Venus treurt over de dood van Adonis before 1558

Hieronymus Cock made this print, Venus mourning the death of Adonis, in the mid-16th century using the technique of etching. Look closely and you will see that the scene isn’t composed of drawn lines, but lines that are bitten into the metal. With etching, the plate is first covered with a waxy ground, then the image is scratched through it with a needle. When acid is applied, it only bites into the exposed metal. Then the plate is inked and printed, resulting in an image with a very distinctive graphic quality. Etching was a relatively new technology at this time, which made printmaking faster and more efficient. Consider how this process lent itself to the rise of print culture, with images like this circulating widely. The proliferation of printed images contributed significantly to the development of visual culture and the dissemination of ideas during the Renaissance. It’s a great example of how a new medium literally reshaped our view of the world.