Global InformationChromolithography information
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Chromolithography is a method for making multi-colour prints. This type of colour printing stemmed from the process of lithography,[1] and includes all types of lithography that are printed in colour.[citation needed] When chromolithography is used to reproduce photographs, the term photochrome is frequently used. Lithography is a method of printing on flat surfaces using a flat printing plate instead of raised relief or recessed intaglio techniques.[2]
Chromolithography became the most successful of several methods of colour printing developed by the 19th century. Other methods were developed by printers such as Jacob Christoph Le Blon, George Baxter and Edmund Evans, and mostly relied on using several woodblocks with different colours. Hand-colouring also remained important. For example, elements of the official British Ordnance Survey maps were coloured by hand by boys until 1875. The initial chromolithographic technique involved the use of multiple lithographic stones, one for each colour, and was still extremely expensive when done for the best quality results. Depending on the number of colours present, a chromolithograph could take even very skilled workers months to produce.
However much cheaper prints could be produced by simplifying the number of colours used, and reducing the detail in the image. Cheaper images, like advertisements, relied heavily on an initial black print (not always a lithograph), on which colours were then overprinted. To make an expensive reproduction print, once referred to as a "chromo", a lithographer, with a finished painting in front of him, gradually created and corrected the many stones using proofs to look as much as possible like the painting, sometimes using dozens of layers.[3]
Oleograph is sometimes used as a synonym for a chromolithograph,[4] but more properly refers to a chromolithograph that has then been treated to imitate the variable surface of an oil painting, either by brushing with varnish, or some form of embossing or stamping. The print is usually glued to canvas to further the imitation.[5]
- ^ "Planographic Printing." Archived 2017-12-30 at the Wayback Machine Seeing is Believing. 2001. The New York Public Library. 11 April 2007.
- ^ "Chromolithography and the Posters of World War I." The War on the Walls. Temple University. 11 April 2007. "Chromolithography and the Posters of World War I". Archived from the original on 2006-07-21. Retrieved 2006-02-18..
- ^ Clapper, Michael. "'I Was Once a Barefoot Boy!': Cultural Tensions in a Popular Chromo." American Art 16(2002): 16–39.
- ^ "Oleograph | printing". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-06-30.
- ^ Gascoigne, Bamber. How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Inkjet, p. 59d, 1986 (2nd Edition, 2004), Thames & Hudson, ISBN 050023454X; "Oleographs: what are they, and can they be restored?", Fine Art Restoration Co., 16th March 2018