While this had its value, it had also its demerits, one of which was the
total extermination of the American wood-engraver, except for a few men like
Timothy Cole, whose genius and skill made it possible for them, by the
excellence of their work, to survive the great difference between twenty cents a
square inch for transferring on zinc and twenty dollars a square inch for
engraving on wood.
There are, however, results in the half-tone process which I hold are
infinitely superior to the work of any wood-engraver of the old school. While it
is true that there is no really positive rich dark for any part of the
composition—for, of course, the light specks are everywhere,buy oil paintings online, thus lightening and
graying the dark—and while we lose by such defects the richness of
wood-engraving, we also get the exact touch of the artist in no more and no less
a degree, particularly no less. How often have I seen an exquisite drawing of
Abbey's or Du Maurier's almost ruined by the slipping of the burin the
one-thousandth part of an inch! How infinitely superior are the originals of
John Leech's
immortal caricatures in Punch to the reproductions, all because the
shadow line under an eye, or that little dot which denotes the difference
between amusement and curiosity in the expression of a face, has been cut away
the thousandth part of a hair-line! The processes of the half-tone, however, are
ever accurate and the reproduction given you is exact—with the foregoing
restrictions. paintings reproductions
Then again, in landscape effects and in some portraits, the uniformity of
tone, the certainty of every touch being reproduced, the exact balancing from
dark to light, all result in better work than can be done by the ordinary
engraver.
And yet, with all the half-tone's advantages, I must admit that Yuengling's
head of the "Professor" and many of his wood-cuts in an illustrated edition of
"Sir Launfal," published some years ago, and much of the work of such masters as
Cole, Wolff, Yuengling, and others, stand as monuments for all time to the skill of
hands that no process will ever excel, for they put into it that something which
the bath of vitriol will never furnish, a bite of the acid of their own
genius. abstract art oil paintings
Since these earlier days a new departure has been made, until now
reproductive processes have been brought to such perfection that there is hardly
any texture or color scheme that can not be matched. Note, if you will, Howard
Pyle in color—rich in yellows and reds, with black and white spaces as an
enrichment. Note also A. I. Keller's transparent work in charcoal gray. Note
particularly the reproductions in the magazines of F. Walter Taylor's drawings
in charcoal, in which the very texture of the coal is preserved. And, if you
will permit me, note the half tones of my own charcoal drawings now on
exhibition in the adjoining gallery. So perfect is the reproduction that one is
careful not to smudge his fingers in turning the leaves of the publication in which
they are printed. oil paintings wholesale
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