Prints With/Out Pressure
The Relief Print
The term “relief print” refers to any print made
from a raised printing surface, created when the non-printing areas of
the block or plate are cut away below the surface. Examples of this technique
include woodcut, wood engraving, and linoleum cut, and it is by far the
oldest method in the history of printmaking. Woodblock printing on paper
was invented in China in the ninth century, and first developed in Europe
around 1400. Working on the grain side of a block of wood, the artist
makes a woodcut by carving away, with sharp knives and gouges, the areas
that are not intended to be printed. The remaining raised surface is
then inked, usually with a roller, and the paper is placed on top and
rubbed with a spoon or other hard instrument to transfer the ink from
block to paper. Alternatively, the block and paper may be run through
a printing press, which offers more pressure than manual rubbing. A wood
engraving is similar, but is carved on an end-grain piece of very hard
wood, with engraving tools rather than gouges. The end-grain is considerably
denser and more uniform than the grain side, and therefore lends itself
to much finer carving than the woodcut. The linoleum cut is a 20th-century
development of the relief print. The block consists of a thin layer of
linoleum mounted on wood, but otherwise the technique is identical to
a woodcut. The advantage of linoleum is the softness and pliability of
the material, and therefore the ease with which it can be cut; however,
it is not as suitable as wood for fine engraving. During the 20th century,
artists experimented with numerous materials for relief printing plates,
such as plastic, celluloid, and Masonite, sometimes carving them like
a woodblock, sometimes building up the surface in the manner of a collage
(the term for this is collagraph). Whatever the technique, the basic
printing method for nearly all the works in this exhibition was the same:
the raised areas of the plate were inked, the recessed areas were not.
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