Société des Aquafortistes
A true revival of etching as an autonomous art form took place in the mid-nineteenth century.
Champions of this form of printmaking came together from 1862 to 1867 in the Société des Aquafortistes, to stimulate and promote the movement.
It was the first institution focused on original printmaking and served as a model for later nineteenth-century initiatives in France, Belgium and beyond.
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Fine Art Etching
The publisher and amateur etcher Alfred Cadart ran the society on a day-to-day basis, in collaboration with the master printer Auguste Delâtre.
The group’s founders also included the critic and collector Philippe Burty and many artists.
The latter were experienced etchers like Félix Bracquemond, but also painters who had never previously made an etching, including Edouard Manet.
Artistic individuality was the most important element — technical skill was not a prerequisite. Cadart set out his society’s ambitions in a sonorous letter to Emperor Napoleon III: ‘it revives a forgotten art, poses a limit to the invasion of photography, reanimates emulation among artists, and raises public taste by the popularisation of their works.’
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Print Album
Apart from organising exhibitions, the society published the print album Eaux-fortes modernes: Publication d’oeuvres originales et inédités, featuring etchings by its members.
Each of the five annual series opened with a galvanising foreword by an established critic, emphasising the artistic quality of the etching and contrasting it with the mechanical character of photography and graphic reproduction for the mass market.
Etched reproductions of paintings were acceptable, provided that they were made by the artist in person.
Further Reading
Alfred Cadart (red.), Eaux-fortes modernes. Publication d’oeuvres originales et inédités (5 dln.), 1862–1866
Janine Bailly-Herzberg, L’eau-forte de peintre au dix-neuvième siècle. La Société des aquafortistes, Paris, 1972
Anna Sigrídur Arnar, ‘From Illustration to Original Print’, in The Book as Instrument. Stéphane Mallarmé, the Artist's Book, and the Transformation of Print Culture, Chicago 2011, p. 58–101
