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Temperamental!: Prints in the Collection of Bryn Mawr College

Allen Lewis (American, 1873-1957), Plate for Still Life with Tree and Horse (c. 1947). Drypoint plate, Gift of Dorothy S. Jayne (MSS 1960) and DeWitt Whistler Jayne, 1983.1.230

This example of an intaglio plate is made by cutting directly into a metal surface, in this case with a steel drypoint needle. The artist scratches the lines that are meant to be printed. When ink is applied to the plate, it fills the lines beneath the surface, and the surface is carefully wiped clean. Damp paper is then placed on top of the plate and run through a printing press with enough pressure to force the paper down into the incised, inkfilled lines of the plate, transferring the ink onto the paper. In drypoint, the directness of the artist’s incision produces a ridge, or burr, of left-over metal that holds ink and prints with a soft, velvety appearance absent in the clean lines of other intaglio techniques, such as engraving and etching.

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Checklist of the Exhibition 64 structured_gallery 2020-08-17T20:31:29+00:00
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Checklist of Rare Books in the Exhibition
- Robert Burton (English, 1577–1640) The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prognostickes & seuerall cures of it. In three partitions, with their severall sections, members & sub-sections. Philosophically, medicinally, historicallly, opened & cut vp. Printed in English Oxford: Printed for Henry Cripps, 1638, fifth edition
- Johann Caspar Lavater (German, 1741–1801) Physiognomy, or, The corresponding analogy between the conformation of the features, and the ruling passions of the mind. Printed in English London: Printed for H.D. Symonds, not before 1790
- Johann Caspar Lavater (German, 1741–1801) The Pocket Lavater, or, The Science of Physiognomy: To which is added, An inquiry into the analogy existing between brute and human physiognomy, from the Italian of Porta. Printed in English Hartford: Andrus & Judd, 1832
- Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690) Expressions des Passions de L’Ame. Printed in French Paris, 1727
- Cesare Ripa (Italian, 1560–1645) Iconologia di Cesare Ripa Perugino, caure. De’Sti. Mauritio e Lazzaro: Nella quale si descriuono diuerse imagini di virtù, vitij, affetti, passioni humane, arti, discipline, humori, elementi, corpi celesti, prouincie d’Italia, fiumi, tutte le parti del mundo, ed altere infinite materie: ... Printed in Italian Siena: Appresso gli geredi di Matteo Florimi, 1613 Purchased with Seymour Adelman fund
- Cesare Ripa (Italian, 1560–1645) Iconologia di Cesare Ripa: Divisa in tre libri, ne I quali si quali si esprimono varie imagini di virtù, vitij, affetti, passioni humane, arti, discipline, humori, elementi, corpi celesti, prouincie d’Italia, fiumi, & altire materie infinite vtili ad ogni stato di persone. Printed in Italian Venice: C. Tomasini, 1645
- Hartmann Schedel (German, 1440– 1514) Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle). Printed in Latin Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493. Deposit of Phyllis Goodhart Gordon (BMC 1935)
- Otto van Veen (Dutch, 1556–1629) Amorum emblemata, figuris aeneis in cisa. Antuerpiae: Venalia apud auctorem, 1607
Temperamental Technologies
Is there a phlegmatic quality to printmaking, especially reproductive printmaking—its careful thinking in reverse, its slow process of carving an image into a copper plate or a wood block? Is there something choleric about the destruction required to produce an image—the immersion of an etching plate in acid, the gouging of a woodblock—even as these processes also demand self-control?
Held and passed from hand to hand, the early modern print was not simply experienced as an image, but as a fully material object. Thus, the image’s subject matter would not be the only element informing the interpretation of a print’s temperament. The hard stippling of a wood engraving might add a choleric severity to Fritz Eichenberg’s impression of otherwise phlegmatic men; while the dry, charcoal-like gradation of tone could lend a choleric heat to William Gropper’s lithograph of a hysteric.
The reproducible nature of prints meant that multiple impressions of a single image exist, but the quality of each impression varies. At Bryn Mawr, we have three prints of Dürer's engraving, St. Christopher; but not all these images are the same. One figure faces left, while two face right; thus, they could not have been made from the same plate. The original print was likely traced and then reproduced in reverse for the purposes of mass-production of the saint’s image. The print with the figure facing left has better tonal quality and more distinct lines than the other two engravings; research reveals that it faces the same direction as Dürer's original engraving.