Two-Dimensional Media

Summarize Drawing and the Dry and Liquid Media

Used With Drawing
Drawing
Regardless of age, drawing is an art form that most people are involved in at some point. Some
people who begin drawing at a young age ultimately stop drawing. Some people invest money
into expensive art supplies, and other people just use the material that they have on hand. Recall
the cave drawings discussed in Lesson 1. Those weren’t done with expensive colored pencils or
other purchased art supplies. They were created with the materials that were on hand.

Many great works of art started off as sketches that weren’t meant for the eyes of the public.
They were just ideas that the creators put onto a surface to make sure that they fully knew what
they wanted to do with the work. With these sketches, you can see the artist’s creative process.
Picasso was one artist who began to date and save all of his sketches related to his creative work,
as a record of his process.

Artists sometimes draw just to draw, with no intention of turning a sketch into anything more.
Leonardo da Vinci was one such artist. He filled notebooks with extremely detailed sketches,
including the movement of water currents and grass in the wind.

When you think about the process of drawing, you likely think of notebook paper, printer paper,
or even paper in a sketchbook. Yet, paper isn’t the only common material used for drawing. The
Paleolithic cave drawings from Lesson 1 were sketched out on rock. The Greeks drew on
pottery. Ancient Egyptians used papyrus, a paper-type material made from the pressed stems of
plants. Moving on through history, treated animal skins were used in the Roman Empire. In
ancient China, silk was used for drawings. Of course, today you can use paper, canvas, fabric,
older methods such as walls or pottery, or even computers.

Materials for Drawing

Now that you’ve learned a little bit about the importance of sketches as well as a short history of
materials used to hold drawings, you’ll look at some of the materials used to draw. Drawing
media are divided into two broad categories: dry media and liquid media. Dry media are
generally applied to a surface in stick form. They leave particles on the drawing surface as
they’re used. Examples of dry media include colored pencils, chalks, charcoals, and
crayons. Liquid media are generally applied using a tool. Ink and paint are two common
examples of liquid media; you need to use a tool, such as a pen or a brush, to apply them to your
surface.

Some media are naturally occurring, but most of the media that we use in art is manufactured.
The media that we purchase are made by combining two types of materials: pigment and
binder. Pigment is what gives the medium its color. Binder is the material that either shapes the
product into sticks (dry media) or suspends it in fluid (liquid media).

Dry Media
You’ve likely used many types of dry media. Dry media is often the choice of artists who are just
learning to draw. Shapes, outlines, and shading can be drawn without using additional tools and
are relatively easy to erase or blend.

Graphite
Graphite, a soft, crystalline form of carbon, is a naturally occurring medium. Finding solid
graphite is rare; it’s usually extracted and purified into a powder. Then it’s mixed with a binder
and clay. When graphite is covered in wood, you get the most common dry medium used in
drawing, a pencil.

Sets of drawing pencils are numbered or categorized in terms of how soft or hard they are. Hard
graphite has more clay mixed in than does soft. Soft pencils result in darker, richer marks. Hard
pencils result in lines that are lighter and thinner.

Image 6.5 in your textbook is known as Prince Among Thieves with Flowers. The artist, Chris
Ofili, used both soft and hard pencils. The hard pencils were used to create the flowers in the
background of the image. Soft pencils were used to create the image of the man. If you look
closely at the man, you’ll notice that the dots that make up the profile are actually tiny heads that
have afros. Ofili is a British artist of African ancestry. In many of his works, you can see how he
uses imagery that holds a sense of his identity.

Metalpoint
Metalpoint involves the use of soft metal, like silver; it creates fine, delicate lines that are
uniform in width. It was extremely popular during the Renaissance era, but many artists shy
away from metalpoint now because it’s hard to correct mistakes. The drawing surface must first
be covered with a coat of paint called a ground. In the past, the ground was a mix of bone ash,
glue, white pigment, and water. After the ground dried, the end of a wire was pulled across it.
The metal particles left behind turn pale gray. Image 6.6 in your textbook is a metalpoint piece
by Filippino Lippi created in 1480. Notice how Lippi used hatching and cross-hatching in the
image. Consider how much time must have been used to create this work, especially considering
the unforgiving medium.

Charcoal
Charcoal is charred wood. It can be naturally occurring or manufactured. Natural charcoal
creates a soft line that smudges easily. It can also be erased with a cloth. For detailed work or
work that needs to be more durable, sticks of compressed charcoal or charcoal pencils can
produce a rich, velvety black.

Crayon, Pastel, and Chalk

The dry media mentioned so far have one thing in common: the work is done in shades of gray
and black. Crayon, pastels, and even chalk can give an artist access to a full range of colors.

Crayons and pastels are made from powdered pigments mixed with a binder. Crayons use a
greasy wax binder. Some crayons are, of course, designed for use by children. Others are created
for artists to use. Artist-quality crayons usually have a wax and oil binder that’s creamier in
consistency than kids’ crayons. This is important for color blending. These crayons are often
referred to as oil pastels. Contè crayons, another well-known crayon for artists, are mixed with
clay and a greasy binder. They’re good replacements for natural black and red chalks, but are
available in a full range of colors.

Pastels are pigments that are mixed with a nongreasy binder and water. They’re then rolled into
sticks and left to dry. Like pencils, pastels can be soft or hard and come in a variety of colors.
Most artists use soft pastels unless they’re creating a special effect or adding in detail, when they
would use hard pastels. Pastels are easy to use because they blend easily.

Chalk is used in art to refer to three soft, finely textured stones used for drawing:

 Black chalk is made of carbon and clay.

 Red chalk is made of iron oxide and clay.
 White chalk is made of calcite or calcium carbonate.
For all types of chalk, the material is mined and then cut into size for use. Most artists use contè
crayons and pastels instead of chalk. However, chalk is still available for purchase and use by
artists.

Liquid Media
Liquid media are generally less forgiving than dry media; that is, they don’t allow for as many
mistakes. The materials used in liquid media dry to the surface rather than leave dry particles;
therefore, erasing is difficult or impossible.

Pen and Ink

Inks have been around since around the fourth century BCE. Inks used for drawing are usually
made from ultrafine particles of pigment suspended in water. A binder is added to keep the
particles suspended and to help them stick to the drawing surface.

Although it’s not necessary to use a pen to apply ink to the drawing surface, it’s one of the most
widely used tools. Pens provide a controlled, sustainable, and flexible line. Traditional pens
designed for use by artists were first dipped into the ink and then used on the drawing surface.
The nib on the pen, the part that actually contacts the drawing surface, would determine the
quality and variation of the line. Most pens and nibs used today are metal. However, it’s fairly
easy to find reed, quill, and other more traditional pens.

A more recent ink pen developed for the use of artists is known as a rapidograph, a metal-tipped
instrument that has a reservoir of ink that creates a fine and even line quality. It’s often used by
architects as a drawing tool because of their need for precision.

Brush and Ink

Ink can also be used with a brush on paper. When a brush and ink are used on paper, it’s defined
as a drawing in Western culture; in many Eastern cultures, ink applied with a brush is considered
painting.

Drawing and Beyond: Paper as a

Medium
Paper doesn’t have to be the only medium used in drawing. In 1912, Picasso used a bit of
patterned oilcloth in a painting of a still life. But it was Picasso’s friend, Georges Braque, who
began to bring in more elements of glued paper into his drawings. See Image 6.13 of your
textbook, Still Life on Table: “Gillette.” The drawing includes the use of charcoal, pasted paper,
and gouache. Near the middle of the work, notice an image of Gillette razors. The darkened area
seems to suggest something being cut out. Braque’s work created what we now call a collage, a
piece of art created from different materials or fabrics. Remember that while a collage commonly
involves paper, it can use other materials as well. Image 6.15 in your textbook is an excellent
example of how different elements can come together to create a mixed media collage.

Creating artwork with paper is something that we all learned to do as children. Think about the
time you spent making paper snowflakes. They are a form of silhouette creation. Yet, abstract
silhouettes (such as unique snowflakes) aren’t the only kind. In Image 6.16 in your
textbook, Untitled (cut-out 4) by Mona Hatoum, you’ll see some basic shapes, but you’ll also see
soldiers and references to explosions or gunfire. This work is created from a single piece of
tissue paper.

In Image 6.17 of the text, you’ll see that paper can be used to create sculpture. Mia Pearlman
created line drawings and cut out shapes from them. Then, she assembled the sculpture on site.
Although paper sculptures can be inexpensive to make, they take a lot of skill since they’re so
delicate.

Key Points
  Drawing media are divided into two broad categories: dry media and liquid media. Dry
media are generally applied to a surface in stick form and leave particles on the drawing
surface as they’re used like colored pencils, chalks, charcoals, and crayons.
 Liquid media are generally applied using a tool such as a pen or a brush. Ink and paint are
two common examples of liquid media.
 Dry media that work in shades of grey and black include graphite, metalpoint, and
charcoal which are naturally occurring substances.
 Graphite is mixed with a binder and clay and encased in wood to create a pencil.
Metalpoint uses a thin wire made from a soft metal to leave lines on a prepared surface
and charcoal is charred wood.
 Crayon, pastels, and chalk provide artists a full range of colors. Crayons are made from
powdered pigments mixed with a binder such as greasy wax, oil, or clay.
 Pastels are pigments that are mixed with a nongreasy binder and water then rolled into
sticks and left to dry.
 Chalk is used in art to refer to three soft, finely textured stones that are mined and then
cut into size for use: black chalk, made of carbon and clay; red chalk made of iron oxide
and clay; and white chalk made of calcite or calcium carbonate.
 Ink consists of ultrafine particles of pigment suspended in water with a binder to help
them adhere to a surface. In Western culture brush and ink are defined as a drawing in
many Eastern cultures, ink applied with a brush is considered painting.
Describe Painting and the Importance of the Paint
Medium

Painting
Read the following section. Then read Chapter 7 in your textbook.

Throughout history, painting has awakened various opinions on the practice and its purpose:

 Akbar, a Muslim ruler during the sixteenth century, believed that painters possessed a
unique appreciation for the divine because “a [painter] must come to feel that he cannot
bestow individuality upon his work, and is thus forced to think of God, the Giver of Life,
and will thus increase his knowledge.”
 Chinese painter and scholar Zhang Yanyuan stated that painting existed “to enlighten
ethics, improve human relationships, divine the changes of nature, and explore hidden
truths.”
 Leonardo da Vinci stated that “painting embraces and contains within itself all things
produced by nature.”
 Pedro Calderón de la Barca, a seventeenth-century playwright, stated that painting was
“the sum of all arts.”
Painting means many things to many people. Perception can change from person to person even
within the same culture.
Paint
Paint includes two common elements that you learned about in the last section: pigment and a
binder. Paint also needs a medium or a vehicle, a liquid that holds the pigment particles together
but doesn’t dissolve them. The binder ensures that the paint sticks to the surface.

Acrylics are thick like paste and are often diluted with water so that artists can more easily apply
the medium to their work. Paints diluted with water are considered aqueous media. Another
aqueous medium is watercolor.

Oil paint is a nonaqueous medium. Nonaqueous media must be diluted before use, but not with
water. Oil paints are often diluted with turpentine or mineral spirits.

The paint is applied to a support, which is the canvas, paper, wall, or other surface. Sometimes,
the support must first be prepared with a ground or a primer. You learned about the ground in the
discussion of metalpoint dry media; it works essentially the same way with paint. A primer is a
coat of paint applied before the actual painting begins to create a better painting surface. The
primer is generally white to avoid altering the look of the colors applied.

Many types of pigment and binders have been used throughout the course of history. Two
ancient techniques still used today are encaustic and fresco. Other techniques were developed
only recently. The following paragraphs discuss many of the pigments and binders available.

Encaustic
Encaustic pigments are mixed with wax and resin. When they’re heated, the wax melts and the
paint can be easily applied to the support. As the wax cools, the paint hardens. When the work is
complete, a heat source is passed close to the surface to fuse the colors together in a process
called burning in.

Encaustic was an important technique in ancient Greece—the word actually means “burning in”
in Greek. Encaustic paintings have been found that date back to 100–150 CE. They were often
used to memorialize the dead during the time when Egypt was under Roman rule.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the encaustic technique faded out until the nineteenth
century when the Roman-Egyptian portraits were discovered. Image 7.1 in your textbook is an
example of a well-preserved encaustic painting.

Fresco
Fresco describes pigments mixed with water applied to a plaster support (such as a wall). When
the plaster is dry, the technique is known as fresco secco, which is Italian for “dry fresco.” When
it’s applied to wet plaster, it’s referred to as buon fresco, Italian for “true fresco.” As the plaster
dries, the lime in the plaster experiences a chemical transformation. The lime becomes a binder
and fuses the pigment to the plaster.
Fresco, primarily used for walls, creating large murals, takes a lot of time, careful planning, and
hard work. The plaster involved must be set, but not totally dry. The artist must spread only
enough plaster on an area that he or she can paint at that time. Many artists who use fresco have
a full-size drawing of their project called a cartoon. The artist will poke small holes on the lines
on the cartoon and then transfer the cartoon to the surface by rubbing damp plaster and pigment
through the holes. When the cartoon is removed, the artist can then follow the dotted lines that
were left behind to recreate the image.

The only way that an artist can correct a mistake in fresco is to let the plaster dry so that it can be
chipped off. Then, the artist must start all over again.

Fresco work from the ancient Mediterranean, China, India, and Mexico still exists.
Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling during the Italian Renaissance is an example
of fresco.

Raphael created The School of Athens (Image 7.3 of your textbook). This naturalistic
representation, also a fresco, was created for Pope Julius II in the Vatican Palace. The image
includes both Plato and Aristotle, who represent the two schools of philosophy.

Tempera
Tempera is an aqueous medium. It shares some similarities with oil paint. When it’s dry, it’s
tough and insoluble. Unlike oil paints, tempera colors remain bright over time. Tempera’s
vehicle is an emulsion, or a stable mix of an aqueous liquid with an oil, fat, wax, or resin. Egg
yolk is the most commonly used emulsion in tempera paints. Tempera dries quickly, so once a
color is applied, it can’t be blended easily with others. Tempera is commonly used by gradually
building up fine hatching and cross-hatching. From a traditional view, tempera was used on
wood panels prepared with gesso, a mix of white pigment and glue that seals the wood. Then, it
could be sanded to a smooth finish.

Tempera was commonly used in the fifteenth century but fell out of use until around the
nineteenth century. Artists can now buy prepared tempera paints or they can make their own
using pigments and an emulsion. If you make your own tempera paints, make only enough that
you can use in a single sitting because the paints don’t keep well.

Oil
Oil paints are pigments that are compounded with an oil. In the past, the commonly used oils
were linseed oil, poppy seed oil, and walnut oil. Now, the oil chosen for commercially
manufactured oil paints depends on whether darker or lighter pigments are used. For darker
pigments, linseed oil is commonly used. For lighter pigments, poppy seed or safflower oils are
used because they don’t turn yellow over time. These oils dry at room temperature. When the oil
dries, the pigment particles are suspended in the clear, dry oil film.

In western Europe, oil was used as an artistic medium as early as the twelfth century, but didn’t
become popular until the fifteenth century. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the use of oil paints was
eclipsed by the invention of acrylic paint.
When you view and critique historic or older oil paintings, it’s important to remember that over
time, colors that were once vibrant may have dulled or become yellowed. Consider the ways that
time has changed the painting. That’s one reason why lighter pigments are now mixed with only
certain types of oils—so they won’t yellow.

When oil painting was initially introduced, the common surface used was wood. Over time,
people began to adopt the use of canvas. Canvas, when compared to wood, had two distinct
advantages:

1. Canvas was lightweight even when it was large. Large paintings were coming into style,
and canvas was lighter than wood and could be stretched to almost any size.
2. Canvas could be rolled up to ship to patrons easily after the painting was complete.
Oil paint dries very slowly, which makes it easier to manipulate and mix than some other media.
You can put colors next to each other and blend them. It’s also easier to scrape off oil paint if
there’s a mistake that needs to be corrected. Different thicknesses of paint can be applied. An
extremely thin application of paint is known as a glaze.

Often, artists who work with oil paints start by planning the composition in advance, considering
all of the details. Then, the image is built up methodically by applying layers of opaque paints
and glazes.

Of course, some artists use a technique known as alla prima, Italian for “at first,” which is also
known as direct painting or wet-on-wet. Opaque colors are applied to the white ground. It’s a
more spontaneous form of oil painting.

Watercolor, Gouache, and Similar Media

Watercolor is made up of a pigment, water, and gum arabic, which acts as a binder. Paper is the
most common surface used with watercolor. Historically, watercolors were used for smaller
works because they’re easy to transport and only require water; a person who enjoyed this
medium could use it practically anywhere.

Watercolors are known for their transparency. They’re used in thin, translucent washes. To build
up the darker colors, the artist must use several layers. This creates depth, but the colors don’t
become completely opaque. If white is needed in a painting, it’s not usually applied; rather, the
white of the paper is used.

Gouache is a watercolor medium that also has an inert white pigment added to it. The purpose of
this pigment is to make the colors opaque rather than transparent. Gouache dries fast with a
uniform finish.

Traditional Chinese artists painted with black ink. Mixing an oily soot with animal glue creates a
doughy paste that’s molded and allowed to harden into an ink stick. This is then ground into a
powder and used with water. Other colors besides black can be created and used. Some of the
pigments create transparent colors like watercolors. Some create opaque colors like gouache.
Traditional artists in India and in Islamic countries also use ink and colors. Ink is made in the
similar method as traditional Chinese art techniques. The paints are made by grinding pigments
into water and then using a binder like animal glue or gum arabic. Painters from these traditions
usually prefer opaque, gouache-like colors.

Acrylic
Acrylics use an acrylic resin vehicle that’s polymerized through emulsion in water. When it
dries, the paint is tough, flexible, and waterproof. Chemists first created acrylic paint in the
1930s. By the 1950s, acrylics had greatly improved and began to challenge oils as the principal
medium for Western paintings.

Acrylics can be used to mimic oil paint, watercolor, gouache, and tempera. They can be layered
heavily like oils (in a style known as impasto) or they can be diluted like watercolors. Like
tempera, they dry fast, so many artists who use acrylics keep their brushes in water while they
work. Without doing this, it can be close to impossible to get the dried acrylic paint from their
brushes.

Painting and Beyond: Off the Wall

An easel is a portable stand that helps artists prop up their work. Easel paintings became
prominent during the Renaissance and still dominate Western painting traditions. Yet, easels
aren’t a requirement for painting.

In the 1940s, Jackson Pollock created paintings without an easel. He put his canvas on the floor
as he splattered and dripped the paint onto it from above. In the 1960s, Lynda Benglis went
further by just pouring pigmented latex directly onto the floor. You can see Benglis using this
method in Image 7.13 of your textbook. She referred to her work as “fallen paintings.” Other
artists paint on glass, wood, soil, and even Styrofoam.

Painting without Paint

Some artists challenge the idea that a painting is a painting because it uses paint. Mark Bradford
used paper, photocopies, acrylic gels, carbon paper, and other materials to create Black Venus.
Bradford refers to his work as paintings because he uses stretched canvas support, and he says
that he uses the same concepts involved in painting.

Channing Hansen is another artist who creates paintings without paint. He creates knit paintings
out of yarn. He spins and dyes the yarn and then knits based on a computer algorithm that creates
the pattern. He takes his finished textiles and adds them to a stretched canvas.

Digital artists like Petra Cortright can emulate the look of paint using a computer, as in Image
7.15.
Mosaic and Tapestry
With paintings growing in popularly during the Renaissance, there were two main techniques for
two-dimensional images: mosaic and tapestry. Mosaics are made of small, closely spaced
particles that are embedded in a binder like mortar or cement. The particles are known
as tessera (singular) and tesserae (plural). Each particle contributes a small patch of pure color
in the image. The farther away you stand from the image, the more in focus it becomes. Mosaics
are great for walls and ceilings, but are sturdy enough to be used on floors and outdoors, as they
can stand up to the weather. In ancient Greece, floor mosaics were made with small pebbles.
Later, tesserae were made from natural materials like colored marble. Some were manufactured
from glass.

Tapestry is actually a weaving technique, but the term is also used to denote wall hangings that
are created using the technique. Weaving occurs when two sets of threads are held perpendicular
to one another and interlaced. One set of threads is known as the warp. These threads are held
tight by the loom and create the basic shape of the tapestry. The thread that runs through the
warp is known as the weft. The weft creates the image shown in the tapestry.

Key Points
 Paint includes pigment, a binder, and it needs a liquid “vehicle” that holds the pigment
particles together but doesn’t dissolve them.
 Paints diluted with water are considered aqueous media like acrylics. Nonaqueous
mediums like oil paints are often diluted with turpentine or mineral spirits.
 Encaustic and fresco have both been used since ancient times. Encaustic pigments are
mixed with wax and resin. When heated, the paint can be easily applied and as it cools it
hardens.
 Fresco pigments are mixed with water and usually applied to plaster such as a wall. When
it is applied to dry plaster, its fresco secco and buon fresco when it's applied to wet
plaster.
 Tempera is an aqueous medium. It's tough and insoluble when it’s dry and colors remain
bright over time. Its vehicle is an emulsion, or a stable mix of an aqueous liquid with an
oil, fat, wax, or resin.
 Oil paints are pigments that are compounded with an oil such as linseed or sunflower. Oil
paints are slow drying, easy to blend and can be applied in a range of consistencies.
 Watercolor is made up of a pigment, water, and a binder and is known for its
transparency. While gouache is like watercolor but with an inert white pigment added to
it to make the colors opaque.
 Ink used in painting is made from an oily soot with animal glue molded and hardened
into a stick then ground into a powder and used with water. Acrylics are synthetic and
use an acrylic resin that is polymerized in water and mimics other paint mediums.

Describe the Techniques of Printmaking

 Prints
Read the following section. Then read Chapter 8 in your textbook.

A print is the result of making an image appear on a surface. Many types of projects qualify as
prints. This section introduces the vocabulary and some of the processes that fall under the
category of prints.

How Prints are Made

A matrix is the surface on which a design is prepared before being transferred via pressure to the
receiving surface. For instance, a common craft made by small children is handprint turkeys on
paper. The art teacher coats the child’s hand in paint so the child can make a print. The child’s
prepared hand is the matrix, the object that makes the print. When the child’s hand is pressed on
the paper, an image of the hand appears. The image left by the matrix is referred to as
an impression. Because a matrix can create many impressions, printing is referred to as an “art of
multiples.”

When printing services were industrialized, it became easier to create multiple copies of a single
work. The ability to create mass productions made it easier for people to own replicas of art and
to purchase art books. Yet, this did something else for the art world: It created value for original
works versus reprints and mass productions. So, just how do you distinguish between the original
print of an artist and a commercial reproduction? Sometimes it’s obvious. If you visit certain
reproduction websites, they’re very clear that the copies they sell are reproductions. If you go to
a museum and visit the gift shop, it’s clear that a poster on thin paper that costs you $19.95 isn’t
the original work. It’s important to understand the two principles differentiating originals and
reproductions:

1. The artist performs or oversees the printing process and examines each impression for
quality. The artist will sign each impression that’s approved. The impressions rejected by
the artist must be destroyed.
2. There may be a limited number of impressions made. This number is known as
an edition. The artist will write that number on each approved impression. So, if there
were 100 editions and the artist just approved the fifth print, it would be marked 5/100.
When all copies from the edition are created, the printing surface is either canceled (or
destroyed. When it is canceled, the surface is scratched so that it cannot be used to make
more prints.
Those signed and numbered editions are worth more than reprints that you might find online
from another merchant.

Printing has existed for hundreds of years. Three historical methods were used for creating art
prints: relief, intaglio, and lithography. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, screen-
printing and digital inkjets joined the ranks of printmaking.
Relief
In printing, relief is a method where the image to be printed is raised from the background.
Rubber stamps that say “Paid” or “Canceled” create relief prints. Besides rubber stamps, the
most common material used for relief printing is wood. Woodcut, wood engraving, and linocut
are all examples of relief printing.

Woodcut
A woodcut is created when an artist draws the image on a block of wood, then cuts away areas
that the artist doesn’t want to print. The image the artist wants stands out as a relief. The block is
inked and then pressed onto a surface to create the print.

Woodcut relief printing is a historical and impressive form of printing. In Image 8.2, you’ll see
the earliest surviving woodcut image. Made in China around 868 CE, the image is the preface to
the Diamond Sutra (a book revered in Buddhism). Only one copy of it exists, and it’s 18 feet
long.

Woodblocks were used in Europe to print patterns onto textiles as early as the sixth century CE,
but until the introduction of paper printing, it wasn’t a very practical use. Once paper printing
was used, around the fifteenth century, Europe went through its “information revolution” with
the invention of the printing press and movable type. It became much faster and easier to collect,
print, and give out information.

China took woodcut printing to the next level a century before Europe started printing with paper
in the fifteenth century. The Chinese began to print using multiple blocks, enabling them to print
images in full color. In the eighteenth century, the Japanese continued to improve on the
rudimentary printing and made some of the famous prints shown in Images 2.22, 3.27, and 19.35
in your textbook.

Woodblock printmaking has largely disappeared with advances in technology. Today,

photography and lithography have taken its place.

Wood Engraving
Wood engraving uses a block of wood as a matrix. The matrix is created on the surface by
cutting into the wood. It’s then sanded smooth and worked with finely pointed engraving tools to
add detail.

Wood engraving tools create fine, narrow channels that will leave white lines when the work is
inked and printed. In Skeletons as Artisans (Image 8.5), the fine white lines within shaded areas
were created by the fine cuts of engraving tools.

Linocut
A linocut, also referred to as a linoleum cut, is similar in nature to a woodcut. However,
linoleum is much softer than wood, making it easier to cut, but limiting the number of good
impressions that can be produced. A linocut wears down much faster than a woodcut.

Intaglio
Intaglio, Italian for “to cut,” includes several methods. It’s the opposite of a relief in that the
areas that will be printed are cut into the printing plate. This is done by the use of a sharp tool or
acid to make the lines in the metal plate. When the plate is inked, the ink goes into the
depressions made. Then, the surface is wiped off, leaving the ink in the depressions. Dampened
paper is put into contact with the plate with pressure. The paper is pressed into those depressions
and the ink is lifted. There are six common types of intaglio printing:

1. Engraving
2. Drypoint
3. Mezzotint
4. Etching
5. Aquatint
6. Photogravure
Engraving. The oldest intaglio technique is engraving, which involves cutting lines and designs
into a surface. It was developed from the medieval practice of cutting linear designs into armor
and other metals. The burin is the sharp, V-shaped tool that’s used to make cuts in metal.
Shallow cuts produce a thin line. Deeper cuts create thicker and darker lines. Engraving is
closely related to drawing with pen and ink in both technique and the final visual product. In
both drawing and engraving, shading and modeling are created by the use of hatching, cross-
hatching, and stippling.

Engraving was the primary way that works of art were reproduced until the nineteenth century,
when lithography and photography became more common. Professional engravers were
extraordinarily talented. They made copies of drawings, paintings, statues, and even architecture.

Albrecht Dürer was one of the greatest Renaissance printmakers. He considered himself a
painter, but it was his printmaking that gave him fame and produced most of his income.
Between 1513 and 1514, he created three prints that were so technically and artistically
sophisticated that they became known as the Master Prints. Image 8.8 in your textbook depicts
one of those engravings, Knight, Death, and the Devil.

Drypoint. Drypoint is the same process as engraving, but the cutting instrument used is called
a drypoint needle. The artist uses the drypoint needle on the plate (usually made from copper)
almost as easily as using a pencil on paper. The needle scratches into the plate, creating an
incised line and a rough ridge that will hold the ink. The burr (the rough ridge) can be kept in
place for a soft, slightly blurred line, or smoothed away to create a fine, delicate line.

Mezzotint. Mezzotint is a method that produces finely graded tonal areas in gray. Mezzotint was
created by a seventeenth-century artist in the Netherlands, Ludwig von Siegen. He created a print
and sent it to the king along with a letter that said, “there is not a single engraver, a single artist
of any kind, who can account for, or guess how this work is done.”
Mezzotint works from dark to light as opposed to other methods that apply darker tones to a
lighter surface. First, the artist prepares the mezzotint plate by roughening it with a sharp tool
known as a rocker. If inked and printed at this point, the print would produce nothing but a black
print. This is because the rough parts of the plate hold all of the ink. Lighter tones are created by
the artist by smoothing out some of those rough spots with a burnisher, so that the ink isn’t
trapped in those areas. Artists can also scrape the burrs from the surface to make it smooth. The
lightest areas in the print are where the burrs were smoothed away entirely.

Etching. Etching is performed with acid. The acid eats into the metal plate, creating lines and
depressions. First, the artist must coat the printing plate in an acid-resistant ground, usually made
from beeswax, asphalt, and other materials. The artist uses an etching needle to draw on the
plate. Then, the plate is dipped into acid. The acid eats only into the places not covered by the
ground; that is, the area where the artist used the etching needle to scratch away some of the
ground.

Etching isn’t as precise as engraving because acid can often act in unusual ways. However, as
you can see in Rembrandt van Rijn’s Christ Preaching from 1652 (Image 8.11 in your
textbook), the technique can be astoundingly beautiful.

Aquatint. Aquatint, a variation of the etching process, gives flat areas of tones, like grays or
other intermediate colors. The process was developed around 1650 by Jan van de Velde, a Dutch
printmaker. However, the technique wasn’t particularly well-known until two French
printmaking manuals included it more than 100 years after its creation.

An artist must first prepare a plate for aquatint by dusting it with a fine, powdered resin. Then,
the plate is heated to make the resin stick to it. Resin is acid resistant, much like the ground
mentioned for etching. Once dipped in the acid bath, the areas without the resin will hold ink.
The longer the plate is left in the acid, the deeper the impressions will be, the more ink they’ll
hold, and the darker the print will be.

Aquatints can create multiple tones, as you can see in Image 8.12. However, the artist must work
in stages. For areas that aren’t touched by the acid to be white on the paper, they must be stopped
out, which means those areas are painted with an acid-resistant varnish. Then the plate is dipped
into acid until the acid bites deep enough into the plate to create the lightest tone. Those areas are
stopped out and then the plate is returned to the acid until the bite is deep enough for the second
lightest tone. This is done over and over again until all of the desired tones can be achieved.
Then, the resin and the stop are washed off with a solvent so that the plate is ready to be inked
and printed.

One of the interesting facts about aquatint is that it doesn’t have to be used by itself. It’s often
combined with other intaglio techniques to create amazing works. Combining techniques helps
artists create any look they want.

Photogravure. Photogravure is an etching technique that was developed in the nineteenth

century. Similar to mezzotint, photogravure enables the artist to create several tones. It’s
commonly used in the creation of black and white photos, but is also used for color photos.
A full-size positive transparency of the photo is placed on a sheet of light-sensitized gelatin
tissue and then exposed to a UV light. The gelatin hardens. The more light it’s exposed to, the
harder the gelatin will become. The light passes through the blank area of the transparency. As
the gelatin hardens, it changes the exposure time. Light passing through the gray area of the
gelatin (as it hardens) will have a softer look to it.

When the exposure is complete, the gelatin tissue is attached face down to a copper plate. This
reverses the image. The plate is placed in a warm water bath that causes the paper backing to
loosen and float off. The soft gelatin will dissolve. The hard gelatin will still be attached to the
plate. This creates a low relief of the image.

The gelatin is dusted with resin and the plate is heated to bind the resin to the surface. The plate
is immersed in acid. The bite of the acid will ultimately depend on the thickness of the gelatin.
Where areas are deeply etched (from lower layers of gelatin), you’ll get a darker print. Where
there’s barely any etching, you’ll get pale tones.

Lithography. Lithography, created by a German actor and playwright, Alois Senefelder, is

a planographic process, which uses a flat surface. It’s unlike other intaglio-based printing
processes that are raised or recessed.

First, the artist draws an image on a stone with a grease-based crayon or ink. Then, the stone
goes through several procedures, including treatment with acid. This binds the drawing to the
stone so that it won’t smudge. To print the image, the stone is dampened with water. The water
soaks into the areas that weren’t coated with the grease crayon.

When the stone is inked, the ink sticks to the greasy area. Lithographs don’t just use stones;
they’re also made with zinc or aluminum plates. Printing with multiple colors requires multiple
stones, one for each color.

Screenprinting. Screenprinting is like using a stencil. You place the stencil on the surface and
then fill in the holes. Of course, in art, it becomes a little more complex, but the process is
basically the same. A screen of some kind is used along with ink or paint. The screen is made of
a fine mesh blend of silk or synthetic fibers mounted in a frame. If silk is used, the process is
referred to as silkscreening or serigraphy (silk writing). The printmaker blocks screen areas that
shouldn’t be printed. This is usually done with some type of glue that stops the ink from passing
through. The screen is placed over the surface and ink is forced through the mesh with a
squeegee. The areas that aren’t stopped with glue will have ink forced through to create the print.

For color screenprints, the artist must create a screen for each color. If the artist wanted a blue
area, the screen would stop all the areas except where the blue ink should go. The process is
repeated for each color used.

Monotype. A monotype is a printmaking process that, unlike the other techniques covered in this
section, creates only one print. The artist draws on the surface, usually using diluted oil paints.
The plate is run through a press to transfer the image to paper. The artist could place the paper on
the plate and hand rub it to transfer the image. The original is destroyed or altered so that
duplicates of the print can’t be created.

Using a monotype has advantages and disadvantages. Artists can use an almost unlimited range
of colors. The artist doesn’t have to cut into wood or metal. It’s closer to drawing or painting.
The main disadvantage is that the artist can never be sure how the print will look when it comes
through the press. The colors could blend, contours may soften too much, or brush textures could
look flat.

Inkjet. Inkjet printers used for fine-art printing are more sophisticated than the printers that most
people have in their home. Inkjet printers create an image from a digital file by spraying mists of
ink onto the surface (such as paper). There is no matrix. With the higher-quality inkjet printers
used for art, better colors are used. The ink is fade resistant and doesn’t alter in color over time.

Recent Directions: Printing on the

World
Industrial versions of engraving, lithography, screenprinting, and inkjet printing are used to
create images on practically any surface: balloons, clothing, CDs, packages, wallpaper, decals,
and more.

Key Points
 A print is the result of making an image appear on a surface. The image, referred to as an
impression, is left by a matrix, which is the surface that holds a design before being
transferred via pressure to the receiving surface.
 Relief is a method where the image to be printed is raised from the background such as a
woodcut, wood engraving, or a linocut. With a woodcut, an image on a block of wood is
cut in relief along the grain then inked and pressed on a surface.
 Wood engraving uses a block of wood as a matrix which is sanded smooth. The image is
carved into the wood across the grain using finely pointed tools. When inked and pressed
the image leaves white lines.
 Linocut is similar to a woodcut but uses linoleum which is much softer than wood,
making it easier to cut but limiting the number of good impressions that can be produced.
 Intaglio is the opposite of relief. The areas to be printed are cut into a printing plate and
ink is applied. The ink fills the depressions and when it is pressed onto damp paper the
paper lifts off the ink and an impression is left behind.
 Lithography is a process that uses a flat surface and grease-based crayon or ink to print.
An image created with a greasy crayon is fixed to a flat surface by several processes. A
greasy ink is applied to the damp surface, the ink adheres to the greasy image but is
repelled by the damp areas.
  Screen Printing is made with a screen of some kind, either silk or synthetic is used along
with ink or paint. Areas of the screen not meant to be printed are blocked with glue and
ink is forced through the screen with a squeegee to create the print.
 A monotype creates only one print. The artist draws on the surface, usually using diluted
oil paints. The plate is run through a press or hand rubbed to transfer the image to paper.
The original is destroyed or altered so that duplicates of the print can’t be created.

List Camera and Computer Technologies From

Before and Throughout the Digital Revolution
Camera and Computer Arts
Read the following section. Then read Chapter 9 in your textbook.

Camera and computer arts are relatively new when you consider how long other art forms have
been around. A camera relies on a natural phenomenon that’s been observed for a very long
time: the reflection of light. Light reflected from an object can be used to project an image onto a
surface under controlled circumstances. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that photography
was born. Photography later led to film and video recording. Today, most photography and video
recording is made and edited in a digital format, and the Internet allows artists to share their
work with a wider audience than artists of any previous era.

Photography
The history behind photography is interesting. During the fifth century BCE, Mo Ti, a Chinese
philosopher, noted that light passed through a pinhole opening into a dark chamber would form
an exact view of the world outside, but that the view was upside down. In the eleventh century,
Arab mathematician and physicist, Abu Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham, also known as Alhazen,
conducted an experiment in a dark room. The light from several candles went through the
pinhole in a partition and projected images of the flames onto the surface on the other side.
Alhazen theorized that light travels in straight lines, and that the human eye worked in the same
way as the pinhole projection. Science has since proven that his theories were correct. His
theories were translated and spread through Europe. Scientists continued to study the behavior of
light, yet it wasn’t until the Renaissance that a device was developed based on those principles:
the camera obscura (Latin for “dark room”). During the sixteenth century, artists used the
camera obscura as a drawing tool to help them make more accurate representations in their work.

Still Cameras
A camera is a light-tight box that has an opening at one end to allow in light, a lens to focus and
refract the light, and a light-sensitive surface to hold the image. These elements were all present
in the first camera obscura. Joseph Nicephore Niepce, a French inventor, began to focus on
improving the camera obscura by making it possible to preserve the image that was projected
onto the light-sensitive surface. In 1826, he used a specially coated pewter plate that was able to
record a fuzzy version of the view from his window after he exposed the plate to light for eight
hours. This image is still referred to as Niepce’s “heliograph,” or “sun writing.” It’s thought to
be the first permanent photograph, despite its impractical method.

Niepce—and his son, Isidore, after his death—corresponded with Louis Jacques Mande
Daguerre, who also wanted to improve the camera obscura. They communicated in code to keep
their progress a secret from others. In 1837, Daguerre had a breakthrough; he recorded an image
in his studio that was both clear and sharp. The method was much easier to use than Niepce’s.
Daguerre used a light-sensitive surface, a copper plate coated with silver iodide. He named the
surface the daguerreotype. You can see the image in your textbook, Image 9.3.

Daguerre’s plate needed to be exposed to sunlight for only 10 or 20 minutes, which was much
easier than the 8 hours from Niepce’s heliograph. After Daguerre’s method was made public,
people began to improve on it. A method for fixing the final image so that it didn’t keep
changing in light was invented in England. A more light-sensitive plate coating was created that
reduced exposure time. Vienna birthed a new lens that collected 16 times more light than
previous lenses, which reduced exposure time by another 30 seconds.

Photography became an important way for people to capture portraits. Until the refinements of
the camera, only the wealthy could afford to have portraits, sitting in front of a portrait painter.
Entrepreneurs and businesses understood how the camera would revolutionize access to portraits
—more people would want them and they would be more affordable.

There are some substantial differences between the daguerreotype and modern photography. The
daguerreotype produced a positive image. A positive image has light and dark values that appear
correctly, but the image can’t be reproduced. The plate itself is the photograph. When film
became the most common light-sensitive surface, it produced a negative image. In a negative
image, the light and dark values are reversed. When film is developed, the film itself is called the
“negative.” Negatives can be used over and over again to print positive images on light-sensitive
paper. Negatives were also created out of glass during the middle of the nineteenth century.

One of the most celebrated portraitists of all time was an amateur English photographer named
Julia Margaret Cameron. Cameron photographed Charles Darwin, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, and Lord Tennyson. Despite all of the celebrated individuals with whom she
fellowshipped and photographed, the portrait she is most well-known for is that of her niece,
Julia Jackson. The portrait, shown in Image 9.4 in your textbook, was taken in 1867. Note the
dramatic effects in the image. Instead of sharp focus and even lighting, Cameron used light and
shadow to soften the focus.

The Instant Camera

Although photography improved on the time it took to have a portrait completed compared to
having a portrait painted, it was still more suited for special occasions. Equipment was bulky and
the exposure time could still be long. It wasn’t until the 1880s that exposure time for photos
became less than one second. This advancement enabled photographers to capture life as it
happened.
In 1888, George Eastman developed a camera called a Kodak that changed photography. The
cameras were lightweight and handheld and could be taken anywhere. Eastman’s cameras were
marketed with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.” The cameras used a roll of film
that was large enough to hold 100 photos. The rapid ability to take these images led to the
images being known as “snapshots.” The development of the Kodak and other easy-to-operate
cameras turned photography into a popular hobby. Serious photographers continued to develop
and print their own work, although they enjoyed the portable, lightweight cameras.

Bearing Witness and Documenting

One very important way that photography changed the world was in the number of photos that
could be created and put into circulation. A painter could take weeks, months, or even years to
create a single piece of work. A photo could be reprinted many times quickly thanks to the use of
negatives or, now, digital media. Photography provided a way to record history as it happened.

When you pick up a newspaper or read a digital news site, you see lots of photos. These photos
bear witness to what happened. In the nineteenth century, newspapers were illustrated with wood
engravings or lithographs. Artists were sent out as reporters, and they drew images after the
event occurred. Their images were based on eyewitness accounts of what happened. The first
important conflict that was documented in photography was the Civil War. Yet, the long
exposure times limited the photos to posed portraits and photos of the dead. Action shots still had
to be drawn. Good photos of anything had to be reproduced as engravings or lithography
because, at that time, there wasn’t adequate technology to print photos on regular paper. Around
1900, the first process for photomechanical printing began. With this advancement came the
field of photojournalism, literally documenting through photography.

Photojournalism quickly morphed away from just taking a photo of an event to a way to preserve
history. In Image 9.6, you’ll see an image that you’ve likely seen many times, entitled Migrant
Mother. The photo was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936, during the Great Depression. Lange
was a photographer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Her job was to take pictures to
record the conditions present across the nation for the Farm Security Administration. Lange
focused her work on migrants who had lost their farms due to the Great Depression and
drought. Migrant Mother shows a worried mother with her two young children. Lange never
asked the mother for her name or her history. The FSA gave photos such as Migrant Mother free
to newspapers and magazines.

Photography and Art

The development of photography was important to the art world as well as the world of
journalism. Before photography, sculptors and painters often created artworks that depicted
events happening during their time. After photography was developed and in use, Western artists
were free to take on more abstract work. Now, more than 150 years later, photography is just as
much part of the art world as every other type of art.

Not everyone believes that photography is an art form. Some feel that the detailed objectivity
takes away from the personal expression seen in paintings and other forms of art. Another reason
is that photography is easy to start—anyone can point the camera and press the button.
The Pictorialist movement, one of the most influential movements that wanted photography
accepted as an art form, disagreed with both arguments. Pictorialists used labor-intensive
printing techniques so that they could blur out unwanted details, enhance tonal range, soften the
focus, add highlights, and essentially make their images look more like paintings than
photographs. This movement grew from 1889 until World War I. It successfully proved that
photos could be just as wonderful and expressive as paintings.

The development of abstraction, Cubism, and nonrepresentation began to change both

photographs and paintings alike, morphing them in response to each other. Dadaism was formed
in 1916 as a reaction to the deaths involved in World War I. It rejected the logical nature of the
art of modern capitalism, instead focusing on the nonsensical and abstract. Hannah Höch used
multiple printed images to create Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through Germany’s Last
Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch, shown in Image 9.10. She was commenting on the chaos of
modern city life at the time.

The term “dada” didn’t have a meaning in and of itself because its creators didn’t want to make
sense in traditional ways. In 1918, when the war ended, a dada manifesto was released that called
for art to be made “which has been visibly shattered by the explosions of the last week, which is
forever trying to collect its limbs after yesterday’s crash. The best and most extraordinary artists
will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the frenzied cataract of life.”

Dada influenced Emmanuel Radnitzky, better known as Man Ray. A trained artist, Man Ray got
involved in photography to document his paintings. A year or two later, he began to focus on the
art of photography—although he didn’t actually use a camera. In fact, he threw it away. He went
into the darkroom and experimented with light-sensitive paper. He learned that an object placed
on paper would leave its own shadow in white when the paper was darkened by light exposure.
With this technique, he created what he called the rayograph (also known as the rayogram). He
would do simple things such as move objects over time or suspend them over the paper. He
would shift the light source. This allowed Man Ray to create mysterious works that looked like
photos, but didn’t fit the general idea of what people considered to be a photograph.

Another early complaint against including photography as an art form was that the photos were
in black and white and not in color like paintings. Although there were coloring techniques for
photographers by 1910, it wasn’t until the 1930s that color was widely used. Even then, it was
only used for advertising. It’s partly for this reason that serious photographers still preferred
black and white photos, claiming that color lacked dignity and was only suitable for advertising.
The discourse between the two existed until around the 1960s and 1970s. Now, color
photography is the primary means of making photos.

Many artists and photographers have welcomed the computer as a natural extension of art.
Digital cameras, developed during the 1990s, don’t use film; photos are stored as data. Digital
cameras enabled photojournalists to send photos to newspapers and magazines using an Internet
connection. Artists could get the images they needed and manipulate them into a final image
using photo-editing software.
Film
Artists have tried to create the feeling of motion through their still images all throughout history.
In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge created a solution. A former governor of California, Leland
Stanford, hired Muybridge after Stanford bet a friend $25,000 that a horse at full gallop
sometimes had all four feet off the ground. It’s not something that could be answered by just
watching the horse. Muybridge’s job was to photograph the governor’s racehorses. Muybridge
created a way to take the pictures using 24 cameras connected to a black thread that stretched
across the racecourse. As the horse ran down the track, it snapped the threads, which triggered
the cameras to take the photos. The photos proved that at certain points, a galloping horse will
have all four feet off the ground at the same time.

This encouraged Muybridge to continue to study motion. In 1887, he published Animal

Locomotion, which is considered his most important work. It had 781 plates of people and
animals in motion.

The Origins of Motion Pictures

A motion picture film isn’t really recording motion. Motion pictures show a series of still
pictures at a rate of 24 frames per second. The images appear to move due to persistence of
vision, which means that the brain holds on to an image for a fraction of a second longer than the
time that the eyes were looking at it. This is important because, without it, you’d be constantly
interrupted by momentary darkness when you blink your eyes. For motion pictures, it means that
the brain is holding on to the previous frames while seeing the current frames, creating the image
of full motion.

The motion picture relied on three major developments.

 1888 – George Eastman introduced celluloid film. Celluloid film made it possible for
pictures to be strung together.
 1894 – Thomas Edison’s lab technicians created the first genuine motion picture. It was
only a few seconds long and made on celluloid film. It was titled Fred Ott’s Sneeze. Yes,
it’s about a man who sneezes.
 1895 – Two French brothers with the last name of Lumière (which means “light” in
French) made the first working film projector.
Believe it or not, the interest in motion pictures actually predates the development of the still
camera. In 1832, a toy called the zoopraxiscope was patented in Europe that used multiple still
images in a wheel. Spinning the wheel caused the images to appear to move.

Exploring the Possibilities

Motion pictures were exciting because they provided a way to use visual arts to tell an entire
story. As early as 1902, film makers were looking for ways to include special effects to tell
fantastical stories. A Trip to the Moon, directed by Georges Méliès, was one of the first science
fiction films ever made. The cast creates a “space gun” and shoot themselves into space in what
looks like a giant bullet. They land in the moon’s eye. The travelers battle with aliens and are
taken prisoner. The movie is 14 minutes long and uses painted scenery. Méliès created the film’s
effects using a process called stop motion, where each frame of the special effects sequence had
to be meticulously set up and captured with a photo before setting up for the next frame. When
the film was watched at 24 frames per second, however, it looked like smooth special effects.

Hand-drawn animation works on the same frame-by-frame principle as stop motion. The
difference is that the photos are taken of different cartoons and not of different physical objects.
Animation is time-consuming, taking between 12 and 24 drawings to create just one second of
animation in a movie. A 3-minute cartoon could use up to 4,320 individual drawings.

Editing quickly became a necessity for effective filmmaking. Many filmmakers were concerned
with editing for clarity and continuity. Soviet Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein was more
interested in how editing could be used to be more creative. He looked at how editing could be
used to do things like change the single action down to several shots or alternating shots of
different subjects so that the viewers would understand that a symbolic connection between the
subjects exists.

Using special effects, animation, and editing, the possibilities of film as a visual medium were
identified and explored by the first generation of filmmakers. Since then, there have been huge
technological advances in film, but the essential elements are still the same.

Film and Art

Just like photography, film wasn’t immediately accepted into the art community. During the
1920s, the term “art cinema” came into use. It indicated that an independent movie didn’t use
popular storytelling techniques designed to please an audience. The films were shown by
specialized theaters, cinema societies, and art museums. Yet, with these collaborative efforts,
questions remained:

 Who was the artist?

 Were the actors the artists?
 What about the writers?
 What about the editor?
All were artists in their own way, but the best films, according to the viewers, were the ones that
seemed driven by a single vision. During the 1950s, French film critics determined that the
director was an auteur (French for “author”) when his or her films were marked by a consistent,
individual style, just like you’d see in a traditional artist’s work. The style came about because of
the director’s control.

One such auteur was Andy Warhol, who wrote and directed more than 60 films in addition to his
renowned painting career. Warhol’s films challenged viewers’ preconceived notions of film as
art, such as his Empire (1964), which is an eight-hour recording of the Empire State Building.

Video
Video took images in motion and made them available to the general public. The ability to make
videos became incredibly popular with consumers in the 1960s. A video camera converts a
moving image into electronic signals. Those signals transmit to a monitor. The monitor decodes
them and puts them back together as an image to be displayed. The television is the most famous
monitor for video. The television was first demonstrated in 1939 at the New York World’s Fair.
By 1950, it was a standard fixture in American homes.

Artists quickly took to video for several reasons:

 Video can be recorded and immediately played back on a monitor.

 It eliminates the wait for film to be developed.
 Monitors work well for small spaces such as galleries.
Digital video became available in the 1990s. Later advances allowed digital video to be stored on
drives, tapes, or discs, and projected onto a surface. Digital video gives artists the same tools for
editing that are available to filmmakers.

The Internet
The Internet provides a way to create, store, and look at images without a material form. Web
browsers and apps allow viewers to look at video, film, photography, and other forms of art
anywhere in the world.

Key Points
 The history of photography begins with the camera obscura (Latin for “dark room”). It
was a light-tight box with an opening at one end to allow in light, a lens to focus and
refract the light, and a light-sensitive surface to hold the image.
 The camera was used as a drawing tool for making more accurate representations in
artwork until inventors made it possible to preserve an image that was projected onto a
light-sensitive surface such as the daguerreotype.
 The Kodak camera changed photography. The cameras were lightweight, handheld, and
were loaded with a roll of film that held 100 “snapshot” photos. Soon photography
provided a way to record history as it happened through photojournalism, literally
documenting through photography.
 A motion picture film isn’t really recording motion. Motion pictures show a series of still
pictures at a rate of 24 frames per second that appear to move due to the persistence of
vision, where the brain holds onto an image for a fraction of a second longer than the
time that the eyes were looking at it.
 Major developments in motion picture were: celluloid film, which made it possible for
pictures to be strung together and the first working film projector. Special effects,
animation, and editing, the possibilities of film as a visual medium were identified and
explored by the first generation of filmmakers.
  Video took images in motion and made them available to the general public. A video
camera converts a moving image into electronic signals which are transmitted to a
monitor. The television is the most famous monitor for video.
 The Internet provides a way to create, store, and look at images without a material form.
Web browsers and apps allow viewers to look at video, film, photography, and other
forms of art anywhere in the world.

Explain Graphic Design and Its Goal

of Conveying a Specific Message
Graphic Design
Read the following section. Then read Chapter 10 in your textbook.

Most forms of art leave interpretation of the art up to the audience. The intent of graphic
design is to limit the interpretation of the graphic as much as possible. A graphic designer
communicates a specific message; success of the design is measured by how well the message is
conveyed.

Graphic designers try to present information visually, in words or images. Book covers,
newspapers, magazines, advertisements, packaging, images on a website, CD covers, even what
you see on TV or in a movie are all examples of graphic design.

The practice of graphic design is as old as recorded history. The development of written
language is a form of graphic design. Letters are just designed symbols that represent certain
sounds.

The Industrial Revolution increased the use of graphic design as the public began to purchase
goods that were created in factories. Those factories needed to capture their share of the market,
so they made ads. As more and more brands hit the market, graphic design remains a vital part of
society.

Signs and Symbols

At the simplest level, humans communicate through symbols. Children often learn to read not
just with phonics, but with sight words. They simply memorize the look of certain letters
together and learn that it represents a certain word (that also represents an object). Letters are
also symbols that represent sounds. So, when people learn to read through phonics, they’re still
learning to read through the use of symbols, a type of visual communication.

Symbols convey information or ideas. For example, Image 10.1 in your textbook shows an
image of a “children at play” traffic sign. Some signs refer to simple concepts, while others
embody a history of complex associations. Image 10.2 shows the LGBT flag created by Gilbert
Baker, who turned to nature and used the rainbow as a positive symbol for the community. This
flag is now universally seen as a symbol of inclusion and acceptance.

But what idea does the swastika represent? In 3,000 BCE in Central Asia and India, a swastika
was used as a symbol meaning good luck. In Sanskrit, the symbol means “good fortune.” The
symbol is still used in those two areas in the modern day. It wasn’t until the 1930s when it was
used by the Nazis that the swastika took on its now infamous meaning of fascism, hate, and
atrocities. The history of the swastika teaches an important lesson related to symbols: The ideas
behind them can drastically change.

One of the most common jobs of a graphic designer is to create visual symbols. All of the
symbols that you see on street signs, at bus terminals, and even at airports were created by
graphic designers. Logos are other common visual symbols that graphic designers must create. A
logo on its own means nothing; the way that a company conducts itself ultimately gives the logo
meaning. Yet the logo is still a fundamental element. It’s how people recognize a brand; it’s the
brand’s visual presence.

Companies who hire a graphic designer to create a logo provide guidelines for typography,
colors, images, and even layout. Typography is the arrangement and appearance of printed letter
forms. Fonts are a good example of typography. When you open a Word document and select
Times New Roman, you’re choosing a certain form of type. When you choose Comic Sans,
you’re choosing a different form of type.

Most designs are centered on a wordmark or logotype, a standard text logo. Image 10.5 in your
book shows several representations of wordmarks, including the ABC logo and the Toyota name.
They use standardized fonts, colors, and shapes to symbolize their brand.

Typography and Layout

Calligraphy is a form of writing that’s used as an art in many countries and in many cultures.
The Westernized alphabet ultimately became mass-produced as a typeface, or a style of type.
Times New Roman and Calibri are two popular typefaces.

All sorts of typefaces are available for personal and commercial use. The typeface chosen by
graphic designers isn’t just for ease of reading by the audience (although that’s an important
factor). It’s also chosen to evoke a certain feeling in the viewer. Other considerations include the
size of the design and any other graphics that will be used. The consideration of typefaces, sizes,
and other design elements is collectively known as layout. Layout isn’t necessarily done in just
one round of design. Redesigns may have to be done in order to clear up any issues. The layout
is the designer’s blueprint for an extended work in print, such as a book or magazine. For
instance, the words in your textbook are arranged in a column. Newspapers are arranged in
multiple columns.
Word and Image
Starting in the early fifteenth century, designs and printing were offered by printers. Broadsides,
printed on a single sheet, were often handed out to townspeople and posted in public spaces.
They could advertise political or religious arguments, festivals, or images of civic or religious
leaders. Broadsides are the direct ancestor to advertising, posters, leaflets, brochures,
newspapers, and magazines.

In the nineteenth century, color lithography was used to develop posters. They were quite eye-
catching, since it wasn’t practical to use color in magazines or newspapers at that time. Now,
there are all sorts of graphics, video, and music editing programs that allow anyone to create
their own advertisements that look highly professional.

Motion and Interactivity

Graphic design isn’t limited to still imagery. Words and images used in film titles, television
programs, and advertisements are all designed by graphic designers. With the development of
digital media, designers also began to design for interaction with a target audience. This created
part of the user experience. When it comes to interaction, one challenge is how to create visual
clarity from the amount of data that computers are able to process.

Graphic Design and Art

Many art museums maintain collections of graphic design. Graphic design overlaps with
traditional art in many ways. Artists have sometimes worked as graphic designers, and graphic
designers may also make traditional art. Graphic designers continue the original task that was
assigned to the artist long ago: convey a message that’s clear and convincing. Today, graphic
designers have the technology to create a visual elegance that portrays the desired message.

Key Points
 Graphic designers try to present information visually, in words or images to communicate
a specific message.
 Humans naturally communicate through symbols. A graphic designer’s job is often to
create visual symbols such as logos which is how people recognize a brand even if on its
own the symbol means nothing; it’s the brand’s visual presence.
 The design of typefaces continues to be an important and often highly specialized field.
Typeface is chosen not just for ease of reading but also to evoke a certain feeling in the
viewer.
 The consideration of typefaces, sizes, and other design elements is collectively known as
layout. The layout is the designer’s blueprint for an extended work in print, such as a
book or magazine.
 Broadsides are the direct ancestor of advertising, posters, leaflets, brochures, newspapers,
and magazines. Later, color lithography was used to develop posters. Now, all sorts of
graphics, video, and music editing programs allow anyone to create their own highly
professional looking advertisements.
 Graphic design isn’t limited to still imagery. Words and images used in film titles,
television programs, and advertisements are all designed by graphic designers. Now as a
part of the user experience designers are designing interactions with a target audience.