Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it. Wood engraving is a form of printing and is not covered in this article. Engraving was an important method of producing images on paper in artistic printmaking, in mapmaking. Other terms often used for printed engravings are copper engraving, copper-plate engraving or line engraving, hand engraving is a term sometimes used for engraving objects other than printing plates, to inscribe or decorate jewellery, trophies and other fine metal goods. Traditional engravings in printmaking are engraved, using just the same techniques to make the lines in the plate. Each graver is different and has its own use, engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin, or graver, to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate. Modern professional engravers can engrave with a resolution of up to 40 lines per mm in high grade work creating game scenes, dies used in mass production of molded parts are sometimes hand engraved to add special touches or certain information such as part numbers.
In addition to engraving, there are engraving machines that require less human finesse and are not directly controlled by hand. They are usually used for lettering, using a pantographic system, there are versions for the insides of rings and the outsides of larger pieces. Such machines are used for inscriptions on rings, lockets. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types, the burin produces a unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. The angle tint tool has a curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines incised into them, ring gravers are made with particular shapes that are used by jewelry engravers in order to cut inscriptions inside rings. Flat gravers are used for work on letters, as well as wriggle cuts on most musical instrument engraving work, remove background. Knife gravers are for line engraving and very deep cuts, round gravers, and flat gravers with a radius, are commonly used on silver to create bright cuts, as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel.
Square or V-point gravers are typically square or elongated diamond-shaped and used for cutting straight lines, V-point can be anywhere from 60 to 130 degrees, depending on purpose and effect. These gravers have very small cutting points, other tools such as mezzotint rockers and burnishers are used for texturing effects. Burnishing tools can be used for stone setting techniques
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. It was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, as well as the deadliest European religious war, resulting in eight million casualties. Initially a war between various Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire, it developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers. These states employed relatively large mercenary armies, and the war became less about religion, in the 17th century, religious beliefs and practices were a much larger influence on an average European than they are today. The war began when the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, tried to impose uniformity on his domains. The northern Protestant states, angered by the violation of their rights to choose that had granted in the Peace of Augsburg. Ferdinand II was a devout Roman Catholic and relatively intolerant when compared to his predecessor and his policies were considered strongly pro-Catholic.
They ousted the Habsburgs and elected Frederick V, Elector of the Rhenish Palatinate as their monarch, Frederick took the offer without the support of the union. The southern states, mainly Roman Catholic, were angered by this, led by Bavaria, these states formed the Catholic League to expel Frederick in support of the Emperor. The Empire soon crushed this rebellion in the Battle of White Mountain. After the atrocities committed in Bohemia, Saxony finally gave its support to the union, wishing to finally crush the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, intervened under the pretext of helping its dynastic Habsburg ally, Austria. No longer able to tolerate the encirclement of two major Habsburg powers on its borders, Catholic France entered the coalition on the side of the Protestants in order to counter the Habsburgs. Both mercenaries and soldiers in fighting armies traditionally looted or extorted tribute to get operating funds, the war bankrupted most of the combatant powers.
The Thirty Years War ended with the treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, the war altered the previous political order of European powers. Lutherans living in a prince-bishopric could continue to practice their faith, Lutherans could keep the territory they had taken from the Catholic Church since the Peace of Passau in 1552. Those prince-bishops who had converted to Lutheranism were required to give up their territories and this added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties. The Dutch revolted against Spanish domination during the 1560s, leading to a war of independence that led to a truce only in 1609. This dynastic concern overtook religious ones and led to Catholic Frances participation on the otherwise Protestant side of the war and Denmark-Norway were interested in gaining control over northern German states bordering the Baltic Sea
Duchy of Lorraine
The Duchy of Lorraine, originally Upper Lorraine, was a duchy now included in the larger present-day region of Lorraine in northeastern France. It was founded in 959 following the division of Lotharingia into two duchies and Lower Lorraine, the westernmost parts of the Holy Roman Empire. The Lower duchy was quickly dismantled, while Upper Lorraine came to be known as simply the Duchy of Lorraine, the Duchy of Lorraine was coveted and briefly occupied by the Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France. When Stanisław died on 23 February 1766, Lorraine was annexed by France, lorraines predecessor, was an independent Carolingian kingdom under the rule of King Lothair II. Its territory had originally been a part of Middle Francia, created in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun, Middle Francia was allotted to Emperor Lothair I, therefore called Lotharii Regnum. On his death in 855, it was divided into three parts, of which his son Lothair II took the northern one. His realm comprised a territory stretching from the County of Burgundy in the south to the North Sea.
In French, this became known as Lorraine, while in German. In the Alemannic language once spoken in Lorraine, the -ingen suffix signified a property, thus, in a figurative sense, stuck in the conflict with his rival Hugh the Great, in 942 King Louis IV of France renounced all claims to Lotharingia. In 953, the German king Otto I had appointed his brother Bruno the Great Duke of Lotharingia, in 959, Bruno divided the duchy into Upper and Lower Lorraine, this division became permanent following his death in 965. The Upper Duchy was further up the system, that is, it was inland. Upper Lorraine was first denominated as the Duchy of the Moselle, the usage of Lotharingia Superioris and Lorraine in official documents begins later, around the fifteenth century. The first duke and deputy of Bruno was Frederick I of Bar, Lower Lorraine disintegrated into several smaller territories and only the title of a Duke of Lothier remained, held by Brabant. After the duchy of the Moselle came into the possession of René of Anjou, the name Duchy of Lorraine was adopted again, only retrospectively called Upper Lorraine.
At that time, several territories had already split off, such as the County of Luxembourg, the Electorate of Trier, the County of Bar, the border between the Empire and the Kingdom of France remained relatively stable throughout the Middle Ages. In 1301, Count Henry III of Bar had to receive the part of his lands as a fief by King Philip IV of France. In 1475, the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold campaigned for the Duchy of Lorraine, in the 1552 Treaty of Chambord, a number of insurgent Protestant Imperial princes around Elector Maurice of Saxony ceded the Three Bishoprics to King Henry II of France in turn for his support. In the 17th century, the French kings began to covet Lorraine, while the central Imperial authority decayed in the course of the Thirty Years War, Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu urged the occupation of the duchy in 1641
Abraham Bosse
Abraham Bosse was a French artist, mainly as a printmaker in etching, but in watercolour. He was born to Huguenot parents in Tours, where his father had moved from Germany and his father was a tailor, and Bosses work always depicted clothes in loving detail. He married Catherine Sarrabat at Tours in 1632 and he remained a Huguenot, dying before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but was happy to illustrate religious subjects to Catholic taste. Roughly 1600 etchings are attributed to him, with including, daily life religion, history fashion, technology. Most of his output was illustrations for books, but many were sold separately. His style grows from Dutch and Flemish art, but is given a strongly French flavour, many of his images give informative detail about middle and upper-class daily life in the period, although they must be treated with care as historical evidence. Most of his images are perhaps best regarded as rather than art. He was apprenticed in Paris about 1620 to the Antwerp-born engraver Melchior Tavernier and his first etchings date to 1622, and are influenced by Jacques Bellange.
He took Callots highly detailed small images to a size. Like most etchers, he used engraving on a plate in addition to etching. In 1641 he began to attend classes given by the architect Girard Desargues on perspective, Bosse not only adopted these methods but published a series of works between 1643–1653 explaining and promoting them. In 1648, when Cardinal Mazarin established the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, in 1661 Bosse was forced to withdraw from the Academy, he established his own school as an alternative. Des Argues Lyonnois pour poser lessieu & placer les heures & autres choses aux cadrans au Soleil, printed by P. de Hayes, manière universelle de M. des Argues pour pratiquer la perspective par petit-pied comme le géométral. — Manual on perspective Moyen universel de la perspective sur les tableaux ou surfaces irrégulières. The famous frontispiece for Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes was created with input from Hobbes, ISBN 2-7177-2283-1 Dhombres, Sakharovitch — Desargues en son temps, libr.
Albert Blanchard, Paris Jean-Claude Vuillemin, “Abraham Bosse, ” in L. Foisneau, dictionary of Seventeenth-Century French Philosophers,2 vols. London and New York, Thoemmes Continuum,2008, GUERRIAUD, M. Abraham Bosse et la gravure du doyen. Revue d’Histoire de la Pharmacie,2013, p. 289-301, dossier on Abraham Bosse by the French ministry of culture
Nobility
The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary, and vary from country to country and era to era. There is often a variety of ranks within the noble class. g, san Marino and the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles often distinguish nobles from non-nobles, although in many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil. The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the noun of the adjective nobilis. In modern usage, nobility is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies and it rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. Nobility is a historical and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income. Being wealthy or influential cannot, ipso facto, make one noble, various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens.
Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se, usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small and it included infrastructure such as castle and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live nobly, that is, from the proceeds of these possessions, work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. In some countries, the lord could impose restrictions on such a commoners movements. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting, in France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. In some parts of Europe the right of war long remained the privilege of every noble. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank.
By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised, in France, a seigneurie might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a nobles prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged, if erected by the crown into, e. g. a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled, in other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. Nobility might be inherited or conferred by a fons honorum
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Each print produced is not considered a copy but rather is considered an original, a print may be known as an impression. Printmaking is not chosen only for its ability to multiple impressions. Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix or through a screen to a sheet of paper or other material. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screenprinting process, other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below. Multiple impressions printed from the matrix form an edition. Prints may be printed in book form, such as illustrated books or artists books, Printmaking techniques are generally divided into the following basic categories, where ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix.
Relief techniques include woodcut or woodblock as the Asian forms are known, wood engraving. Intaglio, where ink is applied beneath the surface of the matrix. Intaglio techniques include engraving, mezzotint, planographic, where the matrix retains its original surface, but is specially prepared and/or inked to allow for the transfer of the image. Planographic techniques include lithography and digital techniques, where ink or paint is pressed through a prepared screen, including screenprinting and pochoir. Other types of printmaking techniques outside these groups include collagraphy and viscosity printing, collagraphy is a printmaking technique in which textured material is adhered to the printing matrix. This texture is transferred to the paper during the printing process, Contemporary printmaking may include digital printing, photographic mediums, or a combination of digital and traditional processes. Many of these techniques can be combined, especially within the same family, for example, Rembrandts prints are usually referred to as etchings for convenience, but very often include work in engraving and drypoint as well, and sometimes have no etching at all.
Woodcut, a type of print, is the earliest printmaking technique. It was probably first developed as a means of printing patterns on cloth, woodcuts of images on paper developed around 1400 in Japan, and slightly in Europe. These are the two areas where woodcut has been most extensively used purely as a process for making images without text, the artist draws a design on a plank of wood, or on paper which is transferred to the wood
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch draughtsman and printmaker. A prolific and versatile master across three media, he is considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. Having achieved youthful success as a painter, Rembrandts years were marked by personal tragedy. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, Rembrandts portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his greatest creative triumphs. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and his reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime, and never questioned since. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic whilst he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called one of the great prophets of civilization.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic and he was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do, his father was a miller, religion is a central theme in Rembrandts paintings and the religiously fraught period in which he lived makes his faith a matter of interest. His mother was Roman Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, unlike many of his contemporaries who traveled to Italy as part of their artistic training, Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime. He opened a studio in Leiden in 1624 or 1625, which he shared with friend, in 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou in 1628. In 1629, Rembrandt was discovered by the statesman Constantijn Huygens, as a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, Saskia came from a good family, her father had been a lawyer and the burgemeester of Leeuwarden.
When Saskia, as the youngest daughter, became an orphan and Saskia were married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandts relatives. In the same year, Rembrandt became a burgess of Amsterdam and he acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck. In 1635 Rembrandt and Saskia moved into their own house, renting in fashionable Nieuwe Doelenstraat, in 1639 they moved to a prominent newly built house in the upscale Breestraat, today known as Jodenbreestraat in what was becoming the Jewish quarter, a young upcoming neighborhood. The mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a cause for financial difficulties. Rembrandt should easily have been able to pay the house off with his income, but it appears his spending always kept pace with his income. It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his Jewish neighbors to model for his Old Testament scenes, in 1640, they had a second daughter, named Cornelia, who died after living barely over a month
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his career was a commentator. Immensely successful in his lifetime, Goya is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns and he was one of the great portraitists of modern times. He was born to a modest family in 1746 in the village of Fuendetodos in Aragon and he studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773, the couples life together was characterised by an almost constant series of pregnancies and miscarriages, Goya was a guarded man and although letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts. He suffered a severe and undiagnosed illness in 1793 which left him completely deaf, after 1793 his work became progressively darker and more pessimistic. His easel and mural paintings and drawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal and political levels and he was appointed Director of the Royal Academy in 1795, the year Manuel Godoy made an unfavorable treaty with France.
In 1799 Goya became Primer Pintor de Cámara, the then-highest rank for a Spanish court painter, in the late 1790s, commissioned by Godoy, he completed his La maja desnuda, a remarkably daring nude for the time and clearly indebted to Diego Velázquez. In 1801 he painted Charles IV of Spain and His Family, in 1807 Napoleon led the French army into Spain. Goya remained in Madrid during the Peninsular War, which seems to have affected him deeply. Although he did not vocalise his thoughts in public, they can be inferred from his Disasters of War series of prints and his 1814 paintings The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808. Goya eventually abandoned Spain in 1824 to retire to the French city of Bordeaux, accompanied by his much younger maid and companion, Leocadia Weiss, there he completed his La Tauromaquia series and a number of other, canvases. Following a stroke left him paralyzed on his right side. His body was re-interred in Spain, Francisco Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Aragón, Spain, on 30 March 1746 to José Benito de Goya y Franque and Gracia de Lucientes y Salvador.
The family had moved that year from the city of Zaragoza, José was the son of a notary and of Basque origin, his ancestors being from Zerain, earning his living as a gilder, specialising in religious and decorative craftwork. He oversaw the gilding and most of the ornamentation during the rebuilding of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, Francisco was their fourth child, following his sister Rita, brother Tomás and second sister Jacinta. There were two sons and Camilo. His mothers family had pretensions of nobility and the house, a modest brick cottage, was owned by her family and, perhaps fancifully, about 1749 José and Gracia bought a home in Zaragoza and were able to return to live in the city
Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dellarte translates to theatre of the professional and is known as the first form of professional theatre. Commedia dellarte is considered commedia alla maschera, commedia improvviso, a commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised. Characters entrances and exits are scripted, a special characteristic of commedia dellarte are the lazzi. A lazzo is a joke or something foolish or witty, another characteristic of commedia dellarte is pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino. The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types, stock characters, such as old men, devious servants. The main categories of characters include servants, old men, lovers. The characters are exaggerated real characters, such as a know it all doctor called Il Dottore, many troupes were formed to perform commedia dellarte, including I Gelosi, Confidenti Troupe, Desioi Troupe, and Fedeli Troupe. Commedia dellarte was often performed outside on platforms or in areas such as a piazza.
The form of theatre originated in Italy, but travelled throughout Europe, the commedia genesis may be related to carnival in Venice, where by 1570 the author/actor Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico, the precursor to the vecchio Pantalone. In the Flaminio Scala scenario for example, Il Magnifico persists and is interchangeable with Pantalone, while Calmos characters were not masked, it is uncertain at what point the characters donned the mask. However, the connection to carnival would suggest that masking was a convention of carnival and was applied at some point, the tradition in Northern Italy is centered in Mantua and Venice, where the major companies came under the aegis of the various dukes. Concomitantly, a Neapolitan tradition emerged in the south and featured the prominent stage figure Pulcinella, Pulcinella has been long associated with Naples, and derived into various types elsewhere—the most famous as the puppet character Punch in England. Although commedia dellarte flourished in Italy during the Mannerist period, there has been a tradition of trying to establish historical antecedents in antiquity.
While we can detect formal similarities between the commedia dellarte and earlier theatrical traditions, there is no way to establish certainty of origin, some date the origins to the period of the Roman Republic or the Empire. The Atellan Farces of the Roman Empire featured crude types wearing masks with grossly exaggerated features, some historians argue that Atellan stock characters, Maccus+Buccus, and Manducus, are the primitive versions of the Commedia characters Pantalone, and il Capitano. More recent accounts establish links to the medieval jongleurs, and prototypes from medieval moralities, the first recorded commedia dellarte performances came from Rome as early as 1551. This view may be somewhat romanticized since records describe the Gelosi performing Tassos Aminta, for example, by the mid-16th century, specific troupes of commedia performers began to coalesce, and by 1568 the Gelosi became a distinct company. In keeping with the tradition of the Italian Academies, I Gelosi adapted as their impress the two-faced Roman god Janus, Janus symbolized both the comings and goings of this traveling troupe, and the dual nature of the actor who impersonates the other
Antonio Tempesta
Antonio Tempesta was an Italian painter and engraver, whose art acted as a point of connection between Baroque Rome and the culture of Antwerp. He was born and trained in Florence and painted in a variety of styles and he enrolled in the Florentine Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1576. He was a pupil of Santi di Tito, of the Flemish painter Joannes Stradanus and he was part of the large team of artists working under Giorgio Vasari on the interior decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. His favourite subjects were battles and processions and he relocated to Rome, where he associated with artists from the Habsburg Netherlands, which may have led to his facility with landscape painting. Among his followers was Marzio di Colantonio and he completed frescoes in the Palazzina Gambara at the Villa Lante in Bagnaia. From 1579–83, Tempesta participated in the decoration of the Villa Farnese in Caprarola and he is known to have collaborated on frescoes in the Villa dEste at Tivoli and the Palazzina Gamara at Villa Lante, Bagnaia.
He painted a series of turbulent and crowded battle scenes for the Medici and he completed a series of engravings on outdoor courtly hunting scenes. Tempesta painted frescoes for the Palazzos Colonna, the Doria Pamphilj, and for the Marchese Giustiniani in his Roman palace, where Tempesta collaborated with Paul Bril and he painted a Massacre of the Innocents for the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome. Tempesta is now best known as a printmaker in etching and engraving, the series consists of 36 numbered engraved plates and illustrates the armed struggle between the ancient Dutch tribes and their Roman oppressors as narrated in Tacitus Histories. Each plate bears at the bottom an engraved legend in Flemish, anno 1611, shows Roma and Batavia in battle dress with respective scenic backgrounds, symbolizing the two nations. Fifteen other plates bear Tempestas monogramme, the plates depict heroic events and battle scenes. This historicist work was popular in its time. Tempesta drew designs for tapestries.
Text from Karel van Manders Schilderboeck, p.1593. in platte forme, en int groote, brief bio of Tempesta from Web Gallery of Art Grove Art Dictionary Eckhard Leuschner, Antonio Tempesta. Ein Bahnbrecher des roemischen Barock und seine europaeische Wirkung, Petersberg 2005, walter Armstrong & Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers and Critical, york St. #4, Covent Garden, Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18,2007, George Bell and Sons
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). 
