picture problems in the gutenberg galaxy (part 2)

Picture Problems in the Gutenberg Galaxy

(Part 2)

Picture Technologies• Engraving: using tools to cut a design into a hard, flat surface (such

as a copper plate).• Etching: using strong acid to cut the unprotected parts of a metal

surface to create a design.• Both are examples of intaglio, which is when an image is incised into

a matrix or plate.

The “Alphabet” of Images Image-producers develop various techniques that reduce

all elements of a picture into 2 or 3 elements. Cross-hatching is a method of line drawing that describes light

and shadow. The representation of light utilizes the white or openness of the page, while shadow is created by a density of crossed lines.

The “Alphabet” of Images Dot-and-lozenge line system can create any line or

tone. It came to “define 18th-century engraving, for small book

illustrations as well as the larger, separately sold, reproductions of paintings, and lives today in bank-note engraving.” (Joseph Viscomi, “Illuminated Printing”).

Detail of Orlando Uprooting a Pine, engraved by Blake after Stothard.

Reproductive Printmakers Engravings made after paintings are a huge

advantage to artists. Peter Paul Rubens: team of engravers that could

“translate” his work into linear schemes that would retain the character of the work while also ensuring the plates would last a long time.

Rubens, “Mary Anoints the Feet of Jesus”

Reproductive Engraving Technical innovations in engraving imitate the look of original

works of art (early c18); they are now called “facsimiles” instead of “translations” (Ivins 83).

Aquatinting imitates wash drawings Roulettes imitate chalk lines

A number of tools bearing a small cylinder or wheel produce textures or dotted lines according to the pattern or tiny teeth or points on the wheel’s edge or the cylinder’s rolling surface.

Stipple imitates light washes of color Method of engraving in which a grainy effect is produced by a series of tiny dots or flecks

Soft ground imitates quality and texture of pencil drawings The artist applies a varnish that is rendered more adhesive by adding tallow. The desired material is

then placed on the varnished plate, and pressure applied so the varnish detaches from the metal and sticks to the material’s relief. The printmaker may then dip the plate in the bath, where the acid etches the exposed imprint marks. When inked, this imprint appears in positive form.

Reproductive Engraving Book illustration and informational prints of the

c17 and c18 are several steps removed from the original visual statements.

Often, in “the reproductions of paintings and statues, the objects reproduced were copied by some draughtsman, and his drawing was then copied by the engraver, who did not work directly from the original work of art” (Ivins 88).

Laocoon and His Sons

• Discovered in 1506; depicts Laocoon and 2 sons being strangled by a serpent

• May be copy of earlier statue

Missing arm when discovered, restored in c16 with arm outstretched; corrected in

c19

Copies of Laocoon

Laocoon

Blake’s Laocoon• William Blake's annotated print Laocoön, which surrounds the image with graffiti-like commentary in several languages, written in multiple directions. Blake reinterprets the famous Greek sculpture as a copy of an original Hebraic work representing Jehovah and his two sons, Satan and Adam. Other inscriptions surrounding the central design set forth Blake's interrelated opinions on money, empire, morality, Christianity, and the arts. This reflects Blake's theory that the imitation of ancient Greek and Roman art was destructive to the creative imagination, and that Classical sculpture represented a banal naturalism in contrast to Judeo-Christian spiritual art.

Blake’s Laocoon• The central image of the statue may have been executed as early as c. 1815 in connection with Blake's work on illustrations for Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature. The inscribed texts surrounding the statue were almost certainly added at a much later date, c. 1826-27. Both impressions (A and B) of the single plate, etched and engraved in intaglio, were printed in 1826 or 1827.

Copies of Copies of Copies…

• The Lacoon statue is a great case study for thinking about the relationship of original works of art to their copies…– What are the advantages of making copies?– What are the disadvantages?– How does this play out in digital media?

Lithography

Totally new graphic process. Lithography “freed the original artist from the tyranny of the

reproductive engraver’s nets of rationality” (Ivins 88). “The advantage of lithography was that the artist’s drawing

and the print were practically identical - there was no reworking of his drawing by another hand, let along any copying of it in another medium, and it could be made in any way and with any or no linear scheme as the artist liked” (Ivins 110).

BUT needed a different press from text (Ivins 111).

The Photographic Revolution

Two new functions of the graphic process: Reporting portraits, views, and news. Recording documents, curios, and works of art.

For the first time in history, it’s possible to get a visual record of an object or work of art to study its qualities.


“The most important single development in the [19th] century was the discovery and exploitation of photography and the photographic process” (Ivins 93).

Other inventions: gas stove, locomotive, submarine, steamboat, bicycle, electric motor, internal combustion engine, refrigerator, revolver, combine harvester, telegraph, rubber, anaesthesia, telephone, oil drill, machine gun, barbed wire, dynamite, vacuum cleaner, automobile, radio, diesel engine


“There have been many revolutions in thought and philosophy, in science and religion, but I believe that never in the history of men has there been a more complete revolution than that which has taken place since the middle of the nineteenth century in seeing and visual recording” (Ivins 94).

“Photography…brought about a catastrophic revolution, the extent of which is not even today fully recognized” (95).

Q: What makes an original?A: Surface

• “Objects can be seen as works of art in so far as they have visible surfaces. The surfaces contain the brush marks, the chisel strokes, and the worked textures, the sum totals of which are actually the works of art. But the hand made prints after objects were never able to report about their surfaces” (143).

• “The photograph…despite all its deficiencies, was able to give detailed reports about the surfaces, with all their bosses, hollows, ridges, trenches, and rugosities, so that they could be seen as traces of the creative dance of the artist’s hand” (Ivins 144).

Q: What makes an original?A: Aura

• Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936)

– Benjamin argues that works of art have an “aura,” a unique existence in time and space, which gives them authenticity and authority.

– Aura includes physical damage and provenance - the history of that particular work.

– The mechanical reproduction of works of art causes the aura of works of art to “wither.”

– “By making many reproductions it [mechanical reproduction] substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced.”

Ponderables

• Ivins argues that photography allows the close and careful study of art (which is a good thing), but Benjamin suggests that the process of mechanical reproduction kills art’s aura (bad thing). – What do you think?– How else can we consider the relationship between

technology and art?– How might all of this relate to digital media?

picture problems in the gutenberg galaxy (part 2)

Documents