Prints and Printmaking

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Early Japanese Woodcuts—Ukiyo-E

The style of Japanese graphic art that emerged in the middle of the 18th century is known as the Ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” school. Early Ukiyo-e prints were black and white. Created for a popular audience, they were the ephemera of the day, akin to postcards. Certain prints were made for home decoration; others often set the style of the day for fashion and behavior. Color printing from multiple blocks was soon introduced. Flat, solid shapes and dramatic color, design, and composition characterize these later Ukiyo-e prints. The popular theater of Japan, kabuki, helped the Ukiyo-e print to flourish; portraits of the most famous actors in dramatic roles were particular favorites. The artist most associated with this period is Tōshūsai Sharaku. His prints are highly melodramatic, emphasizing exaggerated facial lines and beautiful costumes.

Another popular Ukiyo-e subject was the genre (everyday life) scene. Harunobu concentrated on the beauty of young women, depicting them with grace and poetic charm. Perhaps the most outstanding artist to concentrate on the female figure was the inventive Utamaro, who created imagery that is often intimate and candid in nature, with a lyrical quality of line, delicate compositional detail, and assured draftsmanship.

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19th-Century Japanese Prints

In the 19th century the emphasis shifted from figurative to landscape subjects. The unsurpassed masters of landscape imagery were Hokusai and Hiroshige.

An artist who frequently signed his work “The Man Mad About Painting,” Hokusai was preoccupied with landscape. His fascination with every aspect of nature led him to detail seasonal changes; his studies of birds, waterfalls, waves, insects, fish, trees, and mountains culminated in a famous 13-volume sketchbook called Hokusai manga (begun 1814).

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Hiroshige stressed the quality of line and also achieved extraordinary effects with color against color. The gradation from intense coloration to the merest hint of color, along with a highly stylized form, characterize Hiroshige's astonishing prints. Among his most notable works are several sets of prints depicting travelers on the Tōkaidō Highway (1804) and the Sixty-Nine Stations on the Kiso Highway.

By 1856 Hokusai prints had been discovered in Paris, and many others soon surfaced. The enthusiasm they stirred created a wave of japonisme that was to last in Paris for the next 40 years and to become a significant influence on modern art.

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Gothic Prints

With the establishment of paper mills in several areas of Germany, France, and Italy in the 15th century, the first woodcuts were made in the Western world. The earliest Gothic images were crudely cut from blocks of wood, inked, and printed. The first prints were made to be used as playing cards, then a popular means of entertainment; they were sold for pennies and could be produced in large quantity. Because much of Gothic life centered around the church, the clergy used prints for devotional purposes and distributed them among the people. The images consisted mostly of saints and depictions of the life of Christ and of the Virgin Mary; they also illustrated numerous Bible stories. With the development of movable type, block books became popular, and illustrations could be combined with text. Once a good and inexpensive paper was manufactured, the quality of printing improved, and many editions of illustrated books were published.

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Renaissance Prints

The most illustrious artist of the Renaissance in northern Europe was Albrecht Dürer. Born in Nürnberg and trained as a goldsmith, he became the first great graphic master. His phenomenal versatility with the graver and woodcut knife, along with his keen observation of nature and his devotion to prints, brought him success and the admiration of his contemporaries. Of particular note are his numerous series of religious prints and such magnificent single prints as Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513).

The Dutch engraver Lucas van Leyden, greatly influenced by Dürer and by the classical style of his Italian contemporaries, gently depicted Dutch landscape and interior scenes. They are important as the foundation of the Dutch school of painting in the following century. The Italian graphic master Marcantonio Raimondi created classical images with a distinctive sense of composition, detail, and sensitivity. Engraving in France and Spain during this time was negligible.

By the mid-16th century, prints had become very popular. They were used for all manner of illustrations, including topographical survey, and for portraiture.

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Baroque Prints

Baroque artists of the 17th century felt that an image could be more than just the depiction of reality; it could also have a powerful emotional impact. Gesture could become highly characterized, exaggerated even to a point of being grotesque.

Seventeenth-century French engraving and etching are most notably represented by the work of two artists from vastly different schools. Robert Nanteuil produced distinguished court portraits, both those he designed himself and those he copied from the paintings of others. These highly popular engravings brought greater attention to the sculptural, molded quality and delicate strokes that could be produced in this medium.

Quite different was Jacques Callot, from the province of Lorraine, who was the first major artist to develop the potential of the etching medium. He discovered that various additional bitings of a plate could create perspective in a print, giving the image a foreground, middleground, and background. His experimentation in special grounds made it possible for work of intense detail to be etched into a tiny plate. With this technical proficiency, Callot created extraordinary imagery in a wide variety of subjects. Kings of France and Spain commissioned Callot to document various historical events. From his wartime etchings Callot issued his own bitter and devastating series of prints, Miseries of War (1633).

For a time Callot joined a band of Roma (Gypsies), resulting in his Commedia dell' arte (1618) and Gobbi (1622) series of prints. Here he captured the grotesque, often humorous images of dwarfs and beggars in a variety of costumes and poses. Many print connoisseurs consider Callot's views of cities and country fairs to be among his best work. Among these is the print Fair at Impruneta (1620); in this single large-scale image, Callot captured more than 1000 figures.

Callot did much for the advancement of the medium, but Rembrandt stands out as the baroque graphic master. Accomplished in rendering a wide range of subjects from portraits and religious scenes to landscapes, Rembrandt produced prints of both power and subtlety, such as Self-Portrait of the Artist Leaning on a Stone Sill (1639).

The Dutch school of graphic artists flourished with portraits, landscapes, interior studies, and scenes of daily life. Ferdinand Bol, Adriaen van Ostade, and Anthony Waterloo pictured Dutch life in etchings. Bol made many fine portraits; van Ostade was noted for his depictions of Dutch peasant life; and Waterloo created beautiful landscapes.

The Antwerpen workshop of the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens was very active. From the pages of the master's sketchbooks and drawings, various artists produced a veritable flood of prints. Anthony van Dyck, Rubens's most talented pupil, settled in England in 1632 and worked as the court painter to Charles I. Van Dyck undertook, with artist collaborators, to etch 128 portraits of the most famous men of his day. The Iconography (1634?-1641), as it is called, is marked by spare lines and technical excellence.