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An email from a friend who is an engraver.

Mike:

"Haven't had time to lurk for many a week, but dropped by and saw your thread on the Low Wall. Having looked at many different styles of engraving and studied them as best I can without many engravers to consult with, I think the level is better than the general run of comments. Couple of thoughts:

Literally all engravers anywhere at the time that piece was done were professionals who made a living at their trade. They did not have the luxury of time to pursue it as an avocation where untold hours as a hobbyist could produce exhibition level work (or have a patrone who would pay them for the best work they could produce). I remember reading about a Colt engraver taking several years to engrave a small .25 auto for himself - there simply wasn't time he could dedicate to his own project if he were to make a living (couldn't understand how that could be in the past, but am beginning to be there myself!). If you wander around the FEGA section in Reno, you will quickly find a large portion of engravers (as well as stockmakers and metalsmiths) have a pension of some sort, or do it as an avocation, making the bulk of their living in another manner. VERY FEW are capable of earning a complete living.

One thing not noted by anyone so far is that the metal has been sculpted in a similar fashion as that done by those tooling leather. Note many small, smooth, rounded marks on the figures and on certain scrolls. Not easy to be as even as this. These marks are made by a number of different sized rounded tools that peen the metal to shape it. A step upwards would be to use a burnisher and stones to smooth out those individual marks, but that adds time to the job. I doubt many engravers in the guild today could make wages on even that level of work..... (I know one masterful job done by a major guild engraver that took three years and produced about $20 an hour. lol) The background has been removed. It takes me about as along to remove background as it does to cut the scroll itself, basically doubling the time required. Easy rule of thumb when thinking about how to price a job.

I have always been a bit critical of those being critical unless they A. could do better themselves, or B. were willing to PAY for better. The guy whining about the price should ask a modern engraver to price the engraving job alone and see if he could get it done for the asking price of the entire rifle (I doubt if I'd take the job on for $14,000 - I think I'd be better off doing something else from the standpoint of money alone)."

I know it isn't relevant, but I'm glad he said it...

I guess I'm one of those whiners who can't do better myself and am too poor to commission an all-out effort, sorry about that(grin). But I know what I like and what I consider good work.

The finest engraver of my acquaintance is a master of the hammer-&-chisel method and strives to make $30/hr. He has no other pension and does this as his sole means of support, been that way for ~40 years now. Some of his work is among the finest I've seen while other examples aren't quite so good, but I can ASSURE EVERYONE that his worst piece is immeasurably better than what we've seen here. Here's a small example of the differences I'm speaking of.

Now take a look at some scrimshaw that I did by taking a 'lift' from the source image. Notice the much poorer quality of the cuts as compared to the steel engraving.

It's quite obvious that the scrimming is far less smoothly and expertly done than the engraving, yet the layout and essential design are identically pleasing. Worth the same money? Hardly.

BTW the study of the history of art will soon reveal an essential truth: the use of over-stylized images such as are found in bestiaries and heraldry is an avoidance technique. Using these images allows the artist (or rather, in many cases, the craftsman) to avoid having his product's appearance compared to reality. He can use his imagination to create a assembly-result without, in many cases, actually having to DRAW anything! Some artists call this 'derivative'.

Much of my own art may be considered 'derivative' but I call it 'lack of imagination'.

Even the earliest cave paintings attempt to replicate reality in the animals' shapes and the fluidity of their portrayed motion.

I'll return to the original thought: if I can't tell it's a lion then it's not representative and so how can it be pleasing?
Regards, Joe

I know that guy! He's working on my receiver right now, if he hasn't already shipped it off.



Exactly - but cave paintings are anything but "realistic" although they are certainly capable of depicting reality w/o any loss of information.

30,000 ybp



By the way, I really really like that bighorn portrait Joe!

Thanks for the kind words Brent, it's only a beginning and will be redone to improve the horn texture and add background mountains and a border. Also the ram is fossil ivory and I'll attempt to minimize the darker appearance of the big honkin' crack under his chin!

Yeah those cave animals aren't super-realistic but at least I can tell what they're supposed to be!
Regards, Joe

A then-famous west German master engraver told me about 25 years ago: "Wild boar are the hardest animals to engrave properly. You see, when you watch those pigs in the wild, they are hardly more than black blobs, without any prominent features you may catch in a line drawing. So it is very difficult to engrave a boar without exaggerating something." (free translation by me)

I dunno,some people think Picasso is the ultimate and others prefer Eakins or Sargent.I liked the engraving on the lo wall altho' I would not have commissioned it for myself.I like the LeFever and early Parker high grade scroll.

A study of the history of art would reveal that Picasso was using an avoidance technique.

LOL

Ken uses one of Lindsay's AirGravers for at least some of his work. I certainly don't consider that a fault of any sort.
Most engravers now use some sort of air assisted tool.
They are time savers if nothing else and if you're making a living at it,,,,.

Some start right out using one and I see that as a crutch of sorts. Never being capable of working with traditional tools of the trade leaves out an important part of the experience IMHO.
The air assisted tools are faster, cleaner cutting, can do some finer cutting that is very hard to master by traditional manner.

I started when there were no air assisted tools, so you either learned with hammer, chisel and graver or you failed. I tried a GraverMeister early on at a demo and didn't like it. That was probably 30 or 35 years ago.
But after 40+ years at it, a couple of bad accidents and a nerve disorder made it impossible to hold the chisel steady anymore.
I was done as far as the docs were concerned.

One last try was an air assisted tool and I've been able to get back to engraving again. Animals I still do with a chisel punch however as I can't quite hold the new tool in the correct position for the effect I need.
No where near the output I once did but at least I can still work.

Computers have come into the engravers workshop also. They are used in capturing pictures and images, redrawing them with the various 'photo-shop' type programs, re-sizing, flipping them, etc. There are several ways to print an image from paper to steel.
Not every engraver is a natural wildlife artist,,,not every wildlife artist is a natural engraver.

Lifting, preserving and reusing patterns has been done by engravers since the beginning. Even the 'masters' reused their favorite animal and wildlife layouts over and over again. A portfolio of pictures and pulls was never far from reach. Stacks of magazines and pictures clutter the shelves and floor of the engravers work area. Now the tech savy engravers put it all on their computers.

Gold inlay undercutting in done traditionally with punches to form the dovetail,,sometimes a knife edge graver is used.
Now ultra high speed dental tools w/ micro tiny burrs are being used to under cut lines so small that they are measured in a couple of .000" wide. Working under a microscope, wiskers on a tigers face can be inlayed with the system in a way hardly possible in years past.

The trade has evolved with technology.
Maybe some of it today isn't even 'engraving' anymore by the traditional definition. That should be kept in mind when judging older work against modern.

I think your post really puts some good perspective on this topic. Very interesting.