Mezzotint

メゾチント / 1640s– / Technique / Intaglio Printing

The whole plate is roughened to hold a deep black, then burnished back to raise the lights, so that the image emerges from soft velvet darkness instead of from lines.

Mezzotint — Mezzotint by John Martin — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — Mezzotint by John Martin — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 · CC0

Mezzotint — Mezzotint by S. W. Reynolds — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — Mezzotint by S. W. Reynolds — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 · CC0

Mezzotint — Mezzotint of a Joshua Reynolds portrait — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Mezzotint of a Joshua Reynolds portrait — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

At a glance

Visual cues

Velvet blacks
From dark to light
Soft gradation
Burnished light

Best used for

Portraits and still lifes where the subject emerges out of deep darkness
Frontispieces and covers built around night and a single light source

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Dictionary entry

Type: Keep lettering out of the shadows and small on the burnished side
Composition: Decide where light falls first and give darkness most of the plate
Material: Rock the whole plate, burnish back the lights, watch black fade across the edition
Caution: Opening too many lights starves the deep black the method depends on, so treat this as raising light out of a roughened plate rather than as a black gradient effect.
Further study: rocker / burnisher / tonal printmaking / dark manner

Related entries

Intaglio (凹版印刷)Same Intaglio Printing lineage.Compare Mezzotint and Intaglio
New Objectivity Photography (新即物主義写真)Shared effects: Calm.Compare Mezzotint and New Objectivity Photography

Often confused with

Etching (エッチング／腐食銅版画)compare

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