Stanley William Hayter : Les nouveaux gestes de la gravure

Abstract

In 1947, a small group of Surrealist artists, comprising Joan Miró, printmaker Stanley William Hayter and poet Ruthven Todd tried to resurrect Blake’s technique of “illuminated printing”. Their research resulted in the invention by Hayter of a method of printing simultaneously several colours, depending on the inks’ different viscosities. The process revolutionised the traditional approach to colour printing, and became famous, fascinating a large number of engravers. This article first describes the process in detail and how the artist, by employing new gestures for the production of colour plates, opened the door to a Surrealist approach of the medium. A close analysis of Hayter’s New Ways of Gravure, written in 1949 to give engravers the technical means to reach the spontaneity of painters, will demonstrate how Hayter saw gestures as fundamental to unleash the imagination. For him lines, traces, contours resulting from a controlled, but intuitive gesture, express both introspection and exteriority. They are a “unidirectional time system” which requires total physical involvement on the part of the artist, while freeing his creativity. The article examines how Stanley William Hayter’s engraving gestures are deeply connected to his aesthetic approach and resonate with his artistic production as a whole.

Keywords

• viscosity engraving
• simultaneous engraving
• polychromy engraving
• gestures in engraving
• Hayter (Stanley William)
• Blake (William)