DOI Heft:
No. 289 (April 1917)
DOI Artikel:Salaman, Malcolm C.: The art of the colour-print
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24576#0123
The Art of the Cotour-print
Before putting the plate with its design into
the nitric acid—not too strong, by the way—
the colour-shape, which is to be left in relief,
must be covered with a protective paint to
preserve it while the rest of the zinc is being
eaten away—to the depth only of a sheet of
paper. Deeper than this the acid would begin
to bite also laterally which would injure the
design. Of course the back of the plate must
be protected. To arrest the action of the
acid, the zinc must be rinsed in water and
dried. A resin, rejoicing in the weird name
of Dragon’s Blood, is freely powdered r>ver the
plate’s surface, and this is then brushed off—
with a thick, broad, dat brush—from left to
right in four different directions. It clings
particularly to the edges of the design, as yet
slightly bitten. Melted on a heater, as it must
be for the design's protection, the Dragon’s
Blood turns from red to brown. The operation
is repeated until the plate has been bitten
deeply enough for printing, when the zinc is
cleansed with turpentine or potash. Mr. Giles
has used this process for several of his recent
prints, the most impressive of which, perhaps,
is The Last Gleam, Central Corsica, a beautiful
thing. Mrs. Giles (Ada M. Shrimpton), a
talented painter in water-colours, has employed
this method also in the seivice of a very sensitive
landscape-vision—her Vetches in Rye—Veijle
Fjord, Almond-Tree in the Apennines, and The
Passing oj the Flowers being exquisitely pure
and harmonious m colour. And since the charm
of colour is the raison d etre of the colour-print,
it is to be hoped that other artists will be
attracted to a method that offers such possi-
bilities of attaining this.
There is still another medium at the service
of the graphic colour-printer—lithography; yet
so far this has been little recognized in this
country. The charm of spontaneity, vitality,
and autography of expression is the artistic
appeal of lithography, but the British artists
who have responded to this appeal rarely see,
as so many Continental artists have seen, that
the medium may be sympathetic to pictorial
expression in colour. Whistler saw this, and
did tinted lithographs in his dainty and exquisite
manner. T. R. Way used lithography for
definite colour-prints, so has Mr. Sydney Lee.
113
Before putting the plate with its design into
the nitric acid—not too strong, by the way—
the colour-shape, which is to be left in relief,
must be covered with a protective paint to
preserve it while the rest of the zinc is being
eaten away—to the depth only of a sheet of
paper. Deeper than this the acid would begin
to bite also laterally which would injure the
design. Of course the back of the plate must
be protected. To arrest the action of the
acid, the zinc must be rinsed in water and
dried. A resin, rejoicing in the weird name
of Dragon’s Blood, is freely powdered r>ver the
plate’s surface, and this is then brushed off—
with a thick, broad, dat brush—from left to
right in four different directions. It clings
particularly to the edges of the design, as yet
slightly bitten. Melted on a heater, as it must
be for the design's protection, the Dragon’s
Blood turns from red to brown. The operation
is repeated until the plate has been bitten
deeply enough for printing, when the zinc is
cleansed with turpentine or potash. Mr. Giles
has used this process for several of his recent
prints, the most impressive of which, perhaps,
is The Last Gleam, Central Corsica, a beautiful
thing. Mrs. Giles (Ada M. Shrimpton), a
talented painter in water-colours, has employed
this method also in the seivice of a very sensitive
landscape-vision—her Vetches in Rye—Veijle
Fjord, Almond-Tree in the Apennines, and The
Passing oj the Flowers being exquisitely pure
and harmonious m colour. And since the charm
of colour is the raison d etre of the colour-print,
it is to be hoped that other artists will be
attracted to a method that offers such possi-
bilities of attaining this.
There is still another medium at the service
of the graphic colour-printer—lithography; yet
so far this has been little recognized in this
country. The charm of spontaneity, vitality,
and autography of expression is the artistic
appeal of lithography, but the British artists
who have responded to this appeal rarely see,
as so many Continental artists have seen, that
the medium may be sympathetic to pictorial
expression in colour. Whistler saw this, and
did tinted lithographs in his dainty and exquisite
manner. T. R. Way used lithography for
definite colour-prints, so has Mr. Sydney Lee.
113