SMCC Printmaking 1 Sp11: First Blog Assignment.

SMCC Printmaking 1 Sp11: First Blog Assignment.: "This is a brief article describing the contributions of Johannes Gutenberg to society by inventing the moveable type printing press or lett..."


Stephen Gutenberg had a monumental effect on how not only printed press was distributed, but how art was viewed and seen. The printing press opened up arts to the masses and made the access to art much more palpable to the everyday laymen of Europe. Before, art and books had to be commissioned by hand and often took years to complete. With the advent of the printing press, anyone could own a cheap reproduction of a piece of art or literature.
This concept influence artists to this day, with the idea of mass produced art. The idea of making a recognizable, easily reproduced piece of art that people carry with them have been popularized by such street artists'  such as Shepard Fairey, whose iconic pop art is so easily identifiable and present in almost every major American city, on walls, posters, on pins and stickers.
The photocopier is just the modern extension of the printing press, anyone with a xerox and plenty of ink can mass produce any idea or art form on every sign post and street corner. Our modern printing devices so streamlined they no longer require the arranging of every sentence and letter, the affixing and readjusting of woodcut prints, the massive carriage required to move Gutenberg's revolutionary mobile printing press. All we need today are are packs of paper, inkjet, cables, and the ability to execute 'CTRL+P' to turn any layman into a factory of information transference.
Some of the contemporary artist's I've found that don't necessarily reflect this idea of mass-production but whose prints whose style I am interested by nonetheless are Umetaro Aezchi, whose style reflects the inward nature of traditional Japanese Woodcut prints.

Umetaro Azechi 1902-1999 (woodblock print, copyright Umetaro Azechi, http://www.artelino.com/articles/umetaro_azechi.asp)

Mountaineer in the Winter
(woodblock print, copyright Umetaro Azechi, http://www.artelino.com/articles/umetaro_azechi.asp)

Some printmaking terms I've thought to rework are the Pochoir and the Remarque, two non-English sounding words, whose meaning an online dictionary of printmaking terms (http://www.philaprintshop.com/diction.html)%20defines defines as respectively, a hand drawn stencil, and the little sketch made the margins to test a plate.