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《An Outline of the Contemporary Prints》

／Hsieh, Chi-Chang

Every art has its special languages. For example, the organizing languages of painting are colors, lines and forms, whereas the organizing languages of music are music scores, and so on.

But what are the organizing languages of print They are claimed to be plate, indirectness and plurality. For plate, print is a painting using plate as the media. It also refers that an artist fixes his/her state of mind on a plate, and then prints it out to become a work by using printing technique. For indirectness, another language of print, since print is transformed by printing through the media of a plate, it is different from other fine art works like sketch, watercolor or oil paint, which is completed by using pencil or brush to draw, color or revise directly. Print belongs to an art of indirect presentation. Such a characteristic of indirect presentation enables every printing plate to act as a bridge for the combination of an artist’s mental presentation process with art. For plurality, the last language of print, since print has to go through the process of plate making, one single plate can produce more than two works with the same picture, and the number of editions to be printed can be controlled. Through these organizing languages, a print can be naturally formed.

From the term of print, or graphic art or printmaking called by the Americans, or gravure or estampe called by the French, or Druckgraphik called by the Germans, or estampa or grabado called by the Spaniards, we can know that print contains the meanings of the pressing and printing acts and procedures. And from the term of print in Chinese, we can clearly see the combination of the two Chinese characters, plate and painting, presenting an implication that a print is made through the media of plate.
In China, there was the development of the wooden plate carving. In Europe, there were the history of copperplate etching and the history of stone prints. All of them were evolved to become today’s printing technology. The primitive printed matters were originated from the printing of prints. After the print makers and artists involved in the act of printing, the monotonous procedure became changeable. People gradually understood how to make printed matters. They continued to create some other possibilities of print.

A work of print takes the requirements and definition of print as the standard. Let us study the requirements, definition and form of a traditional print first. Speaking of the requirements and definition of print, the establishment of requirements is a restriction of scope. In the aspect of diversified cultures and arts, the old requirements cannot satisfy the needs of print artists anymore. However, through the trend of the advantageous position of contemporary printing technology, we can clearly see the future development of print.

Under the prosperous development of today’s printing technology, due to the progress and flourishing of scientific technology as well as the involvement of artists, print not only stresses its techniques, but also arouses the advancement and development of new print concepts.

When we observe the unique nature of the art of print itself, it is found to have brought a new phenomenon to modern art. We can trace the clues from some of the contemporary artworks.

I. Definition of Print

Regarding the definition of print, ever since 1960, no new definition of an original print was appeared in any official occasion. And from then on, prints have been examined and judged by the print appraisal experts and galleries so as to ensure the rights of the buyer, differentiates the original prints from the reproductive prints, and protect the value of the original prints. Nowadays many countries’ recognition of prints is based on the definition of original prints given by The Third International Congress of Plastic Arts held in Vienna in 1960:
“Proofs either in black or in color, drawn from one or several plates, conceived and executed entirely by hand by the same artist, regardless of the technique employed, with the exclusion of any and all mechanical or photomechanical processes, shall be considered original engravings, prints or lithographs. Only prints meeting such qualifications are entitled to be designated Original Prints.”

In 1963 the British Council, an international association formed by painters, sculptors and print painters, emphasized that a print must have a “plate”:
“The best artist makes a design in person, and also participates the work of another artist and cooperates with him/her. This is called cooperative creation.”

After 1965, a local Print Committee of France made a declaration of print. Apart from employing the definition of original prints established few years earlier, the committee deleted these wordings:
“with the exclusion of any and all mechanical or photomechanical processes.”

Later on, Pat Glimour, a historian provided a new definition of print originals:
“Artists should firstly have a clear idea in mind, and then choose a kind of plate to make a print that focuses on the idea of printmaking and any related printmaking process.”

In the Venice Biennale held on Oct. 25, 1991, the International Congress thought it necessary to enhance the creativity of artists, and recognized the combination of print with new technologies, such as metallic plate, photographic plate, photocopied matter, or computer technology.

Not long after that, there were three new categories of prints appeared in 1996: reproductive prints (electrografia o copigrafia), lithography (offsetgrafia) and digital prints.

According to the definition of original prints resolved in the International Congress of Plastic Arts held in Vienna in 1960, and based on other definitions of prints concluded in some unwritten meetings, we can summarize the definitions as follows:

1. Artists have to involve in printmaking work directly.

2. The proof of each time has to make limited editions, and the serial numbers of the limited editions have to be left on the works.

3. Having completed making the number of prints, an artist has no right to reuse the plate for other purposes.

4. The printing of a print can be directly done by the artist or by another person. If the printing is to be done by another person, his/her name should be signed by the left hand side of the print maker’s signature.

5. After a print has been used to make the stated number of prints, the plate has to be destroyed.

6. The artist’s proof is 10% 100.

7. The copies reproduced by a reproductive machine cannot be called the original prints.

II.Relationship between Prints and Culture

The history of printing and the history of civilization are closely connected. Printing is just like a basic element of many of our daily life behaviors. Books and newspapers are the obvious examples. There are some other products produced in different forms and kinds under the broadcasting industry, such as posters, stamps, currencies, telephone cards, labels, seals of post office, pamphlets, round plate covers, magazines, postal service, plastic containers, etc. and also the e-printing. As mentioned by Dr. Joseph Needham (1900∼1995), “I think that in the entire history of human civilization, there was nothing more important than the development of paper and printing.” Paper and printing brought a gigantic leap to the propagation of knowledge and information, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and turned to be a powerful motive force in promoting the social development, religious prosperity, scientific population, technical advancement, and cultural exchange of mankind. It could be seen that propagation creates enormous influence to the activity domains of human beings, including the government and its policies, education and literature. We were able to understand how the world economy and commerce have comprehensive development in the whole world. All these factors brought to a huge demand of printing business, leading to the continuous evolution and innovation of new technologies.

Nevertheless, in the early days, traditional print art was an artistic form being very close to the folk custom culture. The repeated print properties were employed to present a kind of thinking of folk custom cultural art. It was then ingeniously combined with printing and the beauty of art, presenting a sense of folk custom artistic nature, such as the religious scriptures, annual painting, the golden and silver underworld money, and so on. However, with the progress of technological civilization, prints went through the impacts of photography, photocopying, computer and other high technologies. The prints appeared today, regardless of the kinds of prints, choosing of materials or the adoption of techniques and skills, are diversified and changeable. Prints continuously create proliferated styles of unlimited possibilities, and also lead to a trend of modern art that emphasizes diversified cultures and composite presentation of multiple media.

Therefore, the realm of art is closely related to social changes and interaction, and print is even the first to be affected. To achieve technical integration and supports through technological progress, printing techniques are able to advance and develop to another new realm. Through artistic thinking, print returns to the aspect of art itself. With the support of printing technology, print has its unique way of artistic development.

III.Categorization of Prints

For traditional prints, there are four different ways and processes of printmaking successively formed: 1. Relief printing 2. Intaglio printing 3. Lithography 4. Stenciling. Among the different media used by prints, they can be generally divided into woodcut print, copperplate print, stone print and silkscreen print. Speaking of the principles of printing, it is divided into relief printing, lithography, intaglio printing and stenciling. From these categories of prints, more diversified types and kinds of prints are developed.

1. Relief printing: It refers that the ink-receiving part is at the embossed part of a plate. Woodcut print and linocut print are the most commonly seen relief prints. Woodcut print includes such forms as black-and-white woodcut, colored woodcut, and watercolor woodblock. They were originated from the Chinese wood engraving prints. The languages of the black-and-white wood engraving are summarized and more precise, and the pictures usually have strong artistic influencing power. Besides, there are the media of paper matrix, nylon plate, plaster plate, object block, sheet gasket, clay print, EPS (expanded polystyrene) foamed print, cut and paste, relief, metallic relief printing plate, and so on.
   

2. Intaglio printing: It refers that the ink-receiving part is at the recesses of a plate. After incisions are created on the surface of the plate, the recesses are covered with ink, which is transferred to the paper through a printmaking press machine. This printmaking technique was originated from Germany and Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries. Since intaglio printing is mostly conducted on copperplate, the finished work is also called copperplate print. The incisions are mainly created by etching, engraving, etc. Traditional copperplate prints are thick and heavy, but exquisite and profound. They usually employ a realistic style. Modern copperplate prints have many different printing techniques and varied styles. The plates for intaglio printing also include zinc plate, aluminum plate, iron plate, acrylic plate, paper matrix, and so on.
   

3. Lithography: It refers that the ink-receiving part is on the surface of a plate. The characteristic of lithography is that there is no height difference between the ink-receiving part and the non-ink-receiving part. By using some chemical principles, the treated part on the plate surface is covered by printing ink, which is then offset to the paper. The positive part of the image would reject water and absorb the printing ink, whereas the negative part of the image would form an ink resistance function. In this way, the positive image would be printed out, whereas the negative image would become blank. This is the basic principle of lithography. Lithography was originated from Germany in the late 18th century. Since the offset practice of the printing principle was firstly experimented successfully on stone material, and this way of printmaking had been maintained for quite a long period of time, so the finished work of this printing technique was also called stone print. Lithography belongs to a kind of printing being close to the lives of the public. Almost all the newspapers and magazines of today are printed by offset lithography. The languages of stone prints are more direct and freer, and the sense of drawing is stronger. The materials of stone plate, zinc plate, aluminum plate, metallic plate and acrylic plate are suitable for adopting this imaging technique.
   

4. Stenciling: It refers to a way of printing by making an image porous on a plate. After applying printing ink on the surface of the plate, the ink runs through the pores, leaving a reproduction of the image on the paper. Stencil print is normally referring to the screen print, which is developed after going through several stages. In 1915 photographic screen printing technique was successfully studied and developed in the United States, making it become a popular way of printmaking. In 1930’s and 1940’s of the 20th century screen printing was appreciated and applied by artists, and was pushed to the peak in the 1960’s. Among the various categories of prints, screen printing is the youngest category, and has the strongest sense of modern breath. For stencil prints, since the ink goes through the pores of the plate and reaches the paper, the ink supply device is above the screen surface, and the paper is place under the screen. By using a rubber scraper for printing, the front side of the image would appear on the work. This is different from the reproduction of the reversed side of the image (left and right reversed) as found in the other three ways of printing, namely relief printing, intaglio printing and lithography. Silkscreen print, paper matrix, and so on are the common examples.
   

IV.Originality / Plurality

According to the French art historian, Miche Melot, “original print” is just like the body of a mother which can reproduce more than two similar works or above. Owing to the different extents of pressing, the different lightness or darkness of colors, or the different accuracy of pressing, prints would not be absolutely the same. Therefore, only the first print is regarded as the original print. In the early 19th century the Director of the Albertina Graphics Collection in Vienna, Adam von Bartsch also mentioned the concept of original print maker in his authoritative work, Le Peinteur graveur written in 21 volumes. Later on, these concepts become the basic ideas of artistic print. Original print stresses the originality of an artist of print, who is different from an artist engaging in the reproduction of prints.

Due to the plurality of print, the repeated reproduction of an image can always bring shaking effect to the minds of people, such as the works of Andy Warhol. The characteristic of pluralistic presentation enable the same painting to be displayed at different locations, and watched and appreciated by different people. The audiences are able to co-appreciate the same work. Therefore, print can be regarded a kind of modern art which is closest to the social public.

Being an art of plurality, print has its special scope of circulation in the market. A print has to be attached with the number of reproductive editions, topic, author and the year of creation. Because of the characteristic of possessing a plate, a single print plate can reproduce many works. The first work pressed and printed is called the original print. Thus, when an artist starts making a print, he/she has to decide how many editions would be printed. And each work has to be agreed by the artist, and then signed and numbered. The number is shown in the form of a fraction at the left bottom of the front side of the work, e.g. 27/50, implying that there are 50 editions printed and this edition is the 27th print. At the middle bottom of the work is the topic of the print, and at the right bottom are the signature of the artist and the year of creation written by pencil. These written messages enable the appreciators to trace back to the historical background and the time of this work, and serve the functions of letting them better understand and know the history and artistic value of the work. Meanwhile, the messages provide a good evaluation foundation for collectors. Having completed making the stated number of editions, the artist has to destroy the plate of this print by putting a cross or “X” on it to signify its being void. This is to confirm that there will be no more editions reproduced in the later days. In fact print is a crystal of art, an art of pluralistic presentation with originality and limited number of editions. Just because of the pluralistic presentation, prints are always mistaken as copies. Actually, print originals are different from the general copied works. Besides the basic conditions of showing the number of edition and putting the signature in specific forms by the artist, the more important is the concept of its making. For the reproduced prints, the original paintings (oil painting, watercolor, sketch, and so on) are selected for plate making or lithographic plate making, or the related techniques and then reproduced to be the printed matters. The number of these works is limited, and on each work there is the signature of the painter or the painter’s family member. In this way, the original painting has its value, and the reproduced editions also have the relative benefits. This kind of reproduced print is immensely different from the original prints in terms of their ideas and motives of creation.

V.New Presentation Concepts of the Contemporary Print Art

Before the 19th century, prints were merely the subsidiary works of artists. They were mostly applied to the reproduction of famous paintings, and never considered a media of creation. But after the invention of photography, printmaking had no choice but to walk on a new path. In addition, with the involvement of artists, print was gradually developed as a media of creation, and recognized by artists as having the same artistic value of general artworks. From then on, the position of prints was established.

When combining and comparing with the cultures of the world, prints have developed to a new stage. Today the artistic concepts have been re-adjusting. While people begin to emphasize the cultural implications and spiritual expansion, artists start to re-examine the inherent meaning of self and the related contents. Nowadays artists possess a lot of human qualities. They make exploration and innovation of new techniques, skills, tools and materials, adding sufficient technical proofs and supports to the presentation language of prints.

Indeed such a cultural transformation has profound meanings to the development of the creation of prints. It has to be especially careful about the issues as: Which way of involvement should be adopted, and how to lead prints stay away from the narrow domain, enter the background of world cultures, join the contemporary state of the art world, and present the unique fascination and cultural value of the contemporary prints. In fact the development space and the stylized development possessed by the contemporary print creation are surging forward with full force. Inevitably carrying the thinking of modernism and the aggressive post-modernist techniques, prints enter a microcosmic vision in the development of the contemporary art.

Modern print artists can more and more easily accept the involvement of new techniques. Under the prosperity of the modern printing industry and digital media, as well as the technological assistance of photography, photocopying and computer, the presentation scope of the art of prints has been expanding incessantly. The progress of industrial technology is also all along closely bound up with the media materials of prints. Moreover, the approach of the digital era and the proliferation of digital products have also injected new possibilities to the selection of media materials for print artists.

In the early days monotypes were never accepted in the realm of prints. Although they were printed from plates, it was not available to print the same works, thus violating the characteristic of plurality of the traditional prints. Nevertheless, when confronted with the technological improvement, and with the change of time and space, print artists created a series of impacts to the boundary of the definition of traditional print. Gradually, the definition of print was more open in dimension. Consequently, a so-called “broad-sensed” definition of print was produced: An artistic creation using any media materials and meeting a kind of organizing language of print is called a print. Hence, in addition to the general traditional prints, we can appreciate the modern presentation of prints through the works of monotypes, mixed media prints and multiple prints created by the modern print artists by combining printmaking with some of the contemporary technological media materials.

By means of the organizing language of print, monotype can make one print for once only, without the reproductive function as required in print. For example, a monotype is completed by using the way of transferring the floating oil on water surface, or pressing the rolling tool to let the paper accept an inked impression. Apart from using the media of plate and the process of pressing, this creation of print can also be fulfilled by hand drawing. This automatic technique is lively as it breaks the fixed form of traditional print. Now prints can step into a more open and freer domain of creation, and pursue personal vocabularies in the age that stresses the pursuit of the presentation of creative liberty in a broad sense.

Mixed media print is a work that the artist applies a mixed application of different printmaking techniques, such as relief printing, intaglio printing, lithography and stenciling; and adds in the current technological media, like photocopying, difluoriding, digital drawing, computer, photography, video recording, image synthesis and merging, so as to present a desirable work of the artist.

Multiple print refers to the scope of print creation in a broad sense. It is a pluralistic art work that includes one organizing language of print and combines light, sound, space and time together. Its way of presentation is not limited to two-dimensional or three-dimensional presentations only.

In the post-modernist age surged with the diversified cultures, the modern fine art, when situated at an environment with a dense atmosphere of frontier technology and multifarious media materials, has its subject matter and the way of presentation changing everlastingly. Print art is formed through the organizing languages of print, i.e. the vocabularies of plate, plurality and indirectness. For the last three decades, different international print exhibitions were held in many countries all over the world. No matter in the biennial or triennial exhibitions, or in some local shows, artists did not create their work by employing the traditional models only. Many young print artists attempted to create their works by using some new media materials and vocabularies. The contents presented in print art became more active. Today multiple media materials are employed to transmit the personal thinking and feelings of artists. As a result, print has become one of the best ways of presentation of modern plastic art. The current presentation of print has surpassed the boundaries of the traditional methods. It is attached with more concerns for people’s social experience and personal spiritual life, so as to transmit the human implications of different places, and carry endless hopes and prospects.

At present we collate, record and display the contemporary print art, with the purposes of promoting such a public art of print with profound cultural foundation in the society of diversified cultures, and making full-range consideration of the artistic implications of print. Taking the past experience as a reference, we can explore more possibilities of print in future. We should also pay concerns for the important issues about how to help prints adapt to the development of times and how to initiate a new starting point.