Engraving Quotes
Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. ... There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because, as has already been shown, the mind is without limit.
John Amos Comenius
You don't love yourself enough. Or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they're really possessed by what they do, they'd rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?
Marcus Aurelius
I find it increasingly necessary to express my ideas first in engraving or lithography so that they may develop before I start to paint. Every year my form and expression become more sensitive, and my ideas frequently have to pass through three graphic stages before I can start on the canvas.. .I can hear you say no, that is impossible because the value of the colors demands quite different treatment from black and white, but it is the inner idea that I try to establish firmly through graphic preparation.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
The French archeologists Iégor Reznikoff and Michael Dauvois conducted detailed surveys of three decorated caves in the Ariège region of southwest France. ...they moved slowly through the caves, stopping repeatedly to test the resonance of each section... spanning three octaves... those areas with highest resonance were also those most likely to harbor a painting or engraving. ...a fascinating discovery that... Chris Scarre commented at the time, draws "new attention to the likely importance of music and singing in the rituals of our early ancestors."
Richard Leakey
Alas! of what is France thinking? Of a surety, we must awake this slumbering nation, we must take it by the arm, we must shake it, we must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke.
Victor Hugo
For the history of the centuries that have passed since the birth of Christ nowhere reveals conditions like those of the present. There has never been such building and planting in the world. There has never been such gluttonous and varied eating and drinking as now. Wearing apparel has reached its limit in costliness. Who has ever heard of such commerce as now encircles the earth? There have arisen all kinds of art and sculpture, embroidery and engraving, the like of which has not been seen during the whole Christian era. In addition men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.
Martin Luther
Diseases, a paralysis of the left side, a monstrous right hand tremor strengthened by the efforts by the needle [for engraving] and caused by previous excesses with alcohol, prevent me from doing any calligraphic craftsmanship. A constant effort to achieve my goal - I've never reached the degree hoped - has exacerbated my life, and every job has ended with the depression of having to go on with this life.
Lovis Corinth
I have heard that you have found the secret of engraving on copper on white ground, as Elsheimer did. To bite the plate with acid, he covered the copper with a white paste. He then drew with the point down to the metal, which is of reddish color, and it looked as if he were drawing with red crayon on white paper. I cannot remember the composition of this write paste, although he communicated it to me.
Peter Paul Rubens
Rembrandt was already deeply involved in his attachment to Rubens - at once adopting him as his model and fighting to have the differences noticed. His [painting] 'Descent from the Cross', also painted in 1631 for the Stadholder, was directly taken from the engraving after Rubens's greatest masterpiece in Antwerp Cathedral', while at the same time being a calculated Protestant response to the immense diapason of the [catholic] Flemish master's altar-piece.
Rembrandt
