Graphic prints

The essentials

A print is an image made by transferring ink from a prepared surface (block, plate, stone or screen) onto paper. Because the surface can be inked again, many copies called impressions or an edition can be made. Each impression is considered an original work. Printmaking grew in modern India through art schools at Santiniketan, Baroda, Delhi and elsewhere.

Key points

• Relief printing: areas not to be printed are cut away; ink sits on the raised surface. Examples: woodcut, linocut, wood engraving.
• Intaglio printing: lines are cut or bitten into a metal plate; ink fills the grooves and is pressed onto damp paper. Examples: engraving, etching (using acid), drypoint (scratching with a needle), aquatint (for tonal areas).
• Planographic printing: the image is on a flat surface; works on the principle that grease and water do not mix. Example: lithography.
• Stencil printing: ink is pushed through a screen or cut-out stencil. Example: serigraphy (screen printing).
• Raja Ravi Varma's press produced oleographs (coloured lithographs) of his paintings.
• Mukul Dey: early Indian printmaker known for drypoint etchings.
• Haren Das: woodcuts and wood engravings of rural Bengal.
• Chittaprosad: powerful linocuts and drawings on the Bengal famine and the lives of the poor.
• Krishna Reddy: worked at Atelier 17 in Paris and developed viscosity printing, in which inks of different stickiness are applied to one plate to print several colours at once.
• Somnath Hore: "Wounds" series of paper pulp prints.
• Other noted printmakers: Jyoti Bhatt, Anupam Sud, Lalu Prasad Shaw.

Exam tips

• Relief = raised surface; intaglio = grooves; planographic = flat; stencil = through a screen.
• Viscosity printing = Krishna Reddy.

Common mistakes

• Thinking a print is only a copy of a painting; it is an original medium, though the image prints in reverse from the block or plate.