Intaglio (printmaking)

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For other uses, see Intaglio.

Intaglio (pronounced in-TAL-yo, IPA: [ɪn'tælɪəʊ]) is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, known as the matrix or plate. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or mezzotint. Collographs may also be printed as intaglio plates. To print an intaglio plate the surface is covered in thick ink and then rubbed with tarlatan cloth to remove most of the excess. The final smooth wipe is usually done by hand, sometimes with the aid of newspaper, leaving ink only in the incisions. A damp piece of paper is placed on top and the plate and paper are run through a printing press that, through pressure, transfers the ink from the recesses of the plate to the paper.

Etching is also an intaglio process, differing from engraving in that the lines are eaten into the plate by the action of an acid instead of being gouged with a tool. The printing process is as described above.

Normally intaglio techniques can be combined on a plate, and this was in fact extremely common. For example Rembrandt's prints are referred to as "etchings" for convenience, but very often they have engraving and drypoint work as well, and sometimes no actual etching at all.

Apart from Intaglio, the other traditional families, or groups of printmaking techniques are:

- relief prints, including woodcut, where the matrix is cut away to leave the image-making part on the original surface. The matrix is then just inked and printed; not wiped as described above,

- planographic, including lithography, where the image rests on the surface of the matrix, which can therefore often be re-used.

Other families have developed, especially in the twentieth century - see printmaking.

[edit] Brief History

See Old master print for the history of engraving to 1830,

See also Line engraving, mostly on nineteenth-century engraving,

Intaglio engraving, as a method of making prints, was invented in Germany by the 1430's, well after the woodcut print. Engraving had been used by goldsmiths to decorate metalwork, including armour, musical instruments and religious objects since ancient times, and the niello technique, which involved rubbing an alloy into the lines to give a contrasting colour, also goes back to late antiquity. It has been suggested that goldsmiths began to print impressions of their work to record the design, and that printmaking developed from that.

Martin Schongauer was one of the earliest known artists to exploit the copper-engraving technique, and Albrecht Dürer is one of the most famous intaglio artists. Italian and Netherlandish engraving began slightly after the Germans, but were well developed by 1500. Drypoint and etching were also German inventions of the fifteenth century, probably by the Housebook Master and Daniel Hopfer respectively. The golden age of artists engraving was 1450-1550, after which the technique lost ground to etching as a medium for artists, although engravings conttinued to be produced in huge numbers until after the invention of photography. Today intaglio engraving is largely used for banknotes, passports and occasionally for high-value postage stamps.