The art of drawing on stone, giving a full explanation of the various styles. Of the different methods to be employed to ensure success, and of the modes of correcting, as well as of the several causes of failure / by C. Hullmandel.

  • Hullmandel, Charles Joseph, 1789-1850.
Date:
[1824]
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    m Largely as T am engaged in Lithographic printing, *> I may perhaps be excused in saying a few words in defence of an Art, in the success of which I am so deeply concerned. It appears to me, that the same reasons must un- doubtedly have been brought against the discovery of Printingj^aifd in favour of copyists, which are now pro- duced to cry down Lithography, and certainly with more reason against letter-press printing, than against the newly discovered Art; for the invention of printing decidedly and exclusively clashed with the interests of the copyists, whereas many plates now executed in Li- thography would not have been published at all, owing to the enormous expence of engraving; although, from the acrimony existing in the minds of engravers and of printers against drawings upon stone, they think them- selves deprived by Lithography of the execution of these works, not considering, that in many instances, they would have been withheld from motives of economy. It has also been strongly urged, that by making
    works of Art common, they are depreciated in value: but may not I ask, whether Homer, Plato, or Virgil, are the less esteemed, because any person can now afford to purchase their works ? Are the admirable productions of the great unknown despised, because vessels sail from Leith, entirely laden with copies of the new creations of his magic pen? If millions have acknowledged the blessings which the invention of printing has conferred upon mankind, by diffusing knowledge over the face of Europe, surely the same reasoning holds good with re- gard to a sister art, which has the power of multiplying the original productions of an eminent artist, of offering clever originals for copying, to persons who formerly could only afford to purchase very inferior models, and thereby of infusing taste amongst those classes of society whose means did not allow them to possess the superior and more expensive productions of Art.* * I am of course alluding to the better productions of the Lithographic Art; not to those inferior drawings which, I am well aware, are distributed pretty freely to the Public. Those who attack Lithography as the means
    v True, say the enemies of Lithography, but from the ease with which works are produced, we shall be inundated with rubbish. Now, may not precisely the same thing be said of printing ? has not the facility of multiplying been the cause of thousands of bad books being laid before the public ? but is every person forced to purchase a work because it is published? and are amateurs obliged to buy every bad lithographic print which is brought forth from the press ? A lithographic impression is not even a fac-simile of the work of an artist of eminence, but the original drawing itself. This is a feature peculiar to Litho- graphy, and shows the immense benefit conferred on mankind by this admirable invention, by procuring to persons whose means are but limited, the power of pos- sessing that which could formerly only be held by indi- viduals of immense property. of inundating the shops with bad specimens of art, forget that copper-plate has the power of spreading forth also a tolerable quantity of trash, many of which are of the lowest class, as several shops in London well evince.
    Far from slandering this newly discovered art, we ought, on the contrary, to regret that Lithography had not been discovered four centuries back, and enabled ns thereby to possess multiplied copies of original drawings of Raphael, Coreggio, and all the great masters, who have been such bright ornaments to their countries. And again, if an artist of eminence feels an objection to multiplying the productions of his pencil to a great extent, what hinders him from taking a limited number of copies, and destroying his drawing after- wards? That which cannot be done in engraving, from the immense expense of getting up a highly finished plate, and the necessity of covering these expences by an extensive sale, may yet be done with considerable profit in Lithography, where an artist possesses in him- self the means of appearing before the Public. I must still be allowed to say a few words, in answer to a most ungenerous attack made on Lithography by a reviewer of Captain Franklin’s Journey, in a quarterly publication. A hope is expressed by him that the