Black manner

The black manner , or mezzotint , is a process of Gravure.

The process

One uniformly obtains initially a black surface by granulating the plate small holes, using a tool.

Most of the time, it is about a cradle, a half-cylinder fixed on a handle and roughcast tiny points. A rocking movement of the handle makes it possible to start metal and uniform systematically. The small cavities bored by the teeth of the cradle, raised of a beard, retain the Encre and give a velvety black to the impression.

Then, by scraping the barbs with a scraper and by polishing the rough grain of surface with a burnisher, the engraver gradually fades the zones of the drawing which will retain ink more or less and will give the white and the tonalities of gray.

Invented in 1642 by an engraver German amateur, Ludwig von Siegen, the black manner is sails particularly about it in the last third of the 17th century and the first third of the 18th century. She is appreciated for the transposition and the diffusion of the painted portraits, like those of Antoine Van Dyck. Its velvety blacks and its gray major are capable to restore the subtle color of its tables and to translate the fine observation that this one grants to textures like with the plays of the light on surfaces.

The limits of this technique, in spite of the large variety which it offers, quickly make it pass from mode. The sifting of the plate is particularly tiresome (approximately an hour to prepare a surface equivalent to one that of a stamp posts). The handling of the scrapers and the burnishers are delicate and require a long drive. Throughout the 18th century, the alternatives of the Etching, like the Engraving of manner of washing, then the Aquatinte, gradually replace the black manner, which is forsaken little by little.

One can carry out a black manner in Lithographie by scraping and washing of acid on black bottom. This term can also indicate all Dessin which proceeds by method of deleting.

Engravings of black manner

See too

External bonds

Enlargement of an engraving of black manner (935 PPP)
Technical and tools of the black manner with illustrations

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