However, the woodcut became more popular in the late 15th century with illustrated books. Artists this century have sometimes preferred hand-printing to the use of a press because of the expressive effects obtained by varying the pressure.īecause of the difficulty in executing detailed images, woodcut images were often simplistic and humble being used mainly for playing cards and crude devotional images. The printing of a woodcut could be done both in a press and by hand, much like a stamp. It is called a relief process because the lines and surfaces to which the ink adheres are higher than the parts that are not printed.Īs the cutting of the wood was a skilled process an image would be processed by both an artist, who would draw the design, and a professional woodcutter who would then cut out the image, ink and print it. One of the earliest surviving woodcutsīlock is then inked and the substrate pressed against the wood block. The printing parts remain level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with a knife or chisel. The wood Anonymus, German, Christ Before Herod, Woodcut (greatly reduced). Woodcuts, the oldest method of relief printing, is a technique in which text and images are carved into the surface of a block of wood. Surface Prints: Lithography, and surface prints from metal plates (Lange 51) Intaglio Prints: Engraving and etching on metal (line engraving, dry-point, etching, mezzotint, stipple, crayon and the dot process, aquatint.ģ. Prints and their processes fall into three broad categories:ġ.Relief Printing: Woodcut and wood engraving and relief prints from metal plates.Ģ. The introduction of the rotary printing press by Johannes Gutenburg, a German blacksmith and printer, brought together the use of metal moulds and alloys, and oil-based inks, and allowed for the first time the mass production of printed books. Relief printing appeared in Europe and became popular in the fifteenth century when paper became much cheaper and readily accessible. Although woodblock printmaking had been around in China since the ninth century, European printmaking made its appearance from the beginning of the twelfth century. The history of the print can be recorded as far back as 3000BCE in the form of stamps.
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