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Processes and Schools of Engraving. 



COLOUR-PEINTS. 



There are two methods of colour-printing — 



I. From ihe single plate. 

 II. From various plates, blocJcs, or stones. 



I. The first method (chiefly confined to intaglio prints) practically 

 implies the painting of the plate between each printing, rag-stumps 

 (' dollies ' or poupees) being used to fill the lines with the different 

 colours. It was used to a certain extent by XVIIth century line- engravers 

 (e.g. by Joannes Teyler), but it was far more generally adopted by the 

 stipple-engravers, and, though less often, by the mezzotint -engravers. 



II. The second process, the use of several plates, blocks, or stones, is 

 more truly a printer's method, as once given the proper tint for each 

 printing, the printer should be able to repeat the impression without the 

 direct intervention of the artist. Whether the printer be a professional 

 printer, or the artist himself, it would in either case be possible to obtain 

 greater uniformitj^ in the effect of different impressions, than by the single 

 plate method. 



We have already described its use in relation to wood-blocks (woodcut 

 section, p. 13). The greatest care is needed to secure the exact register 

 of the different blocks or plates by means of marking the points which 

 correspond in the corners of each plate. Pin-holes in the corners of a 

 colour impression, or rather round marks printed from the holes, are 

 indications of the method of obtaining the perfect register. This method 

 of printing from several blocks, plates, or stones, is largely used in 

 woodcuts, crayon- and pastel- engravings, and lithography. Also to a 

 certain extent by etchers. 



A special process by which the three cardinal colours were combined 

 in the impression to render the complete gamut of colour has also been 

 used in mezzotint (first by J. C. Le Blon). The three-colour' pi^ocess 

 depended on Newton's theory that the whole range of colours is composed 

 of the three cardinal colours, hlue, yellow and red. The idea of the colour- 

 printer is to analyse his subjects into these three colours, and obtain 

 the combined effect by printing from plates in each colour. But even 

 granting the scientific truth of the theory, J. C. Le Blon and his imitators 

 seldom secured satisfactory results, and often helped out defects in the 

 working of the theory by the use of a fourth plate (with black, or dark grey 

 ink). The impurity of pigments, and impossibility of attaining the true 

 colours, into which a colour subject might be scientifically analysed, is 

 enough to explain the imperfection of results. 



