Etching (copperplate print)

A copperplate print is an intaglio print: unlike a woodcut, where the raised parts of the block print, ink is held in the sunken lines and areas. In etching, the plate is covered with a thin acid-resistant ground of wax or resin; the artist draws through it with a needle to expose the metal, and the plate is put in acid, which bites into the exposed lines to a depth that depends on time and the strength of the acid. After the ground is removed, ink is worked into the lines and wiped from the surface, and dampened paper is laid on the plate and run through a press under very high pressure, so that it takes the ink from the grooves. In drypoint, the needle scratches the plate directly, and the burr thrown up at the edge of the line also holds ink and becomes part of the printed line. Aquatint is a variant of etching that makes areas of tone rather than lines and is mostly used together with etching. Etching spread across Europe in the 16th century; in Japan, Shiba Kōkan made the first etching in 1783. Komai Tetsurō (1920–1976) discovered copperplate prints at fourteen; he seems to have regarded black and white as the essence of the medium, saying that “the good of copperplate prints lies in the world of black,” yet he also left many prints in colour.

Go close and compare the lines: within one print, can you tell lines bitten deep from shallow ones by their width and darkness?

Is this black built up from lines, or printed as an area of tone?