26. Sir Frank Short
(1857-1945)

‘Twixt Dawn and Day

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‘Twixt Dawn and Day

‘Twixt Dawn and Day

Aquatint, 1919, 229 x 295 mm., Hardie 165 ii/ii. Fine impression on wove paper with good margins, signed in pencil. The difference between the first and second states lies only in the extension of the white streak in the sky to the left of the hayrick. Short’s aquatint technique was far more complicated, and produced far subtler results, than the basic method developed in the eighteenth century. He often used a sandpaper ground to cover the whole plate, rather than several aquatint grounds of differing grain. He probably used multiple bitings. And most of his delicate effects were produced by burnishing, as in mezzotint, but with a quite different look. The aquatints are generally lighter in appearance, more “daytime” prints, and Short played with the lighter shades of gray to produce myriad tiny tonal variations hardly seen in aquatint before. There are no lines on this plate, only shifting tones.