Printmaking

Printmaking is an ancient art form. Originated in China around 105 CE, the original method of printing was woodcuts, an example of relief printing. Relief printing is when you carve into a surface to create your image. The places where you carve will not be filled with ink, so they will create the negative space of your image. When you put ink on the surface and press it down to paper, you are able to see your image.

Printmaking spread all over the world, being used to create beautiful textiles in the middle ages. It continued to develop in Europe as artists such as Albrecht Düre continued to perfect the craft. It later spread to Japan, with artists creating unique woodcuts in the 14th and 15th centuries that inspired several famous impressionists. Printmaking is still widely used today, both as a fine art and commercially.

There are many forms of printmaking besides Relief. Intaglio printing is basically the opposite of relief printing. You create divots in a surface and fill those with ink, then press a piece of paper into them, so while the divots are negative space on relief, the divots are positive space in intaglio. Serigraph printing uses a stencil and a screen. The ink is pushed through the screen, covering everything except the part of the paper under the stencil. During Lithograph printing, the stone used with lithograph is drawn on with crayon. The stone is in turn washed with oil and water, and ink is placed upon it. The ink is attracted to the oliy crayon and washes off from the parts covered with water. The stone itself is never carved into. Intaglio, Relief, Serigraph, and Lithograph printing are just some of the many printing methods.

Printmaking is remarkable because, as an art form, it has stood the test of time. It is just as useful as it was in Ancient China, and has changed a lot since then. The most revolutionary thing about printmaking is that it gave people the ability to make almost perfect copies of something quickly and easily. That just wasn’t possible before. In China, it was used to copy scriptures for scholars, making it infinitely easier to study. In the middle ages, it made making textiles much faster and much easier. Printing is all about making art that you can copy, and that’s important. With printing, you can easily commercialize beautiful art and make it accessible to all kinds of people. Furthermore, without printing we wouldn’t have modern day books, newspapers, magazines, or any other forms of literature. It’s how it has helped us progress as a society.

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The image below is an Untitled Woodblock Print by Harry Bliss, Date Unknown.

http://www.flynncenter.org/performances-events/amy-e-tarrant-gallery/2012-3030-anniversary-print-project-detail.html

Description:

This woodcut print depicts Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders from shoulders up. He is in the bottom right corner and is staring out into the distance. In the background on the upper left corner is a house, surrounded by a field.

Analyzation:

The print exhibits the use of contrast by having Sanders appear lighter than the rest of the painting, highlighting him as the subject. The print also uses leading lines, the lines of grass in the field leading to a dark space behind Sanders. It also uses rule of thirds. Vertically, two thirds of the print are occupied by Sanders and the last third is occupied by the background, drawing the eye to both him and the house. Lastly, the print exhibits a frame within a frame, because you can see the outline of the print within the surface it was printed on.

Interpretation:

Since the print is very rough hewn and jagged around the edges, I believe that the artist was trying to convey Sander’s grassroots, pull yourself up by the bootstraps attitude. He believes that we as people have to do the hard work ourselves in order to start a revolution. This is also reflected in the supposed farmland background.

Judgement:

This print is aesthetically pleasing to me for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I can get behind the subject matter,  but that’s not important. I can appreciate the use of lights and darks, as it puts the focus on Sanders as the subject and basically lets everything else just be background. Similarly, the rule of thirds divides up the image evenly between main subject and background. I also think the hard, coarse lines really give it a handmade feel.