The etching, or the art of capturing the soul in black and white
Imagine for a moment: a copper plate, polished like a mirror, rests on the workbench of a seventeenth-century Amsterdam workshop. In the half-light, a man with tired but bright eyes traces lines with a steel point, as if carving directly into the darkness. These marks, invisible at first, will soon come to life under the pressure of a press, revealing tormented faces, biblical scenes bathed in divine light, or self-portraits where every wrinkle tells a story. This man is Rembrandt, and what he creates is not merely a drawing, but an alchemy of metal, ink, and paper—an etching.
By Artedusa
••10 min readTwo centuries later, in Enlightenment Spain, another artist, deaf and solitary, works in the secrecy of his studio. Francisco Goya etches nightmares onto copper—witches with deformed faces, war scenes where horror vies with poetry. His prints, like The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, are not simple illustrations: they are stifled cries, truths too dangerous to be spoken aloud.
Between these two giants, an ancient technique would become the secret language of troubled souls. Etching, this process where acid bites into metal to release images, is not just a matter of technique. It is a philosophy, a way of seeing the world in shadows and light, where white is not the absence of color but the promise of revelation.
01When copper becomes a page of history
The history of etching begins long before Rembrandt and Goya, in the workshops of Renaissance goldsmiths. Albrecht Dürer, that German genius of the sixteenth century, was one of the first to grasp the potential of the technique. But it was in Holland, during the Golden Age, that etching would find its heyday. Why did the Dutch Republic, that small country of merchants and sailors, become the cradle of this artistic revolution?
The answer lies in three words: freedom, commerce, and Protestantism. In a Europe torn apart by religious wars, the United Provinces offered a haven of relative tolerance. Artists no longer depended solely on commissions from the Church or princes: they could sell their prints in an open market, where enlightened burghers collected works as one might collect rare books today. A Rembrandt etching cost a few guilders—the price of a good meal—but it allowed one to hang a fragment of genius in one’s home.
And then there was that particular light of the Netherlands, that low and shifting sky that gave the landscapes an almost mystical atmosphere. Rembrandt, the son of a miller from Leiden, knew this light by heart. He would use it to transform etching into a medium capable of rivaling painting. The Three Crosses, etched in 1653, is a masterpiece of chiaroscuro where Christ seems to emerge from the darkness like an apparition. The plate, reworked five times, shows the artist in pursuit of perfection—each state revealing a new layer of meaning, as if Rembrandt were literally digging into the soul of his subject.
02Goya, or the art of etching the unspeakable
While Rembrandt used etching to explore divine light, Goya employed it to reveal the monsters lurking in the shadows. His era was one of Enlightenment, but also of the Inquisition, war, and a declining Spanish empire. In this context, the print became a weapon. Los Caprichos, that series of eighty engravings published in 1799, was a punch in the face of Spanish society.
Take The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (Capricho 43). A man—perhaps Goya himself—sleeps at his desk, his head resting on his arms. Around him, bats and owls with piercing eyes invade the space. The scene is both realistic and dreamlike: the details of the desk, the scattered quills and papers, contrast with these nocturnal creatures that seem to emerge straight from a nightmare. But what does this image really represent?
For Goya’s contemporaries, the message was clear: when reason sleeps, superstition and fanaticism take power. Spain at the end of the eighteenth century was a country where the Inquisition still hunted heretics, where witches were burned, where elites preferred dogma to new ideas. Goya, who had been a court painter before becoming a scathing critic of the monarchy, knew what he was talking about. And he would pay the price for his audacity: Los Caprichos was withdrawn from sale after just two weeks, under pressure from the Church.
But Goya did not stop there. During the Peninsular War (1808–1814), he etched The Disasters of War, a series of eighty-two prints documenting the atrocities committed by Napoleonic troops—and by the Spaniards themselves. These images, of unspeakable violence, would not be published until 1863, long after his death. Why? Because they showed the horror of war without heroism, without glory. A French soldier slits a civilian’s throat, a woman is raped, bodies rot in a field. Goya takes no sides: he shows humanity at its ugliest.
03The magic of the line: when the point becomes a brush
What fascinates about etching is this alchemy between the precision of the engraver and the emotion of the draftsman. Unlike woodcut, where the line is sharp and geometric, etching allows for an almost painterly freedom. Rembrandt, in particular, pushed the technique to its limits.
Look at The Hundred Guilder Print (c. 1649), one of his most famous etchings. The subject? A biblical scene from the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus heals the sick, preaches to the poor, and blesses the children. But what strikes is the way Rembrandt organizes the space. On the left, a group of the sick—a blind man, a lame man—wait their turn. At the center, Jesus, haloed in light, dominates the scene. On the right, mothers present their children, while Pharisees, in the shadows, seem to whisper among themselves.
The composition is of rare complexity for a print. Rembrandt uses several techniques on a single plate: etching for clean contours, burin for details, and drypoint for velvety effects. The result? An image where each area seems to have its own texture. The clothes of the poor are rendered with quick, almost sketchy strokes, while Christ’s face is of surgical precision. And then there are those plays of light: Rembrandt leaves ink in the grooves of the plate to create deep shadows, as if sculpting light itself.
Goya, for his part, innovated with aquatint, a technique that allows for gradations of gray. In The Sleep of Reason, the shadows around the sleeper are not traced with the point but obtained by dusting the plate with resin before immersing it in acid. The result? A grainy, almost vaporous background that gives the image a dreamlike—or nightmarish—atmosphere.
04The secrets of the workshop: when the artist becomes an alchemist
Behind every etching lies a nearly magical process, where metal, acid, and paper enter into dialogue. Rembrandt, like Goya, was an tireless experimenter. He tested different ink recipes, played with the temperature of the acid, and reworked his plates to the point of obsession.
Take The Three Crosses. This print exists in five different states, each revealing a new version of the scene. In the first state, the composition is still hesitant, the figures barely sketched. In the fifth state, Rembrandt has added details, strengthened contrasts, and even changed the position of some figures. The plate, worn by multiple passes through the press, bears the scars of this quest for perfection.
Goya, meanwhile, was a master of improvisation. For Los Caprichos, he often used recycled plates, like those from an abandoned engraving. He scraped, polished, retouched, until the image emerged from the darkness. And then there are those details that reveal his genius: in The Sleep of Reason, the lynx with wide-open eyes, a symbol of vigilance, contrasts with the sleeper. A subtle wink, almost invisible at first glance.
But etching is also a fragile medium. Copper plates wear out, lines fade, and each impression is unique. The first prints, made when the plate is still new, are the most sought after. Later, the details blur, as if the image were gradually vanishing. It is this fleeting quality that gives etchings their particular charm: each print is a stolen moment, an encounter between metal and paper.
05From the workshop to the museum: how a print becomes a treasure
Today, an etching by Rembrandt or Goya can sell for hundreds of thousands of euros. But at the time, these prints were modest objects, sold in the shops of Amsterdam or Madrid. How did they become museum pieces?
For Rembrandt, it all began in the eighteenth century, when English and French collectors rediscovered his work. The Hundred Guilder Print, in particular, became a coveted object. In 1750, a collector paid 100 guilders for a print—a staggering sum for the time. The name of the etching preserves the trace of this anecdote, though historians today agree it is probably exaggerated.
Goya, on the other hand, was less fortunate in his lifetime. Los Caprichos was a commercial failure, and The Disasters of War would only be published after his death. But in the nineteenth century, the Romantics saw in him a precursor of the tormented genius. Baudelaire, in particular, admired his audacity: "Goya is always a great artist, often terrifying. He unites Spanish gaiety and joviality with a love of the elusive, the feeling for violent contrasts, for mysterious horrors."
Today, these prints are preserved like relics. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam holds a rare impression of The Hundred Guilder Print in its first state. The Prado in Madrid displays the original plates of Los Caprichos, carefully protected in climate-controlled cases. And then there are those private collectors who guard their treasures jealously, like the Parisian art dealer who, a few years ago, acquired a proof of La Tauromaquia for 1.2 million euros.
06The invisible legacy: when black and white inspires the modern world
The influence of Rembrandt and Goya extends far beyond the realm of printmaking. Their way of playing with shadows and light has inspired generations of artists, from photographers to filmmakers.
Take photography. Ansel Adams, the master of black-and-white landscapes, often cited Rembrandt as a major influence. His photographs of Yosemite, where rocks emerge from the mist like apparitions, owe much to the Dutchman’s chiaroscuro. And what of Henri Cartier-Bresson, who captured the decisive moment with the precision of an engraver?
In cinema, the legacy is just as present. Orson Welles, in Citizen Kane, used expressionist lighting that recalls Goya’s prints. Stanley Kubrick, in Barry Lyndon, pushed the play of shadows to its extreme, with interior scenes that seem to have stepped straight out of a Rembrandt painting.
Even modern comics owe something to these masters of etching. Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus, has often spoken of his admiration for Goya. His black-and-white drawings, where mice and cats become archetypes of the Holocaust, bear the mark of The Disasters of War.
07Why do these images still speak to us?
Perhaps because etching, more than any other medium, captures the very essence of humanity. In black and white, there are no half-tones, no compromises. Rembrandt’s faces, etched by time and suffering, gaze at us with an intensity that spans the centuries. Goya’s monsters remind us that the nightmares of history repeat themselves, again and again.
And then there is the idea that art can be both intimate and universal. A Rembrandt etching, hung in a seventeenth-century Dutch living room, was an everyday object, a topic of conversation. Today, displayed under glass in a museum, it remains a window into a soul. Goya transformed the print into a political weapon, a tool of resistance. His images, banned in his lifetime, have become symbols of the struggle against oppression.
So the next time you see an old print, take the time to look at it. Behind those black lines on a white background lies an entire world: smoky workshops, creaking presses, artists who dared to etch their dreams—and their nightmares—into metal. And who knows? Perhaps you will see, as in a mirror, your own reflection.