, and in this he will find a growing charm and an irresistible attraction. What happy effects, what surprises, what unforeseen discoveries, when the varnish is removed from the plate! A bit of good luck and of inspiration often does more than a methodical rule, whether we are engaged on subjects of our own invention, — capricci, as the Italians call them, — or whether we are drawing from nature directly on the copper. The great aim is to arrive at the first onset at the realization of our ideas as they are present in our mind. An etching must be virginal, like an improvisation.