- Paperback: 216 pages
- Publisher: MIT Press (1 Jan 1969)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0262590026
- ISBN-13: 978-0262590020
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 1.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 671,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"This is the first book that unequivocally declares and historically supports the dignity, the force, and the validity of the printed picture as a basic form of communication in all forms of the repeatable image, whether woodcut, photograph or photographic reproduction. Distinguished by wit and forthrightness, it is a lively illustrated survey of the search for methods of reproduction to give the visual image the flexibility that the language of words achieved through the printer's press... Rarely does a technical work have authority coupled with imagination and readibility. Mr. Ivins' book exhibits both these qualities. Through the deeply sensitive pen of this scholar the visual image joins the sight and sound of words to take a place in the stream of human communication." Romana Javitz Picturescope
Product Description
The sophistication of the photographic process has had two dramatic results--freeing the artist from the confines of journalistic reproductions and freeing the scientist from the unavoidable imprecision of the artist's prints. So released, both have prospered and produced their impressive nineteenth- and twentieth-century outputs.It is this premise that William M. Ivins, Jr., elaborates in Prints and Visual Communication, a history of printmaking from the crudest wood block, through engraving and lithography, to Talbot's discovery of the negative-positive photographic process and its far reaching consequences.
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2 reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
The language of image
3 Sep 2004
Format:Paperback
This is one of those wonderful books. It's written by a contrary, crotchety old man, full of opinions you won't hear anywhere else, and incredibly well-informed. The author was retired from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he had been curator of prints. I listen when he talks on the topic of prints, and I think I hear why he waited until retirement to write this book.
It starts with a diatribe against classical Roman culture as derivative from Greek, and against classical Greece as `predatory'. He argues that much of the Western classical period was powered by a steady stream of slave labor. As a result, the captors shunned practical arts as demeaning to free men (slave owners). Printed replication of text was well within their technology and would have suited their needs as a reading intelligentsia. The problem was that the presence of slave labor had weakened the slave-owners so much that they couldn't be bothered to carve a printing block. As a result, they created a weakened intellectual heritage, founded on what sounded good instead of what replicated the features of nature. Ivins ties the history of technological innovation to the history of the printed images that educate the innovators. Pictorial information, he argues, enabled the scientific and engineering efflorescence that started in the Renaissance.
Ivins supports that premise with a brilliant tour of the history of pictures on paper. He treats the hand-copied and re-copied manuscripts as the prehistory of true image capture. He traces that history forward through the many technologies of image-making, including woodcut, wood engraving, and intaglio print, on up through photos distributed by machine printing. He offers a number of historical anecdotes, some from traditional sources and some from his personal knowledge of the early 20th century.
Along the way, he thoroughly debunks the mystique of printmaking. It has, overwhelmingly, been a practical art. Much too much has been made of the artificially limited edition, of the false mystique around specific processes and practices. Back in the 1950s, when this was written, that may have been an especially important message. It's still true, to some extent, but I think it undercuts the modern printers who choose printmaking because of its unique expressive capabilities.
Still, it's a clear, well-directed discussion, and illustrated with a rich assortment of demonstrative prints. This book is a treat for anyone interested in the history of prints and pictorial communication; it's a confection for everyone who likes their sacred cows cooked well done.
//wiredweird
It starts with a diatribe against classical Roman culture as derivative from Greek, and against classical Greece as `predatory'. He argues that much of the Western classical period was powered by a steady stream of slave labor. As a result, the captors shunned practical arts as demeaning to free men (slave owners). Printed replication of text was well within their technology and would have suited their needs as a reading intelligentsia. The problem was that the presence of slave labor had weakened the slave-owners so much that they couldn't be bothered to carve a printing block. As a result, they created a weakened intellectual heritage, founded on what sounded good instead of what replicated the features of nature. Ivins ties the history of technological innovation to the history of the printed images that educate the innovators. Pictorial information, he argues, enabled the scientific and engineering efflorescence that started in the Renaissance.
Ivins supports that premise with a brilliant tour of the history of pictures on paper. He treats the hand-copied and re-copied manuscripts as the prehistory of true image capture. He traces that history forward through the many technologies of image-making, including woodcut, wood engraving, and intaglio print, on up through photos distributed by machine printing. He offers a number of historical anecdotes, some from traditional sources and some from his personal knowledge of the early 20th century.
Along the way, he thoroughly debunks the mystique of printmaking. It has, overwhelmingly, been a practical art. Much too much has been made of the artificially limited edition, of the false mystique around specific processes and practices. Back in the 1950s, when this was written, that may have been an especially important message. It's still true, to some extent, but I think it undercuts the modern printers who choose printmaking because of its unique expressive capabilities.
Still, it's a clear, well-directed discussion, and illustrated with a rich assortment of demonstrative prints. This book is a treat for anyone interested in the history of prints and pictorial communication; it's a confection for everyone who likes their sacred cows cooked well done.
//wiredweird
2 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Prints and Visual Communication
5 May 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Book recommended by art instructor. Author is very erudite in words used and concepts presented. Much of what was presented was of little value to me. I did learn that there were different styles of engraving developed in different countries. Author's major concern seemed to be to have a consistently, accurately presentation of an idea or technique, which in his view was performed by photography. In terms of making my own prints, I learned very little.
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