Fast and furious: Photolithography

Klein, Susanne; Fuller, Harrie

Abstract

A short history Photolithography, as we know it today in printmaking, has many origins. All were invented with speed of production in mind. It all started with a missed deadline. Alois Senefelder, a trained layer with more love for the theatre than for law, was offered a substantial amount of money for a play, if he could deliver a printed version in time for the Leipzig Easter Fair. He was let down by the print workshop and the play was only delivered to the publisher two weeks after the deadline. Senefelder could just cover his cost. His hope for profit was lost and gave him the idea to open his own printing establishment. Since Senefelder did not have the financial means to set up his own letterpress, he experimented with different printing method until he came across 'chemical printing' by accident [1]: 'I had just ground a stone plate smooth in order to treat it with etching fluid and to pursue on it my practice in reverse writing, when my mother asked me to write a laundry list for her. The laundress was waiting, but we could find no paper. My own supply had been used up by pulling proofs. Even the writing-ink was dried up. Without bothering to look for writing materials, I wrote the list hastily on the clean stone, with my prepared stone ink of wax, soap, and lampblack, intending to copy it as soon as paper was supplied. As I was preparing afterward to wash the writing from the stone, I became curious to see what would happen with writing made thus of prepared ink, if the stone were now etched with aqua fortis. … I poured a mixture of one part aqua fortis and ten parts of water over the plate and let it stand two inches deep for about five minutes. Then I examined the result and found the writing about one tenth of a line or the thickness of a playing-card in relief. … Eagerly I began inking in. … The letters all took the color well…' Lithography (from Greek λίθος, a stone, and γράφειν, to write) had been invented. The ease of production made this printing method attractive to art and commerce. Artists appreciated the shifts of tone that could be achieved like those produced with charcoal, see Figure 1. Commerce appreciated the speed text or musical scores could be produced .

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Don't Press Print: De/Reconstructing Photomechanical Reproduction
• Start Date: Sep 9, 2021
• End Date: Nov 10, 2021
• Deposit Date: Nov 9, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 10, 2021
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/8058195
• Related Public URLs: https://cfpr.uwe.ac.uk/dont-press-print-conference-02/