What does printmaking mean?

Printmaking is an important category of visual arts. Broadly speaking, printmaking can include that the graphics printed before printing industrialization are generally printmaking.

The concept of contemporary printmaking mainly refers to the artistic works conceived and created by artists through plate-making and printing procedures, specifically, the pictures carved or etched on pages such as wood, stone, hemp, copper and zinc with knives or chemicals. Printmaking art has been accompanied by the invention and development of printing technology.

Ancient prints mainly refer to woodcuts, but a few copperplate prints and overprinting are not allowed. The unique taste of knife and wood makes it have independent artistic value and position in the history of China culture and art. As one of the plastic arts, printmaking is characterized by using tools such as knife and pen on the layout of different materials: it can directly print multiple manuscripts, so it is also called "plural art".

detailed description

In the early days, it was mostly used to copy pictures, and the division of painting, engraving and printing was called "copying prints". Later, it developed into an independent art form, which was painted, carved and printed by the author, and was called "creating prints". As far as the nature of the layout and the materials used are concerned, it can be divided into relief (such as woodcut and woodcut), relief (such as copperplate), lithograph (such as lithograph) and stencil (such as screen print).

Comprehensive printmaking refers to the printmaking works produced by combining two or more different printmaking methods in the process of printmaking, rather than a single production method of convex and concave, that is, comprehensive printmaking.