Existing comment:
Reproductive Printmaker
Before photography replaced printmaking as a way to make accurate reproductions, etching was the principal means for copying famous works of art. From 1870 to 1875, Guérard rendered works by Nicolas Berthon, Rembrandt van Rijn, Sandro Botticelli, and others, several of which appeared in the journal Paris à l'eau-forte. After the death in 1880 of André Jacquemart -- at the time, the leading reproductive artist of his day -- Guérard took up the mantle, publishing many of his prints in the esteemed journal Gazette des Beaux-Arts. The writer Oscar Wilde spoke perceptively when comparing the etcher to a critic, "who exhibits to us a work in a form different from the work itself, and the employment of a new material is a critical as well as a creative element." |