print

print. A picture or design made (usually on paper) from an inked impression of an engraved metal plate, wooden block, etc. Prints are made by a great variety of processes, but they fall into three main groups, depending on whether the ink is carried (a) on raised parts of the printing surface (relief methods),(b) in grooves made in the surface (intaglio methods), or(c) on the surface itself (planographic or surface methods). It is fairly common for different processes to be combined in one print, and in Baxter prints, for example, intaglio and relief methods are used together.(a) Relief Methods. In these, the parts of the wood block or metal plate that are to print black are left in relief and the remainder is cut away. The principal methods are woodcut, wood engraving, and linocut. To these may be added certain techniques such as metal cut, manière criblée, and relief etching, in which metal plates are engraved and printed like woodcuts.(b) Intaglio Methods. In intaglio printing the principle is the reverse of that in the relief methods; the surface of the plate does not print, the ink being held only in the engraved furrows. The main techniques are: line engraving, in which the design is engraved on the metal plate with a burin; drypoint, where the lines are drawn by scratching the plate with a strong steel needle; etching, softground etching, and aquatint, where the designs are bitten into the plate by means of acid. In addition there are the mainly reproductive (and mainly defunct) processes of mezzotint, stipple engraving, and crayon manner. The various intaglio processes have often been used in combination with one another on the same plate. Rembrandt, for example, frequently combined etching and drypoint.(c) Planographic Methods. In these the design is neither raised in relief or incised. The main method is lithography, in which the design is printed from a perfectly flat slab of limestone or a prepared metal plate. The process utilizes the antipathy of grease and water to separate those areas that receive and those areas that reject the printing ink. Stencilling and screenprinting are sometimes considered planographic methods, although they really form a separate category because the image is created through a barrier rather than printed from a surface.

The monotype and the glass print are traditionally grouped with prints, although the former is really a type of painting and the latter a type of photograph. The term ‘print’ is also more loosely applied to reproductions of works of art made by photomechanical methods.