FINE ARTS.

STUMP-LITHOGRAPHY AND ZINCOGRAPHY.

A NEW mode of multiplying the original works of great artists, is valuable in proportion to its ease and effectiveness. Originality is quality justly prized in a work of art. We prefer an original to a copy, as we should an author's own words to a translation : we have the artist's ideas developed in his proper style. The real lover of art would. not exchange the slightest scrap of an etching by REMBRANDT, or of a sketch by any other fine painter, for the most finished engraving from one of their pictures. Etching was the only awaits open to the old

painters of multiplying their designs; and it had these two objections— at required a considerable degree of mechanical skill and labour, and it obliged the artist to adapt his style to the materisl, so that his hand

was not so apparent. The discovery of lithography gave to every artist who could handle a crayon or a pen the means of multiplying his

sketches without altering his style. He had only to draw upon stone

instead of on paper, and the printer did the rest. This facility has been made available to the production of original sketches by Continental

artists to a great extent; but British painters, who are less practised in the use of the crayon, have made comparatively little use of lithography for this purpose—which is one of its greatest advantages—and it has been chiefly employed by draughtsmen and copyists. This is in some degree accounted for also by the fact that many eminent artists, besides being so weak as to fancy that they would be descending from their dignity by having recourse to lithography, entertain the notion that by multiplying their sketches they would lessen the value of their finished pictures ; which is certainly not paying their more elaborate works a very high compliment. The success that attended the publication of his Sketches by PROU r, has turned the attention of other talented artists to lithography as a medium for multiplying their works. JOHN Lewis, whose scenes in Spain formed u prominent feature of the last iVater-Colour Exhibi- tion, is about to publish lithographic fae-similes of his sketches of the Alhambra, made by Haanisa, GAUCI, and others, under his direction, and partly by himself. By no other means could he have produced such perfect imitations of his first sketches and by working on the stone bimself, he is enabled to give, not only the precise effect he wishes, but his own peculiar touch.

HARDING, whose fame is based upon his lithographic drawings, and whose practice as a draughtsman has combined with his original talent to give him an unrivalled mastery as a finished sketcher from nature, is also engaged in multiplying a selection from his "Sketches at Home and Abroad," in a style of lithography at once novel and beautiful in effect, and easy and rapid in execution ; and in which he may boast of

having produced the first successful attempt. We have called it

Stump-lithography, by way of distinguishing it from the crayon and pen-and-ink styles. It is an extension and improvement of the chalk manner, by introducing the use of the stump in blending and softening the tints. The effect is to combine something of the rich velvet smoothness of mezzotint, and of the purity and delicacy of aquatint engraving, with the vigour and crispness of crayon and the sharpness and decision of ink touches. Thus every variety of texture as well as gradation of tint can be produced in one drawing. This style is sus- ceptible of the utmost freedom of handling; and the case arid rapidity by which effects may be produced is surprising, and would alone entitle it to attention. Besides being a new feature in lithography, too, it extends its advantages to those artists who are unaccustomed to the use of the crayon in finished drawing, or are averse to the labour of working with the point. The speeimen we have seen is remarkable for clearness and transparency of tint, brilliant effect, and a mellowness of tone that has rarely been seen in lithography. There is less than

we should have expected of that smokiness which is in a degree inse-

parable from the use of the stump ; neither is there such an appearance of smudginess as is observable, in the attempts at producing tints by rubbing, in some of HARDING'S Drawing-Books : in those, he tried to accomplish with the ordinary chalk what is now produced with a softer material.

This mode of lithography has been often tried, but never success- fully till now. The French could conic no nearer than a coarse and smudgy mezzotint, produced by rubbing the tints of a drawing, after it was completed with the crayon, into one black smear, and then scrap- ing out the forms in white and accenting the dark parts with touches

of ink. But little labour was thus saved, and the effect was mot dis- agreeable. In this new style, the stump is either used alone, in skies and distances, or is only applied to those touches of crayon which re- quire blending into a mass ; while in other parts, as the foregrounds for example, the crayon touches may remain in their original crispness.

To HULLMANDEL belongs the credit of having matured this new mode of lithography, which he first essayed twelve years ago. He has been greatly assisted, however, by II AnniNG ; who, perceiving the advan- tages promised by this addition to the powers of lithography, and being anxious to avail himself of them, went hand in hand with him in his experiments.

We have this week also seen a specimen of Zincography, in which the defect of scratchiness, that we pointed out in the plates to Lou-

DON'S Arboretum and which belonged to the material, as we suspected,

is entirely avoicied,—thus proving that for ordinary purposes zinc is as good as stone. Zincography only differs from lithography in the substitution of the Zinc plates. These plates are granulated as the atones are ; the same greasy chalk, or ink, is used for drawing ; and the process of printing is the same. Time advantages of zinc are, that the plates are much more portable and also cheaper than stone. Zinc also imbibes grease more greedily than stone ; and therefore, not only does the slightest touch print, but the plates consequently yield a much greater number of impressions than stone. These are points of prefe- rence, which for slight and ordinary chalk sketches, pen-and-ink draw- ings, and writings, render it superior to stone : but in the case of deli- cate and elaborate drawings its drawbacks would seem to more than coun- terbalance its advantages. Zinc does not appear to be susceptible of that deep grain so necessary for drawings to be highly wrought ; and the cold leaden hue of the metal, so different from the pure warm neu- tral tint of the stone, makes it difficult for the artist to perceive the pre. cise value of the tint lie is producing. Unless these defects can be re- moved, it will be impossible to attain on zinc that perfect union of depth and delicacy which LANE has become so famous for producing on stone.

Moreover, all the impressions we have hitherto seen. from zinc have a dead and dull look ; the dark tints are heavy and muzzy, producing a mo-

notonous effect, very different from the variety and transparency of tint and brilliant effect of the finest specimens of LANE and HARDING'S litho- graphy. This defect appears to be inseparable from the metallic substance.

Zincography is not a new discovery. SENEFELDER, the inventor of lithography, employed it ; and sold his process to more than one person in London, where it was made trial of fourteen years ago. But zinc was abandoned for stone, on account of its defects, and that at a time when the difficulties of lithography were much more formidable, and its beauties far less conspicuous than now. As an adjunct to stone, as steel is to copper, zinc, however, is now likely to be extensively used for ordinary purposes, and where great numbers of impressions are re- quired: the lithographers are all availing themselves of its advantages.