How to look at engraving.

What is a print? What is the difference between an original print and a reproduction print? How can you distinguish between works made using different techniques? Is a signed print more valuable than an unsigned one?

In answering these questions, this book analyzes the place of engraving within the history of art, from a technical, social and historical point of view. Closely linked to the invention of typographic printing (around 1450), it is characterized by its reproducibility, which immediately gave it unparalleled diffusion, and by its relatively low cost, which favored the freedom of expression of artists, allowing them to create their works independently of sponsors and fashions.

Since its origins, the print has fulfilled several functions: research and testimony instrument for geographers and explorers, means of denouncing crimes and injustices, scientific tool, support for revolutionary movements of thought, advertising vector for artistic currents, expression of popular art… Great names have given it its letters of nobility: Andrea Mantegna, Pollaiolo, Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, French artists in the ^19th century, Picasso… On the technical level, it has continued to evolve, introducing techniques such as lithography in the ^19th century. Today, it remains one of the most effective tools for the circulation of works of art.

This amply illustrated work offers the reader a glossary, which will help him to perfect his knowledge of the subject.