Developments in the Art of Printmaking in Europe – (Germany)

After paper and woodblock technology reached the Mediterranean shores through Muslim traders, it spread to the European continent. In Germany, printmaking made some large developments through metalworkers who began printing on metal plates, which were more durable than wood blocks. In the 1430s, gold and silversmiths skilled in engraving metal for jewelry and armor developed intaglio printing, whereby a metal plate is engraved and the ink from the incised design is transferred onto paper.

Early print masters Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dürer, who were both from German goldsmith families, became highly skilled in the intaglio printmaking technique of engraving.^[1] In this process, lines are cut into a copper or zinc plate to hold ink, allowing for the creation of intricate images on paper. This new technique enabled a proliferation of art prints throughout the continent, particularly in Italy where print houses were flourishing.

Just as fine-art prints were taking off in Germany and Italy, Johann Gutenberg created the printing press in Germany in 1440 CE. Gutenberg formed type blocks by pouring molten metal into letter molds fashioning a tiny block with the relief character on top, enabling the creation of identical multiples of the same letter. These durable metal-type blocks were then sorted into cases to form sentences and used to make up pages. Like the Chinese movable type prior, the type could be rearranged and reused in any combination; however, Gutenberg modified the standard water-based ink to an oil-based ink, which transferred type more effectively.

Furthermore, Gutenberg adapted the traditional wine press – a device used to extract juice from crushed grapes for winemaking – to print on paper by remodeling it for the purpose of printing. He did so by mounting inked type cases onto the press and constructing a mechanism that allowed for the application of even pressure onto the paper beneath, which resulted in even and precise transfer of ink and produced high-quality and uniform prints. This allowed printing to happen much faster than block printing or manuscript creation, catalyzing a book printing revolution in Europe, enabling the proliferation of ideas, text, and image to be replicated swiftly and shared with wide audiences. Due to the new market for books, printing technologies and techniques advanced at an accelerating rate.^[2]

Renaissance Print Developments: Etching: Dry Point, Engraving, Etching, Mezzotint & Acquaint – (Germany & Belgium) 

In the 14^th to 17^th centuries CE, the drive to depict classical antiquity, architecture, and science across Europe spurred a surge in printmaking and the development of new intaglio techniques, as publishing houses began producing illustrations, diagrams, and maps became popular in an era characterized by travel, scientific discovery, and mass publishing.

These cultural changes led to the furthering of the printed image through intaglio processes such as drypoint, engraving, and etching, as well as the development of intaglio techniques such as mezzotint, and aquatint.

By the 1470s, artists began experimenting with drypoint, directly incising a copper or zinc plate with a steel needle, which scraps or ‘pushes up’ the metal to create a ragged edge or ‘burr’. The resulting textured grooves hold ink for printing and produce lines that are distinguished by their softness.^[3] Another important characteristic of drypoint is that in the process of printing, the pressing of the plate onto paper or fabric wears down the ‘burrs’, which means that a small number of proofs (less than fifty) can be produced from the plate – this made the proof number of a drypoint print more significant, and the low-number proofs of an edition more desirable.^[4]

As noted earlier, engraving was adapted from the craft of goldsmithing. It developed simultaneously in Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy during the 15^th century CE.^[5] In terms of process, the engraver transferred a design onto a copper or steel plate, and incised the surface with a tool called a burin, which created furrows that could then be retraced to increase their depth and thus the darkness of their lines. To maintain clean lines, burrs and ridges were scraped off.

In 1500 CE, German armor embellisher Daniel Hopfer pioneered the art of (acid) etching by adapting the technique of using acid to etch designs into rounded steel armor plates by applying it to flat plates that could be printed. The metal plate is coated with an acid-resistant wax-like material called a ground. After the design is worked into the ground, an etching needle is used to create the lines as opposed to digging into the metal plate. The plate is then exposed to or dipped in an acid bath, which etches into where the metal is exposed, creating the incised design for printing. The acid baths could be repeated as many times as needed in order to get the line depths required by the artist. This process allowed for more versatility and variety of technique compared to other intaglio methods, and it was appealing to many more artists since it is easier, and essentially only required that the artist know how to draw.

The 17^th century saw the decline of engraving as artists were drawn more to etching due to its more expressive qualities, ease of technique (no need to meticulously carve into a metal plate), efficiency for producing prints which required less labor, and possibility of producing a larger number of consistent prints before the plate wore down.

The evolution of art prints led to a desire for improved tonal imagery. This resulted in the development of Mezzotint in 1642 CE by Ludwig von Siegen, which allowed half-tones to be printed by roughening the metal plate with thousands of tiny dots made by a rounded, fine-tooth metal tool known as a rocker to create an even incised texture that can hold ink for printing. A design is then selectively rubbed down or burnished to various degrees of smoothness, thus removing the texture. Burnished areas will hold less ink and appear lighter in the final print. Mezzotint was used mostly in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, but with the advent of newer and less laborious techniques, it lost its favor within fine arts.

Additionally, Aquatint, which advanced acid etching technology to include planes of tone instead of lines, was developed in 1650 CE by Jan van de Velde IV, in Amsterdam. The most common Aquatint technique is: heating grains of rosin (resin extracted from pants) that are applied to a metal plate to adhere them. The plate is then bathed in acid, which etches or ‘bites’ around the tiny individual grains creating a plate with an incised texture that holds ink. A range of tones can be achieved by selectively stopping out areas of the design by applying resist over the areas that are to remain lighter and successively dipping the plate in acid. This creates different areas of different tones. This method was used by many known painters and sculptors from this period who were also printmakers such as Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Francisco Goya as they combined different print techniques in innovative ways.^[6]

18^th and 19^th Century Printmaking: Planography/Lithography, Offset, and Silkscreen – (Germany, England, and France)

It was not until over a century later, in 1796 CE, that a radical new print process was developed when Alois Senefelder, a German actor and playwright who wanted to print his own plays, developed lithography, a chemical printing process on limestone. To produce a lithograph, an image is drawn on a flat surface, most commonly made of limestone, and at times metal, with a greasy material, such as crayons or oily ink. The surface is dampened with water, which repels the greasy design, while ink adheres only to the greasy areas. When pressed onto paper using a flatbed lithographic press, the ink transfers the image preserving the artist's original marks, enabling a variety of effects resembling pen lines, crayon drawings, or brushwork.

Lithography was the first printmaking process, also known as planography, where image and background areas were on the same level. This allowed printmakers to create a wider range of tone and markings, and reduced the need for years of training and precise skill needed for woodblock carving, metal engraving, or mezzotint burnishing, making printmaking more accessible to artists.

At the end of the 19^th century CE, mechanical developments further industrialized printmaking and hugely increased the speed and quantity of prints. In England, 1875 CE, Robert Barclay developed rotary offset printing, which used the chemical process of lithography on a rotating cylinder to transfer an image from a metal plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. Just five years later, the British Arts and Crafts movement sought to move away from mass production and mechanization, calling for a return to craft techniques made by hand, which fueled an interest in woodcuts and printmaking as a crucial art form moving into the 20^th century CE.^[7]

Silkscreen-printing was introduced to Europe via the Silk Road^[8] trade in the 18^th century CE, but did not gain traction until the 19^th century CE when silk became an affordable resource in Europe. English and French craftsmen began to use screens of silk and stencils for printing on fabric and copying the Japanese fabrics in world fairs. In 1907 CE, Englishman Samuel Simon patented the process.

Early in 1910 CE, along with photography, screen printers began experimenting with photo-reactive chemical processes, whereby a photosensitive emulsion is applied evenly to the screen and a transparent film with the desired design is placed on top. When exposed to light, the emulsion hardens the areas not covered by the design, creating a stencil through which ink can pass. This photo-emulsion method replaced the earlier manual process of cutting stencils by hand, offering greater detail and efficiency in screen-printing.

[1] Phil Sanders, Prints and Their Makers (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2020); Ad Stijnman, Engraving and Etching 1400-2000: A History of the Development of Manual Intaglio Printmaking Processes (London: Archetype Publications, 2012);  Wendy Thompson, “The Printed Image in the West: History and Techniques,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2003, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/prnt/hd_prnt.htm.

[2] Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925); Christensen, “Guttenberg and the Koreans,”;  Prints and Their Makers; Robert Hoe, A Short History of the Printing Press (Good Press, 2021); Oregon State Library, “Gutenburg Press,” Special Collections & Archives McDonald Collection, accessed May 31, 2024, https://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/mcdonald/incunabula/gutenberg/.

[3] Thompson, ‘The Printed Image in the West’; Sanders, Prints and Their Makers.

[4] Ralph Mayer, The HarperCollins Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, 2nd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).

[5] Mayer, Art Terms and Techniques.

[6] Stijnman, Engraving and Etching, 1400-2000; Sanders, Prints and Their Makers; Thompson, ‘The Printed Image in the West’, 2003.

[7] Josh MacPhee, ed., Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today (Oakland: PM Press, 2009); Amy Tikannen, “Offset Printing,” Britannica, accessed May 31, 2024.

[8] The Silk Road network is generally thought of as stretching from an eastern terminus at the ancient Chinese capital city of Chang’an (now Xi’an) to westward end-points at Byzantium (Constantinople), Antioch, Damascus, and other Middle Eastern cities.