Stamp

Manufacture

In Europe and in Japan, traditionally, the artist does nothing but draw engraving, and the creation of the boards was entrusted to specialized craftsmen, of which some could even become famous for this trade. These engravings were then left between the hands of printers. The virgin blocks themselves were made by semi-skilled workers.

There existed several methods to transfer the drawing from an artist on a block before cutting this last. That is to say the drawing was carried out directly on the block (generally on a white zone), or a drawing on paper was stuck to the block. In all manners, the drawing was destroyed during engraving. Other methods were possible, like the tracing.

This is why the prints sometimes known as “are drawn by” rather than simply “by” an artist, but it is common to omit this distinction. The division of the labor offered the advantage of making it possible a talented artist to use this medium without necessarily having to control the tools for engraving. At the beginning of the twentieth century, certain artists are reflected to cover all the stages of manufacture.

Methods of impression

In the case of the print carried out starting from a block of wood, a low pressure is enough to carry out the impression. Simply encrer and to press firmly on surface suffices for a pulling to a sufficient quality.

The principal methods are:

By stamp: used for fabrics and the prints oldest (years 1400) this method was carried out by putting paper or fabric on a table, and under the engraved plate, and by pressing or striking the latter with a hammer.

By friction: the method most common of the Far East to any time, and later in Europe. Enough also attends for fabrics, like for the modern prints. The block is posed face to the top, the paper posed over. The back of fabric is rubbed with a rigid pallet, a piece of wood punt or leather. Complex mechanisms were used in Japan to maintain the block in position perfectly and to apply a correct pressure. This was particularly useful when the polychrome prints made their appearance, and that each color was to be perfectly aligned.

Using a press: the presses have been used in Asia only for one relatively recent time. The presses made their appearance about 1480 in Europe for the printed papers form and the books, and before that for the illustrations for books. Simple empesées presses were perhaps used before, but the proof is not made by it. An abbot of Mechelen, deceased in 1465, had “unum instrumentum AD imprintendum will scripturas and ymagines cum 14 aliis lapideis printis” i.e. “an instrument of impression of texts and images with fourteen stones to print”, at one time when a press of the type of Gutenberg had few chances to be at this place. Hind, Arthur Mr. Year Introduction to has History Woodcut off. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1935 (in the USA), reprinted Dover Publications, 1963,64-94. ISBN 0-486-20952-0.

Random links: