ENGRAVING

Engraving is the art of carving designs into wood, stone, or metal for decoration and the reproduction of images, covering a wide variety of themes. The first attempt at engraving was on wood and was invented by the Chinese in the 10th century. In Europe, manuscript decorators of the Middle Ages, often for religious books, applied this technique to print decorative elements on paper surfaces, adding colors and shadows by hand.

Johann Gutenberg from Mainz (Mainz) conceived of using this method for engraving letters in the 15th century. He went to Strasbourg, where he experimented with wooden and metal letters. He died impoverished in 1468, but the development of typography, combined with image engraving on various subjects, as well as maps, advanced rapidly. The Renaissance fostered this invention because knowledge had gained recognition as a social value. The widespread dissemination of knowledge became possible with the mass production of books with illustrations.

Of course, priority at that time was given to printing the Bible, Latin grammar books, and geographical atlases with maps, as there was enormous interest not only in travels to known lands but also in exploration and discovery of new ones. Additionally, there was competition among powerful states of the era for control over these new lands. Consequently, maps became tools for managing vast territories concerning their organization, administration, and, naturally, exploitation.

At the end of the 18th century, Alois Senefelder in Munich invented lithography as an engraving method and perfected it in 1797. The dissemination of this technique became widespread in the early 19th century. Around the same time, in the early 19th century, Jacob Perkins refined the method of steel engraving, allowing for the mass production of copies due to the hardness of this metal.

Thus, we see that engraving, with its enormous impact on mass book printing, also had cultural extensions, raising the knowledge, aesthetic, and social level of the public through these printed works. We all know that renowned engravers advanced the mass production of printed visual artworks, maps, and depictions of cities, events, personalities, and religious themes.

Apart from chromolithography, a branch of lithography that produced multicolored prints, the other older methods were monochromatic, i.e., black and white.

For this reason, many artists of the time and professional painters took on the task of coloring the engravings. Many engraving enthusiasts appreciate these older, successful colorings. Others prefer to enjoy the works as they came out of the press. It’s a matter of personal preference for collectors, as is the choice of particular engravers by each art lover or collector.