Gezicht op Yosemite Valley, Californië before 1886

This engraving of Yosemite Valley in California was made by S.C. Walker. It’s an image produced using an age-old reproductive technique. Engraving involves cutting lines into a metal plate, applying ink so that it fills those lines, and then using pressure to transfer the ink onto paper. Look closely, and you will notice the image is built from a dense network of thin, closely-spaced marks. The engraver would have spent considerable time incising these lines to represent the light and shadow of the scene. Engraving, like other forms of printmaking, played a vital role in the distribution of images before photography became widespread. This allowed a relatively inexpensive means of distributing images, conveying knowledge, promoting ideas, and shaping public opinion. It enabled the mass production of images, transforming them into commodities within a growing marketplace. So, even though this is an image of nature, it is also an artifact of production, labor, and commerce.