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The Chinese Woodblock Print
An early pre-stage of printmaking in China was the use of wooden stamps for reproducing Daoist and Buddhist images. This was done already before the invention of paper in 105 A D. Printmaking then started during the Tang Period (618-907). Similar like by the technique of stone rubbing, which emerged around the 7th century, prints were done by rubbing a paper over an inked woodblock with the help of a brush. Examples of that can be dated already to the second half of the 6th century. The oldest remaining Chinese book, and one of the oldest remaining prints worldwide, is the Diamond-Sutra found at Dunhuang, dated to 868, a 5m-long scroll with a beautiful frontispiece. In the end of the 8th century probably playing cards were printed (which also was an early purpose of woodblock prints later in Europe). In the 9th century, printmaking was used for various reasons like printing religious texts or illustrated calendars. A huge private printing industry developed. During the Period of the five Dynasties (907-960), big editions of Confuzian classics were printed, ordered from the court. The Song Period is famous for the fine prints due to beautiful types and a high printing quality. Other major printing projects, ordered by the court, were done for reproducing classics of literature and religious texts of Daoism and Buddhism. For the public, entertaining books with illustrations were printed privately. From the scroll, over the step to the folding book, the book form developed. Since the 14th century, multi-colour printing was done. Printmaking came to a new prime during the Ming Period (1368 - 1644). A pioneer of printing with colours and especially gradations was the official and artist Hu Cheng Yen (1582? - 1672?), who published the famous "Ten Bamboo Studio Collection" in 1622 - 1627, beautifully reproduced ink paintings, and also letterpaper with fine embossings. However, printmaking wasn't considered to be an independent form of fine art, but its purpose was the reproduction of already existing paintings. This changed in the beginning of
the 20th century, when, under the impression of the way of
Western art, artists started to design, cut and print their woodblock
prints on their own. In the 30ies, the intellectual Lu Xun
initiated a woodblock-print movement, suggesting to use this technique
for political and enlightenment purposes, presenting prints of the
German artist Kathe Kollwitz. Influenced by this, artists created
numerous black-and-white prints with critical political and social
content. Since the 40ies, based on the political directives coming
from the Soviet Union, the woodblock themes started to lean on the
social realism.
In the following years the technique was mainly used as means of
propaganda. |
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What are Prints unlike paintings or drawings, generally exist in multiple examples. They are created by drawing a composition not directly on paper but on another surface, called a matrix, and then, by various techniques, printing that image on paper. Those techniques may involve the use of one or another kind of printing press and ink, or the image may be transferred by pressing the paper by hand onto the inked surface of the matrix and rubbing. There are three principle printmaking techniques: relief printing (woodcut, wood engraving), intaglio printing (etching etc.), and planographic (lithography, screenprinting etc.). |
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Woodcut is the earliest and most enduring,
in that it is still practiced, of all print techniques. While woodcuts
were first seen in ninth-century China, |
Color Woodcuts, in the West a product of the nineteenth century, use the same techniques as chiaroscuros, but often carried to an enormous complexity of multiple blocks and over-lapping, and they commonly employ more realistic colors. The greater the complexity, the greater the rate of failed or imperfect impressions, so impressions of many color woodcuts are both rare and expensive.
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Etching
has been a favored technique for artists for centuries, thanks largely
to the ease with which an etched image is created. An etching begins
with a metal plate (usually copper) that has been coated with a
waxy substance called a "ground." The artist creates composition
by drawing through the ground to expose the metal. The plate is
then immersed in an acid bath, which "bites" or chemically
dissolves the exposed lines. For printing, the ground is removed,
ink is introduced into the incised lines, and the plate is wiped
clean. The plate is covered with dampened paper and run through
a press under great pressure in order to force the paper into the
lines, resulting in the raised characteristic of etching.
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Lithography Invented in 1798, lithography is perhaps best known from the prints of the 1890s by artists like Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. To make a lithograph, the artist uses a greasy medium such as crayon or tusche to create a composition on a stone or plate. The surface is then dampened with water, which is repelled by the greasy areas, sticking only to the sections of the plate that have not been marked by the artist. Next, printer's ink is applied to the plate with a roller. This, in turn, sticks only to the greasy sections, as the water protects the rest of the plate. The stone is then covered with paper and run through a printing press to create the print. |
Screen printing (Silkscreen) Screenprinting does not require a printing press. This technique was made famous in the 1960s, when artists such as Andy Warhol exploited screenprinting's bold, commercial look to make Pop icons such as Warhol's famous images of Campbell's Soup cans. To make a screenprint, an image that has been cut out of a material such as paper or fabric is attached to a piece of tautly stretched mesh. Paint is then forced through the mesh-or screen-onto a sheet of paper below by means of a squeegee. The uncovered areas of the screen will, of course, allow the paint to pass through, while the areas covered by the compositional shapes will not. |
 For works with more than one color, a separate screen is required for each color. |
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Edition
Multiple "impressions" are made by printing new pieces of paper from the matrix in the same way. The total number of impressions an artist decides to make for any one image is called an edition. In modern times each impression in an edition is signed and numbered by the artist, but this is a relatively recent practice. |
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| Numbering
& Signatures All limited edition prints should be numbered, with the first number being the impression number and the second number representing the total edition, thus 12/50, impression number 12 from an edition of 50. This number excludes artist's proofs. It is usual for original prints to be signed by artists in pencil, ink or crayon. An unsigned impression of the same print is generally not as commercially valuable. |
Artist's
Proofs (AP) Formerly, when an artist was commissioned to execute a print, he was provided with lodging and living expenses, a printing studio and workmen, supplies and paper. The artist was given a portion of the edition (to sell) as payment for his work. Today, though artists get paid for their editions, the tradition of the "artist's proof" has persisted and a certain number of impressions are put aside for the artist to do with as he will. Artist's proofs are annotated as such or as A.P. or E.A. They often acquire more value because of personal association with the artist. |
Canceling Plates
(C.P.) In modern terms, after a limited edition of a print is completed, the plate or stone or block may be erased or defaced with lines or holes to discourage further printing. This ensures the integrity of the size of the original edition by either preventing any further printings or by making any later printings recognizably different from the original ones. |
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Western artists have made woodcut prints since the fourteenth century.
They were originally conceived as religious icons and sold as souvenirs
of a pilgrimage to some holy site. Woodcut soon became a popular
medium for the mass distribution of religious and instructive imagery
in Europe.
