Lithography is a major method of printmaking, and the one that works in the most surprising way. Unlike a woodcut or an etching, nothing is carved or cut into the surface at all. The printing surface stays completely flat, which is why lithography is called a planographic technique. Instead, it relies on one simple fact of chemistry: grease and water do not mix. An image drawn in a greasy medium will hold ink, while the damp blank areas around it refuse it.
Lithography, relief and intaglio
The three families are easy to tell apart by where the ink sits. In relief printing, such as the woodcut or the linocut, the ink sits on a raised surface. In intaglio, it sits in lines cut below the surface. Lithography is the odd one out: the surface is neither raised nor cut, but perfectly flat, and chemistry alone decides which parts carry ink and which stay blank. This is what makes it so good at capturing the free, spontaneous feel of a drawing.
How lithography works
The whole technique rests on the repulsion of grease and water. The artist draws directly onto a smooth stone or plate with a greasy crayon or a liquid ink called tusche, exactly as if drawing on paper. A chemical treatment then fixes that greasy image in place and makes the blank areas attract water.
- Draw the image on a flat limestone or grained metal plate with a greasy litho crayon or tusche.
- Treat the surface with a mix of gum arabic and weak acid, which sets the greasy drawing and makes the bare areas water-loving.
- Sponge the stone with water, which clings only to the blank, treated areas.
- Roll oil-based ink over the surface; it sticks to the greasy drawing and is repelled by the wet areas.
- Lay paper on top and run it through a press to transfer the image, then re-damp and re-ink for each new print.
Stones, plates and offset
Traditional lithography uses slabs of fine Bavarian limestone, prized because it holds both grease and water so evenly. Today artists also work on grained aluminium or zinc plates, and photographic and digital images can be transferred to light-sensitive plates. The most important modern form is offset lithography, in which the inked image is first transferred onto a rubber blanket and then onto the paper. Offset has become the dominant way of printing books, magazines and packaging, while stone lithography lives on as a fine-art technique.
A short history
Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in Bavaria in 1796, at first as a cheap way to print musical scores and maps. Colour arrived in 1837 when Godefroy Engelmann patented chromolithography, printing a separate stone for each colour. The technique became a favourite of artists: Honoré Daumier published biting lithographic caricatures in the newspapers, Odilon Redon explored it during a revival in the 1870s, and in the 1890s the colour posters of Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec turned the streets of Paris into a gallery. In the twentieth century Pablo Picasso and many others made lithographs at the famous Mourlot studios in Paris. You can read more about the printmakers who shaped these methods.
Lithography and relief printing
Lithography is a wonderful medium, but it calls for heavy stones or plates, chemical processing and a special press, so it is usually practised in a print workshop. At Ritualis Press we focus on its more hands-on cousin, relief printing, which needs very little equipment and no chemistry. If you want to start making prints at home, the linocut and the woodcut are the easiest ways in. Our step-by-step guide for beginners will get you going, and the glossary explains any new term you meet.