 PRINTMAKING
GLOSSARY
t
e r m s & t y p e
edition: the total number of impressions printed in a particular state. Today the artist numbers the prints to indicate the size of the edition. For example, 4/50 means it is the fourth impression from a total of 50 impressions; although this does not necessarily represent the actual order of printing.
engraving: the oldest of the intaglio techniques. The image is incised with a tool known as a "burin" or "graver". The handle is pushed with the palm of the hand, the forefinger guides the shaft and the sharp tip ploughs across the plate cutting a V-shaped groove. The art of engraving came of age in Germany in the 1470s, reached an early peak in the work of Durer and accounted for the vast majority of European prints from the 16th century into the 19th century. Its main function for most of that time was reproductive. To match the gradations from light to dark in paintings and sculpture, engravers laid down astonishingly intricate networks of parallel and criss-crossing lines, taking an evident delight in geometric pattern making for its own sake. Engraving lends itself to the finest detailing, but at the expense of much labor, time and tribulation. In this century it has become a rarity among artists, though still is common use on paper money.
from The Art of the Print glossary by Malcolm Warner, Curator of Prints, Drawings & European Paintings, San Diego Museum of Art
impression: a single print from a block, plate, stone or screen. One of the primary characteristics of printmaking is that many nearly identical images can be made by inking and printing the same block, plate, stone, or screen again and again. Each of them is called a multiple original. This makes it possible for many people to see or own an image. Many printmakers also value the opportunity this provides to create a series of variations on the theme - printings from the same block, plate, stone, or screen that are not identical. After printing some images, the artist may decide to add or remove lines, use different colors, wipe the ink in different ways, or use a variety of papers.
intaglio: a family of printmaking techniques including engraving, etching, drypoint, aquatint and mezzotint. The world derived from the Italian "intagliare", "to engrave". A metal plate, usually copper, is engraved, etched or otherwise incised with lines and textures forming an image. Ink is spread over the printing surface, then carefully wiped away with muslin rags and the palm of the hand until all or most of what remains lies in the incisions. The paper is dampened to make it more malleable. The printing is done in a press with rollers like an old fashioned clothes-wringer, which exerts enormous pressure and forces the paper into the incisions to receive the ink. This leaves the lines and textures of the image slightly raised above the areas of paper in between. It also creates a platemark, which is the most readily visible sign that an intaglio technique has been used. Intaglio stands in contrast to relief printing, which is done by inking the ridges in the printing surface rather than the troughs.
from The Art of the Print glossary by Malcolm Warner, Curator of Prints, Drawings & European Paintings, San Diego Museum of Art
linocut: an abbreviation of "linoleum cut". The technique is a derivation of the woodcut but owing to the supple, relatively soft properties of the material, linocuts have different characteristics. The material takes all types of lines, but is most suited to large designs with contrasting dark and light flat tints. The material is cut with small pen-like tools, which have mushroom-shaped handles. The tools have a variety of forms: straight and rounded edge, double pointed, as a chisel or V-shaped chisel, etc. As on a woodcut, the relief parts of the block are inked. For printing a large number of important proofs, the lino is attached to a wooden block. Color printing is done with several lino blocks.
from Prints: History of an Art by Michel Melot, Andre Beguin, Anthony Griffiths, Richard S. Field. Rizzoli, 1991, 290 pp.
print: the image obtained from any printing element. Originally, this was either a metal plate or a wood block. From the beginning of the 19th century, lithographic stones were included, and today screen printing adds a further type of printing element.
proof: Generally, "proof" has been used to indicate any impressions of a print. Strictly speaking, it should be limited to those impressions pulled by the artists to prove or test the work, whether before or after completion of the block, plate, etc. Trial proof is a proof taken while work is still being made on the block, plate, stone, etc., to test the effect of inking and from which the artist can judge the amount of additions or alternations to be made. Artist's proof is a proof reserved for the artist outside the main edition. This may be noted in the margin (E.A. on French prints means epreuve d'artiste). Some artists number these proofs.
original: The print is termed "original" if the artist of the design has worked on the printing element himself, as opposed to reproductive and interpretative prints which involve the use of an intermediary person to reproduce the design onto the printing element. The original print can not be a copy of any other media and not even of the artist's own painting.
relief: a family of printmaking techniques including woodcut, wood-engraving and linocut. The principle of the relief process is simply to remove the parts of the printing surface not intended to print, leaving the parts to print raised. A fairly stiff ink is applied to these with a roller. The paper is laid upon the printing surface, then light pressure exerted, either manually - sometimes with the back of a spoon - or in a mechanical press.
woodcut: the most enduring method of printmaking, practiced virtually unchanged since the 8th century in China and Japan and the 14th century in the West. The surface of a wood block is carved with knives, chisels and gouges the "negative" parts of the desired image being cut away and the "positive" left intact. Woodcuts flourished in Renaissance Europe as the primary form of book illustration, but gave way to intaglio methods around 1600. It became important again in the 19th century, first in the form of the wood engraving, then as a vehicle for the avant-garde primitivism of Gauguin and German Expressionists.
Colored woodcuts require a separate block for virtually every color, the only exception being small patches of two different colors that are sufficiently far apart to share the same block and be inked separately for simultaneous printing.
Impressions pulled from the first, which is called "key", are used as templates for making the others. A special difficulty of the color print is "registration", the laying down of the colors so that they fit precisely as intended. The color woodcut flourished in the 16th century as a means of reproducing wash drawings, then from the later 19th century onwards under the inspiration of Japanese prints.
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The main printmaking techniques include woodcut, engraving, etching, linocut, mezzotint, aquatint, lithograph and silk-screen. There are many other printmaking methods and variations.
For additional information and more complete definitions see:
- Dictionary of Printmaking Terms by Rosemary Simmons, A & C Black London, 128 pp.
- How to Identify Prints by Bamber Gascoigne. Thames & Hudson, New York, 2004, 2nd ed, 216 pp.
- Prints and Printmaking: An Introduction to the History and Technique by Anthony Griffiths, Univ of California Press, 1996, 160 pp
- Prints: Art and Techniques by Susan Lambert. Victoria & Albert Museum, 2001, 96 pp.
- Prints: History of an Art by Michel Melot, Andre Beguin, Anthony Griffiths, Richard S. Field. Rizzoli, 1991, 290 pp.
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