Prints of Darkness: The Art of Aquatint

In the 1890s, fortified by symbolist literature, artists searched for imagery to express the workings of the mind —or what painter and designer Victor Prouvé called “inner commotion.” Fin-de-siècle research into the unconscious and suggestibility, in fact, was being pioneered in Prouvé’s hometown of Nancy. Using a sickly green shade of aquatint, he evoked anxiety by picturing a menacing dream state in which raptors engage in beak-to-beak combat and buzzards await their next meal. In the foreground, two human figures can be detected floating in the miasma.

Oiseaux de proie (Birds of Prey)

A 1762 advertisement in a Paris paper announced, “Monsieurs Charpentier and Floding, authors of a new manner of engraving which imitates wash perfectly, are releasing six prints in this taste.” Perseus and Andromeda was among the first aquatints they published. It reproduces a drawing by Carle Vanloo, First Painter to the King (Premier Peintre du Roi). To make his aquatints, Charpentier reportedly built a special machine that was largely funded by a Swedish drawing collector, Count Carl Gustav Tessin.

Perseus and Andromeda

Paul Sandby’s print could easily be confused for a drawing. The artist, one of the first to use the term “aquatint,” published his first series of aquatint etchings in 1775. They are based on a series of landscape watercolors Sandby did in Wales, with the aquatint imitating the artist’s celebrated subtle wash transitions. Here he even mimics the watercolor mounts used for old master drawings, adding a tinted aquatint frame around the image.

Saint Quintins Castle near Cowbridge in Glamorgan Shire

The German painter, sculptor, and printmaker Max Klinger created dream worlds filled with dark, evocative symbolism. Eve and the Future, a strange cycle of etchings, treats the biblical subject of the Fall by envisioning three future consequences of Eve’s sin. The Second Future represents the time after Eve has taken the forbidden fruit and discovered her nakedness—and, in Klinger’s view, her sexuality. Here Klinger gives us a satyrlike creature holding a spear atop a primordial snake swimming in a wasteland. Is there any distance between this predatory, prehistoric human and animals' It is truly a fall from grace. Aquatint enables Klinger to achieve an otherworldly, almost hallucinatory atmosphere for his fantastical creatures.

Zweite Zukunft

A tour de force, this aquatint was made from two plates, one printed in brown ink, the other in a yellow-ochre base color which was then touched with gold leaf. Husband and wife printmakers Johann and Maria Catharina Prestel were virtuosos of the aquatint medium. They specialized in reproducing old master drawings, publishing three private collections before their bankruptcy and divorce. Maria Catharina subsequently moved with their four children to London, where her printmaking career flourished. Although Johann’s signature appears on this print, scholars have recently attributed it to Maria Catharina.

Triumph of Truth over Envy

Collectors could not get enough of old master drawings. Here Maria Catharina Prestel reproduced an Italian Baroque drawing housed in a private collection in Hamburg that is now in Vienna’s Albertina museum. The drawing was executed in pen and ink with white highlights on blue paper. To recreate the effect of the white heightening, Prestel applied stopping out varnish to the plate in certain areas, preventing the acid from biting these passages. When the plate was printed, ink would not adhere to those areas, allowing the white of the paper to show through as highlights.

Monks Celebrating High Mass

La drague de Dieppe

After Velasquez. Probably included with bound set of Caprichos in MIA collection.

Francisco Goya is one of the most celebrated and innovative masters of aquatint in the history of art, but his early experiments with the novel technique were relatively modest. His first attempts, in 1778, reproduced paintings by Velázquez in the Spanish royal collection. To mimic the pictorial effects of the paintings, Goya tried adding aquatint to a few of his completed etchings—in some cases disfiguring and destroying the work in the process. Here he was somewhat successful. To clarify the composition, he burnished some aquatint passages in the sky to lighten the overwhelming blackness of the image.

Infante Don Fernando

Two women are represented fighting for their lives in this scene from Goya’s "Disasters of War." One stabs a fallen soldier, the other is ferociously wrestled to the ground. Goya boldly employed a coarsely granulated aquatint on this plate, which sets the violent scene in a dystopian moonscape, a world obscured by an explosive pattern of tone and light.

The Women Give Courage

In 1808, Napoleon’s armies invaded Spain, ending the monarchy of Charles IV. Napoleon installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne, and the Madrid citizens revolted.  Bloodshed, murder, rape, mass executions, and famine followed. The Disasters of War is Goya’s account of the travesties of war. Unlike artists in centuries past, Goya did not heroize the actors of warfare. Instead his series provided an eyewitness account of the unspeakable atrocities enacted in Spain’s struggle for independence. Here, in front of an audience of foreign soldiers, a Spanish civilian is bound to a tree and shot in the back.

Barbarians!

In this famous nightmarish scene, a childlike giant dances toward two smaller figures, a frightened man hiding behind a taller female figure. Clicking his castanets, the colossus smiles with spine-chilling delight as two shrieking demons emerge from the darkness behind him. Goya highlighted the figure’s demonic smile, large chest, and castanets by using stopping-out varnish to prevent the acid from biting these passages so that they appear white against the richly aquatinted plate. In a preparatory drawing, the small, frightened man is depicted as a monk or priest hiding behind what might be an image of the Virgin Mary. Goya altered this detail in the print to create more ambiguity.

Bobalicón (Simpleton)

The evocative "Los Proverbios," originally called "Disparates," was executed near the end of Goya’s life and never published by the artist. Shrouded in aquatinted darkness, the images are enigmatic, dreamlike, and haunting, and resist easy explanation. The title Disparates, which can be loosely translated as “folly” or “absurdity,” is based on captions written by Goya on some early working proofs.

This disturbing image of a woman abducted by a horse was untitled at Goya’s death. When the series was published posthumously by the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, it acquired the new name Los Proverbios and attempts were made to link the images to traditional Spanish proverbs. One scholar associated this print with the Spanish proverb “A woman and a horse, let someone else master them” (La mujer y el potro, que los dome otro).

Unbridled Folly

Picasso drew this composition swiftly on the copper plate, using a brush dipped in acid and a plate coated with powdered resin. He treated the subject of the artist and model frequently. Here the artist is shown at an easel seated between two nude figures, a bearded man, who is his model, and a young woman who watches. 

This print was the result of a felicitous association with the Crommelynck brothers, Aldo and Piero. In 1961, at age 80, Picasso moved with his new wife, Jacqueline Roque, to Mougins, in southern France. The Crommelyncks, master printers Picasso had worked with in Paris, followed with the express purpose of collaborating with the artist. What ensued was a productive and highly innovative period of printmaking, resulting in some 500 prints.

Painter at Work with a Bearded Model and a Seated Spectator

Cornelis Ploos van Amstel was a successful timber merchant who also achieved acclaim as an amateur draftsman and printmaker. He developed an aquatint technique in 1760s Amsterdam that convincingly imitated the look of old master drawings. Ploos employed a number of printmakers to produce “printed drawings,” which were published in large editions that sold for far less than drawings. This example, representing four botanists and a gardener examining specimens, copies a study by Rembrandt’s pupil Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, and was among the 7,000 sheets in Ploos’s drawing collection.

The Botanist

This album of prints, comprising 137 etchings and aquatints by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince looks just like an album of drawings. Le Prince’s aquatint technique was unrivaled in his day. To mimic wash drawing so convincingly, he used a very fine aquatint dust grain and found a unique way of applying it to the copper plate to maximize his range of tone. After etching the composition, he applied a second ground to the copper plate. Then as though applying wash, he brushed on a special solvent—made of olive oil, turpentine, and lampblack ink—to the areas he wanted tone, exposing those passages of the plate. Next he would apply a sugar solution to the bare areas. When he applied the powdered resin and heated the plate, the resin would fuse to the sugared areas, creating a porous surface.

Head of a Young Woman in a Headdress, Leaning Left

Head of a Bearded Man, Leaning Back

The Wagon Driver and the Milkmaid

binding: mottled calf, gilt tooled with a green panel on spine lettered: CAPRICH DE GOYA; endpapers: contemporary Spanish marbled papers

Francisco Goya’s series Los Caprichos contains layers of meaning that even today challenge the modern viewer. Mia’s copy is a rare presentation proof containing early printings of all eighty images. In the first half, Goya explored themes of superstition, sensuality, greed, and violence with scenes set in Spanish brothels, salons, and prisons. The second half is given over to fantastic images from the artist’s dreams and nightmares. Even though Goya tried to disguise his attacks on Spanish society, he withdrew the set from sale because he had been reported to the Inquisition, a tribunal that ruled with lethal authority.

Por que fue sensible

horrified man with eyes and mouth open wide, clutching his PL shoulder; large bleeding wound in PL arm

Published in Berlin in 1924 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the mobilization of German forces during the First World War (1914-18), Otto Dix's celebrated print cycle Der Krieg presents the ugly realities of modern warfare in horrific detail. The portfolio features 50 intaglio plates, whose subjects arose from Dix's own wartime experiences and memories of the ravages of combat and its aftermath. Dix had enthusiastically volunteered for service in the German army in 1915 and had fought in an artillery regiment and as a machine gunner on the Western front, including the infamous Battle of the Somme, where Allied and German forces suffered more than one million causalities. Wounded several times himself, Dix was deeply traumatized by his experiences and suffered recurring nightmares for the rest of his life.  At the same time, Dix was fascinated by the experience of war, especially the psychological truths of human conflict. He explores these truths through the morbid realism of his depictions.

Dix consciously modeled Der Krieg on Francisco Goya's equally famous print cycle Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), which recounted the travesties of Napoleon's invasion of Spain during the Peninsular War of 1808 to 1814. Like Goya, Dix produced his images in intaglio, a medium perfectly suited for the lush textures and meticulous detail he sought to create. As a result, despite their horrific content, the prints possess an aesthetic quality that Dix exploited through his skillful use of etching, drypoint and aquatint techniques.

Dix, who in the years following the First World War became one of the preeminent proponents of the social realist movement Neue Sachlicgkeit (New Objectivity), was relentless in exposing life's absurdities and contradictions. One of the great masterpieces of twentieth century art, Der Krieg is a fundamental examination of humanity's capacity for brutality, and remains one of the most powerful anti-war statements ever made.

Verwundeter (Herbst 1916, Bapaume) (Wounded Man [Spring 1916, Bapaume]), plate 6 from Der Krieg (The War)

Stormtruppe geht unter Gas vor (Storm Troopers Advance under a Gas Attack), plate 12 from Der Krieg (War)

couples dancing at R; women dressed in light colors, men dressed in dark colors; couple embracing on a couch at L; table with bottle and glasses, LLC

The crude groping and dancing of these ugly sailors and women in a dark tavern in Antwerp show that barbarian behavior was not reserved for the battlefield. The plates from Der Krieg seem to tie humankind’s basic, reptilian instincts—survival and procreation—to those of animals.

Otto Dix compared printmaking to alchemy, celebrating aquatint for its endless transformative possibilities. To describe the shadows of this sordid brothel, he placed the copper plate in the acid bath multiple times, and used stopping-out varnish to create highlights in the darkness

Matrosen in Antwerpen (Sailors in Antwerp), plate 32 from Der Krieg (The War)

man with rifle at L is stabbed in the heart by reaching man at L

Francisco Goya’s Disasters of War prints (1810-20) loomed large in Otto Dix’s imagination as he embarked on his own war series. Goya’s decision to depict small episodes rather than one monumental battle scene effectively captured the many horrors of war, and proved a fruitful model for Dix. The two series also have much in common aesthetically, utilizing the expressive power of the etched line and the haunting quality of aquatint.

Überfall einer Schleichpatrouille (Surprise Attack of a Reconnoitering Patrol), plate 44 from Der Krieg (The War)

standing woman at center wearing a knee-length sleeveless dress, emerging from a veil-like mandorla (or wearing a veil?); woman holds several flowers in her PL hand; three rats in LRC; insects in LLC and ULC; large goat's head at L center

Paula Rego, born in Portugal, has been described as “heiress to Goya’s Iberian darkness.” She is a master of aquatint, exploiting the medium to its most eerie and provocative ends. In this visionary image, Straw Burning, a dazed bride wanders through a hellish sea of frightening forms—menacing goat, screaming sunflower, aquiline demon, overgrown grasshoppers, sinister mice. The gradations of aquatint tone in the background set this netherworld aflame. The print comes from Rego’s "Pendle Witches" series, accompanied by poems by the British poet Blake Morrison.

Straw Burning, from "Pendle Witches"

figures walking on a slick dock in the rain; figures at far right carry umbrella; flag on tall flagpole, left center; flying birds, URQ; large chain and pulley, LLQ

Aquatint literally means tinted water, and here Félix Buhot took the term seriously. This aquatint, depicting the stormy English seaside, looks almost wet. The dark gray passages of tone in the sky capture the looming storm and damp sea air, while the etched lines describe the torrent of pelting rain.

Landing in England

black and white; two figures with animated gestures; abstract setting; wood frame

In forty years of teaching at the University of Iowa, Mauricio Lasansky played a major role in rejuvenating American interest in printmaking as a creative process. Shortly before Lasanksky's arrival in Iowa, he had his first encounter with Picasso's gigantic, ferocious painting Guernica. The experience gave him new impetus to express intense feeling in his art and to do with great immediacy. The series "For an Eye an Eye," an homage to Picasso, is one of the primary fruits of that change.
	
"For an Eye an Eye," a series of four prints, is Lasanky's first artistic reaction to the Holocaust. Though one cannot readily discern any simple, straightforward narrative in this nightmarish sequence, one has the sense of the inevitability and dehumanizing infectiousness of violence. One seemingly virtuous female figure, whose head is adorned with flowers, seems drawn into the monstrous thrall of violence. 

Lasansky apparently made just one preparatory drawing for the series and then let his concept evolve as he worked directly on the plates. In a virtuoso display, he attacked the copper with etching, engraving, aquatint, burnishers and scrapers. Clearly, he changed his mind with some frequency, leaving knots of pentimenti that increase the energy and mystery of the images. The Holocaust would remain a recurrent theme in Lasanky's work, most famously in "The Nazi Drawings," a series of 33 monumental works produced in the 1960s.

For an Eye an Eye, I

standing blacksmith with short, dark hair and beard, with his shirt open, holding a white-hot metal bar with a pliers on top of an anvil; silhouette of another figure in front of fire at left; shadows at edges

Eugène Delacroix, the leader of the French Romantic school of painters, was also active as a printmaker. Blacksmiths were a recurrent theme for Romantic artists. They showed man as a modern-day Vulcan, harnessing the elements of fire and earth for god-like creation. Focusing tightly on the heroic individual, Delacroix emphasized the blacksmith’s powerful physique. Light emanating from the white-hot iron illuminates the man’s shirt and sets his skin aglow.

This is a superb example of one of the most desirable prints by Delacroix. It is an important addition to Mia's collection because of its rarity, quality, and pristine condition.

A Blacksmith

sketchy image of figures with oversized caricature heads including President Bush, Condoleeza Rice and other political figures; four severed heads at bottom; man's head on dog's body at bottom left of center; dark ground; red stamp in bottom margin at center of bloodshot eye inside a triangle and earth

Enrique Chagoya is renowned for his biting political and social satire that exposes the foibles, shortcomings, and corruption of contemporary life. In this etching published in 2003, Chagoya critiques President George W. Bush and his inner circle of advisors during the American incursion in Iraq in the spring of that year. Chagoya’s print is based directly on an etching by Francisco Goya issued in 1864 as part of a series of satirical prints known as "Los disparates," which mocked the superstitions and follies of Spanish society. Like many of the etchings in Goya’s "Disparates" series, the precise meaning of this “folly” is uncertain, but is thought to illustrate the Spanish proverb, “He who does not like thee will defame thee in jest.” It may thus be a scene warning of intrigue and false friendships, updated by Chagoya to portray the Bush White House.

Loyalty

bull at left being speared through its upper back and PR shoulder by a man on horseback at right, wearing a costume with cape and feathered hat and carrying a sword on his PL hip; grey ground

In the 33-print series "Tauromaquia," Goya traces the history of bullfighting in Spain, from men hunting in open fields to the modern, ritualized spectacle it became in the 18th century. He invents part of the sport’s history, depicting, for instance in El Cid Campeador lanceado otro toro (El Cid Campeador Spearing Another Bull), the famous medieval Castilian knight El Cid (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar) slaying a bull on horseback. It is a technically sophisticated work in its combination of etching, drypoint, engraving, and the new medium of aquatint, which Goya deployed to luminous, evocative effect.

El Cid Campeador lanceado otro toro (El Cid Campeador Spearing Another Bull)

two men flanking a bull, each stabbing it with staffs, in the shoulder and PR side, in a spare grey landscape with trees at center middle ground

In the 33-print series "Tauromaquia," Goya traces the history of bullfighting in Spain, from men hunting in open fields, as seen in Otro modo de cazar á pie (Another Way of Hunting on Foot), to the modern, ritualized spectacle it became in the 18th century. Goya captures the brut nature of the bull, whose mournful expression shows defeat as he struggles submissively to lift his head. The print is technically sophisticated in its combination of etching, drypoint, engraving, and the new medium of aquatint, which Goya deployed to luminous, evocative effect.

Otro modo de cazar á pie (Another Way of Hunting on Foot)

For centuries printmakers have experimented with a wide variety of techniques to create tonal effects in prints. Aquatint, an etching technique developed in the late 18th century, introduces a porous ground to the printing plate through the application of resin that is fused to the plate before it is etched in the acid bath. The inked porous ground produces an effect akin to wash or watercolor, which artists have exploited to dramatic, evocative ends. The show features a range of works, from innovative early examples of the technique by Francisco Goya and Jean-Baptiste Le Prince to haunting, spectacular images from the 20th century by Otto Dix and Pablo Picasso.

Oiseaux de proie (Birds of Prey), 1893

Victor Emile Prouvé

Matrosen in Antwerpen (Sailors in Antwerp), plate 32 from Der Krieg (The War)

Otto Dix; Publisher: Karl Nierendorf