Papers with a 7 pH, or very close to 7 pH. Below 6.5 pH or above 8.5 pH is not considered acid-free. Acid free materials are more permanent, less likely to discolor, or to deteriorate materials they are placed with over time. Works on paper, and the mats, mounts, etc. with which they are framed, are best acid free.
When used in an artist's inscription, it means that that artwork was modeled on the work of another artist. It may either be nearly identical to the other's work, or differ to some degree from it.
Famous afters: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Last Supper, after Leonardo da Vinci; Vincent van Gogh, First Steps (after Millet); Pablo Picasso, Luncheon on the Grass (Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe) after Édouard Manet.
An artist's agent is an artist's business representative.
The continuous action of atmospheric components like oxygen, moisture, light, temperature - on materials and structures, leading to deterioration.
Information added to an image, such as arrows, pointers, words, notes for special editions (e.a., h.c.), etc.
The arts concerned with making objects with functional purposes, but for which aesthetic concerns are significant. The applied arts may include architecture, interior design, the design of manufactured items, ceramics, metalwork, jewelry, textile, glass, furniture, graphics, clocks and watches, toys, leather, arms and armor, musical instruments, etc. Commercial art may be considered a branch of applied art. The applied arts are usually contrasted with the fine arts (drawing, painting, sculpture, fine printmaking, etc.), which are seen as serving no purpose other than providing an aesthetic experience.
A type of analysis and evaluation, especially in an official or professional capacity. In appraising works of art, for instance, an art appraiser studies their various qualities, and ultimately estimates their monetary worth, typically for insurance or taxation reasons, or in establishing a price.
A monoprint made by painting with a water medium on a metal, glass, or plastic plate and pulling one print from that plate. Additional colors can be printed by aligning the paper to the plate design.
The technique of drawing or painting with transparent watercolor, or a piece of work made this way. French for "watercolor."
An intaglio, etching, and tonal printing process in which a porous ground allows acid to penetrate to form a network of small dots in the plate, as well as the prints made by this process. Aquatints often resemble wash drawings. Any pure whites are stopped out entirely before etching begins, then the palest tints are bitten and stopped out, and so on as in etching. This process is repeated 20 to 30 times until the darkest tones (deepest recesses in the plate) are reached.
Preservation from loss, damage, or neglect, stabilizing chemically and structurally, sustaining the survival of objects as long as possible in what is closest to their original form. The application of science to the examination and treatment of objects, and to the study of the environments in which they are placed — used, transported, and stored.
An art movement involving a mix of modern decorative art styles, largely of the 1920s and 1930s, whose main characteristics were derived from various avant-garde painting styles of the early twentieth century.
One of a small group of prints set aside from an edition for an artist's use; a number of printer's proofs are sometimes also done for a printer's use. An artist's proof is typically one of the first proofs from a limited edition of prints, for the artist's own copyright use, and marked as an A.P., and not numbered. Artist's proofs generally draw a higher price than other impressions. The equivalent in French is épreuve d'artiste, abbreviated E.A.
An artistic style or tendency seen in the intentions or works of a number of artists, because there is a striking similarity among the techniques, philosophy or goals they have embraced, or in the attitudes which they espouse in a (more or less) organized effort. Art movements have each thrived for a limited time -- measured in a few months, years or decades.
French for vanguard. Artists and their work which stand in the forefront of a movement or of new ideas, often in opposition to established ideas and traditions; art that's ahead of its time, innovative, experimental, heterodox. The modern era has invariably had a flourishing avant-garde, but many have said it is no longer possible in a postmodern era. The bourgeoisie, once alienated by the avant-garde, rarely question any longer the presentation of any avant-garde's productions by their public institutions.
A French term meaning "low-raised work." This art, along with high relief, is known collectively as relief sculpture -- meant to be seen primarily from one direction -- as opposed to sculpture which is in the round.
A tool used in engraving or incising metal plates and in carving stone. A knob-like wooden handle which holds a metal shaft having a sharp beveled point with one size of several possible shapes, either flat, round, multiple, or elliptical. Also called a graver.
A tool with a hard smooth rounded surface used for smoothing and polishing, in metal work, ceramics and gilding. Burnishers are typically metal or stone.
In engraving and drypoint, the ridge of metal plowed up by the burin, or graver, or needle, on the surface of a metal plate. A sharper tool generally produces less burr than a dull one. In a line engraving the burr is removed with a scraper to produce a clean line; in drypoint it is not removed, in order to produce the soft, blurred effect typical of that technique.
French for "Good to print". It is generally assigned on a trial proof by the artist to indicate to the professional printer that a satisfactory state of his print has been obtained. It gives the printer the standard to which he must adhere in taking successive impressions
Defaced plates, stones, etc., to ensure that there is no possibility of being reprinted after the printing of a limited edition of prints has been completed.
A word borrowed from Italian ("light and shade" or "dark") referring to the modeling of volume by depicting light and shade by contrasting them boldly. It also describes a particular woodcutting process (chiaroscuro woodcut) in which tone blocks (usually in lighter and darker colours) are overprinted to obtain a coloured print
A lithographic process using several stones or plates — one for each color, printed in register. The result is color prints, to be distinguished from colored prints that have the color hand-applied after printing.
The print resulting from a collage of materials glued together on a base and printed as a combined relief and intaglio plate.
The logo of a printer or publisher. Or an inscription page sometimes found at the end of a book, noting information about the design of the book. This information might identify the font, paper, or bookbinding.
Traditionally, any drawing material made in stick form, including chalk, pastel, conté crayons, charcoal, lithographic and other grease crayons, as well as wax crayons. Various types of crayon are used in printmaking, the greasy lithographic crayon is made with a natural grease or a chemical.
The rough edge of handmade paper formed in a deckle.
An early twentieth century art movement which ridiculed contemporary culture and traditional art forms. The movement was formed to prove the bankruptcy of existing style of artistic expression rather than to promote a particular style itself. It was born as a consequence of the collapse during World War I of social and moral values which had developed to that time. Dada artists produced works which were nihilistic or reflected a cynical attitude toward social values, and, at the same time, irrational — absurd and playful, emotive and intuitive, and often cryptic.
A method of cutting or incising a design into a material, usually metal, with a sharp tool called a graver. One of the intaglio methods of making prints, in engraving, a print can be made by inking such an incised (engraved) surface.
An intaglio printing process in which an etching needle is used to draw into a wax ground applied over a metal plate. The plate is then submerged in a series of acid baths, each biting into the metal surface only where unprotected by the ground. The ground is removed, ink is forced into the etched depressions, the unetched surfaces wiped, and an impression is printed.
The collective term for several graphic processes in which prints are made from ink trapped in the grooves in an incised metal plate. Etchings and engravings are the most typical examples.
A linoleum block or plate used for making relief prints. Linoleum is a durable, washable material formerly used more for flooring as vinyl flooring is used today. It is usually backed with burlap or canvas, and may be purchased adhered to a wooden block. The linoleum can be cut in much the same way woodcuts are produced, however its surface is softer and without grain.
In the graphic arts, a method of printing from a prepared flat stone or metal or plastic plate, invented in the late eighteenth century. A drawing is made on the stone or plate with a greasy crayon or tusche, and then washed with water. When ink is applied it sticks to the greasy drawing but runs off (or is resisted by) the wet surface allowing a print — a lithograph — to be made of the drawing. The artist, or other print maker under the artist's supervision, then covers the plate with a sheet of paper and runs both through a press under light pressure. For color lithography separate drawings are made for each color.
In printmaking, an engraving process that is tonal rather than linear, or prints produced by this process. Developed in the seventeenth century, a copper or steel plate is first worked all over with a curved, serrated tool called a rocker, raising burrs over the surface to hold the ink and print as a soft dark tone. The design is then created in lighter tones by scraping out and burnishing areas of the roughened plate so that they hold less ink, or none in highlights. Details may be sharpened by engraving or etching in a "mixed mezzotint."
A print is a shape or mark made from a block or plate or other object that is covered with wet color (usually ink) and then pressed onto a flat surface, such as paper or textile. Most prints can be produced over and over again by re-inking the printing block or plate. Printmaking can be done in many ways, including using an engraved block or stone, transfer paper, or a film negative.
The exact alignment of shapes or edges in various areas of any piece of work. In printmaking, registration is the proper positioning of plates or colors.
A twentieth century avant-garde art movement influenced by the theories of the pioneer of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, the images found in surrealist works are as confusing and startling as those of dreams. Surrealist works can have a realistic, though irrational style, precisely describing dreamlike fantasies inventing spontaneous techniques, modeled upon the psychotherapeutic procedure of "free association" as a means to eliminate conscious control in order to express the workings of the unconscious mind. See works of René Magritte, Salvador Dalí or it could have a more abstract style, as in the works of Joan Miró.
A print made by cutting a design in side-grain of a block of wood, also called a woodblock print. The ink is transferred from the raised surfaces to paper.
A print similar to a woodcut (woodblock print) in that it is made by cutting (engraving) a design into a block of wood, usually boxwood. However unlike a woodcut, the artist cuts the design on the end-grain of hardwood rather than the side grain of soft wood. The print's design can therefore be more intricate than the typical woodcut. The gravers or burins used to work the block are similar to those used to engrave a copper or steel plate, but instead of producing lines that will print, they are used to produce non-printing lines. It is the uncut surface that takes the ink and prints.