What is an Original Print?

What Is A Print?
Printmaking: The Historical Background by Carl Zigrosser

The concept of originality in prints and the value placed upon it have undergone many changes during the centuries since prints were first made. One must distinguish between several kinds of originality, a confusion partially due to the nature of the graphic processes. One meaning relates to the artist and his work. The original artist is the creator, prime mover, inventor as contrasted with the copyist or follower: Rembrandt as against Ferdinand Bol, or the Apostle St. John engraved by the Master ES as against the copy of the same subject by Van Meckenem. Two other uses of the word original are peculiar to printmaking. In prints, there are not one but many originals (used as a noun), since the graphic media were specially devised for the purpose of creating multi-originals. Each fine print is therefore an original, whereas of a painting or drawing there is only the one original. When used as an adjective, as in original etching, there is the implication that the print was designed and executed by one and the same person. Thus, in the original etching, Whistler's Nocturne, of the first Venice Set, the artist drew the design on the copper, etched it with acid, and printed the proof himself, in contrast with a reproductive print, such as The Massacre of the Innocents, which was engraved by Marc Antonio Raimondi but copied after the drawing by Raphael. There has been a tendency, recently, to limit original prints strictly to those in which the artist has performed every step of the process, including the printing, as in Whistler's Nocturne. Where the plate was executed in a relatively simple technique and no color was involved and where a large edition was called for, as in Whistler's Black Lion Wharf, the plate was turned over for printing to a professional printer (the Ellis and Greene printer, or Goulding). But recently with the use of complex intaglio techniques including color, as employed by Lasansky or Peterdi for example, the artist maintains that only he is capable of carrying out the ultimate intention in printing.

Today we are much more conscious of originality in all senses of the word than our forefathers were. In the late Middle Ages when prints began to be made in Europe, the idea of originality did not exist; there were traditional themes and traditional modes of depicting them which were transmitted from artist to artist and generation to generation. Artists copied and recopied each other's work without any sense of guilt. In the mediaeval, and to a large extent in the oriental conception of art, the artist's personality was submerged in his work. Pictures were not signed. The earliest signatures on prints were marks or monogrmams such as E.S. or MS (Master ES or Martin Schongauer); and it has been suggested that these marks — following the practice of goldsmiths — were hallmarks or guarantees of honest and masterly workmanship rather than signatures in the modern sense of the word. Gradually, however, as prints and easel paintings became transportable, and therefore acquired use and value as personal property, the artist's name became a valuable asset; and his production, issued under his own trademark, became almost a special brand of merchandise. Beginning at the time of the Renaissance, anonymity was replaced by the emphasis and exploitation of the artist's individual personality. The concept of plagiarism and forgery came about very gradually as a controversial issue. When Dürer went to Venice in 1505 to protest Raimondi's wholesale plagiarism of his Life of the Virgin series and other prints, the only satisfaction he could obtain from the authorities was that Raimondi was enjoined from using Dürer's monogram. In the XVII century artists occasionally received protection against fraudulent copying as a special favor from ruling monarchs. On certain prints published by Rubens, for example, are engraved the words cum privilegiis regis . . . (with the privileges or protection of the king). The first general copyright law was passed by the British Parliament in 1735 upon petition of Hogarth and others who had suffered from plagiarism and piracy. Thereafter, Hogarth's engravings — the series Rake's Progress for example — bear the line Published according to Act of Parliament. Since then, the artist's rights in his own design are fairly well established in most countries, in principle at least.

Again, today, we are more conscious of execution, the artist's personal touch, than were earlier print amateurs. They were more apt to value the print not for its own sake but as a surrogate of a drawing or painting. They were more concerned with a generalized outline of the composition as suggestive of sublime and noble design. They accepted the reproductive limitation of the print and did not demand the personal touch of the designer's hand. It must be remembered that the chief function of printmaking throughout its early history was reproductive. The "original" print, as we value it today, by Rembrandt, Goya, Degas, Mantegna, for example, was the exception rather than the rule. A striking example of this attitude may be seen in Van Dyck's Iconography. Of the hundred odd designs which Van Dyck made for his gallery of famous men, only five of the eighteen which he actually etched, remained intact. The other thirteen were "finished," and all the rest completely engraved by professional craftsmen after his drawings. He had intended to do the whole set himself, but had abandoned the idea because his own presentation was unpopular. Today we are extravagant in our appraisal of his original etchings, in comparison with the rest of the Iconography.

Index  ||   Page 1  ||   Page 2  ||   page 3  ||   Page 4  ||   Page 5

Copyright © 1961 Print Council of America
Used with permission.