Part 1 (1/2)

The New Gresham Encyclopedia.

by Various.

VOL 4.

Part 3.

ESTREMOZ', a town of Portugal, in the province of Alemtejo, 22 miles west of Elvas. Pop. about 8000.

ESZEK (es-sek'), or ESSEG, a town of Yugo-Slavia, formerly in Hungary, on the Drave, 13 miles from its confluence with the Danube. It has barracks, town house, normal school, an important trade, and several fairs. Pop.

31,000.

eTAMPES ([=a]-ta[n.]p), a town of France, department of Seine-et-Oise, 30 miles S. by W. of Paris. Pop. 9450.

eTAPLES, a town of Northern France, department of Pas-de-Calais, on the right bank of the estuary of the Canche, 17 miles south of Boulogne. During the European War, etaples became a place of great importance. It was a huge British encampment, including many hospitals, and a cemetery with over 11,000 graves. It was also of importance as a training-centre, and the famous 'Bull-ring' was there. Pop. 6000.

ETAP'PEN (Ger.), a department in Continental armies the business of which is to relieve the commanders of the field army of all responsibility for their communications in the rear. The officers of this department supervise all arrangements for loading and unloading at stations, forwarding, feeding, and billeting.

ETA'WAH, a town, Hindustan, United Provinces, capital of district of the same name, on left bank of the Jumna, picturesquely situated among ravines, and richly planted with trees. It has some good buildings, and a considerable trade. Pop. 45,350.--The district has an area of 1694 sq.

miles, and a pop. of 760,120.

ETCHING, a method of engraving lines upon a metal plate by means of acid, whence the term has come to denote an impression taken on paper or similar material from the etched plate. Sometimes, though incorrectly, applied to a line-drawing in pen and ink. The usual process is to cover the plate (generally of copper) with an _etching-ground_ of waxes and resins, on which the lines are opened up by means of a sharp-pointed _etching-needle_, either from a design transferred to the ground, or by the artist working directly. The lines are then _bitten_ by putting the plate into dilute nitric or hydrochloric acid, the back and edges being protected by _stopping-out varnish_. The plate is removed when the lightest lines are sufficiently bitten. If some lines need deeper biting, the rest may be covered with stopping-out varnish, and the plate replaced in the acid; or acid may be applied locally. If a plate is removed before biting is complete, in order to take a trial impression, it is recovered with a transparent ground, additional lines opened up if necessary, and _rebitten_. In _soft-ground etching_, the ground is mixed with tallow, thin paper laid upon it, and the design firmly drawn thereon with a pencil. When the paper is removed, the ground adheres to it where the lines were drawn.

The plate is bitten in the usual way. This produces the effect of a chalk or pencil drawing. _Dry-point_ is a method of working direct on to the copper with a sharp point, which raises a _burr_ on each side of the line, giving it a characteristic quality. Dry-point, etching proper, and engraving proper are often combined in one plate; and a mixture of etching with mezzotint or aquatint is not uncommon. In _printing_, a matter of first-rate importance, the ink is rubbed into the lines and superfluous ink _wiped_ from the surface of the plate, ink being left in any place where a tint is required. Impressions may then be taken by hand; but a press is generally used, being more expeditious and yielding more even results. The papers used are various, but those of j.a.panese make are most popular. The number of good impressions possible from one plate is limited by the wearing of the plate; in particular, the burr of dry-point soon disappears.

A _state_ is the name given to each stage in the progress of a print, which is the result of new work on the plate. Differences due to variations in the amount of ink used, or to wiping, do not const.i.tute states; but the addition of a t.i.tle, artist's signature, &c., will make a state. As distinct from the engraved line, the etched line has a freedom and spontaneity resembling that made by pen or pencil.

The process was apparently used as a means of decorating metal some time before prints were taken. The earliest-known etching is dated 1513. Among the first to use the process was Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), who between 1515 and 1518 produced six plates on iron, showing great power and precision, but hardly realizing all the qualities of the medium. Among his followers, the German Little Masters, Hans Sebald Beham and Albrecht Altdorfer were responsible for some interesting plates, as was Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), the Dutchman. Among the earliest Italian etchers were Francesco Mazzuoli (1503-40) and Andrea Schiavone (1522-82), who show more freedom and delicacy than the Germans. But at this time etching was mainly the by-product of artists whose chief work was painting or engraving. Its great period opened in the seventeenth century. Jacques Callot (1592-1635), born at Nancy, who worked there and at Rome, produced about one thousand plates of small size, the most important being two series of the _Miseries of War_. He is remarkable for his fine sense of design, the fantastic, grotesque quality of his figures, and the delicacy and variety of his line, obtained by rebiting and by combining engraving with etching. Claude Lorrain (1600-82), the landscape painter, possibly under the influence of Callot, produced some fifty plates, very delicately etched, and suggestive of atmosphere. Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), beside being court painter to Charles I of England, was the greatest Flemish etcher of his day. His eighteen etched portraits of famous contemporaries (fifteen of which were included in his _Iconography_, published 1645), in their direct handling and vivid characterization, are among the finest work of the kind ever done. But the central figure in etching, not only of the seventeenth century but of all time, is Rembrandt van Ryn (1606-69), whose work is unrivalled both in quality and influence. His etchings show the same realism, understanding of humanity, and creative imagination which mark all his work. Roughly, they fall into three groups, according to the time at which they were produced. In the first period, the ordinary etched line is mainly used, and the artist is evidently feeling his way; in the second, chiaroscuro is more marked, and dry-point used freely; in the third, the handling is very free and vigorous, chiaroscuro becomes the dominant feature, and dry-point the usual method. Development on these lines marks all his plates, which consist of (1) portraits, e.g. _Jan Six_ (_c._ 1646) and _Clement de Jonghe_ (1651); (2) figure compositions, many of scriptural subjects, which include the masterpiece _Christ receiving Little Children_ (_c._ 1650), commonly known as 'The Hundred Guilder Print'; (3) landscapes, e.g. _The Goldweigher's Field_, the least numerous cla.s.s, but one which has inspired the greatest ma.s.s of work. The Dutch painters contemporary with or following Rembrandt were in some cases prolific etchers, notably Ferdinand Bol and Adrian van Ostade, and reproduce in that medium the characteristics of their painting. In the eighteenth century etching fell somewhat into disuse, save in Italy, where G. B. Tiepolo (1696-1770), the decorative painter, produced some fifty plates, and Antonio Ca.n.a.le (Ca.n.a.letto, 1697-1768) showed in his few etchings the same power to express structure and aerial perspective as in his painting. More prolific was G. B. Piranesi (1720-88), who published a series of views of the Cla.s.sical and Renaissance architecture of Rome, professedly with an archaeological aim, but of great artistic interest. His imaginative power, bold design, and vigorous handling are best seen in the fantastic plates of his _Carceri_. In England, William Hogarth (1697-1764) produced a few etchings; Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), the caricaturist, used etching as the basis of his aquatints; and John Crome (1768-1821), the landscape painter, etched some characteristic plates. But it was Francisco Goya (1746-1828) whose work ushered in a new era. His bitterly satirical _Caprichos_ (1793-6, 72 plates), _Proverbios_ (1810-5, 18 plates), _Desastres de la Guerra_ (_c._ 1810, 82 plates), and the more popular but no less remarkable _Tauromaquia_ (_c._ 1815, 33 plates ill.u.s.trating bull-fighting), in all of which the bitten line is allied with aquatint, show a powerful and fantastic imagination, brilliant design and draughtsmans.h.i.+p, and superb technique.

Widely different in character are the 71 plates of the _Liber Studiorum_, one of the most remarkable works of J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851). In these etching merely provides the ground plan for the use of mezzotint, or, more rarely, aquatint. In the nineteenth century the revival inaugurated by Goya was carried on in France by several of the Barbizon group of landscape painters, notably by J. F. Millet (1814-75), responsible for some simple but impressive plates. A more important figure as an etcher is Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), whose admirable portraits recall those of Van Dyck, though elsewhere he shows something of Goya's taste for the grotesque. This last also appears in the work of Charles Meryon (1821-68), one of the greatest of French etchers, whose feeling for decorative design and decisive handling are best seen in his views of Paris. Apart from other etchers of the period are Jules Jacquemart and Felix Braquemond, remarkable for their exquisite delicacy in the reproduction of surface texture. Of the Impressionist painters, Camille p.i.s.sarro (1830-1903) produced some very individual plates, marked by the use of broken lines and much rebiting, in the effort to secure atmospheric effect. Similarly, by means of open shading and absence of outline, Anders Zorn (1860-1918), the Swede, has aimed at reproducing the play of light round objects; but his portraits are his best work. The chief figure in nineteenth-century etching, however, is J. A. McN. Whistler (1834-1903), whose _French Set_ (1858), _Thames Set_ (1871), _Venice Set_ (1880), and _Twenty-six Etchings_ (1886) show his delicate yet decisive handling, his economy of means, his feeling for design, and his power of securing luminosity and atmosphere. Part of his success was due to insistence upon printing his own plates. His brother-in-law, Sir Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910), the distinguished doctor, also took a prominent part in the revival of etching, and in his plates showed remarkable skill. The same accomplishment marks the work of William Strang, A.R.A. (died 1921), who has produced many notable portraits of contemporary celebrities, including R. L. Stevenson and Thomas Hardy.

Another artist of great technical skill, excelling in the use of dry-point, is Felicien Rops (1833-98), a Belgian, whose work is remarkable for its union of satire and licentiousness. The most notable living etchers are chiefly found in England, and include Sir Frank Short, famous also for his mezzotints; D. Y. Cameron, a disciple of Whistler, though of marked individuality in his treatment of architecture; Muirhead Bone, whose architectural work is unrivalled and has inspired many followers; James McBey; and Augustus John, who stands apart from his contemporaries in his preference for figure subjects. In France, Jean-Louis Forain has produced some remarkable work, notably series dealing with the life of Christ, and with Lourdes, which show his satiric power and a very distinctive technique. See _Engraving_.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. M. Hind, _A Short History of Engraving and Etching_ (very complete and authoritative). For technical details, M. Lalanne, _Etching_; Paton, _Etching and Mezzotint Engraving_.

ETE'OCLES and POLYNI'CES, two heroes of ancient Greek legend, sons of Oedipus, King of Thebes. After their father's banishment from Thebes, Eteocles usurped the throne to the exclusion of his brother, an act which led to an expedition of Polynices and six others against Thebes. This war is known as the Seven against Thebes, and forms the basis of aeschylus's _The Seven against Thebes_. The two brothers fell by each other's hand. See _Antigone_.

ETE'SIAN WINDS (Gr. _etos_, year), winds which, blowing over the Mediterranean regions from a general northerly direction during some weeks of the summer, replace the heated air that rises from the Sahara and other parts of Africa. By carrying with them moisture from the sea, they add greatly to the fertility of Egypt.

ETHANE, (C_2H_6), a hydrocarbon belonging to the paraffin series. It is a colourless inflammable gas, and is found amongst the gaseous const.i.tuents of the Pennsylvanian oil-wells.

ETH'ELBERT, King of Kent, born about A.D. 560, died 616. He succeeded his father, Hermenric, and reduced all the English states, except Northumberland, to the condition of his dependents. Ethelbert married Bertha, the daughter of Caribert, King of Paris, and a Christian princess, an event which led indirectly to the introduction of Christianity into England by St. Augustine. Ethelbert was the first English king to draw up a code of laws.

ETHELBERT, King of England, son of Ethelwulf, succeeded to the government of the eastern side of the kingdom in A.D. 857, and in 860, on the death of his brother Ethelbald, became sole king. His reign was much disturbed by the inroads of the Danes. He died in 866.

ETH'ELRED I, King of England, son of Ethelwulf, succeeded his brother Ethelbert in A.D. 866. The Danes became so formidable in his reign as to threaten the conquest of the whole kingdom. Ethelred died in consequence of a wound received in an action with the Danes in 871, and was succeeded by his brother Alfred.

ETHELRED II, King of England, son of Edgar, born A.D. 968, succeeded his brother, Edward the Martyr, in 978, and, for his want of vigour and capacity, was surnamed _the Unready_. In his reign began the practice of buying off the Danes by presents of money. After repeated payments of tribute, he effected, in 1002, a ma.s.sacre of the Danes; but this led to Sweyn gathering a large force together and carrying fire and sword through the country. They were again bribed to depart; but, upon a new invasion, Sweyn obliged the n.o.bles to swear allegiance to him as King of England; while Ethelred, in 1013, fled to Normandy. On the death of Sweyn he was invited to resume the government, and died at London in the midst of his struggle with Canute (1016).

ETH'ELWULF, King of England, succeeded his father, Egbert, about A.D. 837, died 857. His reign was in great measure occupied in repelling Danish incursions; but he is best remembered for his donation to the clergy, which is often quoted as the origin of the system of t.i.thes. Alfred the Great was the youngest of his five children.

ETH'ENDUN, BATTLE OF, the victory which Alfred the Great gained over the Danes (878), and which led to the treaty with Guthrum, the Danish king of East England. The locality is doubtful.

ETHER, or aeTHER, sometimes called _luminiferous ether_ to prevent confusion with the well-known volatile liquid of the same name, a hypothetical medium filling the whole of what seems to be empty s.p.a.ce, and even the interstices between the atoms of material bodies. Most thinkers believe that such a medium must be postulated if we are to explain the transmission of physical actions between bodies at a distance from one another. With the exception of ordinary mechanical pressures and tensions, the simplest examples of influences that can pa.s.s across s.p.a.ce are sound and light. Sound, we know, is carried by the air, a medium more subtle than solid or liquid bodies, but still easily recognizable by its effects on our senses, and by its mechanical, physical, and chemical properties. We know a good deal about air, and about the process that goes on when sound is pa.s.sing through it.

But the ether is incomparably more elusive than air. It affects the sense of sight, indeed, as the air affects the sense of hearing; but, so far as we know, it has no weight, no specific heat, no chemical affinity. Except that it is the medium which conveys light, electric and magnetic actions, and possibly gravitation, we know extremely little about it. An extreme school of modern physicists is even inclined to deny, or at least to ignore, its existence altogether.

Early speculators regarded the ether as a species of fluid, which could be displaced by ordinary matter, so that upholders of the wave theory of light necessarily thought of waves like those of sound, in which the direction of vibration is in the line of transmission, for no other kind of wave can occur in a fluid. Young and Fresnel, however, insisted on the view that the movements of the medium are at right angles to the direction of propagation, and pointed out that this might be explained by supposing the medium to possess elasticity of shape. The obvious objection to the conception of a solid which permits the planets to move through it with apparently perfect freedom was met long afterwards by Stokes and Kelvin, who instanced such substances as shoemaker's wax and jelly, which are rigid enough to be capable of elastic vibration, and yet permit bodies to pa.s.s through them with more or less ease. Fresnel's work called attention to the subject of the elasticity of bodies, and led to the discovery of the general equations of vibration of an elastic solid by Navier in 1821.

Navier's equations, slightly generalized, were used by Cauchy with a certain amount of success to explain reflection, refraction, and the phenomena of crystal-optics. In 1837 George Green published a variety of elastic solid theory which was a decided improvement on Cauchy's, but many difficulties remained, and it is now almost universally agreed that the vibrations of an ordinary elastic solid do not furnish an exact parallel to the vibrations which const.i.tute light. One of the chief difficulties is that in an ordinary elastic solid two types of waves can occur, one distortional, with the displacement of a particle perpendicular to the direction of transmission, and the other dilatational, with the displacement along the line of transmission, as in sound. Waves of light must be of the distortional kind, and the velocity of the other kind of wave may be quite different from the velocity of light. A kind of ether in which this difficulty of the longitudinal wave does not occur was imagined by Cauchy and afterwards discussed by Lord Kelvin, who called it the contractile, or labile, ether. This is an elastic body with negative compressibility, like h.o.m.ogeneous foam which is prevented from collapsing by attachment to the sides of a containing vessel. Another type of quasi-elastic solid was brought forward by James MacCullagh in 1839.