Kop van een Monnik 1825 - 1883

Theodoor Schaepkens made this etching of a monk's head using metal, acid, and ink. Etching is an indirect process. The artist coats a metal plate with a waxy, acid-resistant ground. They then scratch an image into the ground with a needle, exposing the metal. When the plate is immersed in acid, the exposed lines are “bitten,” creating grooves. The longer it sits in the acid, the deeper the lines. To make a print, the plate is inked, and then wiped clean, leaving ink only in the etched lines. Finally, damp paper is pressed against the plate, transferring the image. The resulting print has a distinctive, linear quality. The depth and darkness of the lines depend on the artist's control of the etching process. This image is intriguing because it takes as its subject a figure of religious devotion, and yet it is achieved through what is essentially an industrial technique. In this way, Schaepkens blurs the line between the sacred and the secular, the handmade and the mechanically reproduced.