Friday, December 13, 2013

IV. Charcoal 05 While this had its value

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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