1. Relief Prints, Paper and German Expressionism
Printmaking
Relief Prints, Paper and German Expressionism

2. The History of Printing & Books
Three basic methods of printing: relief, planographic and intaglio
Paper gets its name from Papyrus, a reed ancient Egyptians used to make writing material
105: Mulberry Paper invented in China by Ts’ai Lun. Papermaking spread around the world through conquest and the crusades.
770: Buddhist monks begin printing with wooden blocks
1040: Pi Sheng (Chinese Printer) made moveable type out of clay
1400: Paper begins to be readily available in Europe
1440: Johannes Guttenberg invents moveable metal type and viscous ink
1444: Cosimi de Medici founds the first public library in Europe since the Romans
1478: Will Caxton established first printing press in England
1639: Stephen Daye sets up the first print shop in America
1718: Benjamin Franklin (age 12) starts his career as a printer

3. Vocabulary
Relief Printing: raised surface of a plate or block are inked
Planographic Printing: the process of printing from a surface on which the printing areas are not raised but are ink-receptive
Lithography: a method of planographic printing from a metal or stone surface.
Intaglio Print: the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the direct opposite of a relief print.
Linocut: a design or form carved in relief on a block of linoleum or the print produced from this technique
Woodcut: a print of a type made from a design cut in a block of wood, formerly widely used for illustrations in books.
Linoleum Block: a piece of thick, soft, cork linoleum often mounted on a block of wood, incised or carved in relief with a design, pattern, or pictorial motif, and used in making prints.
Bench Hook: a device with a hooklike part fitting over the front edge of a workbench as a means of preventing an object from slipping toward the rear of the bench
Brayer: hand-tool used historically in printing and printmaking to break up and "rub out" (spread) ink
Barren: a disk-like device with a flat bottom and a knotted handle. Paper is placed on an inked block and the barren is used to burnish (firmly rub) the back of a sheet of paper to pick up ink from a wood or linoleum cut
Thumbnail Sketch: small drawings used by artist to visualize the final artwork. Also, to record the essence of a scene, artwork, etc. and to work out an interesting composition. Usually done quickly with a pen or pencil and no larger than an inch or two. The artist's shorthand that may not mean much to anyone else.

4. BENCH HOOK
CARVING TOOL
BARREN
BRAYER

5. Expressionism
1905 – 1933
Germany movement in the graphic arts, literature and drama in response to a widespread anxiety about humanity's increasingly discordant relationship with the world and feelings of lost authenticity and spirituality.
Reaction against Impressionism and academic art, Expressionism was inspired most heavily by the Symbolist currents in late nineteenth-century art.
Influences: Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, and James Ensor – for the distortion of form and the deployment of strong colors to convey a variety of anxieties and yearnings.
Characterize by:
Rejection of realism
Attempt to convey inner, subjective experience through external, objective means
Highly stylized sets and acting; they used a new visual style which embodied high contrast and simple editing
Elements on monumentalism and modernism
Sociopolitical context
Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) was highly influential on the films of the era

6. New Objectivity
Emerged as a style in the 1920s as a challenge to German Expressionism.
Strove for an objective viewpoint, free of unsentimental reality.
The style is most often associated with portraiture, and its leading practitioners included Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. Their naturalistic depictions frequently portrayed Weimar society in a caustically satirical manner.
Ended 1933.
Max Beckmann
Self-Portrait with Champagne (1919)
Oil on Canvas
25 9/16 x 21 7/8 in. (65 x 55.5 cm). Private collection.

7. George Grosz The Lovesick Man (1916)
Alludes to the Ursprung tragic hero of German romanticism, Werther, a character created by Johann Goethe in his Der Leidenschaft der Junge Werther (1774) known in English as The Sorrows of Young Werther. 
Red heart next to a revolver in the breast-pocket of his jacket. Isolated setting. The paper and a pen on the table suggest confession. the anchor tattooed on his head hints of sinking or wallowing in unloved despair. The bones in the bottom right corner and fish bones symbolically allude to death. In the far background beside a blood-red sickle moon, the rib-cage of a skeleton can be seen.
George Grosz
The Lovesick Man (1916)
Oil on canvas
99.7 x 76.5 cm. Private collection.

8. Otto Dix
Stormtroopers Advancing Under Gas (1924) etching and aquatint
plate: 7 5/8 x 11 5/16" (19.3 x 28.8 cm); sheet: 13 11/16 x 18 5/8" (34.8 x 47.3 cm) MOMA, NY

9. Käthe Kollwitz
8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945

10. Poverty, Hunger and War
German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition, and the tragedy of war.
Kollwitz was indebted stylistically to naturalism, but her preferred subject-matter was linked to the emerging workers’ movement.
Kollwitz’s intensive artistic engagement with the war and the death of her son make clear that all of her work was shaped greatly by her personal life, by events and emotions that she had experienced directly.
During the Weimar Republic (1919–33) Kollwitz was very successful. In 1919 she became the first woman to be admitted to the Preussische Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and received the title of professor.
She had been running a studio in printmaking since 1928, and in 1929 she was awarded the Prussian decoration Pour le mérite.
In 1932 she participated in a petitionary action against the Nazis. As a result of this act of political commitment, after Adolf Hitler’s accession to power in 1933 she was asked to leave the academy, and at the same time she lost her studio. Her work was included in exhibitions in Berlin and Munich in 1934 and 1935 but after that the state made it difficult for her to exhibit. The sense of mourning and longing for death that governed Kollwitz’s later works was elaborated around the portrayal of the mother protecting her children.

11. Memorial Sheet of Karl Liebknecht ( ) woodcut heightened with white and black ink 14 5/8 × 20 7/16 in / 37.1 × 51.9 cm
Conrad Felixmüller
People above the world
(lithograph, 1919)
Max Beckmann
"The Martyrdom," plate 4 from Hell, 1919, lithograph, 21 9/16 x 19 5/8"
Printmaking 
In the political turmoil after the First World War, many artists turned to making prints instead of paintings. The ability to produce multiple copies of the same image made printmaking an ideal medium for spreading political statements. German artist Käthe Kollwitz worked almost exclusively in this medium and became known for her prints that celebrated the plight of the working-class.
The artist rarely depicted real people, though she frequently used her talents in support of causes she believed in. This work, In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht was created in 1920 in response to the assassination of Communist leader Karl Liebknecht during an uprising of This work is unique among her prints, and though it memorializes the man, it does so without advocating for his ideology.
History and politics
From the end of the First World War in late 1918 to the founding of the Weimar Republic (the representative democracy that was the German government between the two World Wars) in August 1919, Germany went through a period of social and political upheaval. During this time, Germany was led by a coalition of left-wing forces with Marxist sympathies, the largest of which was the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Other, more radical groups were grappling for control of Germany at the same time, including the newly founded German Communist Party (KPD).
The Socialists and Communists both wanted to eliminate Capitalism and establish communal control over the means of production, but while the Socialists believed that the best way to achieve that goal was to work step by step from within the Capitalist structure, the Communists called for an immediate and total social revolution that would put governmental power in the hands of the workers. In this spirit, the KPD staged an uprising in Berlin in January Military units called in by the SPD suppressed the uprising and captured two of the leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were murdered while in custody on January 15, Their deaths struck a chord across the left-wing landscape and they were widely celebrated as martyrs to the Communist cause.
Kollwitz was not a Communist, and even acknowledged that the SPD (generally more cautious and pacifist than the KPD), would have been better leaders. But she had heard Liebknecht speak and admired his charisma, so when the family asked her to create a work to memorialize him she agreed.
A Lamentation 
Memorial Sheet of Karl Liebknecht is in the style of a lamentation, a traditional motif in Christian art depicting the followers of Christ mourning over his dead body, casting Liebknecht as the Christ figure. The iconography would have been easily recognizable by the masses who were the artist’s intended audience.

12. Composition in Kollwitz’s Memorial Sheet of Karl Liebknecht
The sheet is divided into three horizontal sections.
The top section is densely packed with figures. Their faces are well modeled and have interesting depth in themselves, but the sense of space is very compressed – the heads push to the foreground and are packed into every available corner of space. It gives the impression of multitudes coming to pay their respects, without compromising the individuality of the subjects.
The middle strata contains comparatively fewer details, further emphasizing the crowding at the top of the printing plate. This section draws attention to the specific action of the bending mourner. His hand on Liebknecht’s chest connects this section to the the bottommost level of the composition, the body of the martyred revolutionary.
Above the bending mourner, a woman holds her baby up to see over the heads of those in front of them. Women and children were a central concern of Kollwitz’s work, making her a unique voice in a creative environment dominated by young men (in fact, Kollwitz was the first woman to be admitted into the Prussian Academy).

13. March of the Weavers (Weberzug) from the series Weaver's Revolt (Ein Weberaufstand)
Date: ( , published c. 1931)
Medium: Etching
Dimensions: plate: 8 7/16 x 11 11/16”; sheet: 12 5/16 x 17 5/8”

14. Death, Woman, and Child
Date: 1910, printed c or after
Medium: Etching and drypoint
Dimensions: plate: 16 1/16 x 16 3/16”; sheet: 21 7/8 x 24 1/8”

15. The Widow I
1921

16. The People (1922)

17. The Survivors (1923)

18. Project Description
Select an historical event to serve as inspiration for an artwork. This should be a moment of national or international significance.
Create a Concept Folio – Due January 17th
1 page introduction (list or narrative)
Identify and discuss an historical event that will serve as inspiration for an artwork. This should be a moment of national or international significance. Tell why it is important to you. Why it is important to others.
List historical figures associated with this event.
Create a timeline showing events leading up to this event and how this event impacted ensuing events.
Draw thumbnail sketches (at least three) that conveys this historical event in a meaningful way.
Indicate which sketch you plan to develop into a finished artwork
Write a statement about the work, between words, discussing the artwork and what you intend for it to signify.
Assess your concept folio
Create a 4” x 6” pencil drawing of your artwork.
Transfer artwork to a linoleum block (graphite transfer).
Carve block.
Print your block, creating at least five (5) high quality prints.

19. How to Print a Relief Block
Add a thin, even layer of ink to the raised surface of the block using a brayer.
CENTER a clean sheet of paper on top of the inked block.
Rub the back of the paper using a BRAYER or wooden spoon. Apply and adjust pressure as needed to transfer the image.
Lift the paper in a single movement.
Repeat to attain desired number of prints.
CLEAN-UP: Wash the block and brayer with Soap and Water.

20. TIPS
Use a range of tools: different types of tools make different types of lines, try them out to see which works best for what you want to achieve.
Learn to control the tool: a steeper angle makes a deeper cut, find the angle that works best for you to create smooth, continuous lines.
CARVE AWAY FROM YOUR HAND
Move the linoleum around instead of yourself.
Use a bench hook to keep your block from moving around.