Common Art Terms

Art Terms

Glossary below defines some of the words you might encounter on our site when looking at artwork.
Aquatint

A variety of etching widely used by printmakers to achieve a broad range of tonal values. The process is called aquatint because finished prints often resemble watercolor drawings or wash drawings. The technique consists of exposing a copperplate to acid through a layer of granulated resin or sugar. The acid bites away the plate only in the interstices between the resin or sugar grains, leaving an evenly pitted surface that yields broad areas of tone when the grains are removed and the plate is printed. An infinite number of tones can be achieved by exposing various parts of the plate to acid baths of different strengths for different periods of time. Etched or engraved lines are often used with aquatint to achieve greater definition of form. The ‘aqua-tinter’ employs common resin dissolved in spirits of wine. This poured over his plate, evaporates and leaves numerous globules or bits of resin attached to the surface. The size of these globules depends on the proportion of the resin to spirit. When acid is put on the plate the resin acts as a resist, and a tint is produced in the intermediate parts.

A printmaking studio. Traditionally associated with Intaglio prints but also used to make woodcuts and lithographs. Urbain Huchet for example, who made primarily lithographs, rented an atelir to make hislithograph editions.

The brand name of a printing process given by the Autotype Fine Art Company, founded in London in 1868. The autotype process, coming from the Greek words auto, meaning self, and tupos, meaning stamp, is a derivative of Joseph Wilson Swan’s carbon process, the rights of which the Autotype Fine Art Company acquired in 1868. By the end of the 1870s, the company had become well known worldwide for their carbon print reproductions of fine arts and photographs. To confuse matters, the Autotype term was also applied to collotypes. Autotype (Autotypie) ultimately became a generic German term describing relief halftone.

A technique in printmaking in which the image is transferred to tissue that is bonded to a heavier support in the printing process. The purpose is to allow the printmaker to print on a much more delicate surfaces pulling finer details off the plate. During printing, a glue is applied to the back of the paper (a paste made of rice flour and water being traditional), and then the heavier support (typically, the heavyweight paper normally found in printmaking) is placed on top. In the pressure of the press, the lighter surface is glued to the support simultaneously with the image printing on it.

A planographic printing process popularly used to mass-reproduce color images in the 1830s to 1930s. The chromolithograph, or color lithograph, is produced by using a separate stone for each color and printing one color in register over another.

 

A collotype is a planographic photomechanical print that relies on the photosensitive properties of bichromated gelatin. Without the aid of a screen, an even coating of bichromated gelatin on stone, glass or metal is exposed to light under a negative. The surface is then moistened with water and absorbs water in proportion to the amount of light transmitted by the negative. Greasy lithographic ink then adheres to the hardened parts of the gelatin film and is repelled by the parts which have absorbed water.

An intaglio printmaking technique in which an image is incised into a plate (or matrix) with a hard-pointed needle, usually made of metal or a diamond point.  Very delicate work is produced by this means, which wears less in printing than lines produced by the action of acid.

Technique of making prints from metal plates into which a design has been incised with a cutting tool called a burin. At the beginning of the 19th C, the copper plate was used instead of steel; hence, the process is also called copperplate engraving. Another term for the process, line engraving, derives from the fact that this technique reproduces only linear marks. Tone and shading, however, can be suggested by making parallel lines or crosshatching. After 1820 steel was also used because it was harder wearing. The plate could take fine and extremely delicate lines, allowing for misty effects and atmosphere to be achieved in the print.

Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal. As an intaglio method of printmaking, it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains in wide use today. A metal (usually copper, zinc or steel) plate is covered with a waxy ground which is resistant to acid. The artist then scratches off the ground with a pointed etching needle where he or she wants a line to appear in the finished piece, so exposing the bare metal. The échoppe, a tool with a slanted oval section, is also used for “swelling” lines. The plate is then dipped in a bath of acid, technically called the mordant (French for “biting”) or etchant, or has acid washed over it. The acid “bites” into the metal, where it is exposed, leaving behind lines sunk into the plate. The remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate. The plate is inked all over, and then the ink wiped off the surface, leaving only the ink in the etched lines. The plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper (often moistened to soften it). The paper picks up the ink from the etched lines, making a print. The process can be repeated many times; typically several hundred impressions (copies) could be printed before the plate shows much sign of wear. The work on the plate can also be added to by repeating the whole process; this creates an etching which exists in more than one state. Etching has often been combined with other intaglio techniques such as engraving (e.g. Rembrandt) or aquatint (e.g. Goya).

Warm colored stains or spots appearing randomly on old prints, caused by chemical composition of the paper and its reaction to the environment.

In the graphic arts, gradation means the gradual transition from one tone to the next. The more finely distributed the points, the more continuous the change in tone is.

A type of intaglio printing process in which ink is transferred under pressure from the recessed areas of an incised plate. The transfer of ink produces a finely detailed, sharp image. Gravure is also an alternative name for both photogravures and rotogravures.

A generic name for photogravure in France. The photomechanical process that employs light sensitive asphaltum to create a resist for directly etching metal or pewter plates for printing positives on paper. The process was first discovered by Nicéphore Niépce, and perfected in many variants throughout the 1800s.

Intaglio refers to any printmaking technique in which an image is incised into a surface. The surface of the intaglio plate is inked with rollers and then wiped clean, the remaining ink staying in the recessed lines. One of the early problems with intaglio printing was that wiping the excess ink tended to remove ink from large shadow areas. The problem was solved by dusting and melting a solution of resin on the plate (a ground), thus marking the beginnings of the aquatint process. The ground of melted resin provides tooth or roughness to hold the ink during wiping.

High quality paper usually composed entirely of gampi.  The color of the paper ranges from a golden yellow to buff. Their weight ranges from 100 to 200 grams per square meter. 

Laid paper is a type of paper having a ribbed texture imparted by the manufacturing process. In the pre-mechanical period of European papermaking (from the 12th century into the 19th century), laid paper was the predominant kind of paper produced. Its use, however, diminished in the 19th century, when it was largely supplanted by wove paper. Laid paper is still commonly used by artists as a support for charcoal drawings.

Lithography was invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder in Munich. The basis of lithography is the fact that grease and water repel each other. Anything drawn on a suitable surface in some greasy medium can be printed in the following way: The surface is first dampened with water, which only settles on the unmarked areas since it is repelled by the greasy drawing medium. The surface is then rolled over with greasy printing ink, which will only adhere to the drawn marks, the water repelling it from the rest of the surface. Finally, the ink is transferred to a sheet of paper by running the paper and the printing surface through a “Scraper Press.” A lithograph has no Plate Mark as in an etching or intaglio print, but the area which has been flattened in the press, corresponding to the area of the surface of the stone, can sometimes be distinguished.

A printmaking process of the intaglio family invented in Holland in the 1600s by German-born Ludwig von Siegen. The word mezzotint comes from the Italian “mezz tinta,” meaning “halftone,” which refers to the processes ability to produce wide and subtle variations of tone. Technically a drypoint method, the mezzotint process is able to produce such a variety of tones by roughening the plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a “rocker.” In printing, the tiny pits in the plate hold the ink when the face of the plate is wiped clean, enabling a high level of quality and richness to be found within the print. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple, however greater definition is given to mezzotints through the incorporation of additional etched or engraved lines. Although popular throughout the 17th, 18th and majority of the 19th century for the reproduction of artworks, the dominance of mass-produced photographic reproductions towards the end of the 19th century made the mezzotint process practically obsolete.

A photomechanical printing process based on lithography, which utilizes the mutual repulsion of oil and water. Using lithographic techniques in the creation of photographs was first explored by Joseph Nicephore Niepce, who applied photosensitive bitumen dissolved in essential oil of lavender onto a lithographic stone. However, Niepce abandoned the method in favor of heliographic etching on metal. Lemercier, Lerebours, Barrswill and Davenne of Paris refined Niepce’s process in 1852, who similarly coated a solution of bitumen dissolved in ether onto a grained lithographic stone. Once the solution was dry, the stone was exposed underneath a paper negative and washed, so as to remove the unexposed areas of soluble bitumen. The stone was then processed with gum Arabic, etched and rolled up in ink for halftone prints to be made. It was finally in 1855, when Alphonse Poitevin replaced the bitumen with potassium dichromate and albumen, that our present day understanding of photolithography was achieved. Poitevin’s photolithographic techniques lead directly to the discovery of photolithographic transfer, chromolithography, and photozincography.

A means of reproducing a photograph by printing on paper from an etched and inked copper plate. Photogravures have become increasingly valued as works of fine art. Today photogravure is considered one of the finest and most time intensive of the photographic processes.

The history of ownership of a work of art.

A right-hand page of an open book or manuscript. Also the front of a leaf (opposed to verso).

Two prints are of different states if they were made from a plate which was altered (e.g., adding more lines onto an etching plate) after the creation of an earlier impression. The first series of impressions is called the first state; the next the second state, etc. Many notable etchers such as Rembrandt would have made multiple additions to the plate creating multiple “states” of the same image.

A popular intaglio printing technique used from 1820 to 1880, steel engravings were developed by the American Jacob Perkins in 1792 and adapted by the Englishmen Charles Warren and Charles Heath beginning in 1820. The switch from copper to steel was due to the fact that steel plates were harder than copper, which allowed for more prints to be made from a single plate. Steel also made it possible to engrave much finer detail that would have worn the softer copper plate. However, this also made it more difficult to actually cut into the plate itself and required a change in engraving methods and the use of finer, harder tools.

A lefthand page of an open book or manuscript (opposed to recto). Also, the back of a leaf page.

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a hard block of wood, generally something like boxwood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show ‘white’ are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in ‘black’ at the original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas. Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (where a different block is used for each color). Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print. In Europe fruitwood like pear or cherry was commonly used; in Japan, the wood of the cherry species Prunus serrulata was preferred.

A Woodburytype is both a printing process and the print that it produces. In technical terms, the process is a photomechanical rather than a photographic one, because sensitivity to light plays no role in the actual printing. The process produces very high quality continuous tone images in monochrome, with surfaces that show a slight relief effect. Essentially, a Woodburytype is a mold produced copy of an original photographic negative with a tonal range similar to a Carbon print.The process was introduced by the English photographer Walter B. Woodbury and was in use during the final third of the 19th century. It was ultimately displaced by halftone processes that produced prints such as photogravure and collotype.

Wove paper is a type of paper introduced to England, Europe and the American colonies in the mid-eighteenth century. Hand-made wove paper was first produced by using a wooden mould that contained a finely woven brass vellum (wire cloth), upon which the paper pulp was applied and dried, creating a smooth, uniform surface. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, paper pulp consisted of cotton and linen rags that were mixed with water and reduced to a fibrous material that was applied to the mould. The appearance of wove paper differs from that of laid paper, which produced a more textured surface due to the manner in which the wire mesh within the paper mould was constructed. The traditional laid pattern consisted of a series of wide-spaced lines (chain lines) parallel to the shorter sides of the sheet and more narrowly spaced lines (laid lines) at right angles to the chain lines.

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