The Answer? 42.
Greetings my fellow: bibliophiles, paper/book/print artists!
To celebrate this year’s Printer’s Ball theme, Print <3 Digital, I thought I’d write a series of entries on my personal favorite printmaking technique, letterpress printing. The digital age has revolutionized printmaking once again: multiples have never been easier to produce, color matching is automated for ease and accuracy, and your paper can even be cut all at once with a mechanized, digitally guided guillotine.
The debate stands: Expediency is good. Modern is good. Old is good, too. But now is better than then. So, which is better? Printing now, or printing then? Rather than answer that question I will offer the history of printing, specifically how letterpress printing has changed through the ages and touch on its role in Chicago. Neither better or worse, good or bad, your Epson or Canon is an extension, a family member to the Chandler and Price printing presses that used to line the streets of Printer’s Row.
Reproduction of Gutenberg-era Press on display at Printing History Museum in Lyon, France. Photograph taken by George H. Williams in July, 2004
The process of letterpress printing was invented around 1439 by Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz Germany. Gutenberg was a goldsmith and used his skill with metals to invent moveable, metal type. In addition he created oil-based printing ink and the wooden screw-post type of press. Not only father of the printing press, Gutenberg was the inventor of an entirely new creative process: letterpress printing. His contribution would go on to revolutionize not only the dispensation of knowledge, but would majorly contribute to the future printers of the fine art world.
Printer in 1568. Wolf, Hans-Jürgen (1974), Geschichte der Druckpressen (1st ed.), Frankfurt/Main: Interprint
Leaving behind the traditional method of woodblock printing, Gutenberg took several years to invent moveable metal type. Metal being more durable than wood, and by casting individual characters the printer now had more versatility and control to what documents he could produce. Gutenberg himself, however, was concerned with reproducing the bible.
Gutenberg. Courtesy of the Museo della Stampa, Genova 1450.
The Gutenberg Bible was completed sometime around 1456. Gutenberg fashioned his type to appear like hand lettering from the illuminated manuscripts of the time. Known also as the “42-line bible,” each page perfectly holds 42 lines of printed text, though this was a process of discovery for Gutenberg. To quote facts for you learned types (and my nerdy, G-berg loving self),
Gutenberg made three significant changes during the printing process. The first sheets were rubricated by being passed twice through the printing press, using black and then red ink. This was soon abandoned, with spaces being left for rubrication to be added by hand. Later, after more sheets had been printed, the number of lines per page was increased from 40 to 42, presumably to save paper. Therefore, pages 1 to 9 and pages 256 to 265, presumably the first ones printed, have 40 lines each. Page 10 has 41, and from there on the 42 lines appear. The increase in line number was achieved by decreasing the interline spacing, rather than increasing the printed area of the page.
Finally, the print run was increased, probably to 180 copies, necessitating resetting those pages which had already been printed. The new sheets were all reset to 42 lines per page.”
From experience, when a leaf is held to the light each line lines up from front to back, leaving the lines of space between text without blemish. Depending on the printer this feat is almost impossibly hard to accomplish, and this writer would like to remind everyone that Gutenberg did this by candlelight, not modern electricity. If you have not seen a leaf of the Gutenberg Bible please get over to the Newberry Library or the Special Collections of the Harold Washington Library and have an aesthetic feast. For FREE! Anyone who has seen this work can instantly earn an appreciation for printing, and Gutenberg has established the standard for a thing well printed.
The mechanization of printing led to the mass production of books which led to the dissemination of knowledge and the use of all things printed as a vehicle for human expression. No longer just painting or weaving, an individual’s consciousness could be conveyed through words. This revolutionized our passing on of stories, fables, and lessons. It would not be going too far to think that our modern society comes directly from the fruits of that first printing.
From here our exciting journey continues! Leaping ahead 560 years we arrive at an age where computers have been invented (as a post typewriter which was the post lino-type which was the post press) and the printers that accompany them can do things Gutenberg probably never dreamed of. Our challenge? How do we take this current technology and combine it with the old? Do they have a dialog?
Yes! A thousand times YES! (join this year’s Printer’s Ball to find out how!)
– Mary Patton
Join the writer this month for her next installments where she will discuss the letterpress industry in Chicago, and its evolution to today.
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Tags: Gutenberg Bible, Johannes Gutenberg, letterpress printing, Mary Patton, print media, Printers' Ball 2010 Blog-Down
