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106 – GRAPAHIC COMMUNICATIONS BACKGROUND 1 R08/02

In a general sense, the term graphic arts in-cludes all forms of artistic visual representationexecuted on a two-dimensional surface by suchmeans as painting, drawing, or photography. Morespecifically, the term is a synonym forprintmaking. In this application, the graphic artsinclude all works of art that begin with an originalimpression of any kind of imagery or design ex-ecuted by the artist and intended to be reproducedby any one of a number of printing processes.

The most important printing processes usedby fine artists are drypoint etching, lithography,photographic processes, silk-screen, and others.These media include a wide variety of techniquesused to achieve different effects. They includemethods that stress tone and color, as in aqua-tint and mezzotint, but it is drawing that has beenmost basic to the graphic arts.

Most woodcuts and etchings begin with theengraving of drawn images or designs by cutting,scraping, or gouging with a variety of tools intothe surface of woods, metals, or other materials.In an intaglio print the design cut into the surfaceis reproduced, whereas in the relief print theraised portion is printed. Engraving generallyrefers to all techniques that use the burin, or in-cising tool, to cut into the wood or metal surface,whereas etching is the use of a resined surfaceand acid to bite into the copper, zinc, or other metalplate to produce the image. Lithography and silk-screen printing reproduce images that are drawnor stenciled on a surface.

WoodcutThe woodcut is the oldest form of printmak-

ing; it can be traced back to ancient Egypt,Babylonia, and China, where wooden stampswere used to make decorative patterns or sym-bols in wax or clay. In the 2nd century AD paperwas developed in China, and wood blocks werebrought into use to create book illustrations,mostly Buddhist religious images. In the 6th cen-

tury these religious images were introduced toJapan, where woodcuts became a highly devel-oped artistic medium during the 17th century.Japanese woodcuts achieved their greatest re-finements in the masterful, multicolored 18th- and19th-century ukiyo-e prints that depict primarilylandscapes and scenes of everyday life. Theirideas of symbolism, flat decorative patterns, andasymmetrical composition had great influence on19th-century European art.

In the West woodcuts were used extensivelyin Europe during the 14th century to print textiles.The woodcut was developed as a pictorial art innorthern Europe at the end of the 14th century. InGermany, France, and Italy the process was usedto make simple religious pictures for mass dis-tribution. Early examples were flat and decora-tive and were executed by skilled craftsmen afterthe original designs by painters and sculptors.With the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century, woodcuts began to be used morefor book illustration.

During the same period, a woodcut tech-nique that creates strong contrasts of light andshade by using several blocks, one of which printsdeep shadows and the others, moderated shadesof a single color was developed.

Woodcut declined as a fine art after the mid-16th century, when it was replaced by line engrav-ing and etching. During the late 19th century,however, it had its greatest revival, chiefly in theworks of Frenchmen Paul Gauguin and FelixVallotton and the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.Unlike most previous woodcuts--which had beenreproductions of the drawings of the masters bycraftsmen--these were executed by the artiststhemselves. The symbolist Gauguin, mainly in-fluenced by Japanese woodcuts and the primi-tive art of the South Seas, produced many of hisgreatest woodcuts in the South Pacific, for ex-ample. Munch produced psychologically power-ful, visionary colored woodcuts of rhythmic line.

INTRODUCTION TO GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS

A GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS

BACKGROUND

Section No.

106

R08/02 2 106 – Community College of Southern Nevada

He had great influence on the German expres-sionists, who closely followed the tradition of theGerman medieval woodcut.

Related to the art of woodcut are PabloPicasso's linocuts (using linoleum blocks) of the1950s, the wood engravings of AmericanLeonard Baskin, and the cellocuts (using plasticplates) developed by Boris Margo. New tech-niques and forms have kept woodcut a vital me-dium in contemporary art.

Engraving and EtchingThe technique of engraving metal surfaces

with pictorial designs dates back to classical an-tiquity and was practiced continually throughoutthe Middle Ages by such skilled craftsmen asgoldsmiths and armorers. The engraved andenameled plaques of the Klosterneuburg (1181)by Nicholas of Verdun are a prime example ofthe highly developed sculptural style of metalworkthat had evolved in the Meuse Valley since theCarolingian period.

The earliest datable engravings on paper arefrom c.1430 and show the influence of the Flemishmasters of the period. The German artist MartinSchongauer was the first printmaker, who was alsoa painter, to gain acclaim for his finely detailed, lateGothic engravings. Also of the same period wasthe Master of the Housebook who pioneered thetechnique known as drypoint to achieve prints of asketchy spontaneity, which prefigure the work ofRembrandt.

The greatest etcher of the 17th century, andperhaps the greatest in the entire history of art,was the Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn. Hisstyle of dramatic, rich, dark tones executed witha vigorous spontaneity is exemplified in his al-most 300 etchings of landscapes.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries,the great Spanish painter Francisco de Goyaproduced several series of powerful black-and-white etchings of grotesque figures, which sati-rized the contemporary social situation. Goya'sneobaroque style of great individual visionarystrength was derived from those of DiegoValazquez and Rembrandt.

LithographyThe earliest lithographic process was devel-

oped (1796-98) by the German playwright AloisSenefelder, whose main objective was the inex-pensive duplication of his works. His partners,Philipp and Johann Andre, introduced the tech-nique in England, where linear works on the litho-graphic stone were done by William Blake, HenryFuseli, and Benjamin West. The ability of lithog-raphy to reproduce a more expressive line wasused to its best advantage in the 19th century bythe French. The celebrated posters of Henri deToulouse-Lautrec are among the finest examplesof 19th-century French lithography. Lautrec'slithographs--like some of the finest works ofPierre Bonnard, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet,and Edouard Vuillard--are highly colored works,greatly influenced by Japanese prints.

In the United States Currier and Ives JamesAudubon and Joseph Pennell are outstanding inthe area of 19th-century lithography, followed bysuch 20th-century artists as Arthur B. Davies andGeorge Bellpows.

Screen PrintingThe technique of screen printing originated

during the Middle Ages in the art of stencil print-ing of China and Japan, where it was practicedwith great delicacy and intricacy. Until the 20thcentury, screen printing was a decorative andcommercial medium, used to enhance fabrics,wallpaper, furnishings, and advertising. In the1930s, however, it was seen as a legitimatemeans of artistic expression by American artistsworking for the Works Progress Administration(WPA). The art historian Carl Zigrosser coinedthe term serigraph to identify screen prints as fineart.

From the 1960s, op artists RichardAnusziewicz and Victor Vasarely used silk-screenprinting to convey a surgical precision of form andcolor. With his background as a commercial art-ist Andy Warhol was able to extend the capabili-ties of silk screen and used screen printing incombination with photographic processes toachieve significant works of art.


The Monotype is made by drawing with inkor paint on a smooth surface, then pulling onlyone impression. With its variant, the monoprint--where alterations in the print are made by hand--the Monotype is an old technique that arousednew interest in the 1990s.

Silk-screen printing, or serigraph in fine artswork, is a printing process in which ink is trans-ferred to a receptive surface through a stencilsupported on a fine fabric mesh of silk, syntheticfibers, or metal threads stretched tightly over aframe. The pores of the mesh are blocked by thestencil in the background, or nonimage, areas,and left open in the areas to be printed. Ink isspread over the screen and pushed through theopen mesh areas with a rubber- or plastic-bladedsqueegee to produce a print. Originally thescreens used for the process were made almostexclusively of silk. Modern screen meshes, how-ever, are made of nylon, polyester fabrics, andmetal, and the process is called screen printing,or screen process.

Stencils may be hand-cut by artists or pro-duced photographically. Photo stencils are pro-duced on either a special adhesive-backed filmor by coating the screen itself with a light-sensi-tive emulsion. After exposure through a film posi-tive, photo stencils are developed in water; im-age areas remain soluble and are washed awayduring development. Machines for screen pro-cess are unlike those for any other process; theinside of the screen frame itself acts as the inkstorage duct. Ink is passed across and throughthe screen by the action of the squeegee. Handscreen-printing tables are used for some work,such as short runs and very thick or thin materi-als, but much screen work is now printed on fullyautomated sheetfed presses, both flatbed andcylinder, operating at 4,000 to 6,000 impressionsper hour.

No other printing process is as versatile asscreen printing. It can print on almost any kind ofsurface--wood, metal, glass, foil, plastic, paper,or fabric--and is used for the production of art-works, posters, transfers, and show cards; forelectronic circuits; for printing on packaging con-tainers; and for industrial applications such as

instrument panels.

PaperPaper is a sheet of interlaced fibers—usu-

ally cellulose fibers from plants, but sometimesfrom cloth rags or other fibrous materials--that isformed by pulping the fibers and causing them tofelt, or mat, to form a solid surface.

The evolution of writing materials culminatedin the development of paper. The oldest writtenrecords still surviving are Sumerian clay tabletsdating from the 4th millennium BC. Papyrus cameinto use about 3500 BC and remained in use inEurope until the 12th century. Parchment, madefrom the skins of animals, was another importantmaterial used in Europe from about the 2nd cen-tury BC. Almost any portable surface that wouldretain the marks of brush or pen was also usedas a writing surface: cloth, palm leaves, woodenboards coated with wax or plaster, and the innerbark of trees.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAPERMANUFACTURE

The invention of paper is generally attributedto a Chinese court official, Cai Lun, in about AD105, although the Chinese had probably madepaper from silk fibers even earlier. Cai Lun, how-ever, was the first to succeed in making a paperfrom vegetable fibers--tree bark, rags, old fishnetting. The art of making paper was kept secretfor 500 years; the Japanese acquired it only inthe 7th century and in 770 produced the first masspublication, a block-printed Buddhist prayer pa-per, of which 1,000,000 were printed.

In AD 751 the Arab city of Samarkand wasattacked by marauding Chinese. Among the Chi-nese prisoners taken during the attack were sev-eral skilled in the art of papermaking. They wereforced by the city's governor to build and operatea paper mill. Samarkand had an abundant sup-ply of water, flax, and hemp; it soon became thepapermaking center of the Arab world.

Papermaking in EuropeFrom Samarkand, knowledge of papermak-

ing traveled westward, spreading throughout the


Middle East. The Moorish invasion of Spain,which began in the 8th century, saw the erection(c.1150) of the first European paper mill, at Jativain the province of Valencia. Knowledge of thetechnology spread quickly, and paper mills werebuilt in Italy (1276), France (1348), Germany(1390), and England (1494). By the 16th cen-tury, paper was being manufactured throughoutmost of Europe.

Knowledge of paper spread, but the processfor making it remained fundamentally unchanged.Vegetable fibers--in Europe they came principallyfrom flax and hemp--were shredded and reducedto a pulp in water; a screen was dipped in thepulp and removed with a thin layer of pulp. Asthe water drained off, the pulped fibers meshedand matted into a sheet, which was then driedand pressed.

Development of PapermakingMachinery

The first mechanical papermaking processwas invented (1798) by Nicolas Louis Robert(1761-1828), a Frenchman who devised a ma-chine with an endless wire-mesh web that, as itwas turned by hand, dipped into a vat of pulp,lifting out a pulp layer. The mesh vibrated to shakeoff the excess water and to lock the fibers to-gether; the pulp layer was then squeezed throughrollers and dried. Robert traveled to Englandseeking backers for his idea; eventually (1805),a practicable, commercially successful machinewas built by the Fourdrinier brothers, Henry (1766-1854) and Sealy (d. 1847), and Bryan Donkin(1768-1855). The screen end of a modern pa-permaking machine is still called a Fourdrinier.

19th-century ImprovementsPapermaking technology improved rapidly

throughout the 19th century. The introduction ofchlorine for bleaching meant that white papercould now be manufactured from colored linenand cotton rags, thus increasing the range ofavailable raw materials. Even so, as the centuryprogressed, the demand for paper increaseddramatically, and other sources were sought. Es-parto grass from Spain and North Africa became

a valued commodity for papermaking. Only whenit was realized that wood pulp could be used asa source, however, did large-scale paper manu-facture become possible. A machine was de-veloped that could pulp logs using grindstonesrevolving in water, but because the pulp containedlarge amounts of impurities, the first wood pulppapers were of very poor quality. It was foundthat these impurities could be removed by boil-ing the wood pulp with various chemical reagents:soda and sulfite in the 1850s, sulfate in the 1880s.The use of wood allowed papermakers to vastlyincrease their production, and larger and fasterpapermaking machines were developed.

The Papermaking ProcessPapermaking is a continuous process, an

unbroken line of production that begins with thetree and ends with the cut sheet of paper.

Although wood fiber is the basic ingredient,only a little more than half of the fiber used comesfrom trees cut specifically for paper manufacture.The remaining fiber is made up of secondarymaterial obtained by recycling used newsprint,spent packaging, and other waste paper. Thewaste residues of lumber operations and woodchips from saw mills provide additional material.A small quantity of nonwood fibers come fromsuch sources as esparto grass, bagasse (theplant residue left after the juice has been extractedfrom sugarcane), cereal and flax straws, reeds,cotton and linen rags, waste cotton from cottonmills, and various other plant sources. The choiceof materials depends on the intended end use ofthe paper.

Pulp ProcessingThe logs that will be reduced to pulp go

through one of two processes: either they aremechanically ground into pulp or they are re-duced to a pulp by being chipped and thencooked in a chemical solution. Cheaper gradesof paper are generally produced from mechani-cally made pulp, which often contains some un-wanted residues. Chemical methods removemore of the residues. In the chemical process,wood chips are first cooked in a digester, aclosed tank operated at high temperature and


pressure. In the sulfite process, the chips arepulped under steam pressure in a solution ofsulfite salts; in the sulfate, or kraft, process, thechemical solution consists of caustic soda andsodium sulfide. In both processes, the lignin, thematerial that holds wood cells together, is dis-solved, and the cellulose fibers separate. Cook-ing time may be as long as 12 hours. The cookedpulp is then washed to remove the chemicals andscreened to separate out undigested wood knotsand other unwanted materials. Combining a briefchemical cook with a mechanical treatment toseparate the fibers produces a higher yield butsacrifices some of the quality of chemically pulpedpaper. Other machines used to clean the pulpinclude the vortex machine, in which the pulp iswhirled rapidly so that heavy pieces of foreignmatter fall to the bottom, and the centrifugal ma-chine, in which the pulp is filtered by means of avacuum through a wire drum that revolves in thepulp vat.

The pulp may be bleached at this point, al-though some bleaching may take place as partof the digestion process. Bleaching must becarefully controlled so that the cellulose fibers arenot weakened by the process.

In order to make the fibers more flexible,thereby increasing their matting, or felting, capac-ity, the pulp next goes through a mechanical pound-ing and squeezing process called beating. TheHollander, an oval tub within which are heavy knife-edged bars, was the original industrial beater. Ithas largely been replaced by high-speed conicalor disk beaters, or refiners. Pigments or dyes areadded to the pulp at the beating stage, along withfiller materials that help to preserve the paper orgive it a better opacity and finish. The most com-mon fillers are white chalks, clays, and titaniumdioxide. Sizing materials, such as rosins,starches, and gums, that will make the paper re-sistant to the water in water based writing inksmay also be added during beating. Paper in-tended for printing may require special sizingmaterials.

Paper MachineThe two most common machines in current

use are the Fourdrinier and the cylinder machine.Both produce paper sheet from pulp in a continu-ous process at speeds that may reach more than2,600 feet per minute. In the Fourdrinier the pulp-and-water mixture flows at a controlled ratethrough a headbox and onto a moving wire-meshscreen. As the screen moves away from theheadbox, various suction devices drain the wa-ter from the pulp, leaving a sheet of matted pulpthat still contains a high proportion of water. Awire-covered roll holding a wire design, andcalled the dandy roll, may travel over the sheetsurface to impress a watermark. The sheet thenmoves on to a woolen felt screen, which takes itthrough a series of presses, where more wateris removed. Finally, the sheet passes over a num-ber of heated drums that evaporate the remain-ing water. Many new papermaking machines in-corporate two moving wire-mesh screens be-tween which the pulp is pumped, and water isextracted from both sides. The "twin-wire" ma-chine produces a paper that is practically identi-cal on both sides, an important paper property inprinting.

The cylinder machine differs from the Four-drinier principally in the "wet end," or formingoperation. Instead of the moving wire screen, ascreen-covered rotary cylinder is half-submergedin the pulp vat. As the cylinder rotates, a sheet ofmatted pulp is formed on its exterior surface andis then picked up by a moving belt, where it istreated to remove the remaining water, as in theFourdrinier process. A series of cylinders maybe used, each one depositing an additional layerof pulp on the belt, so that multilayer sheets arebuilt up. Cylinder machines are used for makingthicker papers and paperboard.

Finishing

As it leaves the paper-forming machine, thedried paper is wound onto large reels. The rolledpaper may be slit to the widths required, cut intosheets, trimmed, and packaged. Other finishingoperations include calendering, or passing thepaper through a series of steel rolls that impartone of a number of finishes; coating, where oneor both sides of the paper are glazed with a mix-ture of pigment, dispersant, and adhesive to pro-


duce a glossy finish or improve smoothness oropacity; and operations that convert the paperroll into bags, boxes, corrugated shipping paper,and other special products.

Acidic PaperMany of the sizings used to improve the

"feel" and printability of paper are acidic and overtime cause the cellulose fibers that constitutepaper to degenerate. Books made in the last150 years have been particularly affected byacidic deterioration. Alkaline sizing agents havebeen developed and are now in use by many U.S.paper manufacturers. These new sizings requireless fiber and water and produce a white, strongpaper with fewer polluting wastes.

Paper ProductsIn addition to the papers used for writing and

printing, paper is made into an almost infinitenumber of end products, from the absorbent pa-pers used for toweling, toilet, and blotting papersto paperboards that are made up into contain-ers; papers used in building construction (suchas roofing paper); and special papers that aredesigned for particular uses and may have suchproperties as high impact or tear strength, resis-tance to water or gas vapors, and flame-, insect-, or mold-resistance. Molded paper fiber is usedto make containers for products as diverse aseggs and industrial equipment. Insulating papersare used in electrical equipment, and sound-in-sulating paper goes into acoustical board.

Pollution ProblemsBecause of their need for water and lumber

for pulp, paper mills are often located on thebanks of rivers, in remote forested areas. Pa-permaking processes require the heavy use ofchemicals to dissolve lignin, to remove pulp resi-dues or the ink from recycled paper, and asbleaches. The by-products of papermaking haveincluded dioxins and other toxins, which havebeen components of the wastewater that isflushed into the river.

Working with the industry and with paper-manufacturing states, the Environmental Protec-tion Agency (EPA) has been developing new

standards for paper-mill effluents. Many of theU.S. rivers that were once heavily polluted bypaper mills are in the process of recovery. Oth-ers remain polluted, but the industry is aware thatby the mid-1990s it must have the technologiesin place for pollution-free paper production.

World Paper ProductionsProduction of pulp and paper is for the most

part concentrated in areas that have abundantwood resources and a large industrial base, suchas the United States, Scandinavia, Canada, andRussia. Per capita consumption of newsprint ishighest in the United States, followed by Swe-den, Australia, Finland, Switzerland, andSingapore. Paper recycling is increasing, espe-cially in the United States. In this process, whichreduces solid wastes and helps conserve theworld's dwindling forest resources, waste paperis cleaned and reprocessed into pulp; the pulpis then used in the manufacture of new paper.

PlatemakingA printing plate is made of a metal, plastic,

or rubber material upon which an ink-receptiveimage is etched or engraved. Positioned in aprinting press, the plate receives ink from an inkroller system and transfers the image to paper.

Toward the end of the 19th century the per-fection of photomechanical imaging techniquesmade it possible to convert virtually any text orimage into a form suitable for one of the threemain printing processes—letterpress, gravure, orlithography. Each requires a different kind ofplate.

Letterpress—Relief PrintingOn the Letterpress plate, the image to be

printed is raised above the nonprinting areas.Once the dominant printing process, letterpressprinting gave rise to a huge photoengraving in-dustry. In its simplest form, a photoengraving isa thin metal plate coated with a photosensitivematerial called a resist and exposed to lightthrough a film negative of the image to be en-graved. The resist becomes hard and insolublewhere light hits it, while the nonimage area, pro-tected from the light, can be washed away, ex-


posing the bare metal. The plate, with its imagearea protected by the resist, is placed in an etch-ing bath where the bare metal portions of the plateare eaten away, leaving the image area standingin relief. Mounted on a wood, metal, or magneticbase to bring it up to the level of the letterpresstype, the plate is ready to run on a press.

Plates made of photopolymers, light-sensi-tive synthetics, were originally developed with or-ganic solvents. The newest photopolymer platescan be developed with water.

HalftonesWith the exception of gravure presses, most

printing presses lay down a film of ink that is uni-form in thickness and in density of color. Theprinted reproduction of a continuous tone im-age—one that, as in a photograph, has a rangeof light and dark values—is created by patternsof minute dots too small for the human eye to re-solve individually, but which together appear astonal gradations. The dots are larger and closertogether in the shadow areas, smaller and far-ther apart in lighter areas. Dot patterns are cre-ated using a special halftone screen of clear glassor plastic, closely ruled with two sets of opaquelines at right angles to each other. The screenbreaks up light reflected from an original imageinto discrete dots of varying size; these are re-produced on a film negative of the original. Thenegative, in turn, is exposed to a sensitized plateto form a positive halftone printing image. Half-tone plates are made in relief for letterpress print-ing, and are incorporated into gravure and offsetplates as well.

Gravure—Intaglio PrintingThe gravure press uses plates whose image

areas are etched or engraved below the platesurface. The image area is broken up into minuteink-holding cells of varying depth and/or area. Inprinting, the entire surface of the gravure plate iscovered with ink. Excess ink is wiped from theplate surface by a "doctor blade," leaving ink onlyin the cells.

To make a gravure plate, a photosensitiveresist material—traditionally, carbon tissue—is

exposed to a cross-ruled screen that controls theuniformity of cell size, and to a continuous-tonephotographic positive of the image, which con-trols cell depth. The carbon tissue resist is de-veloped and affixed to a copper-coated cylinder,which is then bathed in an etching solution, re-producing the image in the copper surface. Inconventional gravure, or rotogravure, only the celldepth varies. In halftone gravure, achieved byexposing the resist to a halftone screen positive,the cell area varies, while the depth remains con-stant. High-quality gravure printing uses a hybridprocess: the resist is exposed both to a halftonescreen and to continuous-tone positives of thesame image, producing cells that vary in botharea and depth.

With the perfection of computer-controlledoptical scanning and engraving devices, the pho-tographic and chemical steps in the platemakingprocess can be eliminated. An electronic scan-ner analyzes an original image and converts itinto signals that are transmitted to a diamond sty-lus, which engraves up to 4,000 cells per secondon a copper cylinder.

Offset Lithography—Planographic Printing

More than any other kind of image carrier, alithographic plate—on which image andnonimage areas are on the same plane—de-pends on the achievement of precise chemicalbalances, both during its preparation and while itis on press. The image areas must be made ink-attracting, while the nonimage areas must repelink. The offset plate is made of a base mate-rial—aluminum, stainless steel, or, for very shortruns, paper—coated with a photoreactive sub-stance. After exposure, the plate material whichis naturally water loving (Hydrophilic) is developedand then treated to enhance its ink-attracting(Oleophilic) properties. For extremely long printruns, bimetal plates are sometimes used: typi-cally, copper forms the image area, while alumi-num or chromium is used for nonimage areas.Recent success in increasing by a thousandfoldthe light sensitivity of photopolymer coatings hasproduced new plates that will no longer require


film exposure, but instead are digitally imagedby laser scanners.

Color SeparationBased on the subtractive theory of color re-

production, any color in an original colored im-age can be reproduced by creating a specific half-tone dot pattern from three different, but specific,ink colors: cyan, magenta, and yellow. Becauseof the inherent chemical impurities in the ink for-mulations which prevent the three from forming atrue black image, a fourth color, black, is used tointensify shadow areas and to help print greys.Each of the four colors requires its own printingplate.

First, a set of separation negatives is pre-pared by photographing the original color imagethrough a halftone screen and, successively,through red, green, and blue filters. In effect, thevisible light spectrum is divided into its three pri-mary colors. When the plates prepared from thefour separation negatives are linked up with theirrespective ink colors and printed in accurate reg-ister, all of the colors in the original image arereproduced in printed form.

Most separations are now made on colorscanners. The original image, or a positive trans-parency of it, is placed on a drum, and a laserlight beam moves rapidly back and forth over it.The reflected (or, in the case of a transparency,transmitted) light is divided into three separatebeams that pass through red, green, and blue fil-ters, activating extremely sensitive photocells.Depending on how much light the photocells de-tect, signals of varying strength are sent to laserlight generators, which automatically expose a setof separation negatives by emitting precisely con-trolled bursts of light.

PhotoengravingEarly in the 19th century it was discovered

that certain materials hardened and became in-soluble in direct proportion to the amount of lightexposure they received. By the 1880s it had be-come possible to expose a metal plate, coatedwith a light-sensitive substance, to a photographicnegative, creating a positive image that could be

engraved in relief on the plate. Early photoen-gravings were linecuts: they could reproduce onlyin black and white. The invention of the halftonescreen in the 1880s made it possible to repro-duce a continuous tone image, one in which arange of blacks and grays were present.

Offset LithographyLithographic metal plates had only rarely

been used for commercial printing, in part be-cause the image on the plate was often wornthrough by the printing paper. In 1904 an Ameri-can printer, Ira S. Rubel, accidentally discoveredthat the lithographic image could be transferred,or offset, to a rubber cylinder that could then printas perfectly as the plate and would last indefi-nitely. Rubel's three-cylinder offset press was thefirst in the field of offset lithography, which wouldbecome the most popular printing process be-cause of its economy, long plate life, and abilityto print on many different textures.

GravureAlthough intaglio techniques, such as etch-

ing and engraving, had long been used as print-ing methods by artists, the development of an in-taglio printing plate—one whose image was in-cised below the plate surface-was developed onlylate in the 19th century for commercial printing.The Czech artist Karl Klic used a gelatin-coated,light-sensitive tissue to transfer a grid pattern ontoa copper cylinder, together with the image to beprinted. When the cylinder was etched and inked,it printed an image whose varying tones wereachieved by the varying depth of the ink-filled cellsthat the grid pattern had produced. Klic's pro-cess gave rise to the field of gravure printing,which includes rotogravure, a high-speed, high-volume technique—essentially the same processused by Klic—that today prints magazines andnewspaper color sections, as well as a huge va-riety of packaging materials.

Other Printing ProcessesFlexography, a relief process utilizing flex-

ible rubber or plastic plates, is particularly wellsuited for printing on many kinds of nonpaperpackaging materials and recently, has been used


successfully to print newspapers.

Screen process printing makes use of a finelywoven metal or synthetic mesh to which a nonpo-rous stencil is mechanically or photographicallyfixed, blocking the mesh except where the imageis to be printed. Applications of screen printinginclude the printing of posters, fabrics, and elec-tronic circuit boards.

Color PrintingHalftone color printing, the process still used

today to reproduce full color, was introduced inthe 1890s, but many years passed before its fullpotential was realized. Although color reproduc-tion theory was fairly well understood, the lack ofcolor film restricted color work to studios wherethe necessary separation negatives had to bemade directly from the subject, under the mostexacting conditions. Reliable color film becameavailable in the 1930s and '40s, and color repro-duction grew both more common and more ac-curate.

TypeThroughout the 19th century, attempts to

mechanize the processes of typemaking (cast-ing) and composition (typesetting) resulted in anumber of ingenious inventions, some incorpo-rating both casting and composing operations.

The Linotype machine of Ottmar Mergentha-ler and the Monotype invented by Tolbert Lanston,both introduced in 1887, proved to be so clearlysuperior to rival devices that no better mechani-cal systems for letterpress composition were everdeveloped.

The Linotype was a keyboard-operatedmachine that composed and cast a justified lineof type and was particularly suitable for newspa-pers.

The Monotype's keyboard produced apunched tape that instructed a separatetypecaster to produce individual characters incomplete, justified lines. The Monotype was usedlargely for book printing.

The type used to make offset lithographicplates originally came from proofs taken from let-

terpress type. As offset printing grew in popular-ity, a more efficient method was sought. In 1954the Photon machine became the first commer-cially successful electronic photocomposition sys-tem. Its key elements, which were used by latermachines as well, were a stroboscopic lightsource and a spinning film matrix disk throughwhich photographic film was exposed with im-ages of type previously composed on a key-board.

Later generations of typesetters did awaywith the film matrix. Some employ type charac-ters produced on cathode ray tubes from masterimages stored as digital information.

Today, all machines make use of a laser thatscans digitally stored type and reproduces it onphotographic film, paper or plate materials.

Computer PrintingComputers play a vital role in nearly every

area of printing, from typesetting to on-press con-trol of the many variables subject to change dur-ing a print run. Digital storage and manipulationof text, whether at a word-processing station or atypesetting terminal, were early computer-print-ing operations.

When paired with long-distance digital trans-mission technology, numerous possibilities becameevident. For example, reporters in the field can nowsend word-processed copy via phone lines to theeditorial offices of newspapers and magazines.When an issue is ready for printing, a central pro-duction facility can electronically transmit the entirecontents to regional printing plants, speeding upboth printing and distribution.

Increasingly powerful systems can now pro-vide the vast storage required for very high-reso-lution graphics, as well as providing methods forsophisticated image manipulation. The opera-tor of a typical system can scan a color photo-graph into the computer memory, then call theimage up to a display screen where a number ofediting processes can be employed: rotation ofthe image, increased shading, color correctionor color changing, the moving of parts of the im-age or its entire deletion.

The accompanying text can also be called


up to the screen for copyfitting and layout experi-mentation. The final, edited image is sent to anoutput laser scanner, which produces a set ofcolor film separations that will be used to makethe printing plates.

Recent developments in platemaking tech-nology obviate the need for film to produce print-ing plates. Instead, a scanning device is used toexpose the printing plate with images generatedby a computer.

CameraA camera is a device that directs an image

focused by a lens or other optical system onto aphotosensitive surface housed in a lighttight en-closure.

In this very basic sense, these componentsperform the same function today that they didwhen photography was invented nearly 150 yearsago. In simple cameras the lens is generally ofthe fixed-focus variety; no provision is made tofocus on objects at varying distances from thecamera. More complicated cameras have a sys-tem to achieve good focus that is manually or au-tomatically actuated, in order to vary the lens-to-focal-plane distance. (The focal plane is the pointbehind the lens where the image comes to fo-cus.)

The photographic surface used in moderncameras has, until recently, been almost exclu-sively light-sensitive film. Flexible roll film maybe housed in a cassette or on a paper-backedspool. A gear mechanism built into the cameraadvances the film between exposures. On pro-fessional, large-format cameras the film is a fairlystiff sheet that is carried in a holder to be insertedinto the focal-plane area after the image has beenfocused.

Recent developments in electronics havemade possible the digital camera which is verysimilar to a normal camera, except the film planehas been replaced by a charged couple device(CCD) array which captures the image as a digi-tal signal. The equipment is relatively expensiveand lacks the high resolution of conventional film,but offers direct input to computer systems with-

out the need for film, development or separationscanning.

Cameras are manufactured in a variety oftypes and sizes. Miniature instruments produc-ing incredibly small images are used in medicalresearch. Commercial portrait studios may uselarge-format view cameras that produce a filmimage as large as 11 x 14 inches.

The electronics revolution has had an im-mense impact on camera design and controls,making possible instruments of remarkable so-phistication in almost every price range.

Camera DevelopmentCenturies before the invention of the first

practical photographic process, artists had beenusing a device called camera obscura—literallya dark chamber—as an aid in rendering properperspective or tracing a scene.

Originally, it was a dark room with a smallopening in an outside wall. An image of an illu-minated object outside the room passed throughthe hole and was reproduced, upside down andin small scale, on an opposite wall. Later, a light-tight box replaced the room, and a simple lenswas inserted in the hole.

In 1839 the pioneer inventor Louis J. M.Daguerre developed the light-sensitive Da-guerreotype, a photographic plate on which acamera obscura image could be recorded andchemically made permanent. That same year, aFrench firm began production of the world's firstcommercial camera. In basic design, this instru-ment was remarkably like a camera obscura. Thesurface on which an artist sketched the projectedimage became a removable piece of groundglass, onto which the image could be brought intofocus. After the photographer focused the im-age, the ground glass was replaced by a specialwooden frame, which held the light-sensitive platewhich was still wet with the light sensitive chemi-cals. Moving a simple, manually operated slide,or simply removing the lens cap for a time, madethe exposure.

Even after the early processes werespeeded up sufficiently to make portraiture pos-sible, exposures of 10 to 15 seconds were not


uncommon. The absence of a film-exposuremechanism continued throughout the entire wet-plate era. The development of the gelatin dryplate in the 1870s began a revolution in cameradesign that was accelerated by the invention offlexible film. The dry, sensitized new materialsallowed designers to make very compact instru-ments that were much more convenient to oper-ate.

The introduction of the Kodak camera in1888 brought about massive, permanentchanges in the world of photography. The Kodakwas preloaded at the factory with sufficient filmfor 100 exposures. When the roll was finished,the entire camera was returned to the factory inRochester, N.Y., where the film was developedand printed and the camera reloaded.

In a single stroke, George Eastman had cre-ated the class of amateur photographers, thosewho wanted to take pictures but were unwilling todeal with the darkroom machines of the photo-graphic process. The sales motto "You press thebutton, we do the rest" accurately summed up thenew system.

In 1900 the marketing of Eastman's KodakBrownie #1 popularized photography even fur-ther. At a cost of $1.00 for the camera and 10cents per roll of film, the Brownie put a basic pho-tographic system within reach of virtually every-one.

The continuing improvements of sensitizedfilm products were paralleled by the developmentof more sophisticated cameras. The first opticalrange finder became available in 1916, and avery high-speed lens, the Ernostar, which had aneffective aperture of f/20, appeared on a com-pact camera in 1924, marking the beginning ofthe era of natural-light candid photography.

With the introduction in 1938 of the SuperKodak 620, complete automation of camera ex-posure systems moved a step closer to realiza-tion. A very costly snapshot camera, the Kodak620 was the first to incorporate a completely au-tomated method of exposure control. Only a fewof these cameras were made before World WarII stopped production, but the Super Kodak 620

indicated what was possible.

After the war, miniaturized electronic com-ponents made automatic exposure systems com-monplace on even the most inexpensive cam-eras. The process of automating most camerafunctions was completed in the late 1970s, whenthe first of what have come to be known as "pointand shoot" cameras appeared on the market.These cameras, so simple to use that even be-ginners can take satisfactory pictures, now domi-nate the amateur market.

The evolution of camera design in the pro-fessional market tends to be a more gradual pro-cess. Professional models are available withautomatic exposure-control systems, and severaladvanced professional cameras offer automaticfocusing.

The professional level electronic camerasemploying CCD imaging planes, in many cases,are merely standard camera bodies which havehad their film mechanisms removed and replacedwith the new technology.

THE PARTS OF THECAMERALens

The lens is the image-forming device on acamera. It may be composed of from one to asmany as 10 or 12 elements. The first cameraswere fitted with a single element meniscus lens(a lens with one concave and one convex sur-face). In addition to its very low speed, this typeof lens suffered from a number of inherent opticaldefects and it was soon replaced with greatly im-proved, more complicated designs. The single-element lens remained in use on inexpensivecameras, however, and within limits was capableof producing very acceptable results.

The three basic types of lenses are normal,wide angle, and telephoto. The lens's focallength—the point at which light rays converge, orfocus, through the lens—determines the size ofthe image that will be produced on the film.

With a normal lens, the viewing field is ap-proximately 50 degrees. The objects photo-


graphed appear normal in size and shape, rela-tive to the picture's background. A camera thatuses a 35mm film will usually have a 50mm lensfor normal coverage; on a medium-format 2 1/4"x 2 1/4" camera, the same coverage is obtainedwith an 80mm lens.

In a wide-angle lens, the field of view is muchwider: about 90 degrees. These lenses are usedwhere the distance between camera and subjectis limited, as in interior photography. The wide-angle lens is also to make smaller objects looklarger (to give a spacious impression of a smallroom, for instance), or to photograph large ob-jects from close up.

Telephoto, or long-focus lenses, have asmaller field of view than a normal lens, and showan enlarged detail of the image over the samefilm area.

Interchangeable-lens cameras offer the pho-tographer the opportunity to select a focal lengththat is optimum for any given situation.

Variable-focal-length, or "zoom," lenses, arevery popular. A single lens of this type can re-place many individual lenses, and offers a greatconvenience to the photographer.

The speed, or light-gathering power, of a lensis indicated by the f number, called the aperture.The lower the f number, the faster the lens—thatis, the more light it lets through. A fast lens hasan aperture of at least f/2.0. As the speed in-creases, the cost of the lens tends to increase,since it is more costly to maintain high standardsof optical correction at very high apertures.

DiaphragmOne of the two factors that determines cor-

rect film exposure is the amount of light allowedto pass through the lens. Mechanically reducingthe aperture improves optical performance, par-ticularly toward the edge of the picture, and in-creases the depth of field, which is the zone ofgood focus.

Most cameras use an iris-type diaphragm,which consists of a number of very thin metalblades. They are so mounted that by rotating aring or moving a lever, the size of the lens open-

ing can be varied.

On automatic cameras the diaphragm isadjusted by a built-in mechanism to produce theoptimum exposure over a wide range of lightingconditions.

The various openings of the diaphragm—called f/stops—are stamped on the lens mount-ing. The standard diaphragm settings found onmost lenses are 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, andso on.

Each change of diaphragm openingchanges the amount of light passing through thelens by a factor of 2. For example, the amount oflight allowed through the lens at a setting of 2 istwice the amount allowed through the lens at asetting of 2.8. The smallest lens opening on alens whose f-stops end in 22 is, in fact, 22.

ShutterThe second exposure control factor is the

shutter, a mechanical device that acts as a gate,controlling the duration of time that light is allowedto pass through the lens and fall on the film. Twotypes of shutters are in general use. The leaf type,like the diaphragm, is made up of a number ofthin metal blades that are opened and closed ei-ther by a spring-driven clockwork mechanism,or—in many recent models—by an electrome-chanical device. Shutters of this type usually havea maximum speed of 1/500th of a second.

The focal-plane shutter in modern camerasusually consists of two pieces of rubberized fab-ric that move across the focal plane. The spac-ing between the fabric edges and the speed oftransit determine the effective shutter speed.Some recent models use ultrathin pieces of tita-nium instead of fabric.

Shutters of this type are capable of very highspeeds, in some cases 1/4,000th of a second.The entire shutter mechanism is independent ofthe optical system, and it is therefore ideal forcameras with interchangeable lenses.

Exposure ControlMany professional photographers still use

exposure meters, which are instruments that mea-


sure light intensity, indicated what aperture andshutter speed are appropriate to the film typeused, under prevailing light conditions.

Completely automatic exposure control, how-ever, is now virtually standard on all snapshot cam-eras, although many new professional instrumentsoffer an automatic system that permits the pho-tographer to retain a great deal of individual con-trol.

On nonreflex instruments a selenium cellmounted adjacent to the lens measures the in-coming light and selects a combination of lensaperture and shutter speed that will produce anegative of good quality.

Single-lens reflex cameras without excep-tion are fitted with through-the-lens metering sys-tems (TTLs) that offer the ultimate in automatedcontrol of exposure. A light-sensing cell is locatedin the optical path inside the camera and givesan extremely accurate reading of the prevailinglight conditions. The information is processedby an electronic circuit built into the camera, andthe aperture and shutter speed are set accord-ingly.

The newest 35mm cameras can use filmcassettes that are optically encoded with a typeof bar code or magetically encoded numbers thattell the camera what type of film is in the cassette,and then adjust the camera speed accordingly.

The ViewfinderFor the photographer, the viewfinder defines

the area covered by whatever lens is in use onthe camera. The most primitive type is a simplewire frame mounted just over the lens. Propereye position is determined by a vertical postmounted at the rear of the camera. The view seenthrough the frame with the post in the center isequal to the area covered by the lens.

The type of viewfinder in most frequent usetoday is actually a reversed telescope on all cam-eras except single and twin-lens reflex instru-ments.

On a typical high-grade 35mm camera withinterchangeable lenses, a bright line in theviewfinder outlines the area covered by the lens

in use, and changes size automatically to corre-spond with the lenses of different focal lengths.

In a single-lens reflex camera the image fo-cused by the camera lens is reflected by a mirroronto a ground-glass screen, usually through aspecial prism arrangement.

Twin-lens reflex cameras have two coupledlenses; one of them acts as a view finder and,like the single-lens reflex, reflects the image itsees on a ground-glass screen.

Focusing MethodsOn adjustable-lens cameras, a sharp picture

requires accurate positioning of the lens system.Although its use has declined sharply, the opti-cal-coupled range finder is one of the best meth-ods of achieving good focus quickly.

If the camera is out of focus, the user sees adouble image in a portion of the viewfinder field.Focusing the lens brings the two images together,until—as the lens moves into focus—they are per-fectly aligned.

In the single- and twin-lens reflex cameras,the image is visually focused on the ground glassin the viewfinder. Ground glass is used, whetheror not the camera is fitted with a prism system foreye-level viewing.

Because of the very slight distance betweenthe picture-taking lens and the viewfinder lens ina twin-lens reflex camera, in close-ups the viewseen by the photographer does not preciselymatch the view focused on the film. This veryslight difference is called "parallax," and there arevarious devices available to correct for it.

Many modern cameras used by the casualsnapshooter are fitted with automatic focusingsystems. There are two general types, active andpassive.

In the active system, a circuit so elaboratethat it is actually a complete miniature computersends out an infrared beam. This beam bouncesoff the photographic subject and is reflected backto the camera. By electronically measuring theangle of the beam, the distance to the subject canbe determined. A servomotor than adjusts thelens appropriately.


The passive system works on the principlethat an in-focus subject will show more contrastthan an out-of-focus subject. A Charge CoupledDevice light sensor mounted behind the lens willsearch out the point of greatest contrast and setthe lens. Single-lens reflex cameras often usethis type of automatic focusing.

Types of CamerasFor more than several decades the box cam-

era was the instrument of choice for the casualamateur photographer. Inexpensive and simple,it was, nevertheless, capable of excellent resultsunder many conditions. Box cameras were nor-mally fitted with a single-element lens, a limitedrange of aperture control, and a single-speed leafshutter.

The Folding-Roll Film CameraSecond in popularity only to the box cam-

era, the folding camera was manufactured in avariety of formats. Basically, though, it was a boxcamera whose lens was incorporated into a mov-able bellows that could slide back and forth on arail, allowing the lens to change focus. Lensesand shutters were often one-piece units. Moreelaborate models were first-rate instruments withhigh-quality optical systems and precision shut-ters. Many were fitted with coupled range find-ers. The most significant advantage they haveover the box camera, however, was their com-pact design when folded, which made themeasier to pack and transport.

There has been something of a minor renais-sance in folding-roll film cameras in recent years,with appearance of several new professional in-struments. They are appreciated for their largenegative size and compact design.

Twin-Lens Reflex CamerasA medium-format camera—one that uses

film larger than 35mm—the twin-lens reflex wasimmensely popular after World War II. It is fittedwith two lenses of identical focal length, onemounted atop the other. The lower, or taking, lensfocuses its image directly on the film, while theimage produced by the upper viewing lens is re-

flected through 90 degrees by a mirror, andbrought to focus on a horizontal ground-glass fo-cusing screen. The light paths to the film planeand the focusing screen are equal, so that if thephotographer brings the scene on the focusingscreen to sharp focus, the image on the film planewill be equally sharp.

Single-Lens Reflex CamerasOne of the most popular designs available

today, the single-lens reflex (SLR) both views andphotographs through one lens. Light passingthrough the lens is reflected by a mirror andbrought to focus on a ground glass. The mirrorcauses a reversal of the image seen on theground glass, but the addition of a pentaprismmounted over the ground glass allows the cam-era to be used at eye level, with the image seenupright and in proper left/right orientation. An in-stant before the exposure is made, the mirrorswings upward, and the shutter is activated. Asingle control cocks the shutter for the next expo-sure, advances the film, and returns the mirror tofocusing position.

Viewing Cameras and TechnicalCameras

Cameras in this category are used almostexclusively by professional photographers. Themost common film formats are 4 x 5 or 8 x 10inches, the latter often used in the very large cam-eras found in portrait studios. Film for these cam-eras is loaded in the darkroom into two-sidedholders, which are inserted at the back of the cam-era.

Both the camera's back and front can betilted in various positions, to permit the photog-rapher to make certain types of corrections in theimage. By raising the lens in relation to the filmplane, when photographing a tall building, for ex-ample, the tendency for parallel lines to look as ifthey converge is eliminated.

Instant CamerasAn instant camera will produce a finished

print in from 20 seconds to about 4 minutes. Thefilm, after exposure, is passed between two stain-


less steel rollers inside the camera. These rup-ture a chemical pod on the film and spread de-veloping agent evenly over the film's surface. Inthe original Polaroid system it was necessary forthe user to peel the finished print from the basematerial. Professional Polaroid films, both colorand black and white, are still developed in thismanner.

Beginning in 1972 with the all new model,the SX-70, Polaroid Instant Cameras eject thedeveloping picture from the camera, and the filmreaches its final development in full daylight. Theprocess is completed in about 4 minutes.

The Spectra, introduced in 1986, employsthis type of technology and a more advanced typeof electronic exposure control and automatic fo-cusing system. Like the later SX-70 models, itemploys an ultra-high-frequency sound emitter.An electronic circuit in the camera measures thetime required for the sound to be reflected backfrom the object photographed. This time mea-surement is converted into a measurement of dis-tance, and an electrical mechanism coupled tothe focusing circuit sets the lens for the properexposure.

Disc CamerasSince its introduction in the 1880s, flexible

film has usually been rolled onto a spool or loadedinto a cassette. In 1980 the Eastman KodakCompany introduced a new format for mass-market cameras. Fifteen images, each 5/16 x 3/8 inches, can be photographed on a piece of cir-cular film about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, which ishoused in a thin, lighttight film disc. Disc cam-eras are exceptionally compact, and most are fit-ted with an electronic flash and a motor that ad-vances the disc after each exposure.

This type of camera's popularity has waneddue to the limited print sizes which could be pro-duced due to the limited negative image size.

Electronic ImagingThe world's first electronic still camera, the

Sony Mavica, uses a cluster of light-sensitiveelectronic charge coupled devices (CCDs), in-stead of film, at the focal plane. Each light sen-

sor on a CCD is called a pixel. The pixel con-verts light into an electronic signal, which is re-corded on a magnetic disc in the camera. Themore dense the grouping of pixels, the sharperthe resulting picture, which is recorded in full color.

Once recorded, the image can be "played"on a television set by inserting the magnetic discin a still video recorder, or a paper print can bemade using dye sublimation process.

The quality of the image, while not as fine asthat on the photographic film, is still very goodand has been improved during recent years.

At the present time the system will be usedprimarily by photojournalists, who are able totransmit the information on the magnetic disc overordinary telephone lines by using a modem. Apicture taken in Los Angeles can be viewed infull color a few minutes later in New York City.

The devices which can produce near-filmquality for professional use are priced well above$10,000; some as much as $45,000.

Massive research efforts and increased pro-duction can be expected eventually to lower costof all-electronic still systems.

Nearly every major player in the internationalcamera market has available, or has announcedsome type of low-end, amateur digital camera.

These devices lack the sophistication of theprofessional models, have fewer adjustments,less resolution, and limited image storage. Theyare priced in the $500 - $1,100 range and arenot considered an immediate threat to conven-tional photography.

Their ability to directly input photographs intodesktop (or other) computer systems, and theever increasing popularity of home and officecomputers make this segment of the camera in-dustry very important.

As more demand is voiced for the technol-ogy, it is sure to both improve, technically, andbecome lower in cost. Traditional film, however,will dominate the market for the immediately fore-seeable future.

Ink


Inks are paintlike fluids and pastes used forwriting and printing. The use of colored fluids fordrawing characters on parchment, hide, or clothwas common in ancient Egypt and China at leastas early as 2000 BC.

Ancient writings that are still preserved of-ten used inks based on lamp black (carbon black),a finely ground pigment dispersed in water or oil,and sometimes stabilized with a vegetable gumor glue. Modern India inks, which are noted fortheir intensity and permanence, are similarly com-posed. Carbon black provides excellent opacityand is not affected by moisture or light. Otherinks were made from indigo, from the galls ofoak and nut trees, from tannin, and from the inkyfluids secreted by octopus, cuttlefish, and squid.

Writing InksMost fountain pen inks employ solutions of

water-soluble dyes, which can be washed out butwhich have relatively poor light and moisture re-sistance. Soft-tip pens also use soluble dyes,which are dissolved in alcohol solvents to pre-vent the tips from drying or clogging. Ball-pointinks are considerably heavier in consistency andare mixtures of oils, polymers, dyes, and solvents;they are designed to provide a continuous deliv-ery of ink to a variety of surfaces and to dry in-stantaneously.

Printing InksInks employed in printing are prepared from

natural and synthetic film-forming resins and gen-erally use pigments rather than dyes to providecolor.

Early letterpress printing used inks com-posed of a variety of natural substances includ-ing varnish, honey, linseed oil, and carbon black.Modern letterpress inks must have sufficient con-sistency to adhere to the raised portion of theplate. The composition of resin, pigment or dye,and solvent depends on the method of drying theink—whether by heat, by the absorption of thesolvents into the paper, or by precipitating the inkthrough the steam-removal of the solvent.

Lithographic, flexographic, and gravure inksare deposited from etched, molded, or raised

printing plates. Since the lithography processuses water-saturated plates, the inks must be in-capable of mixing with the water and are usuallylinseed-oil based.

Flexographic printing deposits ink frommolded rubber plates, which can be used for print-ing almost any surface, including cloth, plaster,and foil. Special solvents in the inks evaporaterapidly or are absorbed quickly into the printedsurface.

Gravure printing on high-speed pressesuses inks that dry almost instantaneously.

Silk screen printing requires a relatively thick,viscous ink because it involves the forcing of inkthrough small holes in a screen or fabric.

Many specialty inks have been developedfor special purposes. Industrial packaging re-quires inks that are resistant to scuffing or thathave a high gloss. Fluorescent inks are now avail-able for use on labels and packages and for print-ing maps that will be read at night. Magnetic inksuse pigments that can be magnetized so the char-acters can be read by computers.

Flatbed Cylinder PressThe flatbed cylinder press or, more simply,

cylinder press, is one of three basic types of print-ing presses used in letterpress printing. (The oth-ers are the platen press and the rotary press.)The world's first flatbed press was built byFriedrich Konig in England in 1811. In the flatbedpress there is a flat printing surface, or bed, tohold the printing form, or plate. The paper is fedin sheets, with each sheet wrapped around theimpression cylinder. During the printing strokethe cylinder is in contact with the plate and ro-tates while the bed is moving in a straight line,pressing the paper against the inked printingplate.

Since only a small part of the form is underimpression at a time, the machine can be muchlarger than a comparable platen press. On thenonprinting stroke the motion of the bed is re-versed, the cylinder is raised away from the bed,the plate is freshly inked, and the printed sheet iswithdrawn. The reversing operation imposes a


limit on the printing speed—about 5,000 impres-sions per hour—making cylinder presses slowerthan rotary presses but faster than platen presses.

Gutenberg, JohannJohann Gutenberg, b. c.1398, d. 1468, was

a German goldsmith who is credited with the in-vention and development in Europe of printingfrom movable type. His invention fulfilled theneeds of the age for more and cheaper readingmatter and foreshadowed the modern printing in-dustry.

Gutenberg first experimented with printingabout 1440 in Strasbourg, 100 miles from hisnative Mainz. By 1450 he was back in Mainz,and his invention had been perfected to a pointwhere it could be exploited commercially.

To produce the large numbers of individualpieces of type that were needed for the compo-sition of a book, Gutenberg introduced the prin-ciple of replica-casting. Single letters were en-graved in relief and then punched into slabs ofbrass to produce matrices from which replicascould be cast in molten metal. These were thencombined to produce a flat printing surface, thusestablishing the process of letterpress printing.The type was a rich decorative texture modeledon the Gothic handwriting of the period.

Gutenberg's second achievement lay in thedevelopment of an ink that would adhere to hismetal type and that needed to be completely dif-ferent in chemical composition from existing woodblock printing inks.

Gutenberg also transformed the wine pressof the time into a screw-and-lever press capableof printing pages of type. While setting up hiscommercial press between 1450 and 1452, heborrowed a sum of money from Johann Fust toenable him to produce his type and presses butwas unable to repay the debt promptly.

Fust foreclosed on the mortgage in 1455 andobtained possession of the type and presses,setting himself up as a printer with his son-in-law,Peter Schoffer. Gutenberg apparently aban-doned printing altogether after 1465, possiblybecause of blindness. He died on Feb. 3, 1468,in comparative poverty.

Only one major work can confidently be at-tributed to Gutenberg's own workshop. This isthe Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-lineBible, from the number of lines to each page),which was set and printed about 1455.

Type and TypesettingIn printing, type is the term used to describe

the full range of alphabetic and numeric charac-ters and punctuation marks necessary for thecomposition of text. Typesetting is the craft ofarranging type--either by hand or machine--intoreadable form. Typography involves the choiceof type and the design of pages for a book orother printed piece.

TYPEFOUNDING AND HAND SETTING

The German Johann Gutenberg is creditedwith developing the first successful technology forthe rapid and accurate manufacture of type, aprocess known as typefounding. In Gutenberg'smethod, a character was engraved in relief onthe end of a hard metal punch, which was thendriven into a softer piece of metal known as amatrix.

The matrix was placed in an adjustable typemold, and molten metal was poured into the mold,hardening almost instantaneously. After a few fin-ishing operations, the new piece of type, its reliefimage identical to that on the punch, was readyto be used.

The essential elements of Gutenberg's pro-cess, invented about the middle of the 15th cen-tury, were so simple and reliable that they re-mained virtually unchanged for nearly 500 years—until well into the 19th century.

Type terminology, dating from the days whenall type was set by hand and printed almost ex-clusively by letterpress, also remains the same.A font of type is comprised of all the upper andlowercase letters of the alphabet, the term "case"derives from the printer's case, a hinged doublebox in which all the capital letters are kept in theupper case), as well as numbers, punctuationmarks, ligatures (characters made of two or moreletters joined together--ff, ffl, for example) andspecial characters in a particular design and size.


Points constitute an important category size. Onepoint is equivalent to 0.01383 inches (0.35128mm), and all type is designated in point size.There are 12 points to a pica, and approximately72 points to the inch (25.4 mm).

To set type, the compositor uses a compos-ing stick that is calibrated in picas and adjustedto whatever line length is specified in thetypographer's design. Divisions between wordsand sentences are made with assorted metalspace units; the widths of these spaces arebased on the em, a unit of measurement that is asquare of the typeface's point size: that is, a 10point em is 10 points wide and 10 points high.One half of an em is an en. When space is neededbetween lines of composed type, thin strips ofmetal called leads (2 points thick) or slugs (6points thick) are inserted.

When the compositor nears the end of the line,he inserts spacing material between the words tomake the line of type fit tightly, a process called jus-tification. When the composing stick is full of lines,the justified type is removed and laid on metal trayscalled galleys. The lines of type are "leaded out" onthe galleys, and proofs—single sheets printed byhand—are pulled and corrections made. Pagemakeup includes breaking up the galleys into page-long sections of text, making space for illustrations,adding running heads, chapter titling, pagination,and the like. After page proofs have been madeand approved, the type is locked into a form andmade ready for printing.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TYPEFACES

Early typeface designs were based on thepen-drawn letters of the scribes who, beforeGutenberg, had produced books by hand.Gutenberg's typefaces were modeled on the for-mal black letter styles popular in Germany at thetime.

As the art of printing spread, less formalblackletter type designs made their appearance,each based on a different popular handwritingstyle. The scribal hands favored in Italy by hu-manist scholars were of an entirely different na-ture.

Lowercase letters were modeled on 9th cen-

tury Carolingian scripts, while the uppercase let-ters were derived from first and second centuryRoman capitals inscribed in stone.

The great scripts inspired type designers tomake faithful copies in metal, variations of whichare used to this day and are called "romans." In-fluential early roman faces were designed in Ven-ice by the French printer Nicolas Jenson duringthe 1470s. Aldus Manutius, another Venetianprinter, also designed a celebrated romans andwas the first to introduce, in 1501, an italic type-face, based on Italian cursive hand.

By the middle of the 16th century, type de-signers had begun to integrate Renaissance ide-als of proportion into their types, many of whichwere formed according to geometric principles.

An increasing French design influence wasobvious in the work of Claude Garamond andRobert Granjon, whose designs were not slavishcopies of pen-drawn letter forms, but were newforms, because both were expert cutters on steel.

French types dominated book printingthroughout Europe for over 100 years, finally giv-ing way in the 17th century to the fresh but some-what crude types of Dutch foundries. The chieffeatures of Dutch types were the high contrast be-tween thick and thin lines, a stress on the verticalrather than the slightly angled position of oldertypes, and large capitals. The sturdy vigor ofthese types particularly appealed to English print-ers who imported them in large quantities. In the1720s, however, the great English typefounderWilliam Caslon issued his first types. Though theyshowed an unmistakable Dutch influence, his de-signs were less harsh and quite readable, soonbecoming great favorites with printers.

The typefaces discussed so far are classi-fied by historians as oldstyle romans. So-calledtransitional faces began to appear in the 18thcentury, characterized by increased contrast be-tween thick and thin lines, lighter serifs, and astrong vertical stress. (A serif is the short, angledline at the ends of a letter's upper and lowerstrokes.) The types of the English printer JohnBaskerville first used in 1757, are often describedas the first true transitionals.


Toward the end of the 18th century, neoclas-sical, or modern romans, began to appear,marked by thin, graceful serifs, their most signifi-cant feature. The types of Parisian printer-founderFirmin Didot and his counterpart in Italy,Giambatista Bodoni, were prototypical examplesof the style.

The 19th century was an extremely activeperiod in type design. Most printers bought theirtypes from intensely competitive commercial typefoundries whose rate of production, spurred bynew technologies, had increased dramatically.With no copyright protection for typeface design,typefounders were ruthless in their practice ofcopying the products of their competitors.

Among the more important developmentswere the introduction of square-serif designs in1815 by the English founder Vincent Figgins anda year later, the first sans-serif—a type withoutserif strokes—by William Caslon.

All-cap, heavily weighted, square serif(known also as slab serif) designs were ruggedtypes that became popular with printers handlingadvertising. With the incorporation of a lower-case alphabet, the square serifs evolved by mid-century into a popular family of types known asClarendons.

Except for a few durable romans, 19th cen-tury American book faces tended to be fairly mun-dane. There was, however, a huge variety of dis-play and ornamental faces that were featured innewspaper headlines and text, in advertising,catalogs, and the like.

By the end of the 19th century, the speed ofprinting presses had increased; hard, machine-made paper was commonplace; and the eco-nomics of the printing industry precluded typo-graphical niceties. On the printed page, typelooked weak and ineffectual. By way of protest,in 1888 the English craftsman William Morris de-signed a typeface based on 15th centuryJensonian models. Called Golden, it influencedthe type designs of other private presses, as wellas attracting the attention of commercial found-ries who admired its dense, oldstyle characteris-tics. Sparking a revival of interest in oldstyle de-

signs, it was quickly copied; Jenson was thename given to the American version of the Mor-ris design.

Although the vigorous types of Morris andothers were much admired, less emphatic de-signs prevailed in the early 20th century. One ofthe more important was Cheltenham, an oldstyledesigned by the architect Bertram Goodhue.Sans-serif designs by Herbert Bayer emergedfrom the German Bauhaus Movement during the1920s, and Paul Renner's 1927 sans-serif, Fu-tura, still enjoys great commercial success.

Typographers today enjoy the fruits of fivecenturies of type design. Typefaces based onoldstyle, transitional, and modern styles continueto be popular for book work, while sans-serifs pre-dominate in advertising and magazines. Duringthe last 30 years, a class of typefaces that com-bine serif and sans-serif features have been usedwith great versatility, a notable example beingHermann Zapf's Optima.

TWENTIETH CENTURYDEVELOPMENTS IN TYPESETTING

Throughout the 19th century, various attemptswere made to develop reliable mechanical type-setting machines. The chief defects of these earlymachines lay in their inability to provide automaticjustification. With the invention of the Linotypemachine by Ottmar Mergenthaler during the1880s, and later the development of the Mono-type, the mechanical problems were solved.Ambitious type-design programs were initiatedby both the Linotype and Monotype companies;along with entirely new designs, fresh interpreta-tions of historic faces were commissioned.

Like the earlier hand casting of type, both theLinotype and the Monotype used molten, or "hot"metal. The decline of letterpress relief printing andan increase in the use of offset spurred researchinto the development of composition systems dis-pensing with metal typecasting altogether. In 1946an Intertype Fotosetter was tested at the U.S. Gov-ernment Printing Office. The Fotosetter was alinecasting machine containing brass matrices thathad film negatives of characters inserted into theirside. Light was focused through the negatives onto


photosensitized paper and produced images oftype from which printing plates could be made.

Second generation phototypesetters madetheir debut in 1954 with the introduction of the Pho-ton 200 machine. Here, a spinning film matrix con-tained all of the characters in a font, with a strobo-scopic light source, and a system of lenses for fo-cussing images of type in the desired sizes ontosensitized paper.

The third generation of phototypesettersstored fonts digitally on a magnetic core. Type-setting code was sent to a character generator,which produced bright images on a cathode raytube. These in turn were focused through lensesonto sensitized paper.

Fourth-generation systems have been intro-duced that feature digitally stored fonts and very-high-resolution laser-driven imaging devices. Anadded advantage of these latest machines is theirability to produce line and halftone images, aswell as type.

TYPE AS AN ELEMENT IN BOOKDESIGN

The choice of an appropriate typeface is acrucial element in the design of a book. Consci-entious typographers consider many factors be-fore selecting a typeface, including length of text,type and quality of paper, the printing process tobe used, and the subject of the book itself. Typesthat are weak or light in appearance are tiring toread when used as text-faces, while bold or un-usual faces call attention to themselves. Publica-tions directed at a mass readership, like news-papers and magazines, require types of a spe-cial nature. During the late 19th and early 20thcenturies, a number of so-called legibility faceswere designed specifically for high-speed, high-quality printing applications. They had, typically,sturdy serifs and large x-heights (basically, ameasure of readability). Two celebrated types inthis class are Century and Times Roman.

While the ideal text face should be readableand well-balanced, display types are meant to bevisible. In addition to large, bold versions of textfaces, printers have at their disposal a vast arse-

nal of display types that are ornate, decorated,or otherwise embellished to make them standout. Such display types have been producedmainly for use by advertising typographers andare a phenomenon of the 19th and 20th centu-ries.

Changes in the way books are producedhave influenced the appearance of type on theprinted page. While letterpress was the domi-nant printing process, type designers had to takeinto account factors that were peculiar to that pro-cess, including the slight three-dimensional effectobtained when metal type is pressed into paper.Though that effect is much cherished by book lov-ers, the offset printing process dominates today,and designers must consider its unique charac-teristics.

The manner in which letters are now pro-duced has also affected their design. As eachnew electronic typesetting system is readied forthe market, font libraries compatible with thesystem's hardware must be prepared. Informa-tion about each character's shape is stored incomputer memory as a bitmap; the simpler a de-sign, the less memory is required. Thus in thecopying of old faces for phototypesetting (or "coldtype"), there is a tendency to eliminate many ofthe quirks that gave these types life and individu-ality. The best modern designs, therefore, arenot so much adaptations of old faces as new ones,specifically created with the limitations of com-puter storage and electronic output devices inmind.

Incunabula(in-kue-nab'-ue-luh)

A term in printing or publishing, incunabuladerives from the Latin for "swaddling clothes." Anincunabulum, or incunable, is any book, pamphlet,or broadside printed during the 15th century--thebeginning of the European printing industry.

Johann Gutenberg first used movable typein about the year 1450; by the end of the century,presses had been established in over 200 com-munities, and as many as 40,000 different itemshad been printed. Books usually appeared as


quartos bound between wooden boards anddecorated copiously with woodcuts. Print runswere small, averaging less than 500, with somenotable exceptions. Thomas a Kempis's Imita-tion of Christ (1471), for instance, ran to almost100 editions by 1500. The vernacular had gainedground by that time, but most 15th-century pro-ductions were religious works in Latin, the mostfamous specimen being the 1455 GutenbergBible.

Although German firms remained dominantthroughout the period, Venice alone boasted 150presses, and such printers as William Caxton inEngland and Aldus Manutius in Venice had awide influence. Owners functioned as typecutters,publishers, and booksellers as well as ink mak-ers and printers.

Many incunabula were destroyed during theReformation and Counter-Reformation, so thevalue of surviving copies is high. Most of theseare housed in libraries and museums; the Brit-ish Museum Library and the BibliothequeNationale have two of the largest collections out-side of Germany.

Fust, Johann (foost)Johann Fust, b. c.1400, d. Oct. 30, 1466, was

a German printer and the financial backer of Jo-hann Gutenberg, who is credited with the inven-tion of movable type and the printing press.

The money advanced by Fust in 1450 andan additional loan granted about 1452 enabledGutenberg to develop his printing process andto buy the necessary materials and equipment.When Gutenberg could not repay him, Fust fore-closed and took possession of Gutenberg's pressand materials.

With Peter Schoffer, his son-in-law, who hadalso been Gutenberg's foreman, Fust publishedthe 42-line Bible in 1456 and the Psalter in 1457,the first example of color printing. Both volumes,however, had been designed and initiated byGutenberg and are generally credited to him.Fust's firm later produced the Benedictine Psalter(1459), the 48-line Bible (1462), and an editionof Cicero's De officiis. Fust died on a trip to Paris,

and Schoffer inherited the business.

Gutenberg BibleThe first book ever produced mechanically

was a Bible printed in Europe about 1455 on apress invented by Johann Gutenberg. The actualprinting is usually attributed to Gutenberg, but itmay have been done by his partner, Johann Fust,and Fust's son-in-law, Peter Schoffer. Gutenbergis given the credit because he began the produc-tion and did all of the design for the work.

Gutenberg (c.1398-1468), originally a gold-smith, developed his process of printing by us-ing movable type made from punch-stampedmatrices, a press similar to a wine press, andoil-based printing ink. The 42-line Bible, of whichfewer than 50 copies are extant, comprised 1,284pages, each with two columns of text containing42 lines to a column. Each page held about 2,500individual pieces of lead type, set by hand. TheGerman Gothic type-style was modeled on re-gional manuscripts of the period. Six pressesworked on the Bible simultaneously, printing 20to 40 pages of type a day.

The Psalter, generally regarded as Europe'ssecond printed book, is sometimes attributed toGutenberg because it includes his innovation ofpolychrome initial letters using multiple inking on asingle metal block.

The 36-line Bible (1458-59), of which eightcopies remain, and the Catholicon (1460), aresometimes also attributed to Gutenberg.

Master of the PlayingCards

It has been suggested, but not proven, thatthe Master of the Playing Cards was associatedwith Johann Gutenberg. What is known is that hewas an anonymous engraver active in the sec-ond third of the 15th century, believed to haveworked in southern Germany and possibly Swit-zerland. He is named for sets of engraved play-ing cards containing suits of animals, birds,people, and flowers shown in a variety of poses.

NEWSPAPER HISTORY


The earliest newspapers were perhaps thehandwritten notices in ancient Rome called ActaCiurna, Acta Senatus, and Acta Publica, whichwere posted to be read by the public. In the mid-15th century the German inventor Johann Guten-berg developed movable metal type (movablewooden type was used as early as the 6th cen-tury in the Far East); this made possible the even-tual development of the newspaper.

The Germans were newspaper pioneers inEurope. Forerunners of newspapers as they areknown today were published later in the 15th cen-tury in Nurnberg, Cologne, and Augsburg.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, rudimentarynewspapers spread throughout Germany and ap-peared elsewhere in Europe—Venice in 1562,the Low Countries in 1616, Britain in 1620, andFrance in 1631. Subsequently, the newspaperspread around the world.

U.S. newspaper history can be divided intoeight periods: (1) the colonial press, (2) the Revo-lutionary War press, (3) the political press, (4) thepenny press, (5) New Journalism, or the press ofpersonal editors, (6) the yellow press, (7) jazz jour-nalism, and (8) the current period of consolida-tion.

The first newspaper in America was a Bos-ton news sheet called Publick Occurrenses BothForreign and Domestick, in 1690; it appearedonly once. Early publishers of note in the Ameri-can colonies were printers such as JohnCampbell and James and Benjamin Franklin.

America's first regularly published newspa-per was the Boston News-Letter (1704). A land-mark event in U.S. journalism occurred in 1735,when John Peter Zenger was tried for seditiouslibel but acquitted because he had printed thetruth. The political tracts of John Dickinson andothers helped set the stage for the AmericanRevolution, during which both sides had news-paper supporters.

The post-revolutionary political press re-flected the partisan battles between the Federal-ists and the Republicans. Newspapers were fos-tering a national consciousness and developingpolitical awareness.

The Penny Press (1830s-1860s) providedhuman interest at a low price for the ordinaryreader. Leading examples of the Penny Presswere James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald,and Horace Greeley's Tribune.

Following the Civil War came New Journal-ism, when the modern newspaper took form.Three men dominated this period of news-and-opinion journalism in which the editor's voice wasprominent: Joseph Pulitzer, William RandolphHearst, and E. W. Scripps.

Intense competition—particularly betweenPulitzer and Hearst—led (in the 1890s) to YellowJournalism, with its emphasis on sensationalism.Sensational and entertainment-oriented newspa-pers also put some emphasis on muckraking andconfrontation.

Jazz journalism refers to the proliferation oftabloid-size newspaper with a sensational ap-proach to the news and with abundant illustrations.The first U.S. tabloid, the New York Daily News,is still the exemplar of the tabloid category.

Today, U.S. newspapers are caught up in aconsolidation trend toward group-ownership,which actually began after World War I.

U.S. newspapers are increasingly falling intoone of the 155 chains or groups (for example,Gannett, Knight-Ridder, Newhouse, Scripps-Howard, Hearst, and Thomson) and, accordingto many critics of this trend, are losing much oftheir distinctiveness and independence.

At the turn of the century there were only 8chains in the United States, controlling 27 dailynewspapers and accounting for 10% of thecountry's circulation. By 1982, 155 chains con-trolled about two-thirds of the daily newspapers.By 1987 only about 50 U.S. cities had more thanone separately owned and competing newspa-per. In spite of the decrease in competition, theAmerican newspaper presents its readers witha wealth of news, views, and entertainment un-known in earlier times.

The cultural Renaissance that occurred dur-ing the preceding century and a half was a nec-essary preliminary, because it raised the level of


education, reemphasized the ancient classics,contributed to thought and learning, and offeredHumanism and rhetoric as an alternative to Scho-lasticism. Especially through its emphasis on thebiblical languages and close attention to the lit-erary texts, the Renaissance made possible thebiblical exegesis that led to doctrinal reinterpre-tation. Moreover, Christian humanists criticizedecclesiastical abuses and promoted the study ofboth the Bible and the church fathers.

The invention of printing by Johann Guten-berg provided a powerful instrument for thespread of learning and Reformation ideas.

BOOK

Books, ranging from ancient scrolls totoday's mass-produced volumes, are an impor-tant storehouse of human knowledge. They origi-nated in humanity's efforts to make permanentwhat oral tradition could not adequately preserve.This section discusses the history of books fromtheir ancient origins to the present, focusing uponmajor developments in the art of bookmaking.

OriginsAlthough the ancient Mesopotamians devel-

oped writing on clay tablets, the genesis of themodern book can be traced to the Papyrus scrollsproduced in Egypt. Much like the Torah scrollsstill used in synagogues, these scrolls were un-rolled as they were read.

At first only single copies were made. Thepapyrus rolls varied in length; some of those con-tained in the library at Alexandria might have beenas long as 30 ft. The earliest books containedprayers, rituals, incantations, laws and govern-ment records, medical and scientific observa-tions, and epics previously passed down orally.The Book of the Dead, which is often consideredthe first book despite the existence of earlier pa-pyrus fragments, contained prayers and magicformulas to guide the dead in the afterlife.

By the 2nd century BC, the Ptolemies ofEgypt, jealous of their library at Alexandria, for-bade the export of papyrus. The Romans, whoreplaced the Ptolemies as rulers of Egypt, con-tinued to produce papyrus rolls, however, and by

classical Roman times had developed book re-production so rapidly that several hundred cop-ies of the same work could be made in a rela-tively short time.

Meanwhile, Eumenes II, ruler of the ancientGreek kingdom of Pergamum, encouraged theproduction of vellum, a material made from thedressed skin of goats, sheep, or calves and com-piled a library rivaling that of the Ptolemies. Pro-tected between pairs of wooden boards andsewn together, bound volumes of vellum were theantecedents of books as they are known today,although the Chinese had at the time made booksconsisting of bamboo strips bound together withcord.

Smooth, tough, and durable, vellum, forwhich the Latin name is still pergamena ("parch-ment"), forms an ideal writing material, although,in modern times, the high cost has limited its useto special purposes.

The Middle AgesBookbinding in the West originated with the

gradual development of the codex—foldedleaves or pages contained within two or morewooden tablets covered with a wax writing sur-face and held together by rings. By the 4th cen-tury these codices had largely replaced the scroll.The codex marked a revolutionary change fromthe rolled manuscript. Despite the cost of mate-rials, great bibles and service books were pro-duced, splendidly illuminated with pictures, deco-rated initials, and borders. Examples are theBook of Kells (8th century) and the WinchesterBible (pre-13th century).

Even so, few people could read during theMiddle Ages, and virtually all the manuscripts,knowledge, and literature of the ancient world, aswell as the Bible and the great texts ofChristendom, were produced and preserved inmonasteries.

The great medieval scriptoria reflected theefforts of many monks working together, as wellas the labors of theologians, skilled illuminators,and scribes. A remarkable number of copies ofworks, both secular and religious, were produced


by hand copying.

By the 13th century the thrust of intellectuallife had passed to the universities. Workshopsdeveloped, and professional scribes became theprincipal creators of books. More people couldread, and many more books were privatelyowned. As the Middle Ages progressed, kingsand rich laymen became patrons to the artists,who produced richly illuminated works. Medievalmanuscripts were at first written in Romanesquescript and later in Gothic.

By the 14th century, in Italy, the humanistswere turning for inspiration to the ancient worldand were developing a new handwriting. Theircapital letters were taken from Roman lapidary(incised) inscriptions and their lower case fromthe minuscule (small letter) manuscripts of theschool of Charlemagne. When early printers pro-duced the classics, they cut types derived fromthese scripts, from which the roman type com-monly used today is a direct descendant. Suchmanuscripts were often exquisitely illuminated.By the 15th century even more people could read,creating an urgent need for a less laboriousmethod of book production—a need accentuatedby the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Development of PrintingThe key to the invention of printing lay in

movable type. This type might be set up in anyorder and mistakes corrected; after printing, thesame type could be used again. Although simi-lar printing had developed earlier in China andKorea, Johann Gutenberg (b. Mainz, Germany,c.1397) is generally credited with the introduc-tion of printing in the West. The Gutenberg Bible,occasionally called the Mazarin Bible or 42-lineBible (1450-55), was the first book to be printedin Europe and is still one of the most beautiful.

Printing now spread swiftly, as journeymenleft masters and set up for themselves. Printedworks appeared in Italy (1453), Basel (1466),France (1470), Hungary (1473), Spain (1473),Poland (1474), Bruges (1474), England (1476),

Sweden (1483), and Mexico (1539).

Spread of PrintingBecause printing needed organized com-

mercial outlets to be successful, the powerful trad-ing center of Venice became the focus of earlyprinting. Nicolas Jenson (c.1420-1480), aFrenchman working in Venice, was the first im-portant printer whose nationality was not German.Jenson developed a superior roman type that in-spired many subsequent printers.

Jenson was primarily a craftsman, albeit ofgenius, but the Venetian printer Aldus Manutiuswas a scholar devoted to printing meticulouslyaccurate texts. He printed many of the Greek andRoman classics and revolutionized printing by cre-ating an entirely new space-saving italic type foruse in the widespread production of pocket edi-tions.

William Caxton printed the first books inEnglish in the late 15th century. He also com-bined scholarship with being a craftsman. Abouta third of the more than 100 books he printedwere his own translations.

The vast amount of printing during the 15thcentury and later would have been impossiblewithout paper, first produced in China as early asthe 2nd century BC. By the 15th century suffi-cient paper mills existed in France and Englandto supply the expanding demand of printers.

The first printed books, now called Incun-abula, resembled the manuscripts that they wereto supersede. The title page did not exist, butwithin a short time details of author, title, printer,place, and date were given in the final paragraph,known as the Colophon. Many printers used awoodcut device for identification.

16th and 17th CenturiesDuring the 16th century, books developed

into volumes similar to those produced today.They contained a title page and were well-edited,accurate texts made available to the public at amoderate price.

The cultural impact of books became moreapparent as their distribution became wide-


spread. Books disseminated political, religious,and philosophical ideas more widely and morerapidly. The printed word was largely responsiblefor spreading the ideas of the Reformation dur-ing the 16th century. Literary works reached in-creasingly larger audiences.

By the mid-16th century and into the 17th,the center of innovative book production movedfrom Italy to France and into the Low Countries.Families, often related by marriage, formed pub-lishing dynasties that spanned several genera-tions, and scholar-printers founded publishinghouses in Leiden, Paris, and Antwerp.

18th-Century DevelopmentsSignificant strides in bookmaking were

made during the 18th century. The French influ-ence continued to be felt, particularly in masterfulengravings that reflected aristocratic tastes. In-taglio engraving was vastly improved, and colorprinting was developed. Notable innovations intype were made by John Baskerville and WilliamCaslon in England and by Giambatista Bodoniin Italy.

Writing began to provide a profitable livingduring the 18th century. Books were purchasedby the public and not just the private patron, andnovels, children's books, and the family maga-zine enjoyed wide circulation.

The 18th century also saw the development ofencyclopedias, dictionaries, and other referencebooks. At the end of the 18th century and into the19th, almost everyone had an opportunity to read.The growth of democratic ideas, and their dissemi-nation through the written word, created an increas-ing demand for books and newspapers. Earnest19th-century reformers made numerous series ofgood books available, and devoted Christians dis-tributed Bibles.

Mechanization of PrintingThe Industrial Revolution had a profound ef-

fect on printing. The power-driven press ofFriedrich Koenig (1774-1833), first used in 1811,raised the number of pages printed in an hourfrom 250 to 1,000. The rotary press, introducedin 1848, achieved 24,000, and today more than

a million pages an hour are printed. Mechanicaltypesetting was first used in the 1860s in a lim-ited form. The Linotype was developed in 1884,the first punch-cutting machine in 1885. At thebeginning of the 19th century, the paper industrybegan manufacturing its product mechanicallyrather than by hand. Another major 19th-centurydevelopment was the creation of cloth binding.

The invention of photography by Louis Da-guerre in 1839 had an enormous impact on allforms of pictorial reproduction and ultimately onthe typesetting process itself. Among the pro-cesses made possible by photography were lineengraving, rotogravure, and offset printing. Theoffset process remains an integral part of mod-ern computerized printing.

Despite technical advances, standards ofdesign in book production had drastically de-clined by the middle of the 19th century. A move-ment for reform was mounted from outside thetrade in the form of the Private Press Movement,which received its impetus from William Morris,a writer, artist, and leading figure in the Arts andCrafts Movement, who founded the KelmscottPress in 1891.

Morris's books were decorated with his bril-liant designs for woodcut borders and initials andwere produced with the finest materials. His workinspired the creation of other presses that pro-duced high-quality books, and his influence ex-tended beyond England to Germany and theUnited States.

The 20th CenturyAs the movement spread to the United

States, special editions and books of remarkablyhigh quality and aesthetic beauty were producedby publishers and their designers. Approximately50,000 separate new titles are published eachyear in the United States alone.

Although the quality of paper used in massproduction remains a problem, new, acid-freepapers are now available, and many publishershave agreed to use them. (Most books publishedover the past century have been printed on pa-


per with an acid content that turns pages yellowand brittle). Mass production, computerized print-ing techniques, the development of relatively in-expensive paperback editions, book clubs, andpublic libraries, among other factors, have mademore books available to more people than everbefore.

In this age of mechanization, book collect-ing, which dates from the Ptolemies, is still preva-lent. Collectors range from professional book-sellers to bibliophiles who collect books for theirliterary value, their aesthetic appeal, or their mon-etary worth as an investment. For whatever rea-son—and despite the competition from televi-sion, movies, and other forms of entertainment—old books are still cherished and new books arestill produced, bought, and read.

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