This vintage book constitutes the definitive guide to etching, complete with historical information, a look at the masters, critical analyses, invaluable tips, and more. A comprehensive and insightful treatise on the subject, this book will appeal students of art, and constitutes a veritable must-read for connoisseurs of antiquarian art literature. Contents include: "Etching Compared with Other Arts", "Difficulties and Facilities of Etching", "The Popular Estimate of Etching", "The Influence of Connoisseurship", "Criticism and Practical Work", "Favourable and Unfavourable Artistic Conditions", "Comprehensiveness", and "Abstraction". Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1807 - 1858) was an English author, artist and art critic. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly hard to come by and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.