engraving

Various craft and technological processes for producing blocks or plates from which to print illustrations, banknotes, etc.; also, an individual print made by one of these processes.

Line engraving refers to preparing a plate by scratching its smooth surface with a highly-tempered steel tool called a burin or graver. If the desired design is left standing high as is common with woodcuts and linocuts, this is known as a relief process. If the ink is transferred to the paper from lines incised into the plate, the surface of the ink plate having been wiped clean, this is known as intaglio.

Drypoint and mezzotint are mechanical engraving processes developed from line engraving; other techniques, including aquatint, involve chemical etching processes.

Related category

• TECHNOLOGY

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