The Invention of Lithography. Alois Senefelder

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ possible to print from it!" thought he, and the invention was completed.

      If it is so easy to gain the honor of an invention, then, indeed, I was unlucky to have undergone so much toil. But according to my opinion, there was nothing new in the whole discovery. The thought that "this was etched" assumed the invention and the use of etching beforehand. That such coarse, thick, and highly relieved inscriptions as those on gravestones could be inked and used for printing would strike anybody who knew even a little of printing. If, however, Herr Schmidt added to his idea the second, that fine and, therefore, only slightly elevated inscriptions and illustrations could be inked and printed with the aid of appliances to be invented for the purpose—if he did this and executed it before me, or, at least, before he had knowledge of my work, then indeed the honor belongs to him of having invented mechanical printing from stone, either before me or simultaneously. But as a matter of fact, neither he nor I can claim to be the first who thought of using stones for printing. Only the "how?" is the new thing in the case.

      At that time (1796) I had not invented stone-printing, but, firstly, an ink available for writing on stone and resistant to acid, which ink I invented out of my brains and not, like Herr Schmidt, out of an old Nürnberg book: secondly, I invented a practical tool for inking the slightly elevated letters: and thirdly, the so-called gallows or lever press, of which I shall speak later.

      As I do not know what were the circumstances surrounding Herr Schmidt at the time, and I cannot, therefore, make any inquiries, I am willing to take his word if he will declare as an honest man that he printed from stone before July, 1796. That his method of printing was different from mine, and that he had absolutely not the slightest knowledge of chemical printing from stone, which I invented in 1798, I know from indubitable evidence.

      He made many attempts with his pupils to produce drawings on stones, but presumably his impressions were not successful, for those stones that I saw afterward at Herr Schulrath Steiner's had been etched first and the spaces then engraved away very deeply with all sorts of steel instruments, after the manner of wood-cuts, so that they might properly be called stone-cuts in relief. He had these stones printed in the Schul-fond's book-printery, and I hear that the impressions were very good. I saw none myself.

       However, Professor Schmidt's experiments were the means of making me acquainted with Herr Schulrath Steiner, who encouraged me so much that I conceived many ideas in order to fulfill his wishes, so that at last the art of printing from stone achieved its present honorable position.

      Herr Schulrath Steiner, an intimate friend of Professor Schmidt, was director of the Schul-fond's printery. As such he was concerned with many prints. Herr Schmidt's idea of publishing stone-etched pictures of poisonous plants for school use was approved by him; and as the attempts did not satisfy him, he decided to turn to me. At that time the Schul-fond was to print some church songs. This gave him the opportunity of visiting me. He asked me if the musical notes could not be so etched or cut in relief in stone that they could be made up with ordinary book-types and thus printed in the ordinary book-presses. I promised to try it. However, the necessary deep engraving of the spaces was too laborious, so that it would have been easier to do it in wood. As an expedient we printed the text first with ordinary types in the book-press and then printed in the music with stones in the stone-press.

      Meantime I tried to attain our purpose in other ways, connected with some of my early experiments. My best success was with the following method. On a stone polished with sand I painted a layer, equal to two or three card-thicknesses, of burned, finely powdered gypsum, butter, and alum, mixed with a proper amount of water. As soon as it was dry I inscribed the music with steel needles of various sizes on the surface of the stone, which was of a somewhat dark, almost gray color, so that I could see it more easily through the soft, white mass. Having finished the drawing I took warm sealing-wax smeared on wood, and applied it to the stone while it was warm with a hand-press. After cooling, the white mass was fast to the sealing-wax and quite loose from the stone, and it was scrubbed away clean with water and a brush, after which the drawing appeared on the wood in elevated wax extremely clear and clean, like a wood-cut. The spaces were so deep that the plate could be printed in regular book-printing manner.

      Later I made trial of a composition of lead, zinc, and bismuth, and this succeeds thoroughly with proper care. So here we would have still another printing process, which has the advantage over all others that the inscription need not be made reversed, as the impression on the wax or lead reverses it automatically.

      If the white mass is laid on more thickly, one can make the handsomest patterns for calico much more quickly than has been possible heretofore with wood-cuts. A little more care is necessary, because no stroke must be made entirely through the mass, when it is laid on thick. My experiments in that direction all exceeded expectations, and it is to be regretted that I had no opportunity thereafter to perfect this invention more, or use it practically. The experiments had no value even for Herr Schulrath Steiner, for whom I made them, as he never had use for the process afterward. Indeed, I would have forgotten the matter almost entirely, if it had not been brought back to mind by this work of writing my story. In the second part of this book, in describing stone-printing itself, I will show various methods of making patterns for work on cotton, such as I conceived later in Vienna where I busied myself very much with cotton-printing.

      I happened to print for Herr Lentner a little song about the great fire of Neuötting in Bavaria and used a little vignette showing a burning house. This induced Herr Steiner to let me etch a few small pictures for a catechism. So far as execution of drawing goes, they were very ordinary; but he continued to encourage me to try if the new printing process would not be available for art work. With the exception of Herr Andre of Offenbach, he was the only one who reasoned thus: "These strokes and points, of such great fineness and again of such great strength, can evidently be made on the stone, therefore it is possible to make drawings similar to copper-plate etchings. That this cannot be done yet is due not to a fault in the art of stone-printing, but to the insufficient skill of the artists."

      Even at that time he did not say: "The art is still in its infancy," as many a would-be wise man does to-day, thus exposing his lack of knowledge of the entire matter. Even at that time he was convinced, more so even than I, that the art of stone-printing had reached its climax when I gave him the first specimens of stone-printing improved by the chemical process. Artists might cultivate and perfect themselves, manipulation be simplified and processes be increased in number and variety, but the art itself could not be improved greatly.

      To be sure, when I glance hurriedly over the manifold results of the last twenty years, all that I have done myself for perfection, the brilliant achievements of which this book will furnish proof, I am tempted to think for a moment that the Now and the Then cannot be compared. But considered correctly, I had invented and discovered the entire art at that time. Everything that I and others have done since then are only improvements. Everything rests still on the same principle: ink of wax, soap, etc., then gum, aqua fortis or another acid of which none has an advantage over the others, further oil varnish and lampblack—these are, ever and in the same manner, the chief elements of stone-printing as they were then. Not the slightest thing has been changed, improved, or invented in the fundamental principle. No illustration has been published by any lithographer containing cleaner, stronger, or blacker lines and points than my first proofs had in part.

      Therefore, those people are wrong who seek to excuse the lack of assistance that I received in the beginning, by alleging that at the time no one knew if the process could be used to any great extent. They declare many productions of the present day to be far better, simply because the illustrator is more skillful, though in truth the printing is not so good as many of the first ones made by me. It has even happened that the assertion has found its way into print that I had invented only the rough part of the art, and never had been able to use it for more than music-printing, whereas this one or that one are the true artists, having succeeded in producing pictures.

      These gentlemen, who are so quick with verdicts, СКАЧАТЬ