Carol Wax, a New Jersey-based printmaker and author of "The Mezzotint: History and Technique" (1990) one of the most highly recognized books on the history of the medium delivered the opening lecture for the exhibit Wednesday.
Wax described the process of making mezzotints, which are created from copper plates, as a "subtractive or deductive method," in which printmakers remove shavings of copper from a larger plate according to where the light parts of the image should be. Copper is a very forgiving medium since it allows artists to go back and make changes, she said. It also imitates more closely the softness of the lines found in a painting.
T. Barton Thurber, curator of the exhibit, also noted the form's effectiveness in conveying images originally created with paint, giving the example of a 17th-century etching made by Sir Anthony Van Dyck of his own painting "Paulus Pontius." The reproduction van Dyck made pales in its comparison with a painting later copied as a mezzotint by James Watson in 1764. The latter rendition holds true to the shades and tones of the painting where the former could not, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Although the German printmaker Ludwig von Siegen first developed the mezzotint form in 1642, the movement truly took off in the mid-1700s when the medium was brought to England by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, cousin of King Charles II, according to Thurber.
"One idea that they have is that England didn't have a long history of etching so they grabbed onto this," Thurber said.
The lower cost of printing in comparison to commissioned paintings meant prints brought art to a much wider audience than paintings could in the 17th century.
"In England a lot of people didn't know Rembrandt was a painter," Wax said, noting that instead, they thought he was a printmaker.
According to Thurber, the rapid spread of mezzotints in England relied heavily on an alignment of factors that made the movement possible.
"Here we get the confluence of a relatively new medium, a market demand and a desire of sitters depicted in portraits to spread the works," he said.
This wave of popularity made mezzotints closely associated with the idea of celebrity, according to Thurber.
"One person referred to this as an early form of Facebook," Thurber said.
The analogy holds true for the intentions of many subjects of the mezzotints. Many artists, printmakers, actors and aristocrats at the time commissioned mezzotints of themselves for wider distribution. Thurber likened the idea to that of coinage, which as early as Roman times allowed ordinary citizens to access images of famous leaders like Caesar on their currency.
Mezzotints also have a strong connection to the founding of Dartmouth, as they were a means of spreading the image of Samson Occom during his visit to England from 1766 to 1767 to preach and raise funds for the establishment of the College, Thurber said.
Thurber explained two major criticisms of the form leveled by 18th-century critics, despite mezzotints' wide circulation at the time.
"They're reproductive, and we don't get the work of the artists, because they do such a good job replicating the work of others," he said.
The collection on display reflects the idea of mezzotints as a reproductive art, showcasing only three pieces that depict original scenes, according to Thurber. Yet, although they represent a minority, the pieces with original content have the ability to make new and novel statements about the social dynamics of the time.
Thurber pointed to "Ms. Macaroni and her Gallant at a Print Shop" by John Raphael Smith, which depicts a man and his mistress at a printshop as they ridicule the subjects of the mezzotints covering the walls. The print makes a pointed statement, poking fun at these society types by highlighting the hypocrisy of their critique of characteristics in the prints that they too embody.
