Introduction of Printmaking
Printmaking in Europe
16th century
Intaglio printing becomes a more and more used technique in the 16th century, providing a
more fine and exact image, in particular for images that needed to be accurate and detailed
such as cartography and scientific images. Marcantonio Raimondi is known as the first
reproductive printmaker since 1505.
The art of Renaissance combines the return to antiquity with innovations in techniques.
Printmakers find an endless source of inspiration in ancient legends, Greek and Roman
literature, but also in ancient monuments. And the progress in the printmaking methods enables
them to create masterpieces, reproducing both drawings and modern painting works.
Even though the religious inspiration with traditional subjects remains predominant in
printmaking, a new trend shows up which was used in a few illustrations of the previous century:
in the 16th century, prints forming images with various scenes are multiplied.
17th century
In the 17th century, the role of prints is spreading. The art of printmaking is the mean of
expression selected exclusively or partially by great artists, such as Rembrandt, who etches
approximately 300 plates. However, most of the prints reproduce drawings or paintings,
decorating books and houses. Works with decorative patterns and courtiers’ dresses are all
over Europe. The kings use the art of printmaking to advertise their great palaces and projects
constructed both for war and peace purposes. The Church is addressed to all social classes
with artistic and popular prints. In general, it allows the spread of ideas and sciences.
While woodcutting remains almost unchanged and is limited to the illustration of cheap books,
many printmakers improve and vary the intaglio technique combining its methods, while the new
method of mezzotint encourages the rendering of tones.
The mighty buildings, the wars of the kings of that era with besieged cities and battles stimulate
the interest of famous printmakers all over Europe, who create independent prints or series of
prints, with buildings, cities and military scenes, spreading the splendour of powerful people of that era. Others respond to the will of the people to learn geography and get to know other
countries. Printmaking helps the publication of illustrated books with these subjects.
Reproductive printmaking dominates the 17th century. The most famous creators are copied
countless times in prints of unequal quality. Some of them are a poor version of the original
work, but some others often look like masterpieces and manage to yield both the details and the
tones of the work. The so-called Landscape with a Lute Player is, in addition to its artistic and
technical quality, a good example of reproductive printmaking. The original design remains
completely unknown, even though Titian’s name is engraved on the plate.
The works, both the creations of the printmaker himself and those that copy paintings, follow the
same artistic trends as those that dominate painting: the scenes of the Raphael’s Bible belong
to Mannerism, Virgin Mary with the Infant by Antonio Balestra combines the stream of Rococo
that dominates Italy in his era with a personal tendency toward classicism.
18th century
In the 18th century, the golden century of printmaking in Europe, intaglio printmaking dominates
and its methods are being perfected with colour print-making, the appearance of the crayon
manner etching and the aquatint. The abundant variety of subjects, which reflect the needs of all
strata of society and the artists’ quests, as well as the proliferation of prints characterizes the
printmaking production. Far from adopting an attitude of contempt, the painters themselves
create prints and illustrate the great literary texts. The profession of illustrator specializing in
artistic or scientific illustration appears. The great art collectors pay the most important
printmakers to reproduce their collection into impressive albums, while large prints,
reproductions of the painting creations, are sold each year on art markets.
Countless etchings and engravings having for subject the antiquity and myths give the
opportunity to a wider range of people to travel in time and space, illustrating rich publications of
travellers-designers and well-known literary texts. More than ever, mythology is also a source
for artists to demonstrate their craftsmanship and aesthetic choices.
Large scale intaglio prints reproducing paintings of various European artistic schools are made
by famous print-makers, whose technique – the accuracy of the design, the rendering of the
tones, the sense of depth and the expression of persons – stands out. Genre scenes
(representation of aspects of everyday life) is fashionable, influenced by the tradition of the
Flemish school.
Some painters-printmakers, wishing to give their prints the colours of painting, invent new
techniques and use two or more plates. Generally, by perfecting the techniques, the creators’
prints acquire an excellent quality and the creators manage to express themselves in a very
personal language.
Western Europe’s passion for exoticism, especially for China, flourishes in the 18th century:
engravings which illustrate books and independent etchings “perspective views”, which through
an optical device (zograscope) offer the illusion of a 3-dimensional representation of
monuments, palaces, gardens, ports etc.
Francisco de Goya, using mainly etching and aquatint, elevates printmaking as an artistic
language.
19th century
The 19th century can be described as the century of the picture. The improvements of two new
techniques that appeared at the end of the 18th century – lithography and wood engraving –
help to increase the number of printed pictures and of copies that circulate Thanks to new
techniques, the public is expanding and the art of printmaking is increasingly attracting artists for
whom it is a full-fledged medium of expression.
Printmaking as an original creation – as seen in the majority of works – first embraces
lithography, which also marks the triumph of romanticism, then, after 1860, etching, which
allows a free black and white writing, while we see over the last decades that the colour
gradually takes the place of the black. At the end of the century, printmaker artists start to sign
and number their prints.
At the same time, scientific discoveries follow one another. With photography and the successive methods invented, photoengraving marks the beginning of a new era in the history of illustrated books and the big printmaking workshops specialised in the reproduction of paintings gradually abandon the burin and the simple line etching to perfect various industrial techniques which produce high precision matrices for relief printing and intaglio printing.
However, the prints are no longer the result of the printmaker’s work. Soon, the world of
publications leaves behind the reproductive printmaking for a reproduction without printmaking.
Napoleon’s legend, first in France and then all over Europe, fascinates the artists of romanticism
and appears in literature, painting and printmaking – as a dominant mean of disseminating the
image in that era – offering to all social classes scenes from the modern epic. Popular
printmaking embraces it and integrates it into its subjects.
Aloys Senefelder’s invention in 1796, lithography, revolutionises printmaking. Litho-graphers
keep perfecting this technique during the whole century, from monochrome prints (that could be
coloured) to colour prints, on stone and rapidly on zinc, and with photographically transferred
representation. Lithography dominates as a mean of expression for painters since it offers easy
tonal transitions, a rich range of colours, and does not require the difficult technique of relief or
intaglio printing. Financially, it is cost-efficient since it allows a high number of copies. Sketch
artists and editorial cartoonists adopt this technique in the Press or in albums, famous artists
draw posters on stone or on zinc. Skilful lithographers replicate old paintings or paintings of their
time with remarkable vivacity.
Thomas Bewick, an English printmaker, was the first one to use wood engraving systematically
in his book A General History of Quadrupeds, published in 1790. With this technique relief
printing is reborn for books illustration. It combines the ease of printing with the text, the high
strength of the block that can withstand many printings and the detailed rendering of the image,
similar to engraving. Born in England, this technique is spread all over Europe, the blocks are
circulated everywhere, magnificent images illustrate both the Press and literary and scientific
books. Up to the 20th century there are printmakers that choose wood engraving, due to the
quality of the rendering of the details, despite the fact that this technique is
extremely demanding.
After 1840, brothers George and Edward Dalziel, leading printmakers and publishers of the 19th
century in England, cooperate with all famous designers of their country for the illustration of
books with wood engravings. Their artistic prints decorate among others Shakespeare’s
plays, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.
At the end of the 19th century, Gauguin engraves wood for two marvellous series, the Noa
Noa series and the so-called Vollard series, along with paintings with the same subjects.
20th and 21st century
The 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, for printmaking, are characterised by
the rapid evolution of technology with an increasingly difficult answer to the question: What an
authentic print is today? Printed images are everywhere available to the public following the
development of offset. And we hear about an “artistic offset”. Moreover, years ago, artists
understood that with traditional lithography – on zinc and printed in the offset press – and the
new technique of screen printing, they can easily multiply, thanks to the photo-transfer of their
works that the public likes, without the slightest interference on their behalf. Some of them sign
and number them. But, are they original prints? This becomes more difficult to answer with the
appearance of digital images.
Printmakers’ intense questioning and experimentation are much more positive. They continue
using the techniques which are today traditional, but they also create with the new ones –
authentic screen printing and digital art – and combine various techniques and methods to
create a print. At the same time, many of the most famous artists of the 20th century create
prints and their works, that are signed and numbered, become envied objects for rich collectors.
The social role of printmaking tends to disappear.
Posters – authentic prints, usually litho-graphs and screen prints, continue to play this role, from
the lithographed posters of World War I to the actual authentic creations of young artists.
Before handing them over for the illustration of books, in the form of clichés, and subsequently
of zinc offset, illustrators-printmakers create woodcuts or wood engravings, linocuts, engravings, lithographs, which become envied series.
Woodcutting and wood engraving are no longer privileged means of expression for printmakers,
because of their demanding technique and the time-consuming and difficult process
for rendering the colourful design with various plates and printing registration. However,
important printmakers embrace this relief technique even in our days. With a strong rendering of
contrasts and the purity of lines, woodcutting and engraving is one of the preferred means of
expression of expressionists.
Similar technique to woodcutting and wood engraving, linocutting, which was considered “the
xylography of the poor” or “printmaking for students and amateurs”, appears in the early years
of the 20th century and becomes the technique par excellence of printmakers committed to the
service of people.
Intaglio printing remains in the 20th century, together with lithography, the technique embraced
by most creators-printmakers. Even though the hard lines of the burin are not attracting artists,
drypoint, with its velvet lines, and the etching methods, linear, tonal, soft ground etching, the
various types ofaquatint, inkless intaglio printing (emboss), as well as the countless
combinations of methods to create a work and the easy printing of a plate with various colours,
fascinate printmakers.
To this day, top painters and sculptors adopt printmaking where they find other artistic
approaches to their themes, another language. Even though their prints differ from the works for
which they are more famous, their style and authentic expression is the same. James Ensor and
René Magritte in Belgium, cosmopolitan Wassily Kandinsky, Edvard Munch, Frans Masereel,
Salvador Dali, Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, all of them, at some point, are moving towards
printmaking. Pablo Picasso, after a few woodcuts and vivid “fluid” aquatints for Tauromaquia, in
1954 discovers the language of monochrome or colour linocut, for strong and expressive prints
with big solid colour surfaces and simplified lines.
The list of painters-printmakers may not be exhaustive without Henri Matisse who created
almost 800 prints in his whole life: a few relief prints, on wood and linoleum, monoprints, ink and
sugar aquatints, and above all drypoints and etchings, as well as lithographs.
Throughout Europe, prints are born with traditional and new techniques. Gradually, their
creators, who often are also painters, leave behind the artistic movements for a totally new
personal expression, both figurative and abstract.
PRINTMAKING IN EUROPE
GREEK PRINTMAKING
Printmaking in Greece and Cyprus is closely related, although Greek printmaking is older that
the Cypriot one. The anonymous lithograph representing Archbishop Kyprianos testifies this: the
portrait of a martyr of the history of orthodox Cyprus is integrated in a framework that
accompanies portraits of other personalities of the «Greek Pantheon».
A Cypriot association ordered it and it was printed in Corfu by the lithographic printing house
“Aspiotis”.
Printmaking is not known in Greece under Ottoman rule, although in the 18th century, as in
whole Europe, icons on paper are released as devotional objects, and there are a few prints
with secular subjects in the Ionian Islands, under the cultural influence of Italy. In the 19th
century, printmakers-craftsmen create wood engravings to reproduce drawings of foreign artists
for the illustration of books and magazines. Artistic printmaking appears in the late 19th century
when Greek painters begin to study in Western Europe, often in Paris where they learn
printmaking. The first woodcuts are printed and the first inta-glio prints appear after 1900. After
1930, Yiannis Kefallinos becomes the first Professor of Printmaking at the Athens School of
Fine Arts and opens a workshop where the first generation of printmakers of the Greek school is
educated, with printmakers from Greece and Cyprus such as Α. Tassos, Vaso Katraki,
Telemachos Kanthos, whose works belong to our collection.
In general, the experience from Metaxas’ dictatorship, the civil war and junta is echoing in the
works of many printmakers whose ideals are being violated.
Woodcuts and wood engravings, lino-cuts, lithographs created by printmakers who often
acquired a wide experience in printmaking in Greece and abroad, testify the variety of both the
techniques and the personal language of Greek printmakers.
Established painters and sculptors are also shifting towards printmaking, completing their
experiments by the use of different intaglio techniques – often combined in their works.
The generations of younger printmakers continue the rich tradition, following the trends of European printmaking, creating works with a free inspiration and using various and mixed
techniques.
GREEK PRINTMAKING
CYPRIOT PRINTMAKING
CYPRIOT PRINTMAKING
JAPANESE PRINTMAKING
18th-19th centuries
The first prints in Japan appear in the 13th century. Between the 13th and the 16th century,
woodcuts – always with a religious subject – are found in temples and monasteries. There are
also illustrated texts amulets (o-fuda) for pilgrims. At the beginning of the 17th century, Japan
enters the Edo period and the production of prints changes radically. The artists represent
“ukiyo”, i.e. the “floating world”. The word contains the Buddhist sense of a world without
permanence, and the pictures represent the hedonistic lifestyle as it develops itself in front of
our eyes, its precarity and shakiness. Yet, without religious content. From the very first works of
Ukiyo-e (“e” means “picture”) of the 17th century, the artists represent the furious life of a
society that changes and tends towards the pleasure of everyday life. This meaning goes
through centuries and the Ukiyo-e, although the subjects are evolving with the history, the
society and its occupations. Woodblock printing, with the special technique of “Mokuhanga”
plays then the role of the technique that allows a cheap reproduction and dissemination of the
artists’ works.
The technique remains the same up to now. At the beginning, woodblock prints were
monochrome and then they became colour prints with the perfection of the technique by Suzuki
Harunobu around 1760, other than the illustration of cheap editions of books.
Various subjects are used in Ukiyo-e. The initial subjects are representations of the urban life:
entertainment scenes, sumo wrestlers, famous Kabuki actors, street sights, beautiful and well
dressed prostitutes from the “green houses” (whore houses) of the famous Yoshiwara
neighbourhood in Edo (modern Tokyo). The bijin-ga (pictures of female beauties) go through
centuries and reach the 20th century. The same applies to shunga (erotic scenes) despite
censorship. In the 18th century the range of subjects widens with more developed scenes that
characterise a society of entertainment with scenes from everyday life and amusement. By
applying the western perspective, during the first half of the 19th century, many artists, other
than the subjects then in vogue – flora and fauna – create landscapes and develop the
rendering of the everyday life with scenes from domestic and street life. At the end of the 19th
century, concurrently with traditional subjects, the Ukiyo-e show also the penetration of western
elements in the representations and the influence of the artistic currents on the artists’ style.
With Hokusai and Hiroshige, around 1830, meisho-e (pictures from famous places) reached a
level of unparalleled quality.
The copies of the first printing are few and valuable, protected in the collections of museums
and collectors, they are rarely exhibited. However, the way these woodblock prints are made –
the painter gives his drawing to the printmaking workshop, printmakers-craftsmen, often
anonymous, and printers who undertake the printing of plates – as well as the great interest for
Ukiyo-e of both the Japanese people and the Western world, request since the 19th century the
“authentic” reproduction of woodblock prints: the work is accurately redrawn, usually with the
same dimensions, the plates are similarly recut, and printed using the same technique and the
same colours.
20th century
Modern young printmakers from Japan embody the trends and concerns of printmakers from all
over the world. Although they all stand out due to their excellent technique, some follow closely
the roads of local technique Mokuhanga, others experiment with western traditional and modern
techniques, with combined techniques. Figurative or abstract, their prints are released from the
standard subjects to express with their creator’s personal language their inner or outer world.
Sadao Watanabe, is a very special Christian printmaker rendering his prints in the mingei (folk
art) tradition of Japan. He uses the katazome technique (a Japanese traditional method of
dyeingfabrics with stencil). The theme of Watanabe’s prints is exclusively the Holy Scripture.
JAPANESE PRINTMAKING
RUSSIAN PRINTMAKING
Over the centuries, printmaking in Russia is developed in parallel with the European one, under
a great influence of political regimes and with specific characteristics. Since the 16th century,
religious books are decorated with woodcuts, while Lubok has the same development with the popular printmaking of the rest of Europe, using subjects from religion, society and folk- literature. In the 19th century, it follows the development of techniques, from woodcutting to lithography. Intaglio printmaking appears in the era of Peter the Great, who at the beginning of the 18th century invites western artists to Saint Petersburg. Intaglio printmaking serves his objectives, especially with battle scenes, and especially portraits. With the Tsars who have succeeded him, the court scenes, portraits, views of palaces and magnificent buildings are multiplying. Enlightenment contributes to the printing of illustrated books, at least in the field ofscience. In the 19th century engraving declines, other than the illustration of books usingsteel engraving. On the other hand, lithography is adopted for landscapes, portraits andreproductions of Russian artists’ paintings. Editorial cartoons and scientific representations of antiquities are also part of the theme.
Just like in Western Europe, at the end of the 19th century etching comes back to life with
printmakers-creators who combine it with other intaglio methods.
During the period of the Soviet Union, printmaking has its own place. Other than the
monumental works of Soviet realism (sculptures and paintings), lithography is an effective mean
to spread the ideology. However, the “small dimension” printmaking, known in Europe thanks to
many exhibitions, follows its own path: on the one hand, cheap materials – wood and linoleum –
dominate in printmaking, which acquires an excellent quality. Linocutting and woodcutting are
often combined to create works with excellent tonal range. On the other hand, printmakers who
have studied before or after the revolution freely create: some of them create scenes and
landscapes glorifying the regime, others continue the tradition of genre painting (depicting
aspects of everyday life) and above all they glorify the beauty of landscapes, both in nature and
the buildings and their cities.
Wood engraving which is preferred for the illustration of literary books reaches a higher grade of expressiveness and skill.
Modern printmakers, who have studied in Soviet Union or in the Russian Federation, share the same concerns and experimentations as any other printmaker in the rest of the world.
RUSSIAN PRINTMAKING
AMERICAN PRINTMAKING
Printmaking in Latin America seems to be closely connected to its very turbulent history. Until
the 19th century, printmaking is a poor art exclusively imported from Europe, although during
the end of the colonial rule lithography is spreading. The liberation struggle, the battles for
democracy and the first militant movements for equality between indigenous people and settlers
influence printmaking which, with poor means, is often militating for fairer regime. In the 20th
century, along with works influenced by the aesthetic movements of the United States, an
important, purely local, realistic current of militant artists who are also expressing themselves
through printmaking, serves the political ideals for which they are fighting.
The important Mexican school, after Jose Posada, remains a popular school in the first half of
the 20th century, with leading artists such as Leopoldo Mendez, with woodcuts, linocuts and
lithographs, and Adolfo Mexiac, with woodcuts and linocuts. These two militant artists serve the
people with realism. Contemporary printmaking is characterised by the double traditional
popular trend towards expressionism and surrealism while the themes are taken from the local
turbulent history, the oppression of indigenous people and the repeated struggle for
freedom, democracy and human rights. A printmaking that expresses its concerns and is
experimenting with its subjects and techniques, using irony, symbols and imagination.
In the United States, printmaking has an impressive development. Mainly commercial –
illustration of magazines, reproduction of paintings glorifying the history of the new State – in the
19th century, with wood engravings, intaglio prints and lithographs, it acquires towards the end of the century an artistic identity with landscapes, lithographed or etched with an impressionistic trend. As from the 20th century, and in particular after World War II, the USA becomes a melting pot of authentic creativity, with countless printmakers experimenting first in lithography and intaglio printing and then in screen printing – with the artists of Pop Art – and in digital art.
AMERICAN PRINTMAKING
ARTISTS’ BOOKS
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
