History of printmaking

Planography (Lithography)

Eugène Delacroix

Royal Tiger, 1829
Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863)
Lithograph, second state of four; 12 7/8 x 18 1/2 in. (32.7 x 47 cm)
Bequest of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1966 (67.630.7)

Delacroix had great empathy with the natural world and was fascinated by animals, although he seems never to have encountered untamed ones in the wild, even during his trip to Morocco in 1832. Having to rely upon the resources of the Paris zoo, he began studying felines there in the late 1820s, probably not long before making this lithograph. In this terrible, beautiful picture, Delacroix demonstrated the Romantic penchant for tragedy, torment, and violence in scenes that showed nature "red in tooth and claw" some decades before Charles Darwin publishedOn the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859).

This poster was used for showing how tragic and beautiful nature can be. using the dark grey colours to bring out the death in this picture. I do not like the background though because it does not blend well with the image in the front. But it does give it the image up front a more darker image. 

Andy Warhol 

Stencil : Serigraphy

A stencil is a sheet of paper, fabric, plastic, metal or other material with designs cut, perforated or punched from it. Ink is forced through the openings onto the surface (paper, fabric etc.) to be printed. Sometimes called silk screening, serigraphy (seri means silk) is a type of stencil printing. A stencil is fastened to a sheet of silk which is tightly stretched across a wooden frame. Or, an area of the silk is "blocked out" using glue, gum arabic or shellac. The frame is placed against the material to be printed. A squeegee (rubber mounted in wooden handle) is used to push the ink through the open areas onto the material or paper below.

Stencil & Serigraphy - History: A long time ago in the Fiji Islands, stencils made of banana leaves were used to apply patterns to bark cloth. The idea of using silk fabric as a screen was developed in 1907 by Samuel Simon of Manchester England.

The work was completed during the weeks after Marilyn Monroe's death in August 1962. It contains fifty images of the actress, which are all based on a single publicity photograph from the film Niagara (1953).The twenty-five pictures on the left side of the diptych are brightly colored, while the twenty-five on the right are in black and white. It has been suggested that the relation between the left side of the canvas and the right side of the canvas is evocative of the relation between the celebrity's life and death.

The piece is currently owned by the Tate. In a December 2, 2004 article in The Guardian, the painting was named the third most influential piece of modern art in a survey of 500 artists, critics, and others.

Relief Printing

=Van Gogh

Japonaiserie (English: Japanesery) was the term the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh used to express the influence of Japanese art.

1887

 This is printing from a raised surface. A simple example of relief printing is a rubber stamp pressed into a stamp pad and pressed onto a piece of paper. Relief printing plates are made from flat sheets of material such as wood, linoleum, metal, styrofoam etc. After drawing a picture on the surface, the artist uses tools to cut away the areas that will not print. A roller - called a brayer - is used to spread ink on the plate. A sheet of paper is placed on top of the plate and the image is transferred by rubbing with the hand or a block of wood, or by being run through a printing press. The completed print is a mirror image of the original plate.

Woodcut - Historical uses: Textiles and other decorative purposes, playing cards, calendars and book illustrations.

I find this work really interesting by how Van Gogh was affected by japanese art. I like its colours and how it brings like a swampy kind of mood but it is yet beautiful, he plays around with the art style of japanese art and tries to make it his own.