5. Printmaking sales and artists' participation
Due to the continuous development and prosperity of urban handicrafts and commercial economy, the public's demand for printmaking is increasing. All kinds of beautiful intaglio maps, portraits of celebrities, religious images, newly discovered strange scenery, political propaganda and book illustrations, etc., are all kinds, and they are almost amazing. In order to meet the needs of society, various publishing and sales enterprises have emerged, and various sales networks have spread all over Europe. The original prints of artists, especially those who have passed away, have become valuable assets for art dealers and publishers to make profits. After they bought the original, they made a large number of copies by fixed craftsmen, and the number of copies reached the highest point of sales. In order to meet the unlimited sales, after the original edition is printed, the craftsman is invited to engrave and process it and print it repeatedly until the edition is scrapped, and the result is often far from the original.
this kind of profit-making printmaking sales not only affects the reputation of printmaking among the public, but also seriously damages the rights and interests of artists. As early as the end of the 15th century, in order to protect his works from being copied, Diu Lei not only engraved the identification mark "AD" symbolizing his original works, but also went to Florence, Italy, to protest against Raimondi, a famous copper engraver at that time, in order to prevent illegal reprinting of his works. Willian Hogarth (1697 -1764) was a famous British painter in the 18th century. His pungent and fashionable "The Experience of a Prostitute" (Figure 48) was paid only 34 guinea (old British gold coins) for the first set of six oil paintings. However, before these paintings were copied into copperplate prints by publishers, more than 1,2 people came to book this set of etched copperplate prints. Hogarth's works are so popular that artists have to appeal to Congress to enact a copyright law to protect artists' copyright. To this end, Britain enacted the copyright law in 1753.
The laws of commodity economy make painters see that making a print is more profitable than drawing an oil painting. Therefore, at that time, almost all painters had made or commissioned copper engravers to make copper prints. In addition to some of the masters mentioned above, there are such masters as Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519) and Raphael (1485-152), Italian Renaissance masters, and Bruegel Cruegel (1525-1569), a Dutch rural painter. French painter Callot (1592-1645); Rubens (1577-164) in Belgium; The last representative of the old Venetian school, Tiepolo (1696-177); Famous French painters Watteau (1634-172), Boucher (193-177) and Xia Erdan (1699-177); Goye (1746-1828), a Spanish giant, and William Blake (1757-1827), a British giant, etc. The printmaking market, such as a reliable link, makes painters closely connected with the public, and it is also like a lubricant, which promotes copperplate printmaking to be perfect in a virtuous circle.
Since the rise of copperplate technique in the mid-15th century, in 1513, Hopfer's first etched copperplate was successively produced. At the beginning of the 17th century, Siengen (169-1682) in the Netherlands created Mezzotin. In the 18th century, French engraver Belgin Demarteau invented roulette. In about 176, Prince of France invented Aquatint; In the late 18th century, French copperplate workshops successively introduced Soft Ground etching method and Lift ground etching method or Sugar aquatint method. At this point, as a modern copperplate art has been formed. On the contrary, during the 2-3 years of development and prosperity of woodblock prints, woodblock prints only interacted with books, and gradually declined, and finally they were on the verge of being eliminated.
6. The revival of woodcut
In the early 18th century, the copperplate was introduced to Britain by Hogarth. Unlike continental Europe, British woodcut began to decline. At this time, many engravers with exquisite skills, because of the exclusion of copperplate prints, had to quit copying the works of famous artists such as Veronese, Tinto saucer and Titian, and were forced to engage in the production of wallpaper. At the end of the 18th century (1775), in order to revitalize woodcut, the government specially awarded the winner of woodcut. The first prize-winning work was the woodcut Hound by British printmaker Thomocs Bewick (1753-1828) (Figure 53-55). He invented woodcut with wooden mouth and high-quality alloy carving knife, abandoned the original wooden board and crude tools, and created a woodblock shading method for carving white lines (negative lines), which is as delicate and realistic as copperplate prints. Because of the innovation in Bewick, the ancient woodcut was brought back to life. Different from copperplate prints, mukou woodcut can combine plates and texts together and print them on the computer at the same time. Therefore, mukou woodcut was quickly popularized and applied in a large number of newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, covering the whole Victorian era (1819-191) and being read and appreciated by more and more people.
All Victorian artists and their proteges, especially in the 196s, drafted paintings directly on wooden blocks for engravers' works. For example, a plain collection of poems, Poems by the Roadside, contains many poetic small woodcuts, all of which were painted by painters North, Pinwell and Walker, and carved by the brothers of the highly skilled sculptor Dalziell. Their unparalleled carving skills have reached the exquisiteness that previous woodcuts could not imagine. After the rise of mukou woodcut in Britain, it soon spread to Europe and America, and it has the momentum of overwhelming copperplate prints. In the second half of the 19th century, Du Lei (1832-1883), a French painter, pushed the woodcut of Mukou to the peak. At that time, his woodcuts, known as "Du Lei style" (Figures 58 and 59), were written by the painter directly on the woodcut board with ink, and then carefully carved by his engravers), which were deeply favored by the public. People like it to be precise and unambiguous, while mocking copperplate prints for simplicity, sketching and being too vague. However, the potential threat to both is the emerging photography.
7. The threat of photography
In 1826, Niepce (1765-1833), a French lithographer, made the earliest photo-The Courtyard Outside the Window and Deguerre (1787-1851) were published in Paris in 1839. More than ten years later, Forty years later (188), photographic plate making entered the printing industry. At this point, it has increasingly threatened the printmaking industry that painters and engravers were engaged in earlier. The French painter Paul Delaroche (1797- 1856) once lamented that "painting is finished from now on", which was circulated for a while as a wise saying (Figure 6). However, it is the portrait painters and printmakers who really panic, especially the copperprinters, who hanged themselves and copperprinters, who go to hell! The big slogan was common in cartoons at that time. Lithography (commonly known as "lithograph") was invented at the end of the 18th century and prevailed in the 19th century. Due to the challenge of photography, copperplate prints soon lost their former glory. Moreover, at this time, the public's interest has become more and more focused on the prints drawn directly by artists, rather than the replicas drawn by craftsmen. In order to avoid the fatigue of engraving, painters have focused on the personal drawing of lithographs. Here, the most representative painters are Goya, 1746-1828), Du Miai (188-1879) and Lautrec 1846-191), who are engaged in the creation of a large Daumier of political caricatures and advertising posters to meet the needs of the public. Under the threat of photography, some far-sighted artists realize that printmaking, as a means of copying painting, should die. In order to survive, they began to look for a new way out. In order to get rid of the subordinate position of printmaking in printing, they strongly advocate hand-made and crude antique, making printmaking truly an original painting.