TECHNIQUE of a woodcut and a lithograph
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is a worldfamous Dutch graphic artist, he worked mainly with woodcuts and lithographs.
The woodcut is the earliest print technique invented in China in the ninth century. In Europe it was first used in the Middle Ages for both playing cards and Bible texts. In the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries artists like Gauguin, Munch and the German Expressionists (Kirchner, Pechstein) discovered the medium and used it.
The making of a woodcut didn’t basically changed: the artist sketches a composition on a planck, or block, of wood and, using gouges, chisels, and knives, cuts away pieces from the block. The parts cut away stay white. Ink is applied to the surface of the block with a roller. Paper is placed over the block, which is either run through a press, or printed with a spoon to apply force by hand and ‘press’ the ink into the paper.
The lithography was invented in 1798 accidentally by Aloys Senefelder, he saw how his washinglist written on a stone with crayon, survived a heavy rainfall. The printing of lithographs is based on the resistance between grease and water. The artist draws with greazy materials, lithographic crayons, or tusche a special kind of ink-like substance, on a prepared special stone. To fix the drawing on the surface a chemical mixture is applied across the composition. Next the stone will be dampened with water, which adheres to the non-greasy areas. When ink is applied, it only sticks to the greasy parts, of the drawing. The other sections are protected against ink by water. Paper is laid over the stone and then run through a printingpress.
Take care all printed images are mirror-images, the paper print mirrors the original drawing made on the wood block, or on the stone. The artist has to take this mirror principle in account before he starts to draw.
