Conference Paper: 'Commerce, Play and Display: Prints and their Spatial Trajectories' ('Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment: David Nichol Smith Seminar and the Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, December 2017) (original) (raw)
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The prints and accompanying ephemera (trade cards, flyers and proposals for subscription) displayed serve to stress the all-important role of publishers in commissioning and disseminating prints of every sort. Copper Impressions aims to illustrate what might have been printed on Michael Phillips's working replica of a wooden intaglio rolling press, at present here in the Library and so very like the one in Abraham Bosse's Traicté des Manieres de Graver en Taille Douce....& d'en Construire la Presse... (Dean Aldrich's copy of the book was on display); constructions of its type were still current in the 18th-century (though it must be admitted that this particular press is too small to have accommodated the large plates by Sharp and Simon, published by Macklin and Boydell). William Hogarth was an artist who jealously published his own works; Boydell and Macklin were entrepreneurs. A fourth display case gave a glimpse of those who inhabited the milieu in which painters, printmakers and publishers plied their wares. This exhibition, curated by Nicholas Stogdon and Cristina Neagu, was punctuated by several printing workshops conducted by Michael Phillips. It opened with talks on aspects of 18th century engraving, followed by a workshop on printing from relief-etched copper plates.
Traditionally, the history of printmaking has fallen in the space between art history and the history of the book. Often ‘reproductive’ and multiple in nature, prints have long been marginalized in art historical scholarship in favour of the traditional ‘high’ arts. The inherent complexities in the manufacture and sale of print, often involving multi-faceted networks of specialist craftsmen, artists, publishers and sellers, has also led to much confusion. Not knowing how prints are made has affected our ability to understand the medium and its aesthetic qualities. However, recent scholarship has opened up new avenues for placing prints in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe. From the techniques applied in the making of prints to the individuals involved in their production, distribution and use, current research is continuing to shape our understanding of this complex field. This two-day conference, in collaboration with Print Quarterly, aims to showcase new developments in the study of prints, challenging and developing traditional approaches. It is organized around a series of panels dedicated to different themes and is accompanied by a pop-up display in the Courtauld's Prints and Drawings Study Room: 'Courtauld Prints: The Making of a Collection'.
The Eighteenth-Century Print: Tracing the Contours of a Field
This essay examines new developments and trends in the study of eighteenth-century prints, with a particular focus on reproductive engraving, book illustration, fine art etching, and caricature. Recent studies demonstrate an increasingly theoretical engagement with the production and reception of prints and assert the centrality of prints and printmaking to the field of art history. Digital scanning and database technology have dramatically expanded scholarly access to the printed page, posing both opportunities and challenges to the conceptualization of the Enlightenment print.
Studia Hibernica, 2021
On the basis of a case-study centred on the experience of Sir John Perceval (d.1686) of north Cork, it is argued that books and their spatial location constituted elements within a broader decorative ensemble expressive of cultural hegemony. Moreover, Perceval's intellectually-diverse world of print is contrasted with the marginalised and geographicallyadjacent sphere of Gaelic script as embodied by the poet and scribe Eoghan Ó Caoimh (d.1726). Notwithstanding the dynamic ideological significance of a text such as Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, its first appearance in print in a 1723 English translation, is emblematic of the cultural and social authority of early modern print in a colonial milieu. Reference is made to the library of James Butler (d.1688), first duke of Ormond, and the Parisian book purchases of Francis FitzMaurice (d.1818) and his wife Anastasia (d.1799), third earl and countess of Kerry, by way of illustration of print's uncontested dominance among elite Irish readers and patrons of the trade in books.
It is a well-known and established fact that the origins of early print making bare a close relationship with goldsmith workshops, with Albrecht Dürer as the most celebrated representative of this development. Surprisingly, the printed output of these early engravers for goldsmith- and architectural design is a field which gained little attention by print scholars so far. This paper examines the professional position and production of this particular new genre of ornament prints from goldsmith-engravers in the Low Countries such as the architect Alart DuHameel (c. 1460 – c. 1506) or the anonymous Master W with the Key (active c. 1465-85). A major part of these engravers’ output consisted of designs for metalwork such as reliquaries, censors, chalices or crosiers. By providing designs for a wide range of craftsmen - ranging from architects, over wood carvers to goldsmiths – this group of goldsmith-engravers can be interpreted as intermediate players in the dissemination of geometrical designing knowledge to a great variety of media. This paper addresses issues such as the dissemination of design skills, the practical and aesthetic function of design prints, the interdisciplinary crossovers between craftsmen by printed media, and the self-representation of the artist by the use of house marks and monograms.
Seventeenth-Century Print Culture
History Compass, 2004
Early modern cultural historians hang on to Habermas' phrase 'the public sphere' against their better knowledge. This essay looks at the historiographical background to its reception and use, and proposes an alternative approach .