1.
Francisco Goya
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Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his career was a commentator. Immensely successful in his lifetime, Goya is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns and he was also one of the great portraitists of modern times. He was born to a modest family in 1746 in the village of Fuendetodos in Aragon and he studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773, the couples life together was characterised by an almost constant series of pregnancies and miscarriages, Goya was a guarded man and although letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts. He suffered a severe and undiagnosed illness in 1793 which left him completely deaf, after 1793 his work became progressively darker and more pessimistic. His later easel and mural paintings, prints and drawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal, social and political levels and he was appointed Director of the Royal Academy in 1795, the year Manuel Godoy made an unfavorable treaty with France. In 1799 Goya became Primer Pintor de Cámara, the then-highest rank for a Spanish court painter, in the late 1790s, commissioned by Godoy, he completed his La maja desnuda, a remarkably daring nude for the time and clearly indebted to Diego Velázquez. In 1801 he painted Charles IV of Spain and His Family, in 1807 Napoleon led the French army into Spain. Goya remained in Madrid during the Peninsular War, which seems to have affected him deeply. Although he did not vocalise his thoughts in public, they can be inferred from his Disasters of War series of prints and his 1814 paintings The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808. Goya eventually abandoned Spain in 1824 to retire to the French city of Bordeaux, accompanied by his much younger maid and companion, Leocadia Weiss, there he completed his La Tauromaquia series and a number of other, major, canvases. Following a stroke left him paralyzed on his right side. His body was later re-interred in Spain, Francisco Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Aragón, Spain, on 30 March 1746 to José Benito de Goya y Franque and Gracia de Lucientes y Salvador. The family had moved that year from the city of Zaragoza, José was the son of a notary and of Basque origin, his ancestors being from Zerain, earning his living as a gilder, specialising in religious and decorative craftwork. He oversaw the gilding and most of the ornamentation during the rebuilding of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, Francisco was their fourth child, following his sister Rita, brother Tomás and second sister Jacinta. There were two sons, Mariano and Camilo. His mothers family had pretensions of nobility and the house, a modest brick cottage, was owned by her family and, perhaps fancifully, about 1749 José and Gracia bought a home in Zaragoza and were able to return to live in the city
2.
History of printing
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The history of printing goes back to the duplication of images by means of stamps in very early times. In both China and Egypt, the use of stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In China, India and Europe, the printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus, the process is essentially the same - in Europe special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silk until the seventeenth century. Block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia both as a method of printing on textiles and later, under the influence of Buddhism, on paper. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to about 220, ukiyo-e is the best known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique on paper are covered by the term woodcut, the worlds earliest printer printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk printed with flowers in three colours from the Han Dynasty. It reached Europe, via the Islamic world, and by around 1400 was being used on paper for old master prints, the third oldest wood-block printed book ever found after Mugujeonggwang great Dharani sutraand Hyakumantō Darani is the Diamond Sutra. It carries a date of the 13th day of the moon of the ninth year of the Xiantong era. A number of printed dhāraṇīs, however, predate the Diamond Sūtra by about two hundred years, in Buddhism, great merit is thought to accrue from copying and preserving texts. The fourth-century master listed the copying of scripture as the first of ten essential religious practices and this ‘cult of the book’ led to techniques for reproducing texts in great numbers, especially the short prayers or charms known as dhāraṇīs. Stamps were carved for printing these prayers on clay tablets from at least the seventh century, especially popular was the Pratītyasamutpāda Gāthā, a short verse text summing up Nāgārjunas philosophy of causal genesis or dependent origination. Nagarjuna lived in the centuries of the current era and the Buddhist Creed. This tradition was transmitted to China and Tibet with Buddhism, Printing text from woodblocks does not, however, seem to have been developed in India. Printing with a press was practiced in Christian Europe as a method for printing on cloth and these prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onwards. Around the mid-century, block-books, woodcut books with text and images, usually carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts. These were all heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions, the Ars moriendi. In Europe, from about 1450 they were commonly used to colour old master prints printed in black and white. This was especially the case with playing-cards, which continued to be coloured by stencil long after most other subjects for prints were left in black, stenciling back in the 27th century BCE was different
3.
Woodblock printing
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Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Ukiyo-e is the best known type of Japanese woodblock art print, most European uses of the technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term woodcut, except for the block-books produced mainly in the 15th century. Prior to the invention of printing, seals and stamps were used for making impressions. The oldest of these came from Mesopotamia and Egypt. A few much larger brick stamps for marking clay bricks survive from Akkad from around 2270 BC. There are also Roman lead pipe inscriptions of some length that were stamped, however none of these used ink, which is necessary for printing, but stamped marks into relatively soft materials. In both China and Egypt, the use of stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In Europe and India, the printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus, the process is essentially the same—in Europe special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silk until at least the 17th century. The block was cut along the grain of the wood and it is necessary only to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. The content would of course print in reverse or mirror-image, a further complication when text was involved, the art of carving the woodcut is technically known as xylography, though the term is rarely used in English. For colour printing, multiple blocks are used, each for one colour, multiple colours can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks. There are three methods of printing to consider, Stamping Used for many fabrics, and most early European woodcuts. These items were printed by putting paper or fabric on a table or a surface with the block on top, and pressing, or hammering. Rubbing Apparently the most common for Far Eastern printing, Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the 15th century, and very widely for cloth. The block is placed face side up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top, the back of the paper or fabric is rubbed with a hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton. Printing in a press Presses only seem to have used in Asia in relatively recent times. Simple weighted presses may have used in Europe, but firm evidence is lacking. A deceased Abbess of Mechelen in Flanders in 1465 had unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines, cum 14 aliis lapideis printis which is probably too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing press in that location
4.
Printing press
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A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium, thereby transferring the ink. The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the printing press spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes, in the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. The operation of a press became so synonymous with the enterprise of printing that it lent its name to a new branch of media. The sharp rise of learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating. Technologies preceding the press led to the presss invention included, manufacturing of paper, development of ink, woodblock printing. At the same time, a number of products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. The device was used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns. Gutenberg may have also inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century. Gutenberg adopted the design, thereby mechanizing the printing process. Printing, however, put a demand on the quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed. The known examples range from Germany to England to Italy, however, the various techniques employed did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted. Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps, a goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from a lead-based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a hand mould. Another factor conducive to printing arose from the existing in the format of the codex. Considered the most important advance in the history of the prior to printing itself
5.
Etching
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Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types of material, as a method of printmaking, it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains in wide use today. In a number of variants such as microfabrication etching and photochemical milling it is a crucial technique in much modern technology. In traditional pure etching, a plate is covered with a waxy ground which is resistant to acid. The artist then scratches off the ground with an etching needle where he or she wants a line to appear in the finished piece. The échoppe, a tool with an oval section, is also used for swelling lines. The plate is dipped in a bath of acid, technically called the mordant or etchant. The acid bites into the metal where it is exposed, leaving behind lines sunk into the plate, the remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate. The plate is inked all over, and then the ink wiped off the surface, the plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper. The paper picks up the ink from the lines, making a print. The process can be repeated many times, typically several hundred impressions could be printed before the shows much sign of wear. The work on the plate can also be added to by repeating the whole process, Etching has often been combined with other intaglio techniques such as engraving or aquatint. The process as applied to printmaking is believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer of Augsburg, Hopfer was a craftsman who decorated armour in this way, and applied the method to printmaking, using iron plates. Apart from his prints, there are two examples of his work on armour, a shield from 1536 now in the Real Armeria of Madrid. The switch to copper plates was made in Italy. On the other hand, the handling of the ground and acid need skill and experience, prior to 1100 AD, the New World Hohokam independently utilized the technique of acid etching in marine shell designs. Jacques Callot from Nancy in Lorraine made important technical advances in etching technique and he developed the échoppe, a type of etching-needle with a slanting oval section at the end, which enabled etchers to create a swelling line, as engravers were able to do. Callot also appears to have responsible for an improved, harder, recipe for the etching ground
6.
Lithography
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Lithography is a method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone or a plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by German author and actor Alois Senefelder as a method of publishing theatrical works. Lithography can be used to print text or artwork onto paper or other suitable material, Lithography originally used an image drawn with oil, fat, or wax onto the surface of a smooth, level lithographic limestone plate. The stone was treated with a mixture of acid and gum arabic, when the stone was subsequently moistened, these etched areas retained water, an oil-based ink could then be applied and would be repelled by the water, sticking only to the original drawing. The ink would finally be transferred to a paper sheet. This traditional technique is used in some fine art printmaking applications. In modern lithography, the image is made of a coating applied to a flexible aluminum plate. The image can be printed directly from the plate, or it can be offset, by transferring the image onto a sheet for printing. In fact, photolithography is used synonymously with offset printing, the technique as well as the term were introduced in Europe in the 1850s. Beginning in the 1960s, photolithography has played an important role in the fabrication, Lithography uses simple chemical processes to create an image. For instance, the part of an image is a water-repelling substance. Thus, when the plate is introduced to a printing ink and water mixture, the ink will adhere to the positive image. This allows a flat print plate to be used, enabling much longer, Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1796. In the early days of lithography, a piece of limestone was used. After the oil-based image was put on the surface, a solution of gum arabic in water was applied, during printing, water adhered to the gum arabic surfaces and was repelled by the oily parts, while the oily ink used for printing did the opposite. Lithography works because of the repulsion of oil and water. The image is drawn on the surface of the print plate with a fat or oil-based medium such as a wax crayon, which may be pigmented to make the drawing visible
7.
Chromolithography
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Chromolithography is a unique method for making multi-colour prints. This type of colour printing stemmed from the process of lithography, when chromolithography is used to reproduce photographs, the term photochrome is frequently used. Lithographers sought to find a way to print on flat surfaces with the use of chemicals instead of relief or intaglio printing, hand-colouring also remained important, elements of the official British Ordnance Survey maps were coloured by hand by boys until 1875. The initial technique involved the use of multiple lithographic stones, one for each colour, depending on the number of colours present, a chromolithograph could take months to produce, by very skilled workers. However much cheaper prints could be produced by simplifying both the number of used, and the refinement of the detail in the image. Cheaper images, like advertisements, relied heavily on a black print. The process is based on the rejection of grease by water, the image is applied to stone, grained zinc or aluminium surfaces, with a grease-based crayon or ink. Limestone and zinc are two commonly used materials in the production of chromolithographs, as aluminium unfortunately corrodes easily, after the image is drawn onto one of these surfaces, the image is gummed-up with a gum arabic solution and weak nitric acid to desensitize the surface. Before printing, the image is proved before finally inking up the image with oil based transfer or printing ink, the inked image under pressure is transposed onto a sheet of paper using a flat-bed press. This describes the form of printing. The offset indirect method uses a cylinder that transfers the image from printing surface to the paper. Colours may be overprinted by using stones or plates to achieve a closer reproduction of the original. Accurate registration for multi-coloured work is achieved by the use of a key outline image, ben-Day medium, uses a raised gelatin stipple image to give tone gradation. An air-brush sprays ink to give soft edges and these are just two methods used to achieve gradations of tone. The use of twelve overprinted colours would not be considered unusual, each sheet of paper will therefore pass through the printing press as many times as there are colours in the final print. In order that each colour is placed in the position, each stone or plate must be precisely ‘registered, ’ or lined up. Chromolithographs are considered to be reproductions that are smaller than double demi, autolithographs are prints where the artist draws and perhaps prints his or her own limited number of reproductions. This is the true art form
8.
Offset printing
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Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. The modern web process feeds a large reel of paper through a press machine in several parts, typically for several metres. Development of the press came in two versions, in 1875 by Robert Barclay of England for printing on tin, and in 1904 by Ira Washington Rubel of the United States for printing on paper. Lithography was initially created to be a method of reproducing artwork. This printing process was limited to use on flat, porous surfaces because the plates were produced from limestone. In fact, the word lithograph historically means an image from stone or printed from stone, tin cans were popular packaging materials in the 19th century, but transfer technologies were required before the lithographic process could be used to print on the tin. The first rotary offset lithographic printing press was created in England and this development combined mid-19th century transfer printing technologies and Richard March Hoes 1843 rotary printing press—a press that used a metal cylinder instead of a flat stone. The offset cylinder was covered with specially treated cardboard that transferred the image from the stone to the surface of the metal. Later, the covering of the offset cylinder was changed to rubber. As the 19th century closed and photography became popular, many lithographic firms went out of business, photoengraving, a process that used halftone technology instead of illustration, became the primary aesthetic of the era. Many printers, including Ira Washington Rubel of New Jersey, were using the low-cost lithograph process to produce copies of photographs, Rubel discovered in 1901—by forgetting to load a sheet—that when printing from the rubber roller, instead of the metal, the printed page was clearer and sharper. After further refinement, the Potter Press printing Company in New York produced a press in 1903, by 1907 the Rubel offset press was in use in San Francisco. The Harris Automatic Press Company also created a similar press around the same time, charles and Albert Harris modeled their press on a rotary letter press machine. One of the most important functions in the process is prepress production. This stage makes sure that all files are processed in preparation for printing. This includes converting to the proper CMYK color model, finalizing the files, Offset lithography is one of the most common ways of creating printed materials. A few of its common applications include, newspapers, magazines, brochures, stationery, compared to other printing methods, offset printing is best suited for economically producing large volumes of high quality prints in a manner that requires little maintenance. Many modern offset presses use computer-to-plate systems as opposed to the older computer-to-film work flows, advantages of offset printing compared to other printing methods include, consistent high image quality
9.
Screen printing
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Screen printing is a printing technique whereby a mesh is used to transfer ink onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh apertures with ink, and this causes the ink to wet the substrate and be pulled out of the mesh apertures as the screen springs back after the blade has passed. Screen printing is also a method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of polyester or other fine mesh. Ink is forced into the mesh openings by the blade or squeegee and by wetting the substrate. As the screen away from the substrate the ink remains on the substrate. It is also known as silk-screen, screen, serigraphy, one color is printed at a time, so several screens can be used to produce a multicoloured image or design. There are various terms used for what is essentially the same technique, traditionally the process was called screen printing or silkscreen printing because silk was used in the process prior to the invention of polyester mesh. Currently, synthetic threads are used in the screen printing process. The most popular mesh in general use is made of polyester, there are special-use mesh materials of nylon and stainless steel available to the screen printer. There are also different types of mesh size which will determine the outcome, Screen printing first appeared in a recognizable form in China during the Song Dynasty. It was then adapted by other Asian countries like Japan, and was furthered by creating newer methods, Roy Beck, Charles Peter and Edward Owens studied and experimented with chromic acid salt sensitized emulsions for photo-reactive stencils. Commercial screen printing now uses sensitizers far safer and less toxic than bichromates, currently there are large selections of pre-sensitized and user mixed sensitized emulsion chemicals for creating photo-reactive stencils. Serigraphy is a word formed from Latin sēricum and Greek graphein. The Printers National Environmental Assistance Center says Screenprinting is arguably the most versatile of all printing processes, credit is generally given to the artist Andy Warhol for popularising screen printing as an artistic technique, identified as serigraphy, in the United States. Sister Mary Corita Kent, gained fame for her vibrant serigraphs during the 1960s and 1970s. Her works were rainbow colored, contained words that were political and fostered peace and love and caring. American entrepreneur, artist and inventor Michael Vasilantone started to use, develop, Vasilantone later filed for patent on his invention in 1967 granted number 3,427,964 on February 18,1969. The original machine was manufactured to print logos and team information on bowling garments, the Vasilantone patent was licensed by multiple manufacturers, the resulting production and boom in printed T-shirts made this garment screen printing machine popular
10.
Dot matrix printing
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However, unlike a typewriter or daisy wheel printer, letters are drawn out of a dot matrix, and thus, varied fonts and arbitrary graphics can be produced. Each dot is produced by a metal rod, also called a wire or pin. Facing the ribbon and the paper is a guide plate named ribbon mask holder or protector. It is pierced with holes to serve as guides for the pins and this plate may be made of hard plastic or an artificial jewel such as sapphire or ruby. The portion of the containing the pins is called the print head. When running the printer, it generally prints one line of text at a time, there are two approaches to achieve this, The common serial dot matrix printers use a horizontally moving print head. The print head can be thought of featuring a vertical column of seven or more pins approximately the height of a character box. Thereby, up to 48 pins can be used to form the characters of a line while the print head moves horizontally. In a considerably different configuration, so called line dot matrix printers use a print head almost as wide as the paper path utilizing a horizontal line of thousands of pins for printing. Sometimes two horizontally slightly displaced rows are used to improve the effective dot density through interleaving, while still line-oriented, these printers for the professional heavy-duty market effectively print a whole line at once while the paper moves forward below the print head. The printing speed of serial dot matrix printers with moving heads varies from 30 to 1550 cps, in contrast to this, line matrix printers are capable of printing much more than 1000 cps, resulting in a throughput of up to 800 pages/hour. Because the printing involves mechanical pressure, both of these types of printers can create carbon copies and carbonless copies and these machines can be highly durable. A variation on the dot matrix printer was the cross hammer dot printer, the smooth cylindrical roller of a conventional printer was replaced by a spinning, fluted cylinder. The print head was a hammer, with a vertical projecting edge. Where the vertical edge of the hammer intersected the horizontal flute of the cylinder, compressing the paper, characters were built up of multiple dots. Although nearly all inkjet, thermal, and laser printers also print closely spaced dots rather than lines or characters. In 1925, Rudolf Hell invented the Hellschreiber, an early facsimile-like dot matrix-based teletypewriter device, like the earlier Hellschreiber, it still used electromechanical means of coding and decoding, but it used a start-stop method rather than synchronous transmission for communication. In 1956, while he was employed at Telefonbau und Normalzeit GmbH, the device was introduced to the Deutsche Bundespost, when Preikschat emigrated into the USA in 1957 he sold the rights to utilize the applications in any countries to TuN
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