Label Text:
Mezzotint is a variation of the drypoint technique. Its smooth tonal gradations and delicate textures are well suited to night views. After scoring the plate with a serrated tool (called a rocker) to create a dark tone when printed, the artist introduces light areas by scraping and burnishing the plate smooth. This process was valued in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a means to replicate oil paintings; nineteenth-century artists, in contrast, embraced the medium’s potential for original, “painterly” prints.
Frank Short was the period’s undisputed master of mezzotint, having interpreted British landscape paintings on copperplates in the 1880s, and later redefined the technique as an original art form. He was also known as a writer and teacher, serving as president of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and publishing instruction manuals on etching. The relatively few original prints that Short completed are revered for their delicacy. Moonrise, Ramsgate was drawn from life on a plate that Short prepared for on-site work. Scraper marks capture the silent approach of moonlit waves as distant boats hover on the horizon. Short capitalized on the portability of this small plate and the medium’s ability to capture fleeting effects.
KG, How He Was to His Talents exhibition, March 24, 2011-August 7, 2011
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1951.1988 |
