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Printmaking in Europe, 1

Printmaking originated in East Asia in the 11th century and spread to Europe via the Silk Road by the 13th century. Johannes Gutenberg developed the mechanical printing press in the 15th century, allowing texts and images to be mass produced more cheaply and widely circulated. This led prints to become more accessible to the growing middle class and supported the spread of knowledge and ideas across Europe. Early prints were typically woodcuts depicting religious subjects.

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101 views

Printmaking in Europe, 1

Printmaking originated in East Asia in the 11th century and spread to Europe via the Silk Road by the 13th century. Johannes Gutenberg developed the mechanical printing press in the 15th century, allowing texts and images to be mass produced more cheaply and widely circulated. This led prints to become more accessible to the growing middle class and supported the spread of knowledge and ideas across Europe. Early prints were typically woodcuts depicting religious subjects.

Uploaded by

Priscila
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Arts and humani"es Europe Arts and humani"es · Europe 1300 - 1800

1300 - 1800 Printmaking in · Printmaking in Europe


Europe Printmaking in · Printmaking in Europe, c. 1400−1800
Europe, c. 1400−1800
Printmaking in Europe, c. Printmaking in Europe,
1400−1800
c. 1400−1800
Created by Smarthistory
Printmaking in Europe, c.
1400−1800
Google Classroom Facebook
Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Twi!er Email
Manu#us): inventor of the

By Dr. Kylie Fisher


Book prin#ng was a collabora#ve effort, as we see here with different
people preparing a book for the prin#ng press. Jan Collaert I a%er
Joannes Stradanus, “The Inven#on of Book Prin#ng,” in New Inven!ons
of Modern Times (Nova Reperta), plate 4, c. 1600, engraving on paper, 27
x 20 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The prin#ng press was arguably one of the most


revolu#onary inven#ons in the history of the early
modern world. While the fi%eenth-century
German goldsmith and publisher, Johannes
Gutenberg, is heralded for his crea#on of a
mechanical prin#ng press that allowed for the
mass-produc#on of images and texts, the
technology of movable type was first pioneered
much earlier in East Asia. In early eleventh-century
China, the ar#san Bi Sheng discovered that he
could make individual Chinese characters from
baked clay to create a system of movable type.
Later, in thirteenth-century Korea, the first known
metal movable type was produced.
Pages from the world’s oldest extant book printed with movable metal
type, Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests’ Zen Teachings, 1377, 24. 5 x 17
cm (Bibliothèque na#onale de France)

Increased contact and exchange between cultures


in East Asia and Europe by way of the Silk Road,
star#ng in the thirteenth century, led to the
spread of such prin#ng innova#ons. Indeed, by the
mid-1400s, Gutenberg was in a prime posi#on to
devise his mechanical process for prin#ng
mul#ples of the same textual sources and visual
representa#ons, which, thanks to the portable and
more affordable paper support, meant they could
be circulated widely, serving as an early mode of
mass communica#on in the pre-digital age. The
publica#on of prints coupled with the introduc#on
of movable type offered unprecedented
possibili#es for the cross-cultural exchange of
knowledge and ideas, as well as ar#s#c styles and
designs.

This illustra#on comes from a book published by Erhard Ratdolt, an early


German printer from Augsburg, and is illustrated with seventy-three
woodcuts. Here we see “Sol” or “Sun,” in Albumasar, Flores astrologiae
(Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, November 18, 1488), image 22 (Rosenwald
Collec#on, Rare Book and Special Collec#ons Division, Library of
Congress)

The democra"za"on of art


Prior to the fi%eenth century, works of art like
altarpieces, portraits, and other luxury items were
primarily found in the residences of wealthy
patrons and in churches because it was the social
elite and religious leaders in the community who
had the financial resources to commission these
exquisite objects. The reproducible format of print
and the increasing availability of paper afforded
the growing middle class, who may have not had
the means to purchase pain#ngs or statues, the
opportunity to collect ar#s#c representa#ons.
While large-scale projects were s#ll funded by
affluent patrons, the majority of prints were
bought on specula#on. As a result, we see a range
of subject ma!er depicted in print that would
have appealed to diverse collectors. For instance,
the desire to study the past, literature, and science
in ci#es across early modern Europe encouraged
printmakers to supply the art market with
representa#ons of ancient history, classical
mythology, and the natural world.
Diamond Sutra, 868, woodblock-printed scroll, found in the Mogao (or
“Peerless”) Caves or the “Caves of a Thousand Buddhas,” which was a
major Buddhist center from the 4th to 14th centuries along the Silk
Road (Bri#sh Library)

Woodcut
The oldest form of printmaking is the woodcut. As
early as the Tang Dynasty (beginning in the
seventh century) in China, woodblocks were used
for prin#ng text onto pieces of tex#le, and later
paper. By the eighth century, woodblock prin#ng
had taken hold in Korea and Japan. Although the
prac#ce of prin#ng wri!en sources is part of a
much older tradi#on in East Asia, the produc#on
of printed imagery using woodblocks was a more
common phenomenon in Europe, star#ng in late
fourteenth-century Germany and subsequently
spreading to the Netherlands and south of the
Swiss Alps to areas of northern Italy.

Early woodcuts o%en show religious subject ma!er. Here we see the
Virgin Mary cradling her dead son, Jesus. Southern Germany, Swabia,
Pietà, c. 1460, woodcut, hand colored with watercolor, 38.7 x 28.8 cm
(Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland)
During the second half of the fi%eenth century
a%er Gutenberg invented his prin#ng press,
woodcuts became the most effec#ve method of
illustra#ng texts made with movable type. As a
result, ci#es in Europe—namely Mainz, Germany
and Venice, Italy—where printmaking ini#ally took
hold developed into important centers for book
produc#on. The European method of making
printed images on paper using a mechanical press
made its way to East Asia by the sixteenth
century, but it was not widely adopted for ar#s#c
purposes un#l a couple centuries later during the
Edo period in Japan when colored woodcuts
(ukiyo-e prints) were produced in great numbers.
Petrus Christus, Portrait of a female donor kneeling before a book with a
print hanging on the wall behind her (detail), c. 1455, oil on panel, 41.8 x
21.6 cm (Na#onal Gallery of Art)

The earliest European loose-sheet woodcuts


depict predominately Chris#an subjects, serving as
rela#vely inexpensive devo#onal images. While
museums today preserve prints in climate-
controlled boxes to ensure that they last for future
genera#ons to enjoy, in the fi%eenth and sixteenth
centuries, they were folded up and carried by
pilgrims on their travels, cut and pasted into the
interior covers of books, or tacked up onto walls of
a home. Consequently, few early woodcuts
survive because they were o%en destroyed
through con#nual use. Yet, key extant woodcuts
reveal the stylis#c character of this early type of
print.
This woodcut survived a fire. It shows Mary holding the infant Jesus,
surrounded by saints and scenes from the life of Mary. Unknown 15th–
century printmaker, Madonna of the Fire, before 1428, woodcut, hand
colored with paint, dimensions unknown (Cathedral of Santa Croce,
Forlì, Italy)

For example, two woodcuts (the Pietà made in


southern Germany and the early fi%eenth-century
Italian Madonna of the Fire that allegedly survived a
fire that destroyed the building in which it was

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