aquatint - An intaglio, etching, and tonal printing process in which a porous ground allows acid to penetrate to form a network of small dots in the plate, as well as the prints made by this process. Aquatints often resemble wash drawings. Any pure whites are stopped out entirely before etching begins, then the palest tints are bitten and stopped out, and so on as in etching. This process is repeated 20 to 30 times until the darkest tones (deepest recesses in the plate) are reached.

Examples:

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746-1828), The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (O Sonho da Razao Produz Monstros), 1796-1797, first edition, number 43 from the series "Los Caprichos", aquatint. See Spanish art.

Francisco de Goya, Giant, by 1818, XIX, burnished aquatint, first state; sheet: 11 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches (28.5 x 21.01 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Camille Pissarro (French, 1830-1903), Effet de pluie, 1879, etching, aquatint, and drypoint, plate: 6 5/16 x 8 3/8 inches (16 x 21.27 cm); sheet: 9 3/8 x 13 inches (23.81 x 33.02 cm), Los Angeles County Museum of Art. See Impressionism.