Project Gutenberg's Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example, by Peter Morse

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Title: Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example

Author: Peter Morse

Release Date: August 31, 2008 [EBook #26496]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMBRANDT'S ETCHING TECHNIQUE ***

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+Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology:
Paper 61+

+Rembrandt's Etching Technique:
An Example+

_Peter Morse_

[Illustration: FIGURE 1

_Landscape with a hay barn and a flock of sheep._ Etching by Rembrandt,
shown in original size.]

_By Peter Morse_

_Rembrandt's Etching Technique:
An Example_

_A Rembrandt print in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution has
been made the subject of a study of the artist's etching technique. The
author is associate curator, division of graphic arts, in the
Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology._

All footnotes appear at the end of this paper.

Rembrandt's print, _Landscape with a hay barn and a flock of sheep_,[1]
is a singularly apt example of the variety of etching treatment used by
the artist in his mature period.[2] The print, in black ink, 83 x 174
mm. in size (approximately 3-1/2 x 7 inches), is signed and dated
1650.[3] It shows a peaceful Dutch landscape along the Onderdijk Road on
the south side of the Saint Anthony's Dike, only a short walk from
Rembrandt's home in Amsterdam. The picture is, as usual, the mirror
reversal of the actual scene.[4]

The observer's attention, from his raised position, is first drawn to
the center of the print, attracted by the bright highlights on the trees
and barn, then is snapped abruptly to the left side by the figure of the
woman outlined against the sky. Now the eye moves slowly across the
bottom, noticing the flock of sheep and the shepherd, and is led further
by the soft dark line of the creek bank, to pick up the distant town and
then the cows on the right. Only after completely circling the
composition does one notice the horse, rolling in the grass and joyfu