Relief printing

Discussant: Justine Mae Dipad

Course & Section: BEED-1B
Relief printing is a printmaking process where protruding surface faces of the printing plate or
block are inked; recessed areas are ink free. Printing the image is therefore a relatively simple
matter of inking the face of the matrix and bringing it in firm contact with the paper. A printing-
press may not be needed as the back of the paper can be rubbed or pressed by hand with a
simple tool such as a brayer or roller. The matrix in relief printing is classically created by
starting with a flat original surface, and then removing away areas intended to print white. The
remaining areas of the original surface receive the ink. The relief family of techniques includes
woodcut, metal cut, wood engraving, relief etching, linocut, and some types of collagraph.
Traditional text printing with movable type is also a relief technique. This meant that woodcuts
were much easier to use as book illustrations, as they could be printed together with the text.
Intaglio illustrations, such as engravings, had to be printed separately. Relief printing is one of
the traditional families of printmaking techniques, along with the intaglio and planographic
families.
Woodcuts: Type of Printmaking
Woodcut, the oldest technique used in fine art printmaking, is a
form of relief printing. The artist's design or drawing is made on a
piece of wood (usually beechwood), and the untouched areas are
then cut away with gouges, leaving the raised image which is
then inked. Woodcut prints are produced by pressing the selected
medium (usually paper) onto the inked image. If colour is used,
separate wood blocks are required. Woodcut printing is
sometimes referred to as xylography or a xylographic
process (from the Greek words 'xulon' for wood and 'graphikos for
writing/drawing), although these terms are commonly reserved
for text prints.
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
(1497-8) Woodcut by Albrecht Durer,
the greatest printmaker in Germany
and undoubtedly one of the finest
Northern Renaissance artists.
Linocut, also called linoleum cut, type of print made from a
sheet of linoleum into which a design has been cut in relief.
This process of printmaking is similar to woodcut, but, since
linoleum lacks a grain, linocuts can yield a greater variety of
effects than woodcuts can. Linocut designs can be cut in large
masses, engraved to give supple white lines, or worked in
numerous ways to achieve many different textures. The ease
with which linoleum is worked makes it admirably suited to
large decorative prints, using broad areas of flat colour.
Linocut sample
A metalcut or metal engraving (the borderline between both
techniques is a narrow one) are both forms of relief printing and
are cut by hand on metal blocks. The choice of name depends on
whether the result is more like a woodcut or a wood engraving.
During the first hundred years of European printing,
particularly in Germany in the late fifteenth century, craftsmen
occasionally used metal instead of wood for relief prints. This
form of metalcut is called the metalcut in dotted manner (see
elsewhere on this blog).
The first picture is a detail
from a late fifteenth-century
German metal cut, which
show that the metal plate was
mounted on a piece of wood.
The head of one of the nails
that held the plates on the
wood can be seen above the
halo. The difference between
the engraved lines and the
punched dots and patterns is
obvious.