Metalcut
Encyclopedia
Metalcut is a relief print
Relief print
A relief print is an image created by a printmaking process where protruding surface faces of the matrix are inked; recessed areas are ink free. Printing the image is therefore a relatively simple matter of inking the face of the matrix and bringing it in firm contact with the paper...

making technique, belonging to the category of old master print
Old master print
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition . A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term. The main techniques concerned are woodcut, engraving and etching, although there are...

s. It was almost entirely restricted to the period from about 1450 to 1540, and mostly to the region around the Rhine in Northern Europe, the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

; the technique perhaps originated in the area around Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

.

There were actually two different techniques for making metalcut prints, with very different results.

The first technique is essentially that of woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

 but using a thin metal plate rather than a wooden block. The areas not to print are cut away, or hammered back with punches. These prints look very much like normal woodcuts of the period, and it can sometimes be hard for experts to tell them apart.http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wifb/hod_31.62.9.htm The subject matter is almost entirely religious in the early period, which mostly consists of single prints for display or collecting, and mostly ornamental in the 16th century revival, which mostly consists of illustrations and borders for books. There was a late flowering of the original method around 1500 in France, with a series of lavish Books of Hours
Book of Hours
The book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and...

. In the sixteenth century the technique continued to be used for elaborate borders and initial letters in books, http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bytype/prints/ornament/bytype/display00014.html notably by Jacob Faber
Jacob Faber
Jacob Faber or Jakob Faber, also known as the "Master IF" from the monogram on his prints, was a formschneider of woodcuts and metalcuts, engraver, designer of decorative prints and publisher...

, who often used designs by Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

.

The second technique, was introduced in the second half of the 15th century and worked from black to white, meaning that the print showed white lines on a black background, rather than the other way round as in the first technique. Again prints were nearly always on religious subjects. Usually the main lines of the figures and landscape were done in engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

. Then using metalwork punches, the rest of the image is composed of repeated use of the same pattern of punch in a particular area. These might be dots, circles, lozenges, stars, letters making text inscriptions, or more complicated shapes for the borders. Usually very little space is left undecorated; and this technique is easy to recognise.http://bode.diee.unica.it/~giua/SEBASTIAN/PICS/anon-german.1470.jpg These prints ceased to be produced about 1500. The plates themselves may have been treated as works of art in plaque form, with printed impressions a useful by-product; in some cases inscriptions print in reverse, though others do not.Hind, I, 176-179; Field Some copper plates survive, often with nail-holes at the corners.

Despite the limitations of the technique, many of the artists who used the second technique were very talented, and the best prints have considerable power.http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?8323+0+0 Compared to contemporary engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

s and woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s , they were usually large, as the technique needed space on the plate. No names are known of the artists; presumably most of them were trained as goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...

s, as the punch shapes used were typical ones from goldsmithing.

As with the other contemporary print techniques, very few metal cut prints have survived. Prints made by the second technique are sometimes called prints in the dotted manner, or dotted prints, Schrotblatt in German and Manière criblée in French.

It was also possible to combine the techniques on the same plate, with figures using black lines, and backgrounds with punched white dots on a black background. French printed books of hours from the end of the century often use such combinations.

External links

  • Good "dotted manner" example
  • dotted manner example from the British Museum
    British Museum
    The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

    ; search there on "techniques - all objects" for more examples in both techniques
  • One of many examples in the National Gallery of Art, Washington - unfortunately these cannot be grouped by a search.
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