MEZZOTINT

This technique was invented by the German Ludwig Fon Siegen (1609-1680) and saw its greatest development in England in the eighteenth century.

It achieved its full formal perfection when the engraver Blooteling invented the rocker, wiegen in German, berceau in French, a tool that ever since has represented the classical means for covering the plate with a mesh of small burred dots.

The mezzotint emerged in a period when reproductive engraving techniques were very popular and it was primarily used to reproduce paintings, because it permitted subtle effects of shading and highlights .

It flourished throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, until its place was taken by the more sophisticated photographic techniques for reproduction. Today only few engravers use it as an autonomous means of artistic expression, because it is a tiring and slow method of engraving.

After preparing a perfectly smooth plate of annealed copper; the artist prepares the ground with the rocker invented by Blooteling. This is a small steel blade with a curved edge and sharp pointed ends. Holding it by its central handle, the engraver rocks it slowly forward with a waving movement, so that it leaves small dots like those created in drypoint on the copper.

The matrix is ready when the plate is completely covered by dots. In mezzotint, the painter-engraver inverts the order of the creative act, which usually is a process of addition. Here instead he removes bit by bit the black from the rough ground, moving through shades of grey toward white.

He uses two tools : the burnisher and the scraper for the ground. The burnisher is usually made of hard tempered steel and is shaped like a small blade.The number of copies printed that can be made from a mezzotint plate is limited to no more than forty. 

(from "tecniche dell'incisione originale" INClub Firenze)