Landscape with Saint John the Evangelist 1530 - 1562

Virgil Solis made this print, Landscape with Saint John the Evangelist, in the mid-16th century. It’s an etching, a printmaking process that relies on acid to bite into a metal plate, in this case likely iron or copper. The magic of an etching lies in its lines. Solis would have covered his plate with a waxy, acid-resistant ground, then drawn his composition with a sharp needle, exposing the metal beneath. The plate was then immersed in acid, which ate away at the exposed lines, creating grooves. The deeper the bite, the darker the line would appear in the final print. This skilled work would then allow for the production of many prints. Consider the labor involved in this image: from mining the metal, to the craftsman who fashioned it into a plate, to the paper on which it is printed. These kinds of images helped to drive the economy of early modern Europe, and to disseminate new ways of seeing the world. The sharp lines give this print its graphic power, a reminder that even seemingly simple images can be deeply rooted in material processes and social context.