The Print in the Western World is a comprehensive history of the print
from its origins in the fifteenth through the late twentieth century. A
source of inspiration to many great painters, such as Titian, Rembrandt,
and Manet, printmaking has established its own criteria of aesthetic
excellence as well as its own expressive language, both of which are
explored here. Scholars and print collectors will find in this
well-written and generously illustrated book a valuable reference,
students a lucid survey, and art lovers an informative introduction to
the history of the print in Europe and America.
More than 700 illustrations, forty-nine of them in color, show the
evolution of the relief, intaglio, planographic, and stencil processes
through the centuries. Giving detailed treatment to the work of five
master printmakers--Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Francisco Goya,
Pablo Picasso, and Jasper Johns--the book also discusses in depth
numerous other artists, such as Martin Schongauer, Andrea Mantegna,
Hendrik Goltzius, Jacques Callot, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, William
Hogarth, Honoré Daumier, Edouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch,
Käthe Kollwitz, Max Ernst, and Andy Warhol. Although its primary focus
is the fine-art original print, The Print in the Western World also
addresses in detail the reproductive tradition in printmaking that
reached its peak in the eighteenth century and touches on book
illustrations, posters, political satires, and vernacular prints such as
chromolithographs.
Author Linda C. Hults emphasizes the meaning and historical context of
prints, the consequences of the print's accessibility to many strata of
society, and the relationship among artist, context, subject matter, and
technique. The volume includes a glossary of basic printmaking terms, as
well as full bibliographies at the end of each chapter, giving readers
access to a wide range of recent scholarship on prints.
