ART OF LITHOGRAPHY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 135, 4 December 1935, Page 4

ART OF LITHOGRAPHY

INTERESTING LECTURE

In connection with the exhibition of lithographs now being shown in the Art Gallery, Mr. C. M. Banks gave a very interesting lecture last night on the art of lithography. Though the literal meaning of the •word lithography was "writing on stone," metaL plates have now superseded stone in the process, he said. Lithography was discovered in 1796 by Senefelder near his home in Bavaria, the story being that he chanced to write his washing list on a convenient stone with a crayon, and that the idea occurred to him to endeavour to obtain an impression on paper by covering the writing with ink. It worked, and Senefelder, being anxious to discover some cheap method of printing, soon perfected the process to a point suitable for commercial purposes. The work might be drawn direct on the stone, on transfer paper and transferred to the stone, or produced by a photographic process. Drawing on the stone was somewhat laborious ana tedious work, and required the use of a magnifying glass.

The art of lithography depended upon the following properties of the substance forming the printing surface: —(1) That a drawing made upon it with greasy ink. adhered to it so strongly as to require mechanical force to remove it; (2) that parts of the substance (usually a stone or a plate) received and retained water, and so repelled the ink; and <3) that when the surface was inked by a roller or other means, covered with greasy ink, it would attach itself only to the drawn parts which were greasy, and would be repelled by the portion not drawn upon and wetted. Until recent years nearly all lithographic work was printed from stones, chiefly obtained from Germany, although some of inferior quality had been found in other countries. Today it was nearly all done from zinc plates (sometimes aluminium plates were used, but they were more expensive), and by the offset process, which derived its name from the fact that the printing was not done direct from the plate to the- paper, but from a rubber blanket on which a print of thei design was transferred, and from the rubber blanket to the paper.