Mission:
To explore how Early Modern engravers made rapid and dramatic visual changes to the technique of engraving.

Background:
The Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art launched the Brilliant Line site in September 2009 as a complement to The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver (1480-1650) exhibition, which traced the evolution of engraving in Europe from the Renaissance through the Baroque period.

Outstanding Web Features:
The Brilliant Line site features a video of RISD associate professor of printmaking Andrew Raftery demonstrating the steps in the engraving process — from creating a tracing to incising the design onto a copper plate to engraving the plate. Visitors to the site can also explore, in detail, eight engravings from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries created by the likes of Albrecht Dürer, Jan Harmensz Muller, and Grégoire Huret.