Printmaking

• 1. Introduction

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  Printmaking is the art of transferring ink from a matrix onto paper, fabric, wood, or metal to create works that are each considered an original. Not a copy. Not a reproduction. An original. That distinction sits at the heart of one of the oldest and most technically varied art-making traditions humanity has developed.

  The matrices themselves are astonishing in their range: copper plates bitten by acid, limestone blocks repelling water, carved wood planks rubbed with a brayer, silk screens pushed through with a squeegee. Each method produces a fundamentally different kind of mark. Each has its own champions, its own hazards, and its own history stretching back centuries.

  Some of these techniques were invented to serve goldsmiths. Others grew from the need to print text on cloth. One was dreamed up by a single south German artist in the fifteenth century whose name we barely know today. Another was coined in 1991 by a printmaker named Jack Duganne who needed a word for something that did not yet have one.

  What holds all of it together? The question of how to get an image off a surface and onto a sheet of paper, and how to do it again, and again, and again, without losing what made the first impression worth printing.

• 2. The Matrix and the Impression

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  Each print produced from a matrix is called an impression, and the correct term matters. A copy, in the language of printmaking, is a different print that reproduces the first one. An impression is a direct transfer from the original matrix, and that makes it an original work of art in its own right.

  Since the late nineteenth century, artists have generally signed individual impressions and numbered them to form what is called a limited edition. After the edition is complete, the matrix is typically destroyed so that no further prints can be produced. The edition as a concept carries weight partly because of scarcity, and partly because of the aquatint technique's inherent fragility: aquatint impressions can number as few as one hundred before the tonal contrasts begin to weaken, a limitation that probably contributed to the rise of the limited edition print in the nineteenth century.

  Impressions can vary considerably from one another, whether the artist intended that or not. Master printmakers are technicians trained to produce identical impressions by hand, but variation is not always a flaw. Rembrandt, for instance, regularly combined etching with engraving and drypoint in the same print, and his works are usually called etchings only as a matter of convenience.

  Prints may also appear in book form, as illustrated books or artist's books, which places the single impression within a larger structure and gives the matrix yet another kind of life.

• 3. Relief and the Woodcut

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  Woodcut is the earliest printmaking technique known. It was probably first developed as a way to print patterns on cloth, and by the fifth century it was used in China for printing text and images on paper. Woodcuts of images on paper began to appear around 1400 in Europe, and slightly later in Japan.

  In a relief technique, ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix while the carved or displaced areas hold no ink at all. For woodcut, the artist draws a design directly on a plank of wood or transfers a drawing done on paper to the plank. Traditionally, that work was then handed to a technician who carved away the areas that would not receive ink.

  In the Western tradition, the block is inked with a brayer. In the Japanese tradition, woodblocks were inked with a brush. A slightly damp sheet of paper is then placed over the block and rubbed with a baren or spoon, or run through a printing press.

  Reduction printing offers a compelling shortcut for color work. A single block is used to print several layers of color, with small amounts carved away between each layer. The previous color shows through wherever new material has been removed. The advantage is perfect alignment of intricate design elements. The disadvantage is absolute: once the artist moves to the next layer, no more prints can be made.

  The cukil technique, made famous by the Taring Padi underground community in Java, Indonesia, extends the woodcut tradition in a politically charged direction. Taring Padi posters typically resemble intricately printed cartoon images embedded with political messages, carved onto a wooden surface called cukilan and then pressed onto paper or canvas.

• 4. Engraving and the Burin

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  Engraving was developed in Germany in the 1430s, emerging from the techniques goldsmiths used to decorate metalwork. The essential tool is a hardened steel instrument called a burin, used to cut designs directly into the surface of a copper plate.

  The burin produces a line that is steady and deliberate, with clean edges and a recognizable quality unlike any other mark-making tool. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types. Additional tools, including mezzotint rockers, roulettes with fine-toothed wheels, and burnishers for smoothing, are used for texturing effects.

  To print, the engraved plate is inked all over, and then the ink is wiped from the surface, leaving ink only in the cut lines. The plate and a moistened sheet of paper are then run through a high-pressure press. The paper draws the ink out of the lines. Typically, several hundred impressions can be pulled before the plate shows significant wear, except when drypoint is combined with engraving, since drypoint lines are shallower and the burr wears quickly.

  In the twentieth century, Stanley William Hayter revived engraving as a serious art form. His studio, Atelier 17, operated in both Paris and New York City and drew artists including Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Mauricio Lasansky, and Joan Miro.

• 5. Etching, Aquatint, and the Acid Bath

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  The first dated etching is by Albrecht Durer, from 1515, but the process is believed to have been invented earlier by Daniel Hopfer, born around 1470 in Augsburg, Germany. Hopfer originally used the technique to decorate armor, then applied it to printmaking.

  In etching, a metal plate, usually copper, zinc, or steel, is covered with a waxy or acrylic ground. The artist draws through that ground with a pointed needle, exposing the metal. The plate is then submerged in an acid bath, typically nitric acid or ferric chloride, which bites into the exposed lines. Once the ground is cleaned off, printing proceeds just as in engraving.

  Etching challenged engraving for dominance in the printmaking world partly because it was easier to learn for someone trained in drawing, requiring no special skill in metalworking.

  Aquatint extends the etching family by introducing tone rather than line. Powdered rosin, which resists acid, is dusted onto the plate through a fan booth and then heated until it sets. The plate is exposed to acid, and the rosin particles protect small areas while the surrounding metal is bitten. Tonal variation is controlled by the length of acid exposure over large areas. Printing gradually wears the rosin grain away, limiting editions to perhaps only one hundred impressions in some cases.

  Goya used aquatint for most of his prints. After his death, later printings from his plates wore the aquatint grain away almost entirely, leaving only the etched lines and faint tonal shadows.

• 6. Lithography's Chemical Logic

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  Alois Senefelder invented lithography in 1798, building the technique entirely on the chemical repulsion between oil and water. No carving. No acid biting into metal. The matrix retains its original flat surface throughout.

  A porous limestone is used as the printing surface. The image is drawn on the stone with a greasy medium. Acid is then applied, which transfers the grease-protected design into the stone's surface, effectively burning the image in. Gum arabic, a water-soluble substance, seals the areas not covered by the drawing medium.

  When the stone is wetted, water clings only to the non-greasy areas. Oil-based ink rolled across the entire surface adheres only where the grease is, perfectly following the drawn image. Dry paper laid on top and run through a press picks up the image with exceptional fidelity. Lithography is known for capturing fine gradations in shading and very small detail.

  Mokulito is a variant of lithography that substitutes wood for limestone. It was invented by Seishi Ozaku in Japan in the 1970s and was originally called Mokurito.

  Andy Warhol was among the artists associated with screen printing, which belongs to the stencil family rather than the planographic family lithography occupies. Warhol was also known to intentionally employ improper registration, misaligning colors in a multi-step print for deliberate artistic effect.

• 7. Mezzotint, Drypoint, and Tone

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  Ludwig von Siegen, born in 1609 and died in 1680, invented the mezzotint method. The name comes from the Italian words mezzo, meaning half, and tinta, meaning tone. It is called a dark manner technique because the artist works from dark to light rather than the reverse.

  A copper plate is roughened evenly all over with a tool called a rocker. The image then appears by smoothing selected areas with a burnisher. Roughened areas hold more ink and print darker; smoothed areas hold less and print lighter or not at all. Mezzotint became widely used in England from the mid-eighteenth century primarily as a way to reproduce oil paintings, especially portraits.

  Drypoint is a variant of engraving done with a sharp point rather than a v-shaped burin. The scratching leaves a rough burr at each line's edge, and that burr gives drypoint its characteristically soft, sometimes blurry quality. Because printing pressure destroys the burr quickly, editions are very small, sometimes as few as ten or twenty impressions. Steelfacing, or electroplating the plate's surface, has been used since the nineteenth century to extend drypoint's print run.

  The technique appears to have been invented by the Housebook Master, a south German artist of the fifteenth century whose entire surviving print output is in drypoint. Albrecht Durer produced three drypoints before abandoning the technique. Rembrandt used drypoint frequently, but usually in combination with etching and engraving.

• 8. Preservation and the Long Life of a Print

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  Modern prints on paper, protected from sunlight and moisture, can last for centuries. Paper made using alkaline and acid-free processes carries a life expectancy of over one thousand years for the best grades and five hundred years for average grades.

  Older prints do not always fare worse than newer ones. A print that is several hundred years old may be in better physical condition than one made less than fifty years ago, depending on the paper-making technique used. Many older prints yellow or brown over time because of acids in the paper itself or in the matting and backing materials.

  Foxing, the appearance of brown spots or blotches on paper, results from mold or chemical reactions. Restoring affected prints may involve washing, deacidification, and treatment with stain-reducing agents.

  Color prints face particular threats. Lighting for sensitive prints should be kept to fifty lux, equivalent to five foot-candles, or less. Artificial lighting can be fitted with UV-filtering sleeves or tubes. If a print is framed, conservation-grade picture mats are essential, because acids within ordinary or older matting will attack the print even when the print itself was made on acid-free paper.

  Prints made on animal skins, called vellum, require humidity levels between twenty-five and forty percent. Prints on silk are especially sensitive to any light, including camera flashes. The giclée print, a term coined by Jack Duganne in 1991 for inkjet-printed works, now most often refers specifically to pigment-based prints, which carry significantly longer permanence than dye-based inks.