Letter: We need some precision about etching

From Rosalinda Hardiman, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK

Clare Wilson reveals some of the earliest known human mark-making, possibly pushing back the beginning of the history of art (15 September, p 7). I am irritated, though, by the use of “etching” instead of “engraving” or “incising” to describe how the marks were made.

The distinction is important to me as an art historian: to etch is to engrave with acids or corrosives. To state that “etching is a simpler technique than drawing with a crayon” reverses the actuality.

Etching was developed in the Middle Ages and it may have been used by the Romans for metal decoration – but not earlier. Art terms deserve the same stringent accuracy as scientific ones.