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Antonio Spano after Marco Pino Perseus with the Head of Medusa ca. 1570-80 chiaroscuro woodcut British Museum |
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Natalia Goncharova Design for Stage Set ca. 1912 pochoir McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas |
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Raoul Dufy Les Trois Nus before 1953 pochoir Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall |
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Jan van Somer after Anthony van Dyck Portrait of painter Hubert Le Sueur ca. 1670-80 mezzotint British Museum |
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Jan van Somer Woman with Veil ca. 1670-80 mezzotint British Museum |
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William Strang Woman darning 1884 etching and mezzotint British Museum |
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Georges Barbier La Terre 1925 lineblock and pochoir Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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Georges Barbier L'Automne 1925 lineblock and pochoir Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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Georges Barbier L'Eau 1925 lineblock and pochoir Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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Elisha Kirkall after Enea Salmeggia Christ with Martha and Mary ca. 1720-30 chiaroscuro woodcut British Museum |
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Master N.D. after Parmigianino Virgin and Child with Saints ca. 1544 chiaroscuro woodcut (School of Fontainebleau) British Museum |
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Hans Burgkmair the Elder Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I 1518 chiaroscuro woodcut Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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Hans Wechtlin Alcon slaying the Serpent before 1526 chiaroscuro woodcut British Museum |
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Hans Wechtlin Orpheus ca. 1510 chiaroscuro woodcut British Museum |
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Hans Wechtlin Pyrgoteles (ancient gem-cutter) ca. 1520 chiaroscuro woodcut British Museum |
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Hans Wechtlin The Knight and the Lansquenet ca. 1518 chiaroscuro woodcut British Museum |
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Johann Ulrich Biberger Herzog Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig ca. 1710 mezzotint Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel |
ELISION – The obliteration of a syllable, for metrical reasons, when a vowel at the end of a word comes before one at the beginning of another. This strict classical meaning of the term is extended ordinarily, in the English use of it, to the omission of a syllable within a word, or the fusion of two in any of the various ways indicated by the classical terms crasis ("mixture"), thlipsis ("crushing"), syncope ("cutting short"), synalœpha ("smearing together"), synizesis ("setting together"), synecphonesis ("combined utterances"), and others. Perhaps the most useful phraseology in English indicates "elision" for actual vanishing of a vowel (when it is usually represented by an apostrophe), and "slur" for running of two into one. These two processes are of extreme importance, for upon the view taken of them turns the view to be held of Shakespeare's and Milton's blank verse, and of a large number of other measures.
– George Saintsbury, from Historical Manual of English Prosody (1910)