Rembrandt, the Etcher

Rembrandt was the unparalleled artist of the 17th century but while his paintings have fluctuated in popular and critical opinion both during and after his lifetime, his prints have been appreciated without interruption for over 350 years. Perhaps the best proof of the esteem in which his work is held is the number of fine, early impressions, which have been collected and preserved since his death in 1669.

No etcher has matched Rembrandt in his ability to fully master the medium and then adapt and refine it to accommodate his evolving artistic and humanistic vision. Rembrandt's prints were not substitutes for either his paintings or drawings. He gradually developed a personal language in the etching medium which best expressed certain images he wanted to capture. One of the enduring fascinations with Rembrandt is his intense interest in capturing both outward emotion and inner thoughts and he was painstaking and patient in developing all of the possibilities offered by the technique of etching in order to achieve this.

In the 16th century, engraving was the predominant printmaking technique and Albrecht Dürer dominated the field. Line engraving, in which an artist works directly on a metal plate, evolved during the first half of the 14th century in Italy. A diagonally sharpened steel rod called a burin is used to cut lines into the metal. The excess metal gouged out is scraped away before the plate is inked and prints are pulled. The process produces neat, uniform lines.

It was not until the 17th century that etching became the preference of painter-engravers, most of whom used the technique more for its ease than for its particular qualities. In etching, a metal plate (usually copper) is covered with a protective coat of acid-resistant varnish, more or less hard depending upon the desired result. Professional etchers used hard varnish, which allowed the artist to obtain extremely precise strokes similar to engraving. Rembrandt, however, used softer varnish consisting of wax, asphalt, and putty, which enabled him to make freer lines, more similar to drawing.

The artist then uses a steel needle fitted into a wooden handle to scratch the design through the varnish exposing the metal plate. The needle is held in the same way as a pencil, unlike the burin, which is controlled by the palm of the hand. The plate is then immersed in an acid bath, which "bites" the metal wherever the varnish has been removed by the needle. Nitric acid acts quickly and violently on the metal, deepening the lines and making them somewhat rough. More slowly acting acids, such as that used by Rembrandt, deepen the lines while leaving the edges of the cut clean. After completing the acid bath, the varnish is removed with turpentine. The plate can then be inked and printed. However, one can also reapply varnish to some areas of the plate to protect them and, with or without adding additional lines, subject the plate to additional "biting." The areas of the plate, which have been "re-bitten," will produce deeper cuts and thus darker areas when printed. The choice of acid and the use of repeated acid baths enabled Rembrandt to produce a wide range of tones, emphasizing shaded or illuminated areas to his specifications.

The techniques of etching require more specialized knowledge on the part of the viewer, but they also demand more time from the artist. A master etcher requires a certain temperament; reflective, patient, and precise. It was common in 17th century Holland for artists to distribute etchings done after their paintings, but a master etcher, rather than the painter, generally produced these. Rembrandt, however, found the laboriousness of the medium attractive. His endless experimentation with the tools, paper, and printing indicate the pleasure he took in the etching process. Each subject proved its own stimulus. In his first etchings of the late 1620s and early 1630s, the etching needle and multiple bitings were the means by which he obtained tonal effect. By 1634, Rembrandt added the use of drypoint (using the needle directly on the copper plate without varnish) to create freer and more dense lines. By the 1640s Rembrandt was using drypoint, and the burr created by the needle moving through copper, to create shadow and dense black tones. Rembrandt was the first printmaker to fully understand the potentialities of drypoint for pictorial effects. In his later years, Rembrandt largely abandoned the slow method of rebiting. After a single immersion in acid, he worked directly on the plate in drypoint and burin, which allowed him greater freedom of action and enabled him to use unexpected combinations of techniques to create light, tone and mood.

Rembrandt's innovations in etching did not stop with his mastery of technique; in the printing of the individual impressions he achieved unique and varied results. Rembrandt had two presses in his studio and printed from the copper plates himself. This not only allowed him to immediately check results and make any corrections required for his exacting vision, but also enabled him to experiment with how the plates were inked and wiped. The ink can be wiped out of the grooves of an inked plate to get a lighter effect. Conversely, by allowing a thin layer of ink to remain on the surface of the plate when it is printed, a light or even dark overall surface tone is added to the plate. Starting in the mid-1640s, Rembrandt often left ink on the plate to create a darker surface tone across all or part of an impression. In this way his prints became unique monotypes rather than the normal series of homogenous impressions.

He also experimented with paper; in the course of his etching career, it is estimated that he used over 350 different kinds of paper. Rembrandt experimented with paper to achieve specific effects in his printing. Some papers offered different tints, giving prints a warmer tone. Other papers, such as oriental, are much less absorbent than ordinary white papers, and give softer, richer effects, which are particularly suited to the qualities of drypoint, thus making it possible to introduce a wide range of shades between black and white.

Rembrandt's subject matter was as diverse as Amsterdam and he etched myriad intimate observations from everyday life including scenes of beggars, children, animals, and various people at their professions. Many of these "genre" pieces capture the same psychological intenseness as his commissioned portraits.

No subject matter was too lowly or arcane for Rembrandt's interpretation. No amount of time, experimentation, or effort was too much to achieve exactly the effect he sought. Rembrandt was an innovator with the patience to achieve his particular and very personal vision. But above all, as Christopher White notes, "...he was an artist of variety in a country of specialization, not only in his subject matter, but also in his endless search for different qualities of technique..." He was the most innovative and unconventional artist of the 17th century. Laura Anderson Director of Acquisitions

(1) Ackley, Clifford S., Rembrandt's Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher, MFA Publications, c. 2003
(2) Hughes, Robert, "The God of Realism," New York Review of Books, April 6, 2006.