Studies On The Art Languange Of Mezzotints

Based on the relevant theories of Mezzotint, it gives a systematic exposition of artistic manifestations and art features of Mezzotint with its materials and techniques as factors, further analyzes the design ideas of Mezzotint and the specific characteristics by combining with my own Mezzotint works. It aims to further intensify the scientific understanding of Mezzotints' art language and verify the unique art language and artistic attraction of Mezzotint.With the further development of modern prints, people show more and more attentions to Mezzotint, and most Mezzotint works are only very popular in some western developed countries and regions, however, as Mezzotints in China started relatively late, so they hasn't received great attentions and rapid developments yet in theory and practice. The aim of this study is to summarize the formation and development process of Mezzotint printmaking, and make further understanding of the unique artistic language from the successful cases to put forward new exploration and thinking of the theoretical and practical studies.The printmaking technique of Mezzotint is invented by an German named Siegen in Netherlands during the late 17th century. Mezzotint technique is well known in printing field by its portraits characterized with delicate and soft tones, and has developed to be a special art manifestation among copper engraving languages. In the early period, Mezzotint mostly used to copy painting or used as a copy mean for the nobility, but in the mid 17th century, Netherlands became its focal point. However, due to the rapid development of photographic technology from the late 19th century to the 20th century, Mezzotint engraving techniques have been gradually forgotten, and now with the growing of culture refinement and artistic pursuit of modem people, the art Mezzotint begins to be studied and discussed gradually. With the changing of times and advances of science, Mezzotint has maken great progress in plate making tools and technique performance, as well as has been constantly pursuing the innovations in materials application and printmaking techniques which enhances individualism. Today, under the guidance of various creative concept, Mezzotint is doing some experimental researches on all kinds of techniques and materials to pursue its art language form. This traditional language form Mezzotint print is also suitable to people's art pursuits and the artistic characteristics of this new era, so it makes new space for the expansion of print language. The most important artistic manifestation of Mezzotint technique is gray tone, which contains a rich and complex neutralization information from artists, bears great vitality, and makes people enter into a hallucinatory world. U.S. Materials and topics choosing plays a vital role in the plate engraving process of Mezzotint. Different typies of paper and ink make different effects. I tried different materials in my Mezzotint art works, i.e., I created "Beautiful China", "Cup", "Fruit", "Ink", " Body", "Century Landscape" series with various kinds of paper and ink. These works focus on different performance of techniques by taking different combinations of black, white and gray to highlight the ideological contents and make Mezzotint prints more poetic.