Etching Quotes

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term - meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching - there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Ansel Adams

Photography, Simple, Effort

"A Personal Credo". Essay by Ansel Adams (1943), first published in "American Annual of Photography," 1944; later published in "Photographers on Photography" edited by Nathan Lyons, 1966, and in "Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present" edited by Vicki Goldberg, 1988.

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Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character.

Clarence Day

Funny, Character, Wrinkles

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Etching is a beautiful medium. The result is rich, subtle tones achieved in no other way.

Jay Moore

Beautiful, Way, Tone

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It seems to me the charm of etching is the glimmering through of the white paper even in the shadows so that almost everything sparkles or suggest sparkles.

Samuel Palmer

White, Shadow, Paper

"The Letters of Samuel Palmer". Book edited by Raymond Lister, Oxford, Letter to Thomas Oldham Barlow (1876), 1974.

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The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.

Ernest Hemingway

Men, Clouds, Wind

Ernest Hemingway (2016). “The Old Man and the Sea”, p.17, Hamilton Books

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The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Ansel Adams

Photography, Creative, Ease

"A Personal Credo". Essay by Ansel Adams (1943), first published in "American Annual of Photography," 1944; later published in "Photographers on Photography" edited by Nathan Lyons, 1966, and in "Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present" edited by Vicki Goldberg, 1988.

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Etching will suggest subtle variations of tone, the most delicate shadings, all with black lines, which, as far as lines go, are unsurpassed for sheer beauty.

Walter J. Phillips

Black, Variation, Lines

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I live in a small world of gouache and brush and pen and ink. I'd like to explore the world of multiples - etching and prints.

Maira Kalman

Ink, World, Brushes

"Maira Kalman's show at Jewish Museum". Interview with Kenneth Baker, www.sfgate.com. July 1, 2010.

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Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them.

Steve Jobs

People, Mind, Records

"Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs". Interview with David Sheff, genius.com. February 1, 1985.

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I took a number of graphic courses, lithography and etching and wood engraving [at Art Institute]. And particularly as I got more and more into ceramics, I thought, life drawing doesn't have anything to do with ceramics.

Warren MacKenzie

Art, Drawing, Numbers

Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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As paradoxical as it may seem a great sculptor is as much a colourist as the best painter, or rather the best engraver. He plays so skillfully with all the resources of relief, he blends so well the boldness of light with the modesty of shadow, that his sculptures please one, as much as the most charming etchings.

Auguste Rodin

Light, Play, Shadow

Auguste Rodin (2012). “Rodin on Art and Artists”, p.22, Courier Corporation

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[ Bernard] Leach was the one who taught us that, because he, too, had started out as a painter and an etcher and had only gotten into ceramics by chance when he was in Japan trying to teach the Japanese how to do etching, which, as he said, they were not ready for yet.

Warren MacKenzie

Japan, Taught Us, Trying

Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence.

Paul Strand

Order, Oil, Drawing

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Like a feather in a dust storm, with no direction The Raven flies through life, helpless and omitted Until night declares and the wind expires. Then it flies to the land of stones and etchings And becomes an Ember, breaking away

Jessica Sorensen

Night, Dust, Wind

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We struggle against easel painting not because it is an aesthetic form of painting, but because it is not modern, for it does not succeed in bringing out the technical side, it is a redundant, exclusive art, and cannot be of any use to the masses. Hence we are struggling not against painting but against photography carried out as if it were an etching, a drawing, a picture in sepia or watercolor.

Alexander Rodchenko

Photography, Art, Struggle

53 Copy quote
Detroits industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching.

P. J. O'Rourke

Rome, Ruins, Detroit

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Now I can do the bolts," she slurred. "I've been trying to focus enough magic all week." The magic shifted and swirled, finally etching a picture in the air. It was a rough picture of Foaly, and he was laughing. I hate you, centaur!" screamed Opal, lunging toward, and then through, the insubstantial image. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and then she collapsed, snoring, on the floor. Artemis straightened his tie. Freud, he was certain, would have a field day with that.

Eoin Colfer

Hate, Eye, Ties

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I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.

Laurie Halse Anderson

Suicide, Hurt, Blood

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The existence of a medium, after all, is its absolute justification, if as so many seem to think, it needs one and all comparison of potentialities is useless and irrelevant. Whether a water-color is inferior to an oil, or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence. [emphasis added] Let us rather accept joyously and with gratitude everything through which the spirit of man seeks to an ever fuller and more intense self-realization.

Paul Strand

Gratitude, Thinking, Men

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Bran grabbed my hand,pulled me to a chest, and swung the heavy lid open. A white cloth covered the contents. He jerked it aside. Human heads filled the chest. "Oh God." He scooped a mummified head from the chest by a scalp lock and thrust it at me. "All of them are mine." This was officially the weirdest version of "come down to my place and I'll show you some etchings" I've ever been hit with.

Ilona Andrews

White, Hands, Locks

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My aim is increasingly to make my photographs look so much like photographs [rather than paintings, etchings, etc.] that unless one has eyes and sees, they won't be seen - and still everyone will never forget having once looked at them.

Alfred Stieglitz

Eye, Looks, Photographer

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His voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world. His sharp features, majestic looks, and prancing style a vivid etching on the landscape of our minds. Bob Marley was never seen. He was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter. Such a man cannot be erased from the mind. He is part of the collective consciousness of the nation.

Edward Seaga

Men, Voice, Style

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