Print (art)

“ There may26 be a picture, by a photographer or by a painter, having all the requisite component parts to make it a work of art; there may be, for example, a woman, an axe, a road, a mountain, trees; but these thrown together upon a canvas do not make a work of art unless they are properly composed, even if they are arranged in an order satisfying to the realist, and each faultlessly executed. It is not the same thing to paint and to make pictures; to print and to execute artistic printing. ”

“ In the Primitives we find the full stature of the spirit; in the art of later days, with all its parade of processes, we shall hardly find more.{128}
In the First Period the initial impulse of print-designing manifested itself in work that was powerful and beautiful, but of simple technique. In the Second Period the barriers that confined the Primitives were swept away by new possibilities of expression. The three-colour prints gave place to prints in which an unlimited number of blocks could be employed; and this enlargement of the artist's resources produced a new and splendid blossoming. ”

“ And, on the other hand, the unity of the print can never be quite realised in the drawing, however much the artist may strive to attain it, because the conditions must change, however slightly, for strokes produced in succession; while in a print all are produced together, and variations, if variations there are, occur over wide spaces and not between stroke and stroke. It is considerations, of this kind that in the last resort determine the quality of works of art. ”

“ These two rooms contain a rich collection of contemporary American work that should be studied print by print. Even a superficial look will indicate that even without Pennell and Whistler the American etchers are doing work universally worth while.
Gallery 34-Color Prints. Here is an interesting collection of color prints in both etching and wood engraving. It shows the achievement of the younger artists in mediums that were practically unknown in this country ten years ago. ”

“ If all his thoughts are concentrated on his own drawing, one line to him will be much as another; but if he considers his illustration as going with the type to form one homogeneous design, each line becomes a matter of deliberate intention.
Now, in the early days of printing, when both type and illustration were printed off a single block, the latter standpoint was adopted as a matter of course, and as the art developed and men of genuine ability applied themselves to design, this intimate relation between printer and designer produced results of inimitable beauty. ”

“ We can eliminate the last clause, and call style in printing the gesture of the mind, the evidence of the amount and degree of knowledge possessed by the mind, tempered, arranged, given distinction, by the born talent, aptitude, or whatever it may be termed, which is the seed germ of style. We do not hesitate to accept the obvious100 theory that artists are born, not made. Some claim for printing that it is an art. Why then should we hesitate to admit that a printer capable of cultivating and expressing a genuine style must depend upon something other than mere knowledge ”

“ The three essentials of printing style may be generalized as knowledge, harmony, and expressiveness. In literature they are thought, expressiveness, and harmony, or melody, as some have it. The greatest of these is, of course, knowledge—knowledge of the fundamentals which go to the making of the best printing.
It is not possible to teach style. It is almost as impossible to acquire style. This seems like a paradox, but a paradox is not always a symbol of hopelessness. Style must be born in a man—style in any art or profession. ”

“ When, as is most often the case, there is actual beauty in the cuts, the books so ornamented are amongst the most delightful works of art that have ever been produced. Therefore, granted well-designed type, due spacing of the lines and words, and proper position of the page on the paper, all books might be at least comely and well-looking: and if to these good qualities were added really beautiful ornament and pictures, printed books might once again illustrate to the full the position of our Society that a work of utility might be also a work of art, if we cared to make it so. ”

“ But knowledge, as distinguished from acquaintance, gives us a very different conception of a painting, or a piece of sculpture, or an example of any form of art, and reveals to us new beauties. So it is in printing. We cannot do good color printing unless we understand color as an artist understands it; we cannot get the best results from a halftone engraving unless we understand tone, light and103 shade, and values, as an artist understands them. We are not sure of our ground with regard to a page of plain type matter unless we know something conclusive about the fundamentals of art. ”

“ It is not primarily a question of beauty of form that is essential in printing, but of the appropriateness of form. Beauty for itself alone is, in printing, but an accessory quality, to be4 considered as an aid to the force and clarity of the substance of the printed matter.
An object of art illustrating forms and expressions of beauty subtly suggests esthetic or sensuous emotions, which play upon the differing consciousnesses of beholders as their capacities and natures enable them to appreciate it. ”

“ The fallacy of the proverb, that "those who run may read," being established, modern science set about the adoption of a medium, available to those sons of the century who are always on the run. Hence, the grand secret of ILLUSTRATION.—Hence the new art of printing!
The pictorial printing-press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are not told, but shown how the world is wagging. The magazines sketch us a lively article, the newspapers vignette us, step by step, a royal tour. ”

“ Ripening so rapidly, and blossoming into such excellence and perfection as did the art of the printer, and design as applied to the printed page, through the woodcut and the press, their artistic character and beauty was somewhat short-lived. ”

“ For those who have learned the elements of their language the charm of the prints is very great. I should perhaps say the charm of some of the prints is very great; for, as we learn what we ought to admire, we learn to discriminate, at first between the works of the different artists, then between different works by the same artist, and finally between different copies of the same work. The truth is that the prints are only in a remote sense to be spoken of as reproductions. Each impression is more or less an individual work of art ”

“ Printed in large, clear type, on the heaviest of paper, with broad white margins, and a series of twenty illustrations by famous American and foreign artists, engraved in the highest style of art, it forms a book of exceptional beauty, and one of which the publishers may well be proud. ”

“ This is one of the art subjects that the practical printer may deem of too slight consequence to merit his careful attention. But if it is desired to produce printing of power—power to pleasurably attract the eye of those persons who possess either an instinctive or a cultivated taste for art—it is essential that the work adhere closely to the rules governing pictorial composition. The eye is a relentless judge. ”

“ Yet it is noted that whenever an artist is able to attract favorable attention through the exercise of talents markedly his own, he is at once credited with a style that is distinctively and peculiarly his.96 It is quite fair and just therefore to consider that style in printing means that quality of beauty or distinction which is to be directly referred to the printer, rather than those meritorious qualities that owe their existence to careful following of established rules and principles, concerning which all printers have, or may have, a working knowledge. ”

“ Drawing, composition,21 harmony, balance, proportion, perspective, color, tone, light-and-shade, values, etc., are qualities of graphic art that apply to printing with varying force, according to the exigencies of each particular case in hand, and particularly according to the comprehension and cultivation of the printer. It is always possible to explain the beauty and power of any piece of printing by reference to the same principles that are responsible for the excellencies of other works of graphic art. ”

“ Indeed, the photograph, with all its allied discoveries and its application to the service of the printing press, may be said to be as important a discovery in its effects on art and books as was the discovery of printing itself. It has already largely transformed the system of the production of illustrations and designs for books, magazines, and newspapers, and has certainly been the means of securing to the artist the advantage of possession of his original, while its fidelity, in the best processes, is, of course, very valuable. ”

“ The little sketches and woodcuts are trifling as illustrations, and can only assist the memory and the fancy of the reader but I regret this the less, inasmuch as those who take an interest in the subject can easily illustrate the book for themselves. To collect a portfolio of prints, including those works of art which are cited under each head as examples, with a selection from the hundreds of others which are not cited, and arrange them in the same order—with reference, not to schools, or styles, or dates, but to subject merely—would be an amusing, and I think not a profitless, occupation. ”

“ Printing, as a means of making records and of embodying and illustrating thought, has given us the wide field of literature on design. But in the making of books as an application of design, and in the making of all other forms of printed matter, printers since Gutenberg have been influenced by relatively few of the many distinct periods through which art has come. ”

“ The printer's work and the painter's art exactly reverse their processes, as their motives are opposed; but they must both work with the same tools, measurably. Everything with the painter is plastic, except his art. Everything is immobile with the printer, except his art; and of that he hopes to employ only so much as will gild the prosaic commercialism of the motive he must express. The chief principles and tenets of art are all applicable to the craft of printing, in some degree. ”

“ There is no claim put forward for silversmiths that their work is all artistic; the chief part of it is very manifestly craftsmanship, yet examples that are true art constantly appear. The same is true of wood carving, of repoussé work in metals, and of many crafts. It may be true of printing, and will be when printers themselves become qualified to view their craftsmanship from the point of view of the artist, and feel for it that devotion which is always the recognizable controlling motive of artists in other graphic arts, and in those crafts that verge upon the graphic arts. ”

“ It assuredly requires a new and a different comprehension of the terms of art, and a distinctly varied comprehension of the word art itself. It has ever been a stumbling block to printers that the word art as applied to their craft must be given a more limited significance than is given it in its usual acceptance. If we can come at some intelligible appreciation of what we mean by art in printing the way will be opened for the application of that motive to the work of the presses. ”

“ We decide at once in favour of the calotype––it is truth itself; and yet, while the design of the print––a mere approximation as it is––must have cost a man of genius much pains and study, the drawing in brown beside it was but the work of a few seconds: the eye of an accomplished artist determined the attitude of the original, and the light reflected from the form and features accomplished the rest. Were that sketch in brown to be sent to a skilful engraver, he would render it the groundwork of by far the most faithful print which the public has yet seen. ”

“ So when we speak of color in printing it must be understood that the word is not used in its broadest, nor in its most exact, sense; but in an arbitrarily restricted sense, applying exactly as it is applied by printers in actual practice.
The printer's understanding of color, his appreciation of its usefulness and power, is approaching toward the high esteem in which it is held by the painter. He is coming to know that it is a high quality of his work, and that by it he is able to suggest several other qualities that are vital, such as lights, shadows, perspectives, etc. ”

“ In art its discovery was the parallel of the invention of printing in literature; it was a means of multiplying and spreading the ideas which are expressed by art, of creating a popular appreciation and knowledge of art, and of bringing beautiful design within the reach of a larger body of men. It is difficult for a modern mind to realize the place which pictures filled in mediæval life, before the invention of printing had brought about that great change which has resulted in making books almost the sole means of education. ”

“ We cannot take one pronounced step toward acquiring style until we realize the need, the vital need, of a good foundation knowledge of art—not in a historical sense, but in a technical sense—for the technique of printing that is better than good. ”