On Thursday, April 12th at 3 PM, Louis Mézin, the director of the museums of Nice and chief curator of the Villa Masséna, will present a conference on the theme “Engraving in the West: Rembrandt, Dürer, Delacroix.”
The objective of this conference is to introduce the main engraving techniques and the artists who, throughout the ages, have made a mark on the history of printmaking in the West.
In the West, engraving is an expressive medium equal to that of painting. It has experienced considerable success over the centuries, with numerous artists dedicating themselves to this art, which requires mastered technique and a pronounced taste for drawing, as demonstrated by Dürer, Rembrandt, and later Delacroix.
Wood engraving was first used in the time of Gutenberg to accompany newly printed texts, with each letter engraved on a wooden block. Then, copper became a support and an engraved plate; this is known as intaglio or copperplate engraving. This technique encompasses both engraving with a burin and etching.
It is in one of these two techniques that the great engravers of the Renaissance and the classical age distinguished themselves: Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, and Lucas Cranach for Northern Europe; Andrea Mantegna and Marcantonio Raimondi for Italy; Jacques Callot and Abraham Bosse for France.
In the modern era, painters of the Barbizon School and the Impressionists increasingly used etching and drypoint, a freer technique that allows for more spontaneous expression, as shown in the engravings of Manet or Corot and later of Matisse and Picasso.
It was at the beginning of the 19th century that lithography appeared, a technique embraced by Romantic artists and caricaturists such as Daumier and Granville, and later by numerous artists of the 20th century.
