History of

Printmaking
 Printmaking
• Printmaking is the art of repetition . It requires a master plate
to create replicas of its design. The design, material and the
colours vary and can be made from a variety of techniques.
• Techniques: Relief printing, Intaglio, Stencil, Photogravure,
Mono printing/Monotype, Lithography, Collagraph, Digital
Prints...
 History of Printmaking
• Printmaking has shaped culture in all parts of the world.
Originally used as a form of communication, printmaking is
now valued as an artistic medium with unique technical
qualities. To make a print, the artist typically creates an image
on a surface made out of metal, stone, wood, or other
materials; the surface is then inked, and pressed onto paper
to create an original print. By repeating the printing process,
the artist is able to create multiple original works of art.
• Printmaking has its roots in prehistoric times, when humans
placed their hands on cave walls and blew pulverized pigment
around them to create images.
 Palaeolithic (Stone Age)
• Printmaking was found on stones, bones and caves.

• Humans placed their hands on cave walls and blew fine

pigment around them to create prints. This is the first
evidence of the use of a stencil to create an image that
was found in France and Spain.

• Back then, printmaking was not originally an art form, it

was just a form of communication.
Hand Print on Chauvet cave,
28,000 BC
 Egyptian (3500 BC)
• Carved images on cylinder seals that could be pressed
into wet clay. Seal were made from hard stone, glass or
ceramics. The material called the lapis lazuli was popular
because of the beauty of the blue stone. Wooden
stamps in Egypt, seals in Babylonia, Crete and Rome
were used to identify objects, animals or people.
• A cylinder seal print was used to mark or indicate the
ownership of goods such as the clay tablets, envelopes,
ceramics and bricks!
 Egyptian (3500 BC)
• The advantage of earlier stamp seals is that it covers an
area. Later on, this skill is used to print images on cloth
and other similar two dimensional surfaces. Cylinder
seals are important to historians as they often tell a story
about a specific timeline and civilization.
• Relief printing techniques are first used by the Egyptians
to print on fabric. A piece of wood is cut with a knife, and
what is left of the drawing is inked and pressed on the
fabric. To get more than one colour, one has to cut as
many woodblocks as there are different patterns.
Egyptian (3500 BC)
 T'ang Dynasty 618 -906/
Goryeo 918- 1392
• The idea to use a carved relief to print multiple images on surfaces
originated in China (some text say it originated in Japan) around the
first century A.D, about one century before the invention of paper.
• The first prints were made by placing dampened paper on a stone
slab or tile and by brushing it vigorously to mold itself into the stone.
The paper was then rubbed on the surface with a flat pad of ink. Out
of the rubbing technique came the idea of printing with the use of a
wooden block.
• The introduction and spread of Buddhism from India was the reason
printing developed in China and Japan because of the need to
mass-produce, in scroll form, the standard text of the Sutra.
• Diamond Sutra was made in 868, with ink on carved wood blocks,
then onto paper.
T'ang Dynasty 618 -906/
Goryeo 918- 1392
 T'ang Dynasty 618 -906/
Goryeo 918- 1392
• Although woodblock printing played an influential role in
spreading culture since one printing plate could be used for
many books, carving the printing plate required considerable
time, labour and materials, it was not convenient to store
these plates and it was difficult to correct mistakes.
• First movable type system of printing and typography was
created in China around 1040AD. First metal movable type
system for printing was made in Korea during the Goryeo
around 1230. This led to the printing of Jikji in 1377.
• Wood block printing was widely used on textiles in the East
and in the West.
T'ang Dynasty 618 -906/
Goryeo 918- 1392
 Renaissance (1300-1600)
• In early modern Europe, prints mostly included woodcuts of a relief
technique or engraving of intaglio.
• At the end of the 14th century in Europe wood blocks were used not
only for textile printing, but also for stamping impressions on leather
and furniture.
• Paper making in Europe did not start until the 12th century and only
around 1400 paper was manufactured in sufficient quantity to be
used to print religious or secular images.
• The centre of woodcut printing, in 15th century Europe, was
Germany. Prints, at this time, were monochromatic, with colouring
added by hand or by stencil.
 Renaissance (1300-1600)
• After the invention of moveable type in the mid-15th century, the
printing of books contributed to one of the most important
revolutions in Western history --this revolution is called the
Renaissance. Ancient manuscripts, that had for centuries been
hand copied and kept secretly in monasteries and rich people's
libraries, now became available to artists, scientists and humanists.
Albercht Durer (1486-1528) was a Renaissance artist well known for
the beauty and refinement of his woodcuts.
• The importance of engravings increased during Durer's time.
Engravings required less time and material than paintings, so that
the artist could afford to carry out formal experiments easily and
because it was able to be reproduced so quick, engraving technique
spread rapidly.
 Renaissance (1300-1600)
• Crusaders bring back to Europe the secret of paper making and
relief printing techniques. The oldest graphic technique, woodcut
was intended for the reproduction of pictorial ideas. After the
invention of the printing press, Gutenberg press in 1440, the
woodcut consequently gained artistic importance.
 Baroque (1600-1750)
• In Europe, at the beginning of the 18th century, metal engravers
began to experiment with sharp pointed tools on hard end-grain
wood blocks, thus inventing wood engraving. Thomas Bewick was
the first artist to realize the potentialities of wood engraving.
• 17th century artists recognized the potential of printed images which
were inexpensive and easily transportable to reproduce the
paintings by other master artists.
• Baroque artists experimented particularly the etching. The etching
technique was first experimented by William Blake (1757-1827). He
was a printer who tried to avoid the time consuming setting of type
for the books he published. He used varnish to draw on a copper
plate and immersed the plate into an acid bath. The etch would bite
around the varnish (resist) leaving the writing and main part of the
drawing unbitten.
 Baroque (1600-1750)
• Etching was the best to transfer artistic images onto paper because
it allowed printmakers to create more pictorial effects. Baroque
artists had a variety of approach in printmaking trying to create
impression and great tonality.
 Baroque (1600-1750)
• Etching was the best to transfer artistic images onto paper because
it allowed printmakers to create more pictorial effects. Baroque
artists had a variety of approach in printmaking trying to create
impression and great tonality.
 Edo (1615-1868)
• In Japan, at the beginning of the 17th century the Ukiyo-ye school
used wood block printing to depict scenes of everyday life. These
inexpensive prints, designed primarily for tradesmen, artisans and
merchants of the middle-class, were characterized by unusual
perspective and elimination of unwanted details. By the end of the
century, the Ukiyo-ye prints evolved from monochromatic to five
colour images; artist such as Harunobu, Masanobu, Utamaro,
Choky and Hokusai created some of the finest colour woodcuts ever
produced.
 Edo (1615-1868)
• These Japanese woodcuts made a great impact on the European Art
of the 19th century and works by artists such as Van Gogh, Degas,
Gauguin and Beardsley show their influence. Gauguin was the artist
that revived the art of woodcut printing in Europe. He used his
blocks unevenly in order to make his work look more coherent with
the subject matter --the islands and islanders of Oceania. Edvard
Munch, a Norwegian artist, like Gauguin, liked the roughness of the
wood and used its marks to create textural interest.
• Ukiyo-e began as hand-painted scrolls and screens of everyday life.
As coloring by hand was too time consuming to produce prints in
much quantity, techniques were developed to block print simple two-
or three-color images. However by the time of Hokusai, ukiyo-e
prints were produced with up to twenty different colors, virtually each
requiring its own carved block.
Edo (1615-1868)

Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave has

became one of the most iconic work of
Japanese art.
 Lithography
• Lithography was first invented at the end of the 18th century in
Germany, but it took about a century for the process to become
popular because of the problems in developing the suitable plates.
The technology was fully exploited by Toulouse Lutrec at first, and
then by Pablo Picasso
• Toulouse Lutrec's colour lithographs revived the dying art of
lithography. It was used primarily for posters and commercial use,
however artists such as Goya and Daumier used lithography to
depict social issues and the reality of struggle/suffering of the
people during times of war.
Lithography
 Expressionism (1890-1930)
• Expressionism was developed in ways that broke radically from
conventions of portraiture. Up until this point, artists often used a
more realistic style to paint things as they are. However, German
Expression broke down the notion of objective forms by distorting
realistic images. By using heavy lines, bold/flat patterns, or more
geometric forms, these pieces not only provided a subjective point
of view, but also often caricatured key political events or social
policies that emerged in the rapid expansion of European cities
during that time period.
 Expressionism (1890-1930)
• The first of these methods, and the oldest, is woodcutting. By
etching into wood, individuals could create heavy lines and very
bold, almost geometric forms. This method could be used to create
striking posters or other forms of political art. Intaglio, by contrast, it
uses fine lines and metal plates to force the ink onto the page. The
result shows the ability to create much finer detail, while still
exaggerating form.
• The last method, lithography, the primary advantage of this method
wass to create interesting lines and a painterly, watercolor effect, as
in Emil Nolde's Young Couple.
Expressionism (1890-1930)
 Expressionism (1890-1930)
• Francisco Goya created “The Disasters of War”. These 80 etchings
and aquatints show scenes from the Spanish struggle against the
French army under Napolean Bonaparte, who invaded Spain in
1808. Goya’s prints explore the horrifying consequences of this kind
of guerilla warfare, and the famine that followed it. The prints were a
private project for Goya. His public work at the time consisted of
painting portraits of military men and politicians.”The Disasters of
War” prints were not published until many years after the artist’s
death”.
 Dada (1916-1924)
• Among many European artists of the 1920s Dada movement grew.
Many artists used printed and stamped letters in their collages or
poems and made its work by combining such elements as bits of
odd paper found in the streets, snippets of overheard conversation,
or fragments of text from everyday sources.
• Collagraph technique in which the plate is constructed of many
elements that can produce a variety of textures and feelings.
 Pop art (1940s)
• Serigraphy is a relatively new process that is based on the very ancient
principles of the stencil (silhouettes of hands on the wall of many caves).
The Japanese mastered the technique many centuries ago and used it
to create elaborate textile designs. Serigraphy, as we know it today, was
invented in England at the beginning of the 20th century. The pop
artists of the 1960's brought silkscreen into the world of fine art
printmaking as a method of reproducing photographic images and
producing flat areas of colour. The image obtained with the process of
serigraphy is not reveres as in the other printing techniques.
• Pop-art was in part a reaction against the status quo. In 1950s America,
the main style was Abstract Expressionism, an arcane non-figurative
style of painting that was not "connecting" with either the general public,
or with many artists. Thus Pop-art, which gradually, and appropriately
became the established art style during the mid 1900s.
Pop art (1940s)
 Optical Art (1960s)
• Artists have been intrigued by the nature of perception and by
optical effects and illusions for many years. Op art typically employs
abstract patterns composed with a stark contrast of foreground and
background to produce effects that confuse and excite the eye.
• Escher was first and foremost a graphic artist. The printmaking
methods he used most often were one intaglio technique consisting
of Mezzotint and three relief techniques including linocut, wood
engraving, and woodcut and one planographic technique -
lithography.
Optical Art (1960s)