#WHAT IS INTAGLIO PRINTING SERIES#

Suspension Bridge at Mount GyР“Т‘dР“Т‘, woodblock print, Katsushika Hokusai, about 1834, Japan. Intaglio is the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, and the incised line or sunken area holds the.

#WHAT IS INTAGLIO PRINTING SERIES#

The leading artists working with the medium were Katsushika Hokusai (1760 РІР‚вЂњ1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 РІР‚вЂњ 1858), two hugely successful landscape painters whose transition into ukiyo-e (woodblock printing) saw the creation of world-famous masterpieces such as Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Hiroshige's series The Fifty-three Stations of the TР•РЊkaidР•РЊ. In the 1740s, additional woodblocks were used to print the colours pink and green, but by 1765 the technique of using multiple colour woodblocks was perfected. Sometimes these prints were coloured by hand, but this process was expensive. The earliest examples of woodblock printing were simple black and white prints taken from a single block. The processes used for the production of these complex products, often involves multi-process combination presses, equipped with lithography, flexography, screen and gravure/intaglio printing and a variety of finishing processes.Colour woodblock prints were popular in Japan from their development in the 1760s until the closing decades of the Meiji period (1868 РІР‚вЂњ 1912). The use of the intaglio process in modern print relates very much to security printing, particularly in the printing of paper and synthetic substrates for currency, passports, banknotes and self adhesive postage stamps. When the etched image has reached the required depth the plate is removed from the acid bath and the ground is wiped from the plate surface, which is now ready for printing. This allows the engraver to vary the depth of the image to create the different tones of the image. This involves applying a lacquer/varnish to these areas and re-etching with acid. This etching process can be repeated by identifying the areas of the image that may require a deeper line depth. The plate is then placed into an acid bath allowing the acid to etch into the surface of the plate where the ground has been removed thereby creating the recessed intaglio image. Engraving, drypoint, aquatint, and etching are the four primary intaglio techniques.

The plate is covered in a film of acid-resisting wax called the РІР‚В groundРІР‚в„ў. Intaglio printing can achieve effects ranging from crisp, clear lines to large areas of deep, velvety blacks. The other method of intaglio imaging is by the etching of the image onto the plate. This effect produces the varying tonal values (see Figure 7.1).Р”Р‡igure 7.1 - The intaglio process explained The deeper the line cut, the РІР‚В moreРІР‚в„ў ink the line will hold and the shallower the line cut, the less ink the cut will hold. This is used to cut a series of lines which can vary in both width and depth of the cut. The engraver uses an engraving tool called a РІР‚В burinРІР‚в„ў which is a steel square ended tool which is diagonally shaped and sharpened at one end. The hand engraving of an intaglio image requires considerable craft skills. The image is hand engraved or etched and the lines/cuts hold the ink which is to be transferred onto the substrate. The image to be reproduced is engraved onto a metal surface usually of copper, brass, zinc or steel.

The process of intaglio engraving and printing is relatively simple. This process allowed the etching of an image onto a steel or copper covered rotary cylinder and heralded the beginning of the modern rotogravure process. The invention of photography led to the method of transferring a photo image onto a carbon tissue coated in a light-sensitive gelatin. The process began to use metal plates which carried the etched image, which was then printed onto the substrate. The intaglio process was further developed in the early seventeenth century when it became known as gravure printing. Engravers mastered the art of varying the depth of the engraving or etching which allowed differing shades of color to be achieved.

In about 1640 a German engraver called Von Seigen employed a new method of intaglio printing called mezzotint, which was used to reproduce paintings in black and white and also in color. The goldsmiths not only engraved their products, but also developed an etching method using nitric acid. These early prints were used by the goldsmiths to display the range of engravings available to the customer. The images were hand engraved onto copper, gold and silver and the recessed image was filled with a black ink or enamel known as Niello and then pressed onto paper. Intaglio printing originated with the goldsmith engravers in about 1446.

What is intaglio printing