Japan 6AD

The woodcut came to Japan from China, in the wake of Buddhism, in the sixth century A.D. The early Japanese woodcuts were also religious in subject matter. It was not until the 17th century that a more highly developed art began to come forth.

Hiroshige Ukiyo-e 1797-1858

"Of all the forms of expression in printmaking, the woodcut is the most ancient. Its early beginnings in Egypt and China came from the use of wooden stamps designed to make symbolic or decorative impressions in clay and wax. With the development of paper on the Chinese mainland in the second century A.D., the stamping devices gradually evolved into wood blocks. As plank wood was utilized by the artist and the craftsman, he was able to cut and print more sophisticated and complex designs. Many of the earliest images were for popular Buddhist religious use. (Ross & Romano's The Complete Relief Print, 1974, The Free Press N.Y.)

Woodcuts:The Most Ancient Form of Printmaking

“In the Well of the Great Wave Kanagawa” Katsushika Hokusai 1760-1849

Post Impressionists

The Japanese printmaker's concept of the symbolism of subject matter, asymmetric composition, the use of flat color, pattern, and line were a great influence upon the

work of Gauguin, Van Gogh, Lautrec, and others.

“Emil Zola” by Edouard Manet

“Princess from the Land of Porcelain” by

James Whistler, 1865

Claude Monet

“Pere Tanguay” by Van Gogh

Albrecht Durer

Albrecht Dürer was a key personality in the Germanic world of the end of the 15th and

beginning of the 16th centuries. His scientific and humanist spirit made him play the lead in the cultural life of his town, Nuremberg. He was

outstanding in the artistic skills of painting and engraving and at the end of his life he published

treatises and essays reporting his research in these fields.

The Apocalypse

In 1498, Durer published the first book entirely

produced by an artist, The Apocalypse, fourteen

woodcuts illustrating the Book of Revelation. Its vivid imagery, masterly

draftsmanship, and complex iconography

established his reputation.

BruckeGerman Expressionism

Otto Dix

Kathy Kolwitz

Karl Schmidt-Rottlif

Entertate KunstIn 1937, an exhibition of

“Degenerate Art” (Entartete Kunst) was organized by the Nazi

party in an attempt to illustrate how the contemporary artists in

Germany were negatively infecting the culture.

Targeted artists were banned from painting, many were incarcerated, many fled the country. The cover of the “Entertete Kunst” catalogue

depicted a sculpture by Otto Freundlich entitled “The New

Man”.

Otto Freundlich was arrested and died in the Lublin-Maidanek

concentration camp.

The work in the exhibition was set up in an attempt to persuade the viewer that these artists were perverse and a danger to the culture because they

supposedly glorified “inferior” racial types.

For example- prints by Karl Schmidt-Rottluf were displayed next to photographs of people with deformities in an attempt to illustrate this point.

Jim Dine

Anselm Kiefer

Bus/Large Scale Woodcuts

Lisa Bulawsky's Printmaking elective class designed a woodcut plate to be printed onto a magnet using the weight of the bus and then to be attached to the bus as a form of public art.

Crosshatch

Scratch Board

EditionsFrom "Art Law" The Guide for Collectors, Investors, Dealers, and Artists, 2nd Ed. by The Practising Law Institute Edition Size

Once a master plate is produced to the artist's satisfaction, the size of the edition must be determined. Edition size depends on an array of factors, including the demand for the artist's work, the durability of the block or plate, and the time it takes to print. When an artist is relatively unknown, it is common to pull only  a small number of prints; editions of twenty-five to fifty may well be practicable. When an edition of any size is handled by a dealer, the price generally goes up as the edition sells out. Edition Signing and Numbering When signing an edition of prints, the artist must first examine the prints carefully to make sure that they are satisfactory: any print accepted for signature by the artist must be free of all defects. The printer usually produces prints that exceed the agreed-on edition size by 10 to 15 percent on the reasonable assumption that not all the prints presented to the artist will be found flawless.

The artist customarily signs and numbers a print in pencil. The inscription is generally placed under the image, with the signature on the right, the title in the middle, and the number on the left. The number usually appears as a fraction, with the denominator giving the edition size and the numerator giving the sequential number of the print in hand. However, if all the prints in an edition are produced at the same time, it is virtually impossible for the numerator to reflect the actual printing sequence; once the prints are dried, whether under blotters or under newsprint, they are stacked and shuffled many times before they are signed and numbered. Therefore, the numerator merely indicates a satisfactory impression in the edition.

When an artist signs an numbers a limited-edition print, the artist is affirming to the buyer that there are and can only be as many signed and numbered copies in the edition as is indicated by the denominator. Moreover, the buyer can rely on the fact that additional copies will never enter the market and dilute the fair market value of that buyer's print.