Lithography
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Lithography (from
Originally, the image to be printed was drawn with a greasy substance, such as oil, fat, or wax onto the surface of a smooth and flat limestone plate. The stone was then treated with a mixture of weak acid and gum arabic ("etch") that made the parts of the stone's surface that were not protected by the grease more hydrophilic (water attracting). For printing, the stone was first moistened. The water only adhered to the gum-treated parts, making them even more oil-repellant. An oil-based ink was then applied, and would stick only to the original drawing. The ink would finally be transferred to a blank paper sheet, producing a printed page. This traditional technique is still used for fine art printmaking.[6]
In modern commercial lithography, the image is transferred or created as a patterned
As a printing technology, lithography is different from
The principle of lithography
Lithography uses simple chemical processes to create an image. For instance, the positive part of an image is a water-repelling ("hydrophobic") substance, while the negative image would be water-retaining ("hydrophilic"). Thus, when the plate is introduced to a compatible printing ink and water mixture, the ink will adhere to the positive image and the water will clean the negative image. This allows a flat print plate to be used, enabling much longer and more detailed print runs than the older physical methods of printing (e.g., intaglio printing, letterpress printing).
Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder[1] in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1796. In the early days of lithography, a smooth piece of limestone was used (hence the name "lithography": "lithos" (λιθος) is the Ancient Greek word for "stone"). After the oil-based image was put on the surface, a solution of gum arabic in water was applied, the gum sticking only to the non-oily surface. During printing, water adhered to the gum arabic surfaces and was repelled by the oily parts, while the oily ink used for printing did the opposite.
Lithography on limestone
Lithography works because of the mutual repulsion of oil and water. The image is drawn on the surface of the print plate with a fat or oil-based medium (hydrophobic) such as a wax crayon, which may be pigmented to make the drawing visible. A wide range of oil-based media is available, but the durability of the image on the stone depends on the lipid content of the material being used, and its ability to withstand water and acid. After the drawing of the image, an aqueous solution of gum arabic, weakly acidified with nitric acid (HNO
3) is applied to the stone. The function of this solution is to create a hydrophilic layer of calcium nitrate salt, Ca(NO
3)
2, and gum arabic on all non-image surfaces.[1] The gum solution penetrates into the pores of the stone, completely surrounding the original image with a hydrophilic layer that will not accept the printing ink. Using lithographic turpentine, the printer then removes any excess of the greasy drawing material, but a hydrophobic molecular film of it remains tightly bonded to the surface of the stone, rejecting the gum arabic and water, but ready to accept the oily ink.[10][11]
When printing, the stone is kept wet with water. The water is naturally attracted to the layer of gum and salt created by the acid wash.
Senefelder had experimented during the early 19th century with multicolor lithography; in his 1819 book, he predicted that the process would eventually be perfected and used to reproduce paintings.[3] Multi-color printing was introduced by a new process developed by Godefroy Engelmann (France) in 1837 known as chromolithography.[3] A separate stone was used for each color, and a print went through the press separately for each stone. The main challenge was to keep the images aligned (in register). This method lent itself to images consisting of large areas of flat color, and resulted in the characteristic poster designs of this period.[citation needed]
"Lithography, or printing from soft stone, largely took the place of engraving in the production of English commercial maps after about 1852. It was a quick, cheap process and had been used to print British army maps during the Peninsular War. Most of the commercial maps of the second half of the 19th century were lithographed and unattractive, though accurate enough."[12]
Modern lithographic process
High-volume lithography is currently used to produce posters, maps, books, newspapers, and packaging—just about any smooth, mass-produced item with print and graphics on it. Most books, indeed all types of high-volume text, are now printed using offset lithography.[citation needed]
For offset lithography, which depends on photographic processes, flexible aluminum, polyester, mylar or paper printing plates are used instead of stone tablets. Modern printing plates have a brushed or roughened texture and are covered with a photosensitive emulsion. A photographic negative of the desired image is placed in contact with the emulsion and the plate is exposed to ultraviolet light. After development, the emulsion shows a reverse of the negative image, which is thus a duplicate of the original (positive) image. The image on the plate emulsion can also be created by direct laser imaging in a CTP (computer-to-plate) device known as a platesetter. The positive image is the emulsion that remains after imaging. Non-image portions of the emulsion have traditionally been removed by a chemical process, though in recent times, plates have become available that do not require such processing.[citation needed]
The plate is affixed to a cylinder on a printing press. Dampening rollers apply water, which covers the blank portions of the plate but is repelled by the emulsion of the image area. Hydrophobic ink, which is repelled by the water and only adheres to the emulsion of the image area, is then applied by the inking rollers.
If this image were transferred directly to paper, it would create a mirror-type image and the paper would become too wet. Instead, the plate rolls against a cylinder covered with a rubber blanket, which squeezes away the water, picks up the ink and transfers it to the paper with uniform pressure. The paper passes between the blanket cylinder and a counter-pressure or impression cylinder and the image is transferred to the paper. Because the image is first transferred, or offset to the rubber blanket cylinder, this reproduction method is known as offset lithography or offset printing.[13]
Many innovations and technical refinements have been made in printing processes and presses over the years, including the development of presses with multiple units (each containing one printing plate) that can print multi-color images in one pass on both sides of the sheet, and presses that accommodate continuous rolls (webs) of paper, known as web presses. Another innovation was the continuous dampening system first introduced by Dahlgren, instead of the old method (conventional dampening) which is still used on older presses, using rollers covered with molleton (cloth) that absorbs the water. This increased control of the water flow to the plate and allowed for better ink and water balance. Current dampening systems include a "delta effect or vario", which slows the roller in contact with the plate, thus creating a sweeping movement over the ink image to clean impurities known as "hickies".
This press is also called an ink pyramid because the ink is transferred through several layers of rollers with different purposes. Fast lithographic 'web' printing presses are commonly used in newspaper production.
The advent of
Lithography as an artistic medium
During the early years of the 19th century, lithography had only a limited effect on
In the 1890s, color lithography gained success in part by the emergence of
During the 20th century, a group of artists, including
As a special form of lithography, the serilith or seriolithograph process is sometimes used. Seriliths are mixed-media original prints created in a process in which an artist uses the lithograph and
See also
- Block printing
- Color printing
- Flexography
- German inventors and discoverers
- History of graphic design
- Lineography
- List of art techniques
- Lithography using MeV ions – Proton beam writing
- Photochrom
- Photogravure
- Photolithography
- Theodore Regensteiner, inventor of the four-color lithographic press
- Rotogravure
- Stencil lithography
- Stereolithography
- Typography
References
- ^ a b c Brooks, Frederick Vincent (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 785–789. . In
- B.T. Batsford, p. 49.
- ^ ISBN 0-471-29198-6.
- ^ Carter, Rob, Ben Day, Philip Meggs. Typographic Design: Form and Communication, Third Edition. (2002) John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 11.
- ^ Pennel ER, ed. (1915). Lithography and Lithographers. London: T. Fisher Unwin Publisher.
- ^ Peterdi, Gabor F. (2021): "Lithography" section of "Printmaking" article. Encyclopedia Britannica online. Accessed 23 November 2021.
- ^ Hill, James. "Digital & Photographic". St Barnabas Press.
- ISBN 9780415972352. page 865.
- ISBN 9780521804998. page 416
- ^ A. B. Hoen, Discussion of the Requisite Qualities of Lithographic Limestone, with Report on Tests of the Lithographic Stone of Mitchell County, Iowa, Iowa Geological Survey Annual Report, 1902, Des Moines, 1903; pages 339–352.
- ^ Gascoigne, Bamber (1988). How to Identify Prints: a complete guide to manual and mechanical processes from woodcut to ink jet. Spain: Thames and Hudson. p. 1c.
- ^ Lynam, Edward. 1944. British Maps and Map Makers. London: W. Collins. Page 46.
- ^ see diagram at compassrose.com
- ^ Specimens of Polyautography, Consisting of Impressions taken from Original Drawings, Made on Stone purposely for this Work. London: Philipp André. 1803.
- ^ History of 20th century lithography by Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Braque, Leger at Atelier Mourlot, French Institute Alliance Française Archived July 23, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Mourlot, Fernand. Twentieth Century Posters. Wellfleet Press: Secaucus, New Jersey, 1989
- ^ "What is a Serilith?". Archived from the original on 9 November 2007. Retrieved 2 November 2007.
External links
- About Lithography
- Twyman, Michael. Early Lithographed Books. Pinner, Middlesex: Private Libraries Association, 1990
- Museum of Modern Art information on printing techniques and examples of prints
- The Invention of Lithography, Aloys Senefelder, (Eng. trans. 1911) (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu and layered PDF format)
- Theo De Smedt's website, author of "What's lithography"
- Extensive information on Honoré Daumier and his life and work, including his entire output of lithographs
- Digital work catalog to 4000 lithographs and 1000 wood engravings
- Detailed examination of the processes involved in the creation of a typical scholarly lithographic illustration in the 19th century
- Nederlands Steendrukmuseum
- Delacroix's Faust lithographs at the Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University
- A brief historic overview of Lithography. University of Delaware Library. Includes citations for 19th century books using early lithographic illustrations.
- Philadelphia on Stone: The First Fifty Years of Commercial Lithography in Philadelphia. Library Company of Philadelphia. Provides an historic overview of the commercial trade in Philadelphia and links to a biographical dictionary of over 500 Philadelphia lithographers and catalog of more than 1300 lithographs documenting Philadelphia.
- Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on lithography
- Czech author of lithography