fluences, point of view, and subject; yet all of them understood and expressed the nature of the medium, and all worked fundamentally with the same materials, copperplate, etching-needle, and acidmaterials that have been essentially the same for three centuries.

On one side of a polished copperplate the etcher lays a thin coat of so-called etching-ground, which may consist of white wax, mastic, and asphaltum. This is smoked over, and the design is drawn on the plate thus prepared with a steel point-the etching-needle. As this needle pierces the ground and lays bare the copper, the lines that it traces stand out

brightly against the solid black of the smoked surface, which, of course, was smoked with that purpose in view. Thus far the copper has simply been laid bare wherever the point has passed, and nothing has been done to create a printing surface. That is the work of acid. The plate, its back protected by a coat of varnish, is placed in an acid bath, and wherever the copper is exposed the acid makes its attack. Furthermore, since some portions of the picture are to appear darker and stronger than others, the plate is taken from the acid when the lightest lines of the picture have been bitten into the copperplate by the acid, and these parts are

the paper. The ink thus lies on the surface of the paper in ridges that, where the lines have been very deeply bitten, -as in Haden's "Calais Pier" or in some plates of Turner's "Liber Studiorum,"-are of a very appreciable thickness.

Now, in the process itself are to be found the reasons why etching has served preeminently as a means for original expression as a painter art. We speak of We speak of "painter" or "original" etching, the direct product of the artist's intent, as distinguished from reproductive etching, in which the works of other artists are reproduced by the etcher. The needle in

the hand of the etcher plays freely over the plate, and to the resultant freedom and spontaneity is added the effect of the irregular action of the acid, which adds a further quivering vivacity to the line. But the artist's possibilities extend even to the inking. Before attempting to print, the ink that has been applied to a plate must obviously be removed from the surface, leaving only that which has lodged in the bitten lines that form the printing medium. There is a difference, however, in the manner of removing the ink. It may be taken off cleanly, so that the lines print almost as sharply as those of a name