Portrait of a Young Man c. 1878 - 1898

Gaston La Touche made this "Portrait of a Young Man" using etching, a printmaking technique where lines are incised into a metal plate with acid, and then filled with ink to create an image. The way that La Touche has used the etching process allows us to see the figure emerge from the page with incredible immediacy. He has built up a tonal range from the lightest greys to the deepest blacks through the density of marks, and the cross-hatching of the lines. This way of working shows the artist experimenting with the characteristics of the materials. He probably employed tools to selectively burn the plate in acid, creating a range of subtle gradations of tone. In this image, we see an intimate portrait of a fashionable young man of the time, and one can see the time and labor involved in its production, demonstrating a unique intersection of industry, artistic skill, and a desire to capture the world around him. Appreciating the amount of work helps us to reconsider the traditional hierarchy between craft and fine art.