etching summary

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see etching.

etching, Method of engraving in which lines or textures are bitten, or etched, into a metal plate, usually copper, with acid. The image produced has a spontaneity of line that comes from drawing on the plate in the same direct way as with pen or pencil on paper. The first etchings date from the early 16th century, but the basic principle had been used earlier for the decoration of armour. Among the pioneers of the medium were Albrecht Altdorfer, Albrecht Dürer, and Parmigianino; the greatest of all etchers was Rembrandt. In the 20th century, etching was especially popular for book illustration. See also aquatint; engraving.

Edward Gordon Craig Summary

Edward Gordon Craig was an English actor, theatre director-designer, producer, and theorist who influenced the development of the theatre in the 20th century. Craig was the second child of a liaison between the actress Ellen Terry and the architect Edward William Godwin. Like Edith (the other child

Canaletto: The Doges' Palace and Piazza San Marco, Venice

Canaletto Summary

Canaletto was an Italian topographical painter whose masterful expression of atmosphere in his detailed views (vedute) of Venice and London and of English country homes influenced succeeding generations of landscape artists. Canaletto was born into a noble family whose coat of arms he occasionally

Georges Rouault Summary

Georges Rouault was a French painter, printmaker, ceramicist, and maker of stained glass who, drawing inspiration from French medieval masters, united religious and secular traditions divorced since the Renaissance. Rouault was born in a cellar in Paris during a bombardment of the city by the

James McNeill Whistler Summary

James McNeill Whistler was an American-born artist noted for his paintings of nocturnal London, for his striking and stylistically advanced full-length portraits, and for his brilliant etchings and lithographs. An articulate theorist about art, he did much to introduce modern French painting into