1

I haven't written much on this blog about engravers, perhaps because I started a rather over-ambitious post about engraving in general that still languishes in my unfinished files. So today I'll just talk about one of my favourite twentieth-century engravers, Ferdinand Springer. Not only do I admire the formal precision and grace of his work, I feel an affinity with his choice of subjects, which tend to the philosophical and metaphysical. Late in his career he produced editions of the Tao Te Ching and the Bardo Thodol, and the two earlier sets of prints I have by Springer are for similar subjects - a 1947 edition of Paul Val�ry's Socratic dialogue Eupalinos ou l'Architecte and a 1948 edition of Plato's Mythe de la Caverne. Ferdinand Springer, Eupalinos ou l'Architecte IV Engraving, 1947 Ferdinand Springer, Eupalinos ou l'Architecte VI Engraving, 1947 The line engravings for Eupalinos are a masterclass in how to handle an engraver's burin. Although the en