Hannah Miller
Monotype Printmaking
12/7/18
Monotype Printmaking
Distinctive artists across generations and stylistic movements slowly discovered techniques with in classical printmaking methods, such as Intaglio, that have lead to the birth of monotype/monoprint-making. Monotype printmaking was once viewed as ‘lowly’ art by museums and art collectors alike due to the cheapness in materials and the inability for historians to properly categorize the medium, but through exploration in methodology, technique and the expansion of terminology monotype printmaking has transcended in the art community, popularizing the medium across the globe and finally rendering the medium as a fine art.
Printmaking is defined as an artistic technique that consists of the production of images, usually on paper but occasionally on fabric, parchment, plastic, or other support, by various techniques of multiplication. The methods of multiplication are typically manipulated surfaces, like plates or blocks, that have been configured to have an image/design on them. A wet medium, usually paint or ink, is placed on said surface. Paper is then placed on top of the inked surface and pressure is applied to transfer the image off the surface onto the paper. Prints, the result of this process, are individually considered original works of art, even though traditionally they exist in multiples. There are several ways of creating a print including etching, lithography, intaglio, woodcutting, and linocuts.
The function of prints in society “avoided exact classification, as in the past the print has existed as both high and low art” (Wisneski, 9). The dichotomy is a direct result of multiplicity. It is the intent though, behind the multiplicity that best defines whether or not a print is to be considered fine art. “If the intent is…a purely reportorial or reproductive goal-then the role of the print as viewed by society becomes narrative and/or pedagogical, which places it at the farthest extreme from fine art” (Wisneski, 9). In other words, prints used for mass visual communication are typically not defined as a fine art, but craft in a historical context.
Monotypes/prints were traditionally viewed as not even worthy of the tittle of a craft. They were seen as preliminary work, kindred to that of a sketch. A useful tool in the artistic process, but never the end product. Even as the technique begin to emerge as movement, art collectors did not value them. The prints that resulted from this process were difficult to categorize as a medium, making them undesirable in gallery and museum displays.
The technique can be broken down into two similar processes that result in either a monotype or monoprint. The two words are amalgams beginning with the prefix mono, meaning alone, one or single. This refers to the sole image that is the product of these two artistic procedures.
The term monotype “refers to the process that starts with an empty plate” (Wisneski, 13) A monotype can be created both additively or reductively. When using the additive method an artist paints an image onto a blank plate, which acts as an intermediary. The painted image is then transferred to paper or some other form of support. Reductive prints are made when an artist starts with a solidly inked plate and wipes away an image. Using either methods, and artist had to act fast. In this fashion of art making the wet medium would often dry quickly, rendering the plate unusable. “Degas described the monotype as a greasy drawing that is transferred to paper” (Wisneski, 13) The resulting marks from these techniques can often look painterly or gestural. Were they prints or drawings? Could they be called paintings? This textural result is what made it difficult for art collectors and historians to categorize monotypes and the rushed manor in which the were produced marked them as crude.
In distinction to monotypes, monoprints allies more directly to the arena of traditional printmaking. “Monoprints can be generally divided into two categories: (1) monoprints that alter a previously printed image; and (2) monoprints that use a matrix or key plate to explore variations.” (Wisneski,14) This could involve painting, coloring or printing a monotype over a pre-existing print. The monoprint can be viewed as a combination of two artistic processes.
The history of monotypes has been widely undocumented. It wasn’t until the release of Degas’s Monotypes by Eugenia Janis in 1968 that a collection of monotypes had been academically chronicled. The first recorded occurrence of a monotype was in the mid seventieth century during the Baroque period. The artist, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, was known as both a printmaker and printer. Sometime between 1640-1645 he created the first known reductive monotype, The Creation of Adam. Castiglione probably used a wooden tool in order to create marks on the plate, establishing detailed areas of tonal grey and white to create the figures in the biblical scene. “His ability in using the monotype to depict this exquisite chiaroscuro secures The Creation of Adam as a truly sophisticated Baroque accomplishment (Wisneski, 27).
As Castiglione was creating his monotypes, his contemporary, Rembrandt van Rijn, was constructing a wide variety of monoprints. This artist is well known for the prints he made by exercising the etching process. “He established the importance on the depiction of form through chiaroscuro …. As the edges of Rembrandt’s forms disappear and meld into the background, his reliance on chiaroscuro placed more emphasis on graphic mood and expression” (Wisneski, 32) To achieve this effect Rembrandt would explore surface plate tone through Intaglio in order to quickly highlight or shadow areas as a way to control the viewer’s directional eye movement over the image. The Three Crosses is one of his monoprints that best represents this conclusion. Four stages of the image reveal removed figures under the layers of reworked ink.
Though the creation of monoprints and monotypes remained consistent over the seventeenth century it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that this form of printmaking really began to take off. The impressionist movement adopted this technique. They were not hindered by the swiftness required as many were known to work quickly, often finishing several painting is one day as to capture the ever changing light. Monotypes had several other benefits as well, “they were quicker to make and cheaper to sell than oil paintings; they potentially appealed to the already numerous middle-class print-collectors of France and elsewhere; and the medium was often associated with quotidian imagery and events, a frequent source of subject matter within the group” (Hauptman, 22). Degas is the most known impressionist to have embraced monotypes/prints.
Degas was influenced by the prints of Rembrandt in his youth while studying classically in Italy, and this lead him to make his first etchings in 1857. Degas eventually drifted away from the medium as he migrated from Italy to Paris and became involved in the impressionist movement. He created his first monotype in 1876, The Ballet Master. As Degas began to experiment with the new medium he began to allow his monotypes to dry and “then enhanced them with brilliant strokes of pastel and applications of colored gouache, to make a vivid mixed-media masterpiece that obscures the monotype beneath” (Hauptman, 24) which lead to works such as Rehersal of the Ballet. This technique became central to his creative process in his formative years in the Parisian art scene.
Degas’s transition into the monotype is largely unarticulated in history, there are few written accounts of him discussing his new methodology and style. “For the history-conscious Degas, the monotype medium inevitably represented a dramatic departure from- even a repudiation of- the assumptions that had informed his art since the Italian years” (Hauptman, 24). Degas, who had idolized neoclassical artists such as Ingres, now was “largely abandoning traditional drawing in these works” (Hauptman, 25) . Rather he embraced the experimentation and improvisation monotype printmaking provided.
Degas eventually invited the artist, Mary Cassatt, to join the impressionists in Paris. This artist also explored monoprints, but not as reverently as Degas. “Cassat shied away from extensive investigation into monotypes,” (Wisneski, 43) having produced only two around 1895. Her prints were more often woodcuts, inspired by contemporary Japanese artists. Within all of her prints though, Cassatt displayed color sophisticated experiments that revealed tedious investigation. This can be seen in her monotype, Peasant Mother and Child. Another artist that was also experimenting at the time was Gaugin. His delves into monotypes produced a new technique, traced monotypes. This was a method in which the artist transposed an image by using an already inked sheet of paper. “By placing a clean sheet of paper on top of the inked paper, the pressure of Gaugin’s pencil point caused a transference from the inked paper to appear on the underside of the sheet. Gaugin’s traced monotypes contain two images, having a pencil drawing on the verso side and the traced monotype on the recto side” (Wisneski, 47).
In the early twentieth Century many European and American Artists were discovering monotype printmaking. This is largely impart to Frank Duvneck, who began to teach the process at his school in Italy. Monotypes were a large part of the printmaking curriculum. Artists that finished the school either went on to do residencies in Italy or America. This lead to prolific artists, such as Henri Matisse, Wilem de Kooning, and Jasper Johns, to become exposed to monotypes. Though each artist is well known for their work in other mediums, it allowed these artists to explore and add a new technique to their portfolios. In the contemporary art scene artists such a Michael Mazur and Jim Dine often explore mark making through the avenue of monotypes.
These one of a kind pieces of art have overtime transcended from the comparison of sketches to become categorized as fine art. Monotypes provide a means of experimentation for artists across generations, allowing them to dive into a wide range of techniques to produce work that aids in the investigation of color, mark, and texture while still remaining affordable. Overtime monotypes have expanded to become a reputable art practice, despite being relatively unknown less than 200 years ago. Today monotypes can be found in museums and galleries across the globe.
Works Cited
1. Armstrong, Carol M., et al. Degas: a Strange New Beauty. The Museum of Modern Art, 2016.
2. Wisneski, Kurt. Monotype/Monoprint: History and Techniques. Bullbrier Press, 1995.