238 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



The old printers <>f Europe, down to the beginning- of this century, 

 inked their blocks with printer's balls, such as are shown in Fig. 5, 

 reproduced from Jost Amman's " Charta Lusoria," published at Nurem- 

 berg in the year 1588. The custom of the present day is to use elastic 

 .rollers, made of a mass consisting of glue, molasses, etc. On our steam 

 presses the inking is also done by rollers. The ink used in all cases 



is linseed-oil varnish, with 

 which the pigment has been 

 ground up. Water - colors 

 have, indeed, been tried for 

 printing occasionally, but 

 practically without success, 

 except for the printing of wall 

 papers. The Japanese print- 

 ers, on the contrary, so far as 

 they have not been affected 

 by European methods, use 

 nothing but water-colors, and 

 instead of balls or rollers they 

 employ brushes, that is to say, 

 they paint their blocks. There 

 is a very obvious advantage 

 in the use of water-colors by 

 the Japanese printers, as all 

 the originals to be imitated 

 by them are painted in water- 

 colors. It is evident that the 

 brilliancy and quality of the 

 pigments are the same in orig- 

 inal and copy, while the pig- 

 ments which we use for our 

 chromoxylographic and chro- 

 molithographic printing, be- 

 ing mixed with linseed-oil 

 varnish, are affected by it in 

 The use of a brush 



Fi£ 



Two of PRINTERS' Calls. 

 From .i.-t \i an's " Charta r.usoria," 1588. 



their purity as well as in their surface quality. 

 instead of a roller for inking the blocks is also a factor of great im- 

 portance. The brash is a pliable instrument, capable of expression in 



which to be guided. A small specimen of this kind is shown in Frame 67 A, on the 

 eastern side of the Hall of Graphic Arts. Much more brilliant work has, however, 

 been done by the same means. The old chiaroscuro printers were also in a measure 

 independent of the artist, not only sometimes adding tints to designs by artists long 

 dead, hut varying these tints for the same, picture. The tint blocks for Diircr's por- 

 trait of Varulmler, for instance, were added after his death, and there are impressions 

 in brownish and in greenish tints. In this case the liberties taken by the printer 

 w ere permissible, from the same cause which favors the Japanese color-printers, that 

 is to say, because the coloring aud lighting of the old chiaroscuros are purely con- 

 ventional. 



