Paper Obsessed No. 4 - Art Appreciation: Engravings

My obsession with all things paper reaches its ultimate level when I share my love for engravings. I am in awe of the meticulous process that created such beauty.

According to Wikipedia engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself such as an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper as prints or illustrations; these images are also called engravings.

Engraving was a historically important method of producing images on paper, both in artistic printmaking, and also for commercial reproductions and illustrations for books and magazines.

Here are some examples of vintage engravings.

The realization that one is holding art so tendiously and patiently created, sometimes over 200 years ago makes one speechless.

Image Sources: Flicker, Vintage Ephemera, Banana Strudel