Main content
Special topics in art history
Introduction to lithography
Lithography, invented for reproducing sheet music, is a unique printmaking process. It's based on the principle that grease and water resist each other. Artists love it because it captures the exact mark of the hand, offering a direct drawing process. Plus, it's versatile - you can draw in black and print in any color! Created by The Museum of Modern Art.
Want to join the conversation?
He mentions that lithography started to mass-produce sheet music - when did this become common? What composers first embraced this?(20 votes)
That is a very good question. Sheet music has been around for a long time, but lithography probably started in the late 19th century/early 20th century. There is no real way to know exactly when, for even if you find multiple copies of old music, some of those could have been created fairly recently. This is just a rough estimate.(8 votes)
You did all that just for one thing?(0 votes)
Once you have that one thing then you can mass produce as many copies of the image as you want.(33 votes)
- How do you print in the various colors he mentioned?(4 votes)
Different colour inks! Usually with a emulsion and synthetic dyes.(8 votes)
Wouldn't the copy be a mirror image instead of the image as it was made?(4 votes)
Yes. You can see at1:32he lifts off the print, and it is a mirror image. This means that if you need something to face a certain direction, like words, then you have to make the original a mirror image of the print you want.(3 votes)
so this was an easy way of reprinting stuff?(1 vote)
What does MoMA stand for?(0 votes)
At about1:40, he only mentioned drawing in black, and printing it in the colors blue, pink, or green. Did he just use those as quick examples, or are those the only colors you can use?(0 votes)
Basically, you can use any colors you can think of. You just have something like a sketch, and then you are using an ink of your choice.(0 votes)
1:32Video transcript
We're at the Robert Blackburn
Printmaking Workshop, started in 1945 by Robert Blackburn. Lithography was invented
for the purpose of reproducing sheet music. Instead of writing it once by hand over and over and over and over, Senefelder developed lithography for the purpose of writing that orchestral arrangement one time, so it could be reproduced,
so that it could be sold to multiple orchestras throughout cities throughout all over Europe. That's was its original intention. When an artist gets
ahold of something that allows you to work in a new way, they will always take
those tools and materials and use them for their
own artistic purposes. That was the case for engraving. It was the case for relief
printing or woodcut. It's also the case for
digital printmaking now. Lithography is based on
a very simple principle that grease and water resist one another and so what you'll see
is a balance of the plate being dampened and then rolled over with a greasy based ink. It's the same as when
you're cleaning dishes. If you've got a really greasy pan and you fill it up with water, you start putting water in it, it starts to pull away from the grease. The exact same thing is happening here only it's very finely
controlled placed grease. One of the things that
makes lithography so unique is that it actually is
the most autographic of like all the printmaking processes. It captures the exact mark of the hand that moves across that surface. As a result, it gains the most clarity from a drawer's perspective
from a direct point of view. All the other printmaking processes translate that mark into other ways versus it just being an absolute record of the movement of the hand in that way. So for drawers, lithography is a very freeing type of drawing process
because it can be layered. You can draw in black
and print it in green or you can print it in blue or pink. That level of freedom is
only present in printmaking and that level of freedom with drawing, a direct drawing process, is
only available in lithography.