Activity #10: Write About It!! Mediums and Techniques

In 1943 M.C. Escher created a lithograph known as “Reptiles.” The medium in his work, lithograph on paper, is a planographic process which means that the printing surface is flat, not raised or depressed (Getlein, 200). Instead it relies on the principle that oil and water do not mix (200). To make a lithograph, artists draw the images on the stone usually with a lithographic crayon or a greasy ink then the stone is treated with an acid solution to fix the drawing to the stone then the non-greasy areas are dampened with water (200). Once that is completed, the stone is inked and the ink sticks to the greasy image areas and is repelled by the water-soaked background areas (200). By identifying the process by which a lithograph is created, the difficulty in creating the range of values, relative lightness or darkness (96), found in the work is apparent. For artists, lithography is the most direct and effortless of the print media (200). However, to achieve the shading effect with a grease pencil or other material, in the detail that is present in this lithograph must have been tedious. Nonetheless, the work represents both imagination and raw talent.

In 1655 Rembrandt van Rijn created a print on paper called “Abraham’s Sacrifice,” which is a work that utilizes etching and drypoint. Drypoint is a similar technique to engraving except that instead of cutting away the material from the plate drypoint uses a needle to scratch the plate creating a raised burr, or thin ridge of metal that holds the ink (196). Etching is done with acids, which “eat” lines and depressions into a metal plate where the ground, an acid resistant material made from beeswax, asphalt and other materials, has been etched away by a needle (197). The ink is not the most important aspect; rather, the image created by the etching and the drypoint techniques remains the most important. The etching technique seems to have created the contour lines, lines drawn to record boundaries (83) of the middle ground where the scene takes place. By making lower value areas of the work with etching, the acid solution would “eat” these areas into depressions that would create the light appearance. In the work, the drypoint technique seems to be used to create the hatching and crosshatching, closely spaced and parallel lines or a set of closely spaced parallel lines laid on top of one another (93), used to provide the illusion of shadow and implied light. The easiest element to use with drypoint and etching is obviously line which Rembrandt uses very effectively to create this historical scene from a religious background. Even so, Rembrandt illustrates masterful technique in the creation of “Abraham’s Sacrifice.”