Lithography is a printing process that has an important part in the fine arts and in commercial printing. Many artists have created lithographs that rank among the masterpieces of printmaking. Commercially, lithography is a leading method of printing books, magazines, newspapers, and other publications.
This article describes lithography in the fine arts. For information on commercial lithography, see the article on Printing (Offset lithography).
How lithography works.
Lithography is based on the principle that water does not mix with grease. The artist draws the picture on a level porous surface with a grease pencil, a crayon, or a greasy liquid called tusche. The most common surfaces are limestone or a plate made of a material such as aluminum, paper, or zinc with a specially prepared surface. The grain of the stone or plate enables the artist to create lithographs with a broad range of tones and textures.
After drawing the picture, the artist treats both the drawn and undrawn areas of the surface with solutions of nitric acid and gum arabic. The gum arabic surrounds the grease drawing and chemically prevents ink from sticking to the undrawn areas. The acid allows the grease and gum arabic to be more easily absorbed into the pores of the stone or plate. After applying the solutions, the artist uses turpentine to remove the drawing materials that remain on the surface of the stone or plate.
The artist then dampens the surface with water. The undrawn areas absorb water, but the greasy drawn areas reject it. The artist applies an oil-base ink to the surface with a roller. The ink sticks to the greasy areas but not to the wet ones.
Next, the artist places a sheet of paper on the printing surface and runs the paper and the stone or plate through a printing press under heavy pressure. The pressure transfers the inked design onto the paper. To make additional impressions of the picture, the artist again dampens and inks the surface.
Color lithography.
To make a lithograph in more than one color, the artist must prepare a separate surface for each color. For example, the picture may show green grass and a red house. On one surface, the artist draws the grass, which is printed with green ink. The house is drawn on a second stone or plate and then printed in red ink. The artist puts the paper through the press twice, once for each color of the total design. The artist must draw the grass and house so they appear in exactly the correct registration (relationship to each other) in the lithograph. Images printed from limestone or zinc plates produce colored pictures having an especially luminous quality.
History.
Alois Senefelder, a German, invented lithography in 1798. European painters soon began exploring the artistic possibilities of the new medium. They particularly liked the spontaneous effects they could achieve by drawing directly on the printing surface.
The first masters of lithography included the French artists Eugene Delacroix and Honoré Daumier. During the late 1800’s, the French painters Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Edouard Vuillard raised color lithography to new heights of expression and refinement. Leading lithographers of the 1900’s included Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso in Europe, and Jasper Johns and Joseph Pennell in the United States. Today, artists achieve unusual effects by combining lithography with other printmaking processes, such as silk-screen printing.
See also Currier and Ives; Daumier, Honoré; Escher, M. C.; Screen printing; Senefelder, Alois.
