I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
In Munich there are about sixty deaf artists, especially painters and sculptors. In Germany and Austria generally, deaf lithographers, xylographers and photographers are well employed, as are bookbinders in Leipzig in particular, and labourers in the provinces. Entry: 3
HYPOSULPHITE OF SODA, the name originally given to the substance known in chemistry as sodium thiosulphate, Na2S2O3; the earlier name is still commonly used, especially by photographers, who employ this chemical as a fixer. In systematic chemistry, sodium hyposulphite is a salt of hyposulphurous acid, to which Schutzenberger gave the formula H2SO2, but which Bernthsen showed to be H2S2O4. (See SULPHUR.) Entry: HYPOSULPHITE
In France there are several deaf writers, journalists, &c., two principals of schools, an architect, a score or so of painters, several of whom are ladies, nine sculptors, and a few engravers, photographers, proof-readers, &c. Entry: 3
23. The great obstacle in the way of securing a really good Artistic Bill has been the introduction into it of photography. It was by a sort of accident that the photographer was given the same privileges as the painter in the bill of 1862. The promoters of the bill thought that the photographer would be protected by the Engraving Acts which covered prints; but since the photographers feared that, as their prints were of a different character from the prints from a plate, the Engraving Acts might not protect them, it was at the last moment decided to put photography into the Art Bill. The result of this was that the painter lost his chance of copyright on all works executed on commission. Legislators feared that if photographers held copyright in all their works the public would have no protection from the annoyance of seeing the photographs of their wives and daughters exhibited and sold in shop windows by the side of "professional beauties" and other people, and made articles of commerce. So in the case of commissioned works the copyright was denied to both painters and photographers. Entry: 23
21. Strange as it may seem, painting was the last branch of the arts to receive copyright protection. The cause of the painters was taken up by the Society of Arts, who endeavoured, in the first instance, to pass an amendment and consolidation bill dealing with engraving, sculpture and painting; but, failing in their first effort, they limited their second to an attempt to pass a bill in favour of painting, drawing and photography. It was in the year 1862 that this act, having passed through parliament, came into force. The absence of any antecedent protection for the painter is clearly stated in its preamble, which reads as follows: "Whereas by law as now established, the authors of paintings, drawings, and photographs have no copyright in such their works, and it is expectant that the law should in that respect be amended. Be it, therefore, enacted," &c. This preamble makes it clear that there is no copyright in any paintings, drawings, or photographs executed and dealt with before the year 1862--to be exact, 29th July of that year. The duration of the term of copyright in this act of 1862 differs from its predecessors, by being made dependent on the life of the author, to which life seven years were added. In the Literary Copyright Act there are two terms--the life of the author and seven years, or forty-two years, whichever may prove the longer. In taking a fixed term like forty-two years it is necessary to have something to start from, and with a literary work it was easy to start from the date of publication. But pictures are not published. They may pass from the studio to the wall of the purchaser without being made public in any way. The difficulty was evidently before the author of this act, and the artist's term was made his life and seven years after his death without any alternative. This term applies equally to photographers. Perhaps no bill which ever passed through parliament ostensibly for the purpose of benefiting a certain set of people has failed so completely as has this bill to accomplish its end. It started by proposing to give copyright to authors of paintings, drawings and photographs, and it would seem that no difficulty ought to have arisen as to whom such copyright should rightly belong; but the following clause of the act has introduced confusion into the question of ownership:-- Entry: 21
That is to say, after promising the author copyright in his work for life and seven years, the act stipulates that in order to get it the author must, at the time of the first sale or disposition of his picture, obtain a document in writing from the purchaser of the picture, reserving the copyright to the author, and the act goes on to say that if he does not take this step the copyright becomes the property of the purchaser of the picture, but with the proviso, in order to secure it to him, he must have a document signed by the artist assigning the copyright to him; but if neither of these things is done, and no document is signed, the copyright does not belong to either the artist who sells or the client who buys, and the act is silent as to whom it does belong to. It has disappeared and belongs to no one. There is no copyright existing in the work for any one. It has passed into the public domain, and any one who can get access to the work may reproduce it. Now, as most purchases are made from the walls of exhibitions, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the copyright is absolutely lost. And where the sale is arranged directly between the artist and his client, the difficulty experienced by the artist in raising the question as to whom the copyright shall belong to is so great, owing to the dread lest the mere mention of the signing of a document should cause the selling of the picture to fall through, that in numerous such cases the copyright lapses and becomes public property. Photographers are not affected by this clause, because they do not as a rule sell the negatives they produce, and with them the copyright lies in the negative. They carry on their trade in prints without the question of the negative arising. The picture-dealer, also, who buys a picture and copyright is not subjected to the same disability as the painter. The picture-dealer can sell a picture without saying a word to his client as to the copyright, which he, nevertheless, retains intact; the provision is applicable only to the _first_ sale of the work, which, therefore, throws the whole of the disability upon the painter. Entry: 21
Among those in professional occupations are a clergyman, five law clerks, ten schoolmasters, teachers, &c., thirty-seven painters, engravers and sculptors, and seven photographers. Of those not engaged in occupations, 235 have retired from business, and 245 are living on their own means. Probably a very large number of the remainder were out of work or engaged in odd jobs at the time of the census; it would certainly be incorrect to take the words "Without specified occupations or unoccupied" to mean that those classified as such were permanently unable to support themselves. Entry: 3
To prepare a plate for etching it is first covered with etching-ground, a composition which resists acid. The qualities of a ground are to be so adhesive that it will not quit the copper when a small quantity is left isolated between lines, yet not so adhesive that the etching point cannot easily and entirely remove it; at the same time a good ground will be hard enough to bear the hand upon it, or a sheet of paper, yet not so hard as to be brittle. The ground used by Abraham Bosse, the French painter and engraver (1602-1676) was composed as follows:--Melt 2 oz. of white wax; then add to it 1 oz. of gum-mastic in powder, a little at a time, stirring till the wax and the mastic are well mingled; then add, in the same manner, 1 oz. of bitumen in powder. There are three different ways of applying an etching-ground to a plate. The old-fashioned way was to wrap a ball of the ground in silk, heat the plate, and then rub the ball upon the surface, enough of the ground to cover the plate melting through the silk. To equalize the ground a dabber was used, which was made of cotton-wool under horsehair, the whole inclosed in silk. This method is still used by many artists, from tradition and habit, but it is far inferior in perfection and convenience to that which we will now describe. When the etching-ground is melted, add to it half its volume of essential oil of lavender, mix well, and allow the mixture to cool. You have now a paste which can be spread upon a cold plate with a roller; these rollers are covered with leather and made (very carefully) for the purpose. You first spread a little paste on a sheet of glass (if too thick, add more oil of lavender and mix with a palette knife), and roll it till the roller is quite equally charged all over, when the paste is easily transferred to the copper, which is afterwards gently heated to expel the oil of lavender. In both these methods of grounding a plate, the work is not completed until the ground has been smoked, which is effected as follows. The plate is held by a hand-vice if a small one, or if large, is fixed at some height, with the covered side downwards. A smoking torch, composed of many thin bees-wax dips twisted together, is then lighted and passed repeatedly under the plate in every direction, till the ground has incorporated enough lampblack to blacken it. The third way of covering a plate for etching is to apply the ground in solution as collodion is applied by photographers. The ground may be dissolved in chloroform, or in oil of lavender. The plate being grounded, its back and edges are protected from the acid by Japan varnish, which soon dries, and then the drawing is traced upon it. The best way of tracing a drawing is to use sheet gelatine, which is employed as follows. The gelatine is laid upon the drawing, which its transparence allows you to see perfectly, and you trace the lines by scratching the smooth surface with a sharp point. You then fill these scratches with fine black-lead, in powder, rubbing it in with the finger, turn the tracing with its face to the plate, and rub the back of it with a burnisher. The black-lead from the scratches adheres to the etching ground and shows upon it as pale grey, much more visible than anything else you can use for tracing. Then comes the work of the etching-needle, which is merely a piece of steel sharpened more or less. J.M.W. Turner used a prong of an old steel fork which did as well as anything, but neater etching-needles are sold by artists' colour-makers. The needle removes the ground or cover and lays the copper bare. Some artists sharpen their needles so as to present a cutting edge which, when used sideways, scrapes away a broad line; and many etchers use needles of various degrees of sharpness to get thicker or thinner lines. It may be well to observe, in connexion with this part of the subject, that whilst thick lines agree perfectly well with the nature of woodcut, they are very apt to give an unpleasant heaviness to plate engraving of all kinds, whilst thin lines have generally a clear and agreeable appearance in plate engraving. Nevertheless, lines of moderate thickness are used effectively in etching when covered with finer shading, and very thick lines indeed were employed with good results by Turner when he intended to cover them with mezzotint (q.v.), and to print in brown ink, because their thickness was essential to prevent them from being overwhelmed by the mezzotint, and the brown ink made them print less heavily than black. Etchers differ in opinion as to whether the needle ought to scratch the copper or simply to glide upon its surface. A gliding needle is much more free, and therefore communicates a greater appearance of freedom to the etching, but it has the inconvenience that the etching-ground may not always be entirely removed, and then the lines may be defective from insufficient biting. A scratching needle, on the other hand, is free from this serious inconvenience, but it must not scratch irregularly so as to _engrave_ lines of various depth. The _biting_ in former times was generally done with a mixture of nitric acid and water, in equal proportions; but in the present day a Dutch mordant is a good deal used, which is composed as follows: Hydrochloric acid, 100 grammes; chlorate of potash, 20 grammes; water, 880 grammes. To make it, heat the water, add the chlorate of potash, wait till it is entirely dissolved, and then add the acid. The nitrous mordant acts rapidly and causes ebullition; the Dutch mordant acts slowly and causes no ebullition. The nitrous mordant widens the lines; the Dutch mordant bites in depth, and does not widen the lines to any perceptible degree. The time required for both depends upon temperature. A mordant bites slowly when cold, and more and more rapidly when heated. To obviate irregularity caused by difference of temperature, it is a good plan to heat the Dutch mordant artificially to 95° Fahr. by lamps under the bath (for which a photographer's porcelain tray is most convenient), and keep it steadily to that temperature; the results may then be counted upon; but whatever the temperature fixed upon, the results will be regular if it is regular. To get different degrees of biting on the same plate the lines which are to be pale are "stopped out" by being painted over with Japan varnish or with etching ground dissolved in oil of lavender, the darkest lines being reserved to the last, as they have to bite longest. When the acid has done its work properly the lines are bitten in such various degrees of depth that they will print with the degree of blackness required; but if some parts of the subject require to be made paler, they can be lowered by rubbing them with charcoal and olive oil, and if they have to be made deeper they can be rebitten, or covered with added shading. Rebiting is done with the roller above mentioned, which is now charged very lightly with paste and rolled over the copper with no pressure but its own weight, so as to cover the smooth surface but not fill up any of the lines. The oil of lavender is then expelled as before by gently heating the plate, but it is not smoked. The lines which require rebiting may now be rebitten, and the others preserved against the action of the acid by stopping out. These are a few of the most essential technical points in etching, but there are many matters of detail for which the reader is referred to the special works on the subject. Entry: ETCHING
DU CAMP, MAXIME (1822-1894), French writer, the son of a successful surgeon, was born in Paris on the 8th of February 1822. He had a strong taste for travel, which his father's means enabled him to indulge as soon as his college days were over. Between 1844 and 1845, and again, in company with Gustave Flaubert, between 1849 and 1851, he travelled in Europe and the East, and made excellent use of his experiences in books published after his return. In 1851 he was one of the founders of the _Revue de Paris_ (suppressed in 1858), and was a frequent contributor to the _Revue des deux mondes_. In 1853 he was made an officer of the Legion of Honour. He served as a volunteer with Garibaldi in 1860, and gave an account of his experiences in his _Expédition des deux Siciles_ (1861). In 1870 he was nominated for the senate, but his election was frustrated by the downfall of the Empire. He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1880, mainly, it is said, on account of his history of the Commune, published under the title of _Les Convulsions de Paris_ (1878-1880). His writings include among others the _Chants modernes_ (1855), _Convictions_ (1858); numerous works on travel, _Souvenirs et paysages d'orient_ (1848), _Égypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie_ (1852); works of art criticism, _Les Salons de 1857, 1859, 1861_; novels, _L'Homme au bracelet d'or_ (1862), _Une Histoire d'amour_ (1889); literary studies, _Théophile Gautier_ (1890). Du Camp was the author of a valuable book on the daily life of Paris, _Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, sa vie dans la seconde moitié du XIX