Rembrandt is known wide and far as one of the world’s greatest artists. His incredible etchings prove this position quite well.
Etchings are a unique art form involving the careful use of metallic plates and acid to produce replicatable images with ink.
Although simple prints can be done by such means, the etchings of artists such as Rembrandt take the art form much further — delivering full, detailed imagery over and over again before reducing the utility of the plate.
“Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists” — Marcel Proust
The process of creating etchings boils down to scraping in a design through a layer of wax on a metal plate and then submerging the plate in an appropriate acid to “bite” it wherever the wax has been removed.
Once the above has been done, all that’s left is to apply ink to the plate’s surface and press it against a soft piece of paper — transferring the design.
“Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.”
― Rembrandt
Etching proved an invaluable intermediary between the disciplines of drawing and engraving; an artist didn’t need to learn new skills too far-removed from the familiar techniques involved in drawing to create beautiful etchings.
Rembrandt’s early etchings rendered images with a noisy sort of busyness of lines.
As his technique matured, he came to incorporate drypoint techniques, among others, to achieve more stunning results.
One thing’s for sure, he loved etchings. He even had a sizeable collection of his own from a number of prominent artists of his time. Rembrandt the collector…
Read our article on the art of Carl Spitzweg…
By Jeff Mitchell Originally posted at: https://www.oddnugget.com/8-epic-etchings-by-rembrandt/
