History of printmaking

Germany

Single prints (in contrast to those printed in a series or as part of an illustrated book) of the early 15th century were not signed or dated, and, because they were religious images carried by pilgrims from one place to another, it is nearly impossible to establish with certainty their place of origin. Their style alone must be relied upon for some indication of origin.

The first phase of woodcut, from about 1402 until about 1425, was dominated by boldly designed single figures against a blank background. Most of the cuts were made to be hand coloured. In the second half of the 15th century the cuts became more complex: architectural and landscape elements came into use, and often the image was framed in an elaborate border.

The first metal prints (criblé, or dotted, print) were made in the second half of the 15th century. The design was created by tiny dots punched into the metal and intermingled with short cuts. Surface printed, the whites are the positive part of the design, which is dominated by the dark background. Tiny holes in the borders indicate that most of these plates were intended as decorations to be mounted rather than as printing plates.

The earliest dated intaglio-printed engraving is from 1446: The Flagellation, of a Passion series. About this time, the first distinct personality to have great influence on German engraving appeared. He is known as the Master of the Playing Cards. His style was simple, nearly monumental; unlike the printwork of goldsmiths, his engravings lack ornamentation. For shading he used slightly diagonal parallel cuts. The Master of the Playing Cards heralds the beginning of a century of great printmakers in Germany. Another significant engraver, the Master of the Banderoles, was named after the ribbon scrolls characteristic of his prints, which are more decorative than those of the Master of the Playing Cards.

In the second half of the 15th century, the outstanding printmaker was Master E.S., who flourished about 1440–67 and was one of the first to use initials as a signature on his plates. Little is known about him, but the personality that emerges from approximately 317 plates is forceful and distinct. Although it is evident from his prints that, like most early engravers, he was first trained as a goldsmith, his work has strong pictorial quality.

Martin Schongauer was the first great engraver who is known to have been a painter rather than a goldsmith. Although Schongauer’s style was still Gothic in character, he composed with much greater freedom than his contemporaries, thus representing a transition into the Renaissance. He made about 115 plates, mostly of religious subjects, and was a powerful influence on the young Albrecht Dürer (see below Printmaking in the 16th century). During the second half of the 15th century, a group of brilliant engravers known only by their initials emerged in Germany. They are the Masters B.G., B.M., L.G.S., A.G., B.R., and W.H. The controversial figure of Israhel van Meckenem appeared at the end of the 15th century. A superb and extremely prolific engraver, he was a rather eclectic artist, borrowing from other masters and often copying them.

Italy

In the 15th century, Italian printmaking was dominated by the northern cities: Florence, Venice, and Milan. Throughout the century, printmaking was mainly concerned with playing cards and book illustrations, with a few single prints appearing in the second half of the century. While in Germany and the Netherlands the art was completely dominated by devotional, religious subject matter, Italian printmaking covered a relatively broad range. The awakening Renaissance attitude made the artists much more receptive to purely aesthetic, decorative, sensuous experience. In addition to religious subject matter, Italian prints included mythology, pure ornamentation, and some of the finest early portrait engravings.

Giorgio Vasari, the chronicler of Renaissance artists, credited the Florentine goldsmith Maso Finiguerra with the invention of printed engraving, but present knowledge indicates that, at the same period in Germany and the Netherlands, printmaking was in a more advanced stage. Despite the fact that book printing was originally introduced from the northern countries into Italy, engraving remained a national, regional development, free of strong foreign influence until the beginning of the 16th century.

Two methods of engraving were practiced in Italy, the broad manner and the fine manner. The fine manner, associated with the Finiguerra school, is characterized by closely cut and extremely fine lines combined with cross-hatching intermingled at times with dots. The broad manner is less dense, and forms are modelled using diagonally cut parallel lines, interlaid at times with short cuts or dots. In shading, the spacing between the lines is wider than in the fine manner and there is no cross-hatching.

Finiguerra himself was not an important artist. His significance lies in his influence on Antonio Pollaiuolo, a Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect whose reputation as one of the most distinguished engravers of the 15th century is based on his one authenticated print, The Battle of the Nudes (c. 1470)—a powerful image, beautifully engraved in the broad manner.

While Pollaiuolo worked in Florence, Andrea Mantegna, a great painter and certainly the most eminent Italian printmaker, lived and worked in Mantua. Mantegna produced approximately 20 plates (only seven of which are completely authenticated), all line engravings in the broad manner. A superb draftsman and a virtuoso engraver, Mantegna could achieve, in spite of the limitations of his method, an incredible range of colour in his prints, a quality lacking in the work of most of his followers.

In addition to the masters, talented engravers included Cristofano Robetta, a Florentine who made some rich, intricate engravings in the fine manner; and the Venetian Jacopo de’ Barbari, who travelled in Germany and whose refined engravings show the influence of Albrecht Dürer.

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