button to main menu  Eleventh Exhibition, p.18
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page 18:-
[un]like the works of her copyist, for it will be found as easy to copy nature as reversed in a mirror, as to draw from nature herself.
When the large work was first proposed for publication, it was intended to be engraved in three several sorts of line; the soft ground, the aquatinta, and the hard ground etched line - I had formerly used all these modes; in the present case, on account of its monotonous effect, I intended to use the aquatinta line, in such scenes of mountains as had but little foreground, and the hard ground etched line in a few of the plates by way of variety, but on mature deliberation I fixed upon the soft ground, as infinitely better calculated to answer my purpose, than either of the other two; the hard ground etched line is wholly incapable of giving the fire and spirit of the black lead line; and the aquatint is equally devoid of expression; the instrument used and the nature of the resistance, puts it wholly out of the power of the artist to give the manner of the original subject; there is likewise much uncertainty in the production of the
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