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Xylograph
From the Greeks (wood), it
is the technique which origins from a work of an incision
made by hand on a wood matrix. Using appropriate instruments
to cut (carpenter’s gouge, knives, carpenter’s
chisel and engravings ), the “raw material ”
is taken from the support leaving a visible contour of ups
and downs. Its predominant character lives in taking off
and not in adding material, subverting in this way the artist’s
attitude: the spaces are made from the inner to the out
side. From the sulk and the relief the artist gets the value
of lights and shadows and intermediate zones where the black
and white don’t mean filled or empty space.
The hand, plus the instrument
acting on the material, which will offer bigger or smaller
attack, is subjected to a rhythm of an actuating biologically
in the motion and in the resistance of the material. That
is the reason why we say that xylography is that form of
graphic expression that “ more the execution makes
part of the creation”.
Each instrument corresponds
to a kind of sulk in the matrix. That is the reason why
we say that in xylography there is a real alphabet of instruments
to be learned and practiced. In printing on MADEIRA DE TOPO,
that means, wood cut against the line, using preferably
simple or squall engravings that in general will result
in white against black background. The real xylography is
when the instrument can move itself in all directions. In
printing on wood cut, that is, cut wood in the direction
of the natural line, using preferably knives, carpenter’s
chisel and gouge, will result in general in values black
on white background. It is the real xylography when the
instrument can move itself in the direction of the line
and not against it. These two techniques together or mixed
is that predominate the printing in the wood .It is also
totally valid nowadays the use of mechanical instrument,
when necessary to the artist to get a certain image or aim.
As well as the use of image of natural textures or effects
in the wood, both added to the composition.
In the stage of TINGAGEM
and printing, the artistic xylography receives in general
a cold treatment by hand.
Filling with ink a matrix
with a roller or brush according to the type of ink (oil
or water).
A whole matrix or parts of
it or different matrixes that will make an image are in
this way fulfilled with ink, and afterwards they will be
ready to be printed on a paper which will be sustained by
their relieves. In the back of this paper pression is done,
varying its intensity according to the nature of the instrument:
Bamboo spoon, “frottage” with material, leather
doll, Japanese “ baren”, rubber, wood or synthetic
rollers, which will determine the clear fixation of the
image printed, on the back.
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In England, Italy, Germany and Flanders it was big the number
of anonymous artists that since 1406 produced printed wood
blocks as ludic handcraft – deck of cards, as well
as religious handcraft – bibles,etc… real comic
strips of that time, taking into account the big number
of illiterates. Some years after (1454), the application
of xilography was very well known with printed books, where
appears vignette and big letters illustrating the texts.
Some artists who work with technique: Maestro E.S. 1466;
Shongauer 1455/1495; Durer 1471/1528; Lucas Cranach 1472/1553;
Albrecht Altdorfer 1480/1538; Hans Baldung Grien 1484/1545;
Hans Burgkmair 1473/1531 and others. From 1550 to 1700 is
the period when the xilography has its decadence.
Predominate the reproducers of drawings
and paintings of great masters. We may notice that when
Gutenberg invented the press (or printing) around 1550,
the printing on wood was the ideal one for its possibility
of mobility of its blocks based on process of register.
In this way the xylography after 1550 was dedicated to fix
decorative effects in creativity and only survived because
it multiplied masterpieces of other techniques, being carachterized
for the use of borrowed values. With exception of some xylographies
that were made in the Orient around this time till end of
the years 1700, for example Hokusay and Utamaro, the last
one creator of beautiful xylographies which have some relation
with the Kabuki theatre.
After the decadence period, there was a
recovering of the xylography for its creative values in
Thomas Bewick, in England ( 1753/1828). In France, 1860,
Jean François Millet revives the printing in MADEIRA
DE FIO, soon followed by Gauguin who extends its masterpiece
of large reinvention and simplicity.
At the end Edvard Munch, Nourish ( 1863/1944)
realizes a enormous work as wood engraver. He makes a revolution,
working on the matrix and printing himself the same picture.
For the specific use of the instruments and taking advantage
of the wood, he is the one who reproposes in its plenitude
the technique of xylography as an expressive means.
In Germany, all the expressionists work
in the same direction. We can mention : Nolde, Beckman,
Heckel, Kirchner, Kaethe Hollwitz, Feininger and many others.
In Posada, Mexico ( 1851/1913) revives the
tradition, never interrupted since its beginning, of the
picture on wood as an instrument for the people education.
Leopoldo Mendez created a real school based on the eloquence
of cartoon and in the social usage of image. His prints,
or better, his matrixes, were pressed directly in the daily
newspaper, along with typographic texts and “ clichés”.
These are the whole recent ancestrals who impregnated the
artists generation after war ( 1939/1941), even in Brazil.
Text from Mara Bonomi and Renina
Katz
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