By using a greasy crayon on limestone he found that large runs of prints could be made with incredible precision. This allowed for more accurate replicas of painted works and further expanded commercial illustration techniques.Īn accidental discovery by Alois Senefelder in the late 1700s. By exposing areas of a copper plate to acid, waterlike tones are created at varying shades depending on the concentration and exposure time of the acid. This process catered to portraiture as the planes of the face could be described more subtly, and therefore, more realistically than with other printing techniques.Īquatint was invented by Dutch printmaker, Jan van de Vele IV around the same period as Mezzotint, but unlike the latter, it would be a century until it was popularized by artists like Jean-Baptiste Le Prince and Francisco Goya. It involved burnishing a metal plate to create variation in smoothness that, when printed, would allow for a wide spectrum of tonal variation. Mezzotint, meaning “half-tone”, was a process invented by the German printmaker, Ludwig von Siegen in the mid-1600s. Mezzotint was born out of a desire to make prints that more resembled the shading techniques of drawing. Unlike woodcuts, engraving allowed for finer, more detailed marks, but also resulted in smaller print runs, making it the more expensive of the two techniques. The printed image advanced the study of anatomy and architecture by allowing medical illustrations and engineering diagrams to be shared. Originally in use as a way to decorate armour, engraving became a technique for book illustrations to provide visual knowledge to accompanying text. Intaglio was a fast way to reproduce artistic works and became a more affordable way to own pieces of art. Artists used drypoint, etching, and engraving techniques to replicate existing paintings, helping to spread different artistic styles across the continent. During the Renaissance, intaglio print processes were introduced. Previously, block printing had been used to create impressions on textiles, but with the construction of paper mills in Europe during this era, woodcut prints on paper soared into production.īy 1450 Gutenberg introduced his printing press to Europe, allowing books to be reproduced more quickly and therefore the sharing of knowledge made easier than ever before. Woodcut printing spread to Europe through the Silk Road during the 1300s. These systems allowed for individual text characters to be reassembled across pages rather than having to make unique woodblocks for each page. The use of moveable type in printmaking is noted as early as 1040 AD in China, 400 years prior to Johannes Gutenberg’s European invention. By the 9th century, books became more prevalent in China. By marking directly on blocks of wood and then carving away the negative spaces, a printing matrix was created allowing for reproductions on different substrates. Carving into these surfaces allowed Chinese scholars to replicate Buddhist scriptures and other important texts. Through the work of inventors, both from their intentional experimentation, but also accidental discoveries, printmaking has gone through many changes that have influenced how we see images and how we disseminate visual information.įollowing the Chinese invention of paper in 105 AD, relief print techniques using blocks of wood or stone began to be used. If it weren’t for innovations in printmaking, the textile, advertising, and publication industries wouldn’t look very different. While today it is often associated with a fine art practice, printmaking has always had ties tied to commercial intents. ![]() Printmaking’s capacity to spread knowledge cheaply has made it a powerful communication tool and instrumental in the passing of knowledge beyond the upper class and to the general populace. ![]() There was a time when seeing images that weren’t one-of-a-kind was a rare occurrence. Whether it be the sharing of artwork online or the mass-printing of books, we’re used to seeing identical images in different forms and on multiple surfaces. In today’s world, we often take for granted the proliferation of images. Printmaking has been a part of our visual culture for centuries, and the techniques under its umbrella have evolved over time to become increasingly sophisticated and precise.
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