Intaglio Engraving

My final video project on the Intaglio Engravers Academy for JMU's 2016 IeiMedia study abroad program in Urbino, Italy. Thanks to Bruno and his students for introducing us to such an amazing skill and for letting me do my project on this school!

[MrZelegor]

I'm a hungarian and my grandfather was a drawing-teacher in primary-school, he was such a great teacher and he had some hobbies like photography, cycling, traveling. He did some engravings too. He has died in 2003 and all of his works were placed in a cupboard, 2 months ago we've opened that cupboard and i really wanted to know the story behind his artworks, so i was sitting there placing those arts one by one on the floor, it took me 2 days to empty the cupboard.
So the story is that there was some engravings and i've never seen the technique before, so i started to do a research, how it's made, the year of it's invented, the tools you need for it... I have to say that in Hungary it's not a "well-known" artstyle. For example in school we haven't heard anything about Dürer. I wanted to buy a book as a guide for making my first engraving, but it took days to find one in hungarian language, but finally i got one, it was actually just a book translated from ukraine to hungarian sentece by sentece...
Now i just need some tools and i can start my first engraving, till i do some sketching, i really wanna learn this technique, i feel it's better than any artsytle.

[brunojames]

Nice video, I completely share the aim of preserving intaglio engraving and so very rare skills which are disappearing.
Thanks to Bruno for doing that.There's no age for learning intaglio engraving, just need desire and passion.

[Michael.Chapman]

Thanks very much for showing this excellent, interesting video.
It’s very special and inspiring to find people are trying and succeeding to preserve arts that are at risk of loss and extinction.
My interest in intaglio engraving stems directly from two media: metal plate engravings common in antiquarian books (it was the only method of high-res image reproduction available for more than a century!) and antique men’s signet or seal ring jewellery.
In this lost jewellery art-form, natural semi-precious hard stones (usually agates like carnelian, bloodstone or sardonyx) were skillfully hand-engraved with ornate images, heraldic crests, monograms or initials of superb quality. The intaglio engraved stone was then mounted in a gold ring setting and often used to personally wax-seal envelopes in ye olden days…
I hope the Engraver’s Academy is, or will, also focus on intaglio engraving of stones for jewellery. As far as I know this skill has been completely lost—it is so far beyond the jewellery store in your average shopping mall that it’s sadly a huge embarrassment to the modern ‘jewellery trade’…

[fuzzypiglet]

I’m a graphic designer of over 25 years and I have always admired intaglio engraving, specifically portraits and also Bank notes. I’ve always been watching for a computer environment that could replicate the discipline and never seen anything come close, including a few dodgy photoshop plug-ins. But it seems that something is now happening, whether it is a good thing only time will tell. I would have loved to learn intaglio engraving but I’m probably too old now.

[GailitisPrintmaking]

This is a very nice video. I am also a copperplate engraver. Is the school still active?

[KpxUrz]

Better to employ etching until a real use for engraving is discovered.

[penmuni]

You have bastardized the sacred technique of engraving. You should not have submitted to their wishes to digitize everything. Not everything is for sale.
Have some balls. Reject digitization. Go back to original engraving.