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121-666: Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus . The earliest known form of printing evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets, used during the sixth century. Printing by pressing an inked image onto paper (using woodblock printing ) appeared later that century. Later developments in printing technology include

242-578: A Silla dynasty pagoda that was repaired in 751, was undated but must have been created sometime before the reconstruction of the Shakyamuni Pagoda of Bulguk Temple , Kyongju Province in 751. The document is estimated to have been created no later than 704. By the ninth century, printing on paper had taken off, and the first completely surviving printed book is the Diamond Sutra ( British Library ) of 868, uncovered from Dunhuang . By

363-434: A blank area around the image, the non-printing areas must be trimmed after printing. Crop marks can be used to show the printer where the printing area ends, and the non-printing area begins. The part of the image which is trimmed off is called bleed . Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing . A worker composes and locks movable type into the bed of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer

484-519: A brush. Then a sheet of paper , perhaps slightly damp, is placed over the block. The block is then rubbed with a baren or spoon , or is run through a printing press . If the print is in color, separate blocks can be used for each color , or a technique called reduction printing can be used. Reduction printing is a name used to describe the process of using one block to print several layers of color on one print. Both woodcuts and linocuts can employ reduction printing. This usually involves cutting

605-527: A design directly on a plank of wood , or transfers a drawing done on paper to a plank of wood. Traditionally, the artist then handed the work to a technician, who then uses sharp carving tools to carve away the parts of the block that will not receive ink. In the Western tradition, the surface of the block is then inked with the use of a brayer ; however in the Japanese tradition, woodblocks were inked with

726-416: A different print copying the first, common in early printmaking). However, impressions can vary considerably, whether intentionally or not. Master printmakers are technicians who are capable of printing identical "impressions" by hand. A print that copies another work of art, especially a painting, is known as a "reproductive print". Multiple impressions printed from the same matrix form an edition . Since

847-515: A doctor blade. Then a rubber-covered roller presses paper onto the surface of the plate and into contact with the ink in the cells. The printing cylinders are usually made from copper plated steel, which is subsequently chromed, and may be produced by diamond engraving; etching, or laser ablation. Gravure printing is known for its ability to produce high-quality, high-resolution images with accurate color reproduction and using viscosity control equipment during production. Ink evaporation control affects

968-515: A fabric stencil technique; ink is simply pushed through the stencil against the surface of the paper, most often with the aid of a squeegee. Generally, the technique uses a natural or synthetic 'mesh' fabric stretched tightly across a rectangular 'frame,' much like a stretched canvas. The fabric can be silk, nylon monofilament, multifilament polyester, or even stainless steel. While commercial screen printing often requires high-tech, mechanical apparatuses and calibrated materials, printmakers value it for

1089-487: A gradient-like quality. Mokulito is a form of lithography on wood instead of limestone. It was invented by Seishi Ozaku in the 1970s in Japan and was originally called Mokurito. Josef Albers , Ralston Crawford , Gene Davis . Robert Indiana , Roy Lichtenstein , Julian Opie , Bridget Riley , Edward Ruscha , Andy Warhol . Screen printing (occasionally known as "silkscreen", or "serigraphy") creates prints by using

1210-490: A great influence on many artists, notably Édouard Manet , Pierre Bonnard , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Edgar Degas , Paul Gauguin , Vincent van Gogh , Félix Vallotton and Mary Cassatt . In 1872, Jules Claretie dubbed the trend "Le Japonisme". Though the Japanese influence was reflected in many artistic media, including painting, it did lead to a revival of the woodcut in Europe, which had been in danger of extinction as

1331-469: A major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a much lower status than painting. It continued to develop through to the twentieth century. This technique just carves the image in mostly thin lines, similar to a rather crude engraving. The block is printed in the normal way, so that most of the print is black with the image created by white lines. This process was invented by the sixteenth-century Swiss artist Urs Graf , but became most popular in

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1452-412: A metal plate. Where the etching technique uses a needle to make lines that retain ink, traditional aquatint relies on powdered rosin which is acid resistant in the ground to create a tonal effect. The rosin is applied in a light dusting by a fan booth, the rosin is then cooked until set on the plate. At this time the rosin can be burnished or scratched out to affect its tonal qualities. The tonal variation

1573-514: A method using an intaglio line plate (or occasionally a lithograph ), printed in black or a dark colour, and then overprinted with up to twenty different colours from woodblocks. Edmund Evans used relief and wood throughout, with up to eleven different colours, and latterly specialized in illustrations for children's books, using fewer blocks but overprinting non-solid areas of colour to achieve blended colours. Artists such as Randolph Caldecott , Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway were influenced by

1694-426: A mezzotint, the surface of a copper printing plate is roughened evenly all over with the aid of a tool known as a rocker; the image is then formed by smoothing the surface with a tool known as a burnisher. When inked, the roughened areas of the plate will hold more ink and print more darkly, while smoother areas of the plate hold less or no ink, and will print more lightly or not at all. It is, however, possible to create

1815-432: A need for a university library based on the idea that professor were the library. Libraries also began receiving so many books from gifts and purchases that they began to run out of room. However, the issue was solved in 1589 by a man named Merton who decided books should be stored on horizontal shelves rather than lecterns . The printed press changed university libraries in many ways. Professors were finally able to compare

1936-606: A press was faster and more durable. Also, the metal type pieces were sturdier and the lettering more uniform, leading to typography and fonts . The high quality and relatively low price of the Gutenberg Bible (1455) established the superiority of movable type for Western languages. The printing press rapidly spread across Europe, leading up to the Renaissance , and later all around the world . Time Life magazine called Gutenberg's innovations in movable type printing

2057-510: A result, Hebrew printing flourished in Italy , beginning in 1470 in Rome, then spreading to other cities including Bari, Pisa, Livorno, and Mantua. Local rulers had the authority to grant or revoke licenses to publish Hebrew books, and many of those printed during this period carry the words 'con licenza de superiori' (indicating their printing having been officially licensed) on their title pages. It

2178-487: A serious art medium. Most of the artists above, except for Félix Vallotton and Paul Gauguin, in fact used lithography , especially for coloured prints. See below for Japanese influence in illustrations for children's books. Artists, notably Edvard Munch and Franz Masereel , continued to use the medium, which in Modernism came to appeal because it was relatively easy to complete the whole process, including printing, in

2299-467: A similar aesthetic when it was engraved into wood. An image of the countryside and a traditional farmer appeared similar to the image of a city. This symbolism was beneficial for politicians who wanted a unified nation. The physical actions of carving and printing woodcuts also supported the values many held about manual labour and supporting workers' rights. Today, in Mexico the activist woodcut tradition

2420-430: A small amount of the block away, and then printing the block many times over on different sheets before washing the block, cutting more away and printing the next color on top. This allows the previous color to show through. This process can be repeated many times over. The advantages of this process is that only one block is needed, and that different components of an intricate design will line up perfectly. The disadvantage

2541-563: A span of less than four centuries. Samuel Hartlib , who was exiled in Britain and enthusiastic about social and cultural reforms, wrote in 1641 that "the art of printing will so spread knowledge that the common people, knowing their own rights and liberties, will not be governed by way of oppression". In the Muslim world, printing, especially in Arabic scripts, was strongly opposed throughout

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2662-467: A studio with little special equipment. The German Expressionists used woodcut a good deal. Coloured woodcuts first appeared in ancient China. The oldest known are three Buddhist images dating to the 10th century. European woodcut prints with coloured blocks were invented in Germany in 1508, and are known as chiaroscuro woodcuts (see below). However, colour did not become the norm, as it did in Japan in

2783-484: A table, paper is placed on the ink, and the back of the paper is drawn on, transferring the ink to the paper. Monoprints can also be made by altering the type, color, and viscosity of the ink used to create different prints. Traditional printmaking techniques, such as lithography, woodcut, and intaglio, can be used to make monoprints. Mixed-media prints may use multiple traditional printmaking processes such as etching, woodcut, letterpress, silkscreen, or even monoprinting in

2904-399: A traditional printing press. Images can be printed to a variety of substrates including paper, cloth, or plastic canvas. Dye-based inks are organic (not mineral ) dissolved and mixed into a liquid. Although most are synthetic, derived from petroleum , they can be made from vegetable or animal sources. Dyes are well suited for textiles where the liquid dye penetrates and chemically bonds to

3025-512: A type of relief print , is the earliest printmaking technique. It was probably first developed as a means of printing patterns on cloth, and by the 5th century was used in China for printing text and images on paper. Woodcuts of images on paper developed around 1400 in Europe, and slightly later in Japan. These are the two areas where woodcut has been most extensively used purely as a process for making images without text. The artist either draws

3146-426: A unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. Other tools such as mezzotint rockers, roulettes (a tool with a fine-toothed wheel) and burnishers (a tool used for making an object smooth or shiny by rubbing) are used for texturing effects. To make a print, the engraved plate is inked all over, then the ink is wiped off the surface, leaving ink only in

3267-432: A very different effect, much closer to the chiaroscuro drawings the term was originally used for, or to watercolour paintings . The Swedish printmaker Torsten Billman (1909–1989) developed during the 1930s and 1940s a variant chiaroscuro technique with several gray tones from ordinary printing ink. The art historian Gunnar Jungmarker (1902–1983) at Stockholm's Nationalmuseum called this technique "grisaille woodcut". It

3388-634: Is viscosity printing . Contemporary printmaking may include digital printing , photographic mediums, or a combination of digital, photographic, and traditional processes. Many of these techniques can also be combined, especially within the same family. For example, Rembrandt's prints are usually referred to as "etchings" for convenience, but very often include work in engraving and drypoint as well, and sometimes have no etching at all. Albrecht Dürer , Hans Burgkmair , Ugo da Carpi , Hiroshige , Hokusai , Frans Masereel , Gustave Baumann , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Eric Slater Antonio Frasconi Woodcut,

3509-400: Is a form of printmaking that uses a matrix such as a woodblock, litho stone, or copper plate, but produces impressions that are unique. Multiple unique impressions printed from a single matrix are sometimes known as a variable edition. There are many techniques used in monoprinting, including collagraph , collage , hand-painted additions, and a form of tracing by which thick ink is laid down on

3630-407: Is a technique invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder and based on the chemical repulsion of oil and water . A porous surface, normally limestone , is used; the image is drawn on the limestone with a greasy medium. Acid is applied, transferring the grease-protected design to the limestone, leaving the image 'burned' into the surface. Gum arabic , a water-soluble substance, is then applied, sealing

3751-501: Is a time-consuming printing process, exclusively for hand printing, with several grey-wood blocks aside from the black-and-white key block. Woodcut printmaking became a popular form of art in Mexico during the early to mid 20th century. The medium in Mexico was used to convey political unrest and was a form of political activism, especially after the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). In Europe, Russia, and China, woodcut art

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3872-523: Is based on the French word gicleur, which means "nozzle". Today fine art prints produced on large format ink-jet machines using the CcMmYK color model are generally called "Giclée". Woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking . An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges —leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing

3993-501: Is called a "ghost print" or "cognate". Stencils, watercolor, solvents, brushes, and other tools are often used to embellish a monotype print. Monotypes are often spontaneously executed and with no preliminary sketch. Monotypes are the most painterly method among the printmaking techniques, a unique print that is essentially a printed painting. The principal characteristic of this medium is found in its spontaneity and its combination of printmaking, painting, and drawing media. Monoprinting

4114-408: Is controlled by the level of acid exposure over large areas, and thus the image is shaped by large sections at a time. Contemporary printmakers also sometimes using airbrushed asphaltum or spray paint , as well as other non toxic techniques, to achieve aquatint due to rosin boxes posing a fire hazard. Goya used aquatint for most of his prints. Mary Cassatt , Francis Seymour Haden , Master of

4235-417: Is now firmly established, and that Chinese-Korean technique, or a report of it traveled westward is almost certain." Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg introduced the first movable type printing system in Europe. He advanced innovations in casting type based on a matrix and hand mould , adaptations to the screw-press, the use of an oil-based ink, and the creation of a softer and more absorbent paper. Gutenberg

4356-404: Is part of the intaglio family. In pure etching, a metal plate (usually copper, zinc, or steel) is covered with a waxy or acrylic ground . The artist then draws through the ground with a pointed etching needle, exposing the metal. The plate is then etched by dipping it in a bath of etchant (e.g. nitric acid or ferric chloride ). The etchant "bites" into the exposed metal, leaving behind lines in

4477-422: Is placed on the surface, and the image is transferred to the paper by the pressure of the printing press. Lithography is known for its ability to capture fine gradations in shading and very small detail. Photo-lithography captures an image by photographic processes on metal plates; printing is more or less carried out in the same way as stone lithography. Halftone lithography produces an image that illustrates

4598-654: Is still alive. In Oaxaca, a collective called the Asamblea De Artistas Revolucionarios De Oaxaca (ASARO) was formed during the 2006 Oaxaca protests . They are committed to social change through woodcut art. Their prints are made into wheat-paste posters which are secretly put up around the city. Artermio Rodriguez is another artist who lives in Tacambaro, Michoacán who makes politically charged woodcut prints about contemporary issues. Europe Japan ( Ukiyo-e ) In parts of

4719-645: Is that once the artist moves on to the next layer, no more prints can be made. Another variation of woodcut printmaking is the cukil technique, made famous by the Taring Padi underground community in Java, Indonesia. Taring Padi Posters usually resemble intricately printed cartoon posters embedded with political messages. Images—usually resembling a visually complex scenario—are carved unto a wooden surface called cukilan, then smothered with printer's ink before pressing it unto media such as paper or canvas. The process

4840-467: Is the 1915 Portrait of Otto Müller woodcut print from the collection of the British Museum . Chiaroscuro woodcuts are old master prints in woodcut using two or more blocks printed in different colours; they do not necessarily feature strong contrasts of light and dark. They were first produced to achieve similar effects to chiaroscuro drawings. After some early experiments in book-printing,

4961-649: Is the oldest technique used for old master prints , developing about 1400, by using, on paper, existing techniques for printing. One of the more ancient single-leaf woodcuts on paper that can be seen today is The Fire Madonna ( Madonna del Fuoco , in the Italian language), in the Cathedral of Forlì , in Italy. Initially religious subjects, often very small indeed, were by far the most common. Many were sold to pilgrims at their destination, and glued to walls in homes, inside

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5082-425: Is then transferred onto a sheet of paper by pressing the two together, usually using a printing-press. Monotypes can also be created by inking an entire surface and then, using brushes or rags, removing ink to create a subtractive image, e.g. creating lights from a field of opaque color. The inks used may be oil based or water based. With oil based inks, the paper may be dry, in which case the image has more contrast, or

5203-574: Is used for flexible packaging, corrugated board, labels, newspapers and more. In this market it competes with gravure printing by holding 80% of the market in US, 50% in Europe but only 20% in Asia. The other significant printing techniques include: It is estimated that following the innovation of Gutenberg's printing press, the European book output rose from a few million to around one billion copies within

5324-601: Is used. In the 20th century, true engraving was revived as a serious art form by artists including Stanley William Hayter whose Atelier 17 in Paris and New York City became the magnet for such artists as Pablo Picasso , Alberto Giacometti , Mauricio Lasansky and Joan Miró . Albrecht Dürer , Rembrandt , Francisco Goya , Wenceslaus Hollar , Whistler , Otto Dix , James Ensor , Edward Hopper , Käthe Kollwitz , Pablo Picasso , Cy Twombly , Lucas van Leyden Etching

5445-533: The Fernando Leal . After the Mexican Revolution, the country was in political and social upheaval - there were worker strikes, protests, and marches. These events needed cheap, mass-produced visual prints to be pasted on walls or handed out during protests. Information needed to be spread quickly and cheaply to the general public. Many people were still illiterate during this time and there

5566-563: The Han dynasty (before 220), and are of silk printed with flowers in three colours. "In the 13th century the Chinese technique of blockprinting was transmitted to Europe." Paper arrived in Europe, also from China via al-Andalus , slightly later, and was being manufactured in Italy by the end of the thirteenth century, and in Burgundy and Germany by the end of the fourteenth. In Europe, woodcut

5687-687: The Hyakumantō Darani en masse around 770, and distributed them to temples throughout Japan. In Korea , an example of woodblock printing from the eighth century was discovered in 1966. A copy of the Buddhist Dharani Sutra called the Pure Light Dharani Sutra ( Korean :  무구정광대다라니경 ; Hanja :  無垢淨光大陀羅尼經 ; RR :  Mugu jeonggwang dae darani-gyeong ), discovered in Gyeongju , in

5808-502: The Middle Ages would never recur, that not an idea would be lost". Print was instrumental in changing the social nature of reading. Elizabeth Eisenstein identifies two long-term effects of the invention of printing. She claims that print created a sustained and uniform reference for knowledge and allowed comparisons of incompatible views. Asa Briggs and Peter Burke identify five kinds of reading that developed in relation to

5929-534: The Timurid Renaissance . The printing technique in Egypt was embraced by reproducing texts on paper strips and supplying them in different copies to meet the demand. Block printing first came to Europe as a method for printing on cloth, where it was common by 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large and elaborate. When paper became relatively easily available, around 1400,

6050-571: The early modern period , partially due to the high artistic renown of the art of traditional calligraphy. However, printing in Hebrew or Armenian script was often permitted. Thus, the first movable type printing in the Ottoman Empire was in Hebrew in 1493, after which both religious and non-religious texts were able to be printed in Hebrew. According to an imperial ambassador to Istanbul in

6171-511: The movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses. Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns that

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6292-400: The screen printing process. Other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below. Except in the case of monotyping , all printmaking processes have the capacity to produce identical multiples of the same artwork, which is called a print. Each print produced is considered an "original" work of art, and is correctly referred to as an "impression", not a "copy" (that means

6413-496: The ukiyo-e and other forms. In Europe and Japan, colour woodcuts were normally only used for prints rather than book illustrations. In China, where the individual print did not develop until the nineteenth century, the reverse is true, and early colour woodcuts mostly occur in luxury books about art, especially the more prestigious medium of painting. The first known example is a book on ink-cakes printed in 1606, and colour technique reached its height in books on painting published in

6534-448: The "Do It Yourself" approach, and the low technical requirements, high quality results. The essential tools required are a squeegee, a mesh fabric, a frame, and a stencil. Unlike many other printmaking processes, a printing press is not required, as screen printing is essentially stencil printing. Screen printing may be adapted to printing on a variety of materials, from paper, cloth, and canvas to rubber, glass, and metal. Artists have used

6655-461: The Housebook , Richard Spare , William Lionel Wyllie A variant of engraving, done with a sharp point, rather than a v-shaped burin . While engraved lines are very smooth and hard-edged, drypoint scratching leaves a rough burr at the edges of each line. This burr gives drypoint prints a characteristically soft, and sometimes blurry, line quality. Because the pressure of printing quickly destroys

6776-500: The Japanese prints now available and fashionable in Europe to create a suitable style, with flat areas of colour. In the 20th century, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner of the Die Brücke group developed a process of producing coloured woodcut prints using a single block applying different colours to the block with a brush à la poupée and then printing (halfway between a woodcut and a monotype ). A remarkable example of this technique

6897-520: The art of social movements in the US in the 1960s and 1970s. The Treintatreintistas even taught workers and children. The tools for woodcut are easily attainable and the techniques were simple to learn. It was considered an art for the people. Mexico at this time was trying to discover its identity and develop itself as a unified nation. The form and style of woodcut aesthetic allowed a diverse range of topics and visual culture to look unified. Traditional, folk images and avant-garde, modern images, shared

7018-450: The artist's drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block (often whitened first), or a drawing on paper was glued to the block. Either way, the artist's drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing. In both Europe and East Asia in the early 20th century, some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement

7139-528: The beginning of the 12th century. It was used in large-scale printing of paper money issued by the Northern Song dynasty. Movable type spread to Korea during the Goryeo dynasty. Around 1230, Koreans invented a metal type movable printing using bronze. The Jikji , published in 1377, is the earliest known metal printed book. Type-casting was used, adapted from the method of casting coins. The character

7260-728: The bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the Ars moriendi and the Biblia pauperum were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or, in the majority view, followed the introduction of movable type, with the estimated range of dates being between about 1440 and 1460. Movable type is the system of printing and typography using movable pieces of metal type, made by casting from matrices struck by letterpunches . Movable type allowed for much more flexible processes than hand copying or block printing. Around 1040,

7381-466: The block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks. This is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as "designed by" rather than "by" an artist; but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, without needing to learn the use of woodworking tools. There were various methods of transferring

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7502-492: The burr, drypoint is useful only for very small editions; as few as ten or twenty impressions. To counter this, and allow for longer print runs, electro-plating (here called steelfacing) has been used since the nineteenth century to harden the surface of a plate. The technique appears to have been invented by the Housebook Master , a south German fifteenth-century artist, all of whose prints are in drypoint only. Among

7623-419: The change in the color of the printed image. Gravure printing is used for long, high-quality print runs such as magazines, mail-order catalogues, packaging and printing onto fabric and wallpaper. It is also used for printing postage stamps and decorative plastic laminates, such as kitchen worktops. Flexography is a type of relief printing. The relief plates are typically made from photopolymers . The process

7744-421: The creation of the print. They may also incorporate elements of chine colle, collage, or painted areas, and may be unique, i.e. one-off, non-editioned, prints. Mixed-media prints are often experimental prints and may be printed on unusual, non-traditional surfaces. Istvan Horkay , Ralph Goings , Enrique Chagoya Digital prints refers to images printed using digital printers such as inkjet printers instead of

7865-460: The crevices hold ink. A non-toxic form of etching that does not involve an acid is Electroetching . John Martin , Ludwig von Siegen , John Smith , Wallerant Vaillant , Carol Wax An intaglio variant of engraving in which the image is formed from subtle gradations of light and shade. Mezzotint—from the Italian mezzo ("half") and tinta ("tone")—is a "dark manner" form of printmaking, which requires artists to work from dark to light. To create

7986-424: The engraved lines. The plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper (often moistened to soften it). The paper picks up the ink from the engraved lines, making a print. The process can be repeated many times; typically several hundred impressions (copies) could be printed before the printing plate shows much sign of wear, except when drypoint , which gives much shallower lines,

8107-461: The explosion in the numbers of books. Gutenberg's printing press had profound impacts on universities as well. Universities were influenced in their "language of scholarship, libraries, curriculum, [and] pedagogy" Before the invention of the printing press, most written material was in Latin. However, after the invention of printing the number of books printed expanded as well as the vernacular. Latin

8228-399: The fiber. Because of the deep penetration, more layers of material must lose their color before the fading is apparent. Dyes, however, are not suitable for the relatively thin layers of ink laid out on the surface of a print. Pigment is a finely ground, particulate substance which, when mixed or ground into a liquid to make ink or paint, does not dissolve, but remains dispersed or suspended in

8349-409: The first half of the 16th century, high quality woodcuts continued to be produced in Germany and Italy, where Titian and other artists arranged for some to be made. Much of the interest was in developing the chiaroscuro woodcut , using multiple blocks printed in different colours. Because woodcuts and movable type are both relief-printed, they can easily be printed together. Consequently, woodcut

8470-598: The first known movable type system was created in China by Bi Sheng out of porcelain . Bi Sheng used clay type, which broke easily, but Wang Zhen by 1298 had carved a more durable type from wood. He also developed a complex system of revolving tables and number-association with written Chinese characters that made typesetting and printing more efficient. Still, the main method in use there remained woodblock printing (xylography), which "proved to be cheaper and more efficient for printing Chinese, with its thousands of characters". Copper movable type printing originated in China at

8591-596: The first press for printing in Arabic in the Ottoman Empire, against opposition from the calligraphers and parts of the Ulama . It operated until 1742, producing altogether seventeen works, all of which were concerned with non-religious, utilitarian matters. Printing did not become common in the Islamic world until the 19th century. Hebrew language printers were banned from printing guilds in some Germanic states; as

8712-405: The growth of the popularity of ukiyo-e brought with it demand for ever-increasing numbers of colours and complexity of techniques. By the nineteenth century most artists worked in colour. The stages of this development were: A number of different methods of colour printing using woodcut (technically Chromoxylography ) were developed in Europe in the 19th century. In 1835, George Baxter patented

8833-427: The image by only roughening the plate selectively, so working from light to dark. Mezzotint is known for the luxurious quality of its tones: first, because an evenly, finely roughened surface holds a lot of ink, allowing deep solid colors to be printed; secondly because the process of smoothing the texture with burin, burnisher and scraper allows fine gradations in tone to be developed. The mezzotint printmaking method

8954-421: The image to a printing substrate (typically paper), making the image right-reading again. Offset printing uses a lithographic process which is based on the repulsion of oil and water. The offset process employs a flat (planographic) image carrier (plate) which is mounted on a press cylinder. The image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts an (acidic) film of water, keeping

9075-402: The ink from the type which creates an impression on the paper. There is different paper for different works the quality of paper shows different ink to use. Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century, when offset printing

9196-400: The introduction of print: The invention of printing also changed the occupational structure of European cities. Printers emerged as a new group of artisans for whom literacy was essential, while the much more labour-intensive occupation of the scribe naturally declined. Proof-correcting arose as a new occupation, while a rise in the numbers of booksellers and librarians naturally followed

9317-438: The late 19th century, artists have generally signed individual impressions from an edition and often number the impressions to form a limited edition; the matrix is then destroyed so that no more prints can be produced. Prints may also be printed in book form, such as illustrated books or artist's books . Printmaking techniques are generally divided into the following basic categories: A type of printmaking outside of this group

9438-463: The latter half of the 15th century. A single-sheet woodcut is a woodcut presented as a single stand alone image or print , as opposed to a book illustration. Since its origins in China, the practice of woodcut has spread around the world from Europe to other parts of Asia, and to Latin America. In both Europe and East Asia, traditionally the artist only designed the woodcut, and the block-carving

9559-458: The lids of boxes, and sometimes even included in bandages over wounds, which was superstitiously believed to help healing. The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather later than engraving . Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcuts more sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich

9680-439: The liquid. Pigments are categorized as either inorganic (mineral) or organic (synthetic). Pigment-based inks have a much longer permanence than dye-based inks. Giclée (pron.: /ʒiːˈkleɪ/ zhee-KLAY or /dʒiːˈkleɪ/), is a neologism coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne for digital prints made on inkjet printers. Originally associated with early dye-based printers it is now more often refers to pigment-based prints. The word

9801-413: The maximum number of pages which various press designs could print per hour . All printing process are concerned with two kinds of areas on the final output: After the information has been prepared for production (the prepress step), each printing process has definitive means of separating the image from the non-image areas. Conventional printing has four types of process: To print an image without

9922-543: The middle of the sixteenth century, it was a sin for the Turks , particularly Turkish Muslims, to print religious books. In 1515, Sultan Selim I issued a decree under which the practice of printing would be punishable by death. At the end of the sixteenth century, Sultan Murad III permitted the sale of non-religious printed books in Arabic characters, yet the majority were imported from Italy . Ibrahim Muteferrika established

10043-514: The most famous artists of the old master print, Albrecht Dürer produced three drypoints before abandoning the technique; Rembrandt used it frequently, but usually in conjunction with etching and engraving. Honoré Daumier , Vincent van Gogh , George Bellows , Pierre Bonnard , Edvard Munch , Emil Nolde , Pablo Picasso , Odilon Redon , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Salvador Dalí , M. C. Escher , Willem de Kooning , Joan Miró , Stow Wengenroth , Elaine de Kooning , Louise Nevelson Lithography

10164-556: The most important invention of the second millennium. The steam-powered rotary printing press, invented in 1843 in the United States by Richard M. Hoe , ultimately allowed millions of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace. Hoe's original design operated at up to 2,000 revolutions per hour where each revolution deposited 4 page images, giving

10285-419: The most popular printmaking medium. Its great advantage was that, unlike engraving which requires special skill in metalworking, etching is relatively easy to learn for an artist trained in drawing. Etching prints are generally linear and often contain fine detail and contours. Lines can vary from smooth to sketchy. An etching is opposite of a woodcut in that the raised portions of an etching remain blank while

10406-471: The nineteenth and twentieth century, often in a modified form where images used large areas of white-line contrasted with areas in the normal black-line style. This was pioneered by Félix Vallotton . In the 1860s, just as the Japanese themselves were becoming aware of Western art in general, Japanese prints began to reach Europe in considerable numbers and became very fashionable, especially in France. They had

10527-616: The nineteenth century in most of Europe, and later in some places. The art reached a high level of technical and artistic development in East Asia and Iran . Woodblock printing in Japan is called moku-hanga and was introduced in the seventeenth century for both books and art. The popular "floating world" genre of ukiyo-e originated in the second half of the seventeenth century, with prints in monochrome or two colours. Sometimes these were hand-coloured after printing. Later, prints with many colours were developed. Japanese woodcut became

10648-407: The non-image areas ink-free. Most offset presses use three cylinders: Plate, blanket, impression. Currently, most books and newspapers are printed using offset lithography. Gravure printing is an intaglio printing technique, where the image being printed is made up of small depressions in the surface of the printing plate. The cells are filled with ink, and the excess is scraped off the surface with

10769-500: The non-printing areas. Multiple colours can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (using a different block for each colour). The art of carving the woodcut can be called "xylography", but this is rarely used in English for images alone, although that and "xylographic" are used in connection with block books , which are small books containing text and images in the same block. They became popular in Europe during

10890-401: The non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain (unlike wood engraving , where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller ( brayer ), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in

11011-402: The opinions of different authors rather than being forced to look at only one or two specific authors. Textbooks themselves were also being printed in different levels of difficulty, rather than just one introductory text being made available. > 30,000 ( A3 trim size , web-fed) By 2005, digital printing accounted for approximately 9% of the 45 trillion pages printed annually around

11132-400: The paper may be damp, in which case the image has a 10 percent greater range of tones. Unlike monoprinting , monotyping produces a unique print, or monotype, because most of the ink is removed during the initial pressing. Although subsequent reprintings are sometimes possible, they differ greatly from the first print and are generally considered inferior. A second print from the original plate

11253-474: The paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe, a variety of woods including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were commonly used; in Japan, the wood of the cherry species Prunus serrulata was preferred. There are three methods of printing to consider: Woodcut originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China, from

11374-433: The plate. The remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate, and the printing process is then just the same as for engraving . Although the first dated etching is by Albrecht Dürer in 1515, the process is believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer ( c.  1470–1536 ) of Augsburg, Germany, who decorated armor in this way, and applied the method to printmaking. Etching soon came to challenge engraving as

11495-575: The press a throughput of 8,000 pages per hour. By 1891, The New York World and Philadelphia Item were operating presses producing either 90,000 4-page sheets per hour or 48,000 8-page sheets. The rotary printing press uses impressions curved around a cylinder to print on long continuous rolls of paper or other substrates. Rotary drum printing was later significantly improved by William Bullock . There are multiple types of rotary printing press technologies that are still used today: sheetfed offset , rotogravure , and flexographic printing. The table lists

11616-633: The seventeenth century. Notable examples are Hu Zhengyan 's Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten Bamboo Studio of 1633, and the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual published in 1679 and 1701. In Japan colour technique, called nishiki-e in its fully developed form, spread more widely, and was used for prints, from the 1760s on. Text was nearly always monochrome, as were images in books, but

11737-404: The surface of the stone not covered with the drawing medium. The stone is wetted, with water staying only on the surface not covered in grease-based residue of the drawing; the stone is then 'rolled up', meaning oil ink is applied with a roller covering the entire surface; since water repels the oil in the ink, the ink adheres only to the greasy parts, perfectly inking the image. A sheet of dry paper

11858-561: The technique include Hans Baldung and Parmigianino . In the German states the technique was in use largely during the first decades of the sixteenth century, but Italians continued to use it throughout the century, and later artists like Hendrik Goltzius sometimes made use of it. In the German style, one block usually had only lines and is called the "line block", whilst the other block or blocks had flat areas of colour and are called "tone blocks". The Italians usually used only tone blocks, for

11979-421: The technique to print on bottles, on slabs of granite, directly onto walls, and to reproduce images on textiles which would distort under pressure from printing presses. Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The image

12100-449: The technique transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on paper. These prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onward. Around the mid-fifteenth-century, block-books , woodcut books with both text and images, usually carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed with movable type . These were all short, heavily illustrated works,

12221-534: The tenth century, 400,000 copies of some sutras and pictures were printed, and the Confucian classics were in print. A skilled printer could print up to 2,000 double-page sheets per day. Printing spread early to Korea and Japan, which also used Chinese logograms , but the technique was also used in Turpan and Vietnam using a number of other scripts. This technique then spread to Persia and Russia. This technique

12342-576: The true chiaroscuro woodcut conceived for two blocks was probably first invented by Lucas Cranach the Elder in Germany in 1508 or 1509, though he backdated some of his first prints and added tone blocks to some prints first produced for monochrome printing, swiftly followed by Hans Burgkmair . Despite Giorgio Vasari 's claim for Italian precedence in Ugo da Carpi , it is clear that his, the first Italian examples, date to around 1516. Other printmakers to use

12463-655: The woodcut engravings of the iconic skeleton ( calaveras ) figures that are prominent in Mexican arts and culture today (such as in Disney Pixar's Coco ). See La Calavera Catrina for more on Posada's calaveras . In 1921, Jean Charlot , a French printmaker moved to Mexico City . Recognizing the importance of Posada's woodcut engravings, he started teaching woodcut techniques in Coyoacán 's open-air art schools. Many young Mexican artists attended these lessons including

12584-592: The world. Printing at home, an office, or an engineering environment is subdivided into: Some of the more common printing technologies are: Printmaking Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix to a sheet of paper or other material, by a variety of techniques. Common types of matrices include: metal plates for engraving , etching and related intaglio printing techniques; stone, aluminum, or polymer for lithography ; blocks of wood for woodcuts and wood engravings ; and linoleum for linocuts . Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for

12705-530: Was hanging . Print gave a broader range of readers access to knowledge and enabled later generations to build directly on the intellectual achievements of earlier ones without the changes arising within verbal traditions. Print, according to Acton in his 1895 lecture On the Study of History , gave "assurance that the work of the Renaissance would last, that what was written would be accessible to all, that such an occultation of knowledge and ideas as had depressed

12826-496: Was a popular style that many could understand. Artists and activists created collectives such as the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) (1937–present) and The Treintatreintistas (1928–1930) to create prints (many of them woodcut prints) that reflected their socialist and communist values. The TGP attracted artists from all around the world including African American printmaker Elizabeth Catlett , whose woodcut prints later influenced

12947-459: Was being used during this time as well to spread leftist politics such as socialism, communism, and anti-fascism. In Mexico, the art style was made popular by José Guadalupe Posada , who was known as the father of graphic art and printmaking in Mexico and is considered the first Mexican modern artist. He was a satirical cartoonist and an engraver before and during the Mexican Revolution and he popularized Mexican folk and indigenous art. He created

13068-500: Was called sōsaku-hanga ( 創作版画 , creative prints ) , as opposed to shin-hanga ( 新版画 , new prints ) , a movement that retained traditional methods. In the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead. Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving , only low pressure is required to print. As a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with

13189-490: Was cut in beech wood, which was then pressed into a soft clay to form a mould, and bronze poured into the mould, and finally the type was polished. Eastern metal movable type was spread to Europe between the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The Korean form of metal movable type was described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as "extremely similar to Gutenberg's". Authoritative historians Frances Gies and Joseph Gies claimed that "The Asian priority of invention movable type

13310-402: Was developed in Germany in the 1430s from the engraving used by goldsmiths to decorate metalwork. Engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin to cut the design into the surface of a metal plate, traditionally made of copper. Engraving using a burin is generally a difficult skill to learn. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types. The burin produces

13431-407: Was developed. More recently, letterpress printing has seen a revival in an artisanal form. Offset printing is a widely used modern printing process. This technology is best described as when a positive (right-reading) image on a printing plate is inked and transferred (or "offset") from the plate to a rubber blanket. The blanket image becomes a mirror image of the plate image. An offset transfer moves

13552-516: Was invented by Ludwig von Siegen (1609–1680). The process was used widely in England from the mid-eighteenth century, to reproduce oil paintings and in particular portraits. Norman Ackroyd , Jean-Baptiste Le Prince , William Daniell , Francisco Goya , Thomas Rowlandson A technique used in Intaglio etchings. Like etching, aquatint technique involves the application of acid to make marks in

13673-402: Was left to specialist craftsmen, called formschneider or block-cutters , some of whom became well known in their own right. Among these, the best-known are the 16th-century Hieronymus Andreae (who also used "Formschneider" as his surname), Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker , all of whom ran workshops and also operated as printers and publishers. The formschneider in turn handed

13794-471: Was not replaced completely, but remained an international language until the eighteenth century. At this time, universities began establishing accompanying libraries. "Cambridge made the chaplain responsible for the library in the fifteenth century but this position was abolished in 1570 and in 1577 Cambridge established the new office of university librarian. Although, the University of Leuven did not see

13915-473: Was push after the Revolution for widespread education. In 1910 when the Revolution began, only 20% of Mexican people could read. Art was considered to be highly important in this cause and political artists were using journals and newspapers to communicate their ideas through illustration. El Machete (1924–29) was a popular communist journal that used woodcut prints. The woodcut art served well because it

14036-430: Was the first to create his type pieces from an alloy of lead, tin , antimony , copper and bismuth – the same components still used today. Johannes Gutenberg started work on his printing press around 1436, in partnership with Andreas Dritzehen – whom he had previously instructed in gem-cutting – and Andreas Heilmann, the owner of a paper mill. Compared to woodblock printing , movable type page setting and printing using

14157-551: Was the first to use cross-hatching (far harder to do than engraving or etching ). Both of these produced mainly book-illustrations, as did various Italian artists who were also raising standards there at the same period. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that, arguably, has never been surpassed, and greatly increased the status of the "single-leaf" woodcut (i.e. an image sold separately). He briefly made it equivalent in quality and status to engravings, before he turned to these himself. In

14278-495: Was the main medium for book illustrations until the late sixteenth century. The first woodcut book illustration dates to about 1461, only a few years after the beginning of printing with movable type, printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg . Woodcut was used less often for individual ("single-leaf") fine-art prints from about 1550 until the late nineteenth century, when interest revived. It remained important for popular prints until

14399-505: Was thought that the introduction of printing 'would strengthen religion and enhance the power of monarchs.' The majority of books were of a religious nature, with the church and crown regulating the content. The consequences of printing 'wrong' material were extreme. Meyrowitz used the example of William Carter who in 1584 printed a pro-Catholic pamphlet in Protestant-dominated England. The consequence of his action

14520-522: Was transmitted to Europe by around 1400 and was used on paper for old master prints and playing cards . Block printing, called tarsh in Arabic , developed in Arabic Egypt during the ninth and tenth centuries, mostly for prayers and amulets . There is some evidence to suggest that these print blocks were made from non-wood materials, possibly tin , lead, or clay. The techniques employed are uncertain. Block printing later went out of use during

14641-496: Was used widely throughout East Asia. It originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. The earliest examples of ink-squeeze rubbings and potential stone printing blocks appear in the mid-sixth century in China. A type of printing called mechanical woodblock printing on paper started during the 7th century in the Tang dynasty , and subsequently spread throughout East Asia. Nara Japan printed

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