Studio: international art (16.1899)

The Truth About Lithography

paper, will they be considered inferior swindles? did not know the difference between a process
Will the work of Degas be thrown to the dogs ? block and a lithograph, but rejected the work of
Or will the late self-appointed authorities hold an outsider because they thought it was a process
their peace and wish they had never spoken? block, and hung the work of one of their own
And what of M. Fantin-Latour ? Is it known that members done in the same way as a lithograph,
he has very rarely drawn on anything but the such an Academy deserves no attention. Again,
paper? I am afraid not. But M. Germain drawings on paper were catalogued as litho-
Hediard, who has catalogued his lithographs, is graphs at all the Centenary Exhibitions—in Paris,
careful to record the fact that, because M. Belfond, in Diisseldorf, in New York, and now in London,
the printer who has done so much to improve This ends all discussion as to what they should be
transfer paper, called M. Fantin-Latour's attention called. It would be interesting in a catalogue or
to it, therefore this artist was converted definitely a technical history, to state in every case whether
to lithography. And not only this, M. Hediard a lithograph was made upon paper, stone, zinc,
adds that the paper gave him a freedom he had aluminium, celluloid, or I know not what else. I
never dreamed possible, and assured to his litho- did this, whenever I could, in my recent book on
graphs a spontaneity not to be found in the prints lithography. I suggested it should be done at
even of masters like Gericault and Delacroix. In the Centenary Exhibition at South Kensington. It
a word, modern usage, as established by the most was not, and for a very simple reason. It would
distinguished lithographers of the day, is wholly be impossible, unless in every case the artist had
and entirely in accord with the teachings of Sene- specially recorded the fact himself. Because he has
felder and with tradition. not, and because a critic may find out that a htho-

It has, again, been suggested that if a lithograph graph was drawn upon something besides Solenhofen
is drawn upon paper, it is artistically inferior, and stone, does not make it less a lithograph, or prove
should be described by another name to distinguish that it is in any way inferior, or require that it
it from a drawing on stone. To consider first " the should have some useless title affixed to it.
question of nomenclature ;" Senefelder divided his There remains now but the question of artistic
" Course of Lithography" into 11 sundry manners merit, of which much has been made. If com-
of lithography: the elevated manner; the chalk paratively little was done on transfer paper until
manner; the transfer and tracing manner; the some thirty years ago, the fault lay with the paper,
woodcut manner; the sprinkled manner," &C. &c. which was greasy and sticky, and therefore diffi-
The print obtained ' by each of these manners cult to work on • while, later, the results were some-
was, and is, a lithograph. He, the inventor, times unpleasant because the grain of the paper
made absolutely no distinction whatever, except was mechanical in effect. But recently it has
to say that the transfer manner, the drawing on been discovered—though Senefelder knew even this
paper, was the most important part of his dis- —that any sort of paper can be drawn upon, and
covery. Every other writer, every compiler of that the drawing may then be transferred to stone,
catalogues and manuals, has followed Senefelder's either smooth or grained as the artist prefers,
lead. No distinction has ever been made.' When Ordinary paper may be drawn upon with chalk or
it was known, as in the case of Manet, or when ink and transferred, i.e., shifted mechanically to the
there was some special reason, as in the case of stone, for this is all that transferring means. More-
Prout and Raffet, the fact that the lithograph was over, you can do on the paper everything you
made on paper was sometimes mentioned. But all can do on the stone. But an unanswerable argu-
these prints have always been called lithographs, ment in favour of the artistic merits of paper is to
Drawings on paper are catalogued as lithographs be had not only in what can be done, but in what
in the British and South Kensington Museums, and has been done, what is done. It is all very well to
in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliotheque hint, in defiance of Senefelder, Hullmandel, and all
Nationale, Paris, and the statement that in this the authorities, that the lithograph made on paper
library there is a discrimination between drawings on is inferior in result, if, indeed, this manner does not
paper and drawings on stone is deliberately false, actually mean technical dishonesty. But what are
Drawings on paper are hung as lithographs in the the facts ? Those who have doubted the name and
■old Salon and the new, in the New English Art artistic quality, are convinced that in the modern
Club, and the International Exhibition, Knights- artistic revival the great men are M. Fantin-Latour
bridge; and as to the Royal Academy and its and Mr. C. H. Shannon. They work the " true
.action, an artistic body whose Hanging Committee lithograph," the critics meaning drawing on stone;

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