Is anyone alive still doing realistic detailed engravings?

Cafe Society
1

I was looking at some of the engravings of William Hogarth and I was just dumbfounded by the detail that went into them. The amount of shit going on in those engravings is mind-blowing. Did he take years to finish these engravings or was he able to do them in months or weeks? Look at this engraving from “A Harlot’s Progress.” How can someone sit and draw those tiny, perfectly-straight lines over and over again without going insane? And this was done hundreds of years ago, without the benefit of computers and all the stuff we take for granted that enables precision-type work to be done more efficiently.

Is there anyone alive today who still does this kind of super-realistic and detailed engravings? Does anyone have a link to their work?

2

I’m guessing Hogarth himself didn’t scribe all those lines. But the observation you make is true of basically anything made from that time. Take this, for example. Labor was simply way cheaper back then, and you could get people to do finicking work for months on end for practically free.

As to your question, the people who engrave plates for printing currency still do fine and exacting work, if not on the scale of Hogarth.