Gypsography. [Printmaking technique]

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Title

Gypsography. [Printmaking technique]

Author

Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal.

Source

Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 18 April 1831 - ongoing

Details

19 April 1844, p.4, col.6

Publication date

19 April 1844

Type

Article

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

GYPSOGRAPHY. – This method of engraving is a recent invention, patented by Messrs. Milner and Co., which bids fair, if it continues to progress with as rapid strides as it recently has done, to effect a very considerable revolution in the art of engraving, more especially in that department of the art termed wood engraving, or engravings printed from the surface at the type press. Our readers are doubtless aware that in the latter process a drawing is made by the artist on a piece of box-wood, in pencil, and that those portions of the wood or block uncovered by the drawing are carefully removed by the wood engraver, a process extremely expensive, tedious, and often unsuccessful in producing the effect intended by the designer, all which evils appear successfully removed by this new method. The finer descriptions of wood-engravings are also at present extremely limited in size, owing to the impossibility of obtaining the material – box-wood – of a larger size than six or seven inches square: but, by the gypsographic process, there is no limit to size. The extreme simplicity of this invention is not the only great advantage it offers the artist, draughtsman, or engraver, and may be readily understood b the following description:- A plate of copper is thinly covered with a composition, of which plaster of Paris forms the staple ingredient, and through which, to the surface of the copper, the drawing or design is etched with an etching point; when the etching is completed, the place having the lines sunk in, or drawn through the composition, forms the matrix of the mould, the plate then is cast in type metal by the stereotyping process, and a perfect cast or block is taken, producing an exact fac-simile of the artist’s original design, and which may be immediately transferred to the hands of the printer. Wood engravings have hitherto been the only description of illustration capable of being conjointly used and printed with type, the great cost both of engraving and printing on steel or copper having been an insurmountable barrier to eh general use of the latter in illustrating works requiring pictorial additions; but now, as the gypsographic process combines with it all the advantages of wood engravings, both in printing and effect, as well as many of the peculiar advantages of steel and copper-pate engravings, we have but little doubt it will be generally and extensively used in the illustration of all descriptions of book-work.- Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal.

[Sydney Morning Herald, 19 April 1844, p.4, col.6.]
 

Last Updated

13 Aug 2012