Illustration Processes to 1900 (July 2013)

Illustration Processes to 1900 (I-20), Rare Book School, taught by Terry Belanger, 22-27 July 2013

first thing to ask: date? is it printed on both sides? is the caption letterpress or freeform?

sock impression: on damp paper; kiss impression: on dry paper

letter press -- ~200 sq in of printing space, about 200lb of pressure, so ~1lb per sq in (not much at all)

Relief

can't tell if a relief print is printed from wood or from metal (eletrotype)

if sheet is printed on both sides, 90% certain it's relief

don't get large areas of dead black in intaglio the way you do with relief

Hand press period

Woodcuts

fast to print (about 100x faster to print than intaglio)

don't wear out

ink is such in, so you can stack sheets while wet

done on plank side of wood

occasionally find pen corrections, since labor was cheap and materials were expensive (reverse of today)

C19

Wood engravings

done on endgrain, which is much harder; you an use a burin

advantage over intaglio: can be printed with the text

Civil War Artist by Taylor Morrison, good description of process of making a wood engraving

bolted together smaller pieces of boxwood to make large enough image

Bewick manner -- popularized wood engraving

• vignette: no edges -- not rectangle or oval
• Bewick known for his vignetes; see pg 13 in workbook for a passage from Jane Eyre that mentions Bewick
• many imitators
• large Bewick block collection at the Newberry
• Bewick manner uses white lines when you can, since it's easier

Facsimile -- copy what an artist gives you

Interpretive -- interpret what an artist gives you

White-line

Stereotype/electrotypes

stereotype begins around 1810; eletrotypes in 1840s

copper-faced woodblock made from original wood engraving; can't tell the different between a printing done from copper face or from original woodblock

plaster in wood engraving means its a stereotype

Intaglio

if there are flowing lines, it's intaglio

offsetting tells you two plates were in the same place at the same time long enough to offset, but doesn't necessarily indicate from the same shop

pentimento: an alteration that's been rubbed out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentimento)

Hand-press period

Copper engravings

can only do about ~100 impressions, not enough for a book run; by 19C, could get ~1500 copies from copper by beating it first to make it stronger

under pressure of rolling press, lines of copperplate squash together

• refurbishers could touch them up; were paid by the hour (unusual for book trade, because it was such skilled labor)

at about 1000 impressions, it's cheaper to duplicate the plate

Pallaioulo -- Battle of the Nudes (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Nudes_(engraving))

game of collecting Italian Renaissance prints was over by the end of the 18c -- very rare

Etchings

pure etching virtually unknown in handpress period

speed: map engraver in Ordinate Survey Office expected to do 2x2 inches a day

Etchings on an ungrounded plate

Line engravings

line engravings are opposed to mezzotints, stipple engravings and aquatints, which are all tonal engravings

Mezzotints

can only get ~200 from a plate; not used in books but as framing prints, because rubbing destroys them easily

Prince Rupert is fabled to have invented it (in John Evelyn's Sculptura, or the History of Chalcography), though Siegen did

first known is a large plate of an executioner; it made its way to England as the "Little executioner" (smaller image just of executioner's haed), which is in Evelyn's book -- famous image

Aquatints

white islands surrounded by black sea indicates aquatint

painting the ground onto the plate; can do multiple bites with the acid to get a "terraced" visual effect (patches of uniform darkness, patches of uniform medium gray, etc.; see pg 21)