Toward the end of the century, a strong Italian influence invaded Holland. Since the earthiness of the Dutch temperament did not mix well with the Italian tendency toward idealization, the result was an eclecticism that drained Dutch art of much of its vitality. Japanese ukiyo-e prints
Until the 17th century, Japanese painting was completely dominated by Chinese influence. The Japanese silk paintings and screens of idealized landscapes were hardly distinguishable from their Chinese counterparts. Then, in the early 17th century, an artist of aristocratic origin, Iwasa Matabei, started to paint images related to his environment and personal experience. Although this era of Japanese art history is rather obscure, he is credited with being one of the founders (along with Iwasa Matabei II and Iwasa Matabei of Otsu) of ukiyo-e, whose woodcuts of the “floating world” or the world of everyday life represented a drastic break with the classical tradition. Of the three artists Matabei of Otsu was the most original and had the strongest influence on the development of Japanese printmaking. By standards of Western taste, the images the ukiyo-e school produced are highly stylized and thoroughly refined. Cultured Japanese, however, found them shockingly vulgar. The very fact that ordinary landscapes and the daily life of common people, actors, and courtesans were the inspiration for the ukiyo-e artist represented a startling departure from tradition. Just as the emerging middle class revolutionized taste in Europe, the prosperous city dwellers of Edo, Kyōto, and Ōsaka developed their own aesthetic subculture. The development of the popular Kabuki theatre, as distinct from the aristocratic Noh drama, parallels the blossoming of Japanese printmaking.
The first great master of Japanese printmaking was Hishikawa Moronobu. A creative innovator, he was the first to use street scenes, peddlers, and crowds as his subject matter and to make his prints available to the common people. As a result, he was looked upon by many as the inventor of printmaking. He illustrated more than 100 books, mirroring the culture and customs of his time. Moronobu’s style was a perfect harmony of rhythm, delicacy, and monumental simplicity, leading the way toward the great flowering of Japanese printmaking in the 18th century. Printmaking in the 18th century Italy
In the 18th century, Italy was the most fertile soil in Europe for printmaking. The first outstanding printmaker of the century was the Rococo master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. His lightly bitten, spontaneous plates reveal superb draftsmanship. With rhythmic, delicate textures, he created a living, luminous space. His 50 plates represent a major contribution to the development of etching—a contribution that was further enhanced by his influence on Goya (see below Spain). Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, the son of Battista, produced a greater quantity of prints than did his father but remained under his influence all his life.
One of the most original printmakers of the period, Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) created lyrical etchings that were charged with the misty atmosphere of Venice. Inexhaustible in linear and textural invention, they are perfect examples of the simulation of colour and light by purely graphic means. His nephew and pupil, Bernardo Bellotto (Canaletto), who assumed his name, was a prolific printmaker, but, again, he remained under his uncle’s influence.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi was the greatest architectural printmaker of his time and probably of all time. Trained as an architect, he was passionately interested in Roman antiquities. Of the approximately 3,000 large etchings completed by Piranesi, all are brilliant, and many rise above documentation. His most important work is the series Imaginary Prisons (Carceri d’invenzione). The plates, which were made in his youth (published c. 1750 and a second edition in 1761), are personal, rich, and evocative, far surpassing anything he created after them.
The Grand Piazza, etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, published 1749/50; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., W.G. Russell Allen, Alisa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, and Pepita Milmore Funds, 1976.35.3
England
Until the 18th century, English printmaking was dominated by foreign influences. William Hogarth, the first major English printmaker, created not only a personal style but a national school. He was a gifted pictorial satirist, belonging in some respects to the tradition of Callot and Goya. He is, however, more earthy than Callot and lacks the savagery of Goya. Hogarth was a printmaker of the people, whose work was so popular that to protect it from imitators he instigated the first engraving copyright act of 1735. Although his drawing was rather pedestrian, Hogarth’s prints reveal a sharp observation, projected with robust vitality.
The Cockpit, engraving by William Hogarth, 1759. 31.7 × 38.4 cm.Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum, New York, bequest of Samuel E. Hasle
Next to Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson is the most significant representative of English satire. A brilliant draftsman and a deft caricaturist, he spoofed the moral and social life of England with great humour.
William Blake is by far the most interesting figure in English printmaking. Poet and experimental printmaker, he was a visionary, creating his works totally outside the mainstream of art history. His printed work consisted primarily of book illustrations. Original and inventive in technique, he used a great range of media, from wood and metal engraving to relief etching. In the latter he devised a transfer method that enabled him to etch the text and the illustration on the same plate. Many of his prints were hand coloured, but he also printed colour by an offset method of his own invention.
The poem “The Lamb” from an edition of William Blake's Songs of Innocence.Photos.com/Jupiterimages
Thomas Bewick was a provincial illustrator who made a great number of charming wood engravings, primarily of animals and rural genre scenes. He was a pioneer in the technique of wood engraving, introducing tonal variations by slightly varying the level of his blocks.
The Tawny Owl, wood engraving by Thomas Bewick, from his History of British Birds, 1797–1804. Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.
To reproduce the fashionable paintings of the day, commercial engravers perfected a whole arsenal of reproduction techniques, such as mezzotint, stipple engraving and etching, and crayon manner. Spain
Spanish printmaking in the 17th century had been dominated by Flemish and French influences, and no printmaker of importance emerged during the period.
In the 18th-century artist Francisco de Goya, Spain had not only its first truly great printmaker but also the only printmaker whose etchings rival Rembrandt’s. Moreover, he is the most eminent satirist printmaking has produced. His visual comments on human folly, war, and religious persecution are devastating.
Goya created four major cycles of prints. The first, Los caprichos (published 1799; “Caprices,” or “Follies”), consists of 80 enigmatic prints commenting on all phases of life. In 1810 he began the 82 plates of The Disasters of War, a strong visual protest against the brutality of war. After this came La tauromaquia (1815–16), a brilliant series on the art of bullfighting. The last important series was Los disparates (“Absurdities”), or Proverbios (c. 1816–24; 22 prints), a biting, though often humorous, interpretation of human folly.