I've said some unkind things here about cross hatching-- those intersecting lines that are used to add tone to a drawing.
Artists who aspire to something higher use line more descriptively, to add dimension, contribute vitality, describe form, or make some other kind of artistic statement. Cross hatching, like stippling, is the kind of busy work that might be delegated to an apprentice, or even replaced by zipatone.
To illustrate my point, look at what the brilliant Joseph Clement Coll did where lesser artists might have used cross hatching.
Compare the vigor in these details (blown up larger than the orignals) with the quiescence of regular cross hatching. Even when we step back and can no longer detect these tiny details, the whole drawing remains infused with energy:
In a generation of great line artists, Coll was one of the best.