Five Men Fighting Beasts
1532
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
1532
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
This engraving shows five men fighting a lion and a bull. The men wear simple tunics. One holds a club. The animals look fierce. The artist cuts lines into metal, then ink rolls into the grooves. Paper presses on top. Light hits the raised lines. It’s an old trick called engraving. Try it yourself: look up cross-hatching under a microscope.
