Lithography

Lithography is a type of printmaking, creating a print on paper using a printing plate. The peculiarity of this graphic technique is partly described by its name. The word “lithography” is derived from two Greek words: λίθος — stone and γράφω — to write, to draw. For this type of print, a flat printing plate is used, which is usually made from a flat piece of limestone.
The inventor of the lithography technique was German Johann Senefelder (1771—1824). After leaving his acting career, he opened a small printing house, and one day, he noticed that a laundry bill, which he wrote absent-mindedly on a limestone, was imprinted on a damp cloth. After several years of experimentation, Senefelder published Vollstandiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerei in 1818. In 1828, his student Joseph-Rose Lemercier founded the famous Parisian Lemercier and Co. lithography.
The lithographic technique is based on making a drawing with a special bold pencil on a previously polished surface of a limestone form. The image is treated with acid and then washed off with dextrin. The paint applied to the mould by a roller only sticks in the places where the drawing was. The form is overlaid with paper and pressed on a special machine.
It is also possible to create colour images — in this case, each new colour is printed from a different stone, and this technique is called chromolithography. The number of such stones can be up to 9. Artists use additional techniques, for example, feathering with a brush and water-diluted ink — lithotinto, as well as manual colouring of prints — lithochromy. The technology allows to reproduce the image from the form.
By the end of the 19th century, lithography had become very popular with many artists. Eugène Delacroix, Honoré Daumier, Paul Gavarni printed their works in this technique. Flamboyant theatre and cabaret posters by the French Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Czech Alphonse Mucha lit the streets of Paris, and some townspeople furtively cut beautiful posters “to collect them”.
The mechanization of the printing process through using lithographic machines made it possible to obtain large quantities of very high-quality images — both black and white, and colour. Lithography became widespread; this technique was used to produce book illustrations, maps, postcards, posters, leaflets, icons. In the Russian Empire, Ivan Sytin became the most famous publisher of mass-market illustrations, who in 1876 opened his first lithographic studio in Moscow.
He started with the maps of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877—1878, which were attached to some newspapers. Sytin mastered the market quickly and began mass production of inexpensive pictures, luboks, books and fortune-telling tables for commoners. Soon he had product catalogues, and the annual circulation of millions of books, calendars, pictures. In 1890, Sytin acquired one of the first rotary printing presses, and in 1903, he opened the School of Technical Drawing and Lithography.
Modern lithography is a rather rare type of author’s graphic art. As a rule, each copy is considered unique, has its own number and the obligatory signature of the artist.
Artists who used lithography technique: Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Honoré Daumier, Paul Gavarni, Edvard Munch, Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, Valentin Serov, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Maurits Cornelis Escher, René Magritte, Edgar Degas, Mikhail Larionov, David Hockney.
Famous lithographic artworks:
The French Blacksmith. Théodore Géricault, 1822
Japanese Couch. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1893
Madonna. Edvard Munch, 1895
Bull series of 11 lithographs. Pablo Picasso, 1945
Relativity. Maurits Cornelis Escher, 1953