The art of printing from stone was invented at the end of the last
century by M. Aloys Senefelder, of Munich; but it was not brought to
such a state of perfection as to be practically useful until many years
afterwards.
The principle on which Lithography depends is the different chemical
affinities of water for oily and for earthy substances, which cause
it to run off from the one and adhere to the other. The drawing or
writing is made in oily ink upon a smooth calcareous stone that will
absorb water, so that, when the stone is moistened, the water adheres
to it and leaves the lines of the drawing traced upon it dry. An inking
roller, charged with an oily ink, is then passed over the stone and
inks the drawing, but leaves all the other parts of the stone quite
clean. A damped paper is next laid on, and when subjected to great
pressure, an exact copy of the drawing or writing is produced.
This simple and ingenious process has been carried to such perfection,
that the most beautiful artistic effects can be produced by it far
more economically than by any other style of engraving; and further
improvements in the art are being continually made. It is satisfactory,
therefore, to be able to trace its history from its very beginnings, of
which an interesting account has been published by the inventor himself.
M. Senefelder's father was an actor at Munich, and in his youth he
followed the same profession. He turned his attention afterwards to
music; and it was in his attempts to devise some means of printing
his compositions economically that he chanced to discover the art of
Lithography.
He had previously made himself acquainted with the methods of
copper-plate printing, and he commenced his operations by etching the
notes of music on copper-plates, covered with varnish in the ordinary
way. He found, however, that it would require much practice to enable
him to do this properly, and not being able to buy copper-plates for
his rude essays, he thought of practising upon stones. Fortunately for
the success of his efforts, the quarries at Solenhofen, near Munich,
supplied him with slabs of stone admirably adapted for the purpose; and
it is a remarkable coincidence, that the material which Senefelder used
for his experiments is the best for the purpose of Lithography that
has hitherto been discovered. His chief object in making use of these
slabs of stone was to practise himself in the manipulation of writing
the notes, and of biting them in with _aqua-fortis_ (nitric acid),
as he supposed the slabs would be too brittle to bear the action of
the press. He did not try, therefore, to have these etchings on stone
proved by the press, but he contented himself with holding them up to a
mirror to observe the progress he was making in writing backwards.
Having at length been supplied with much thicker slabs of stone, to
bear the requisite pressure, he endeavoured to grind and polish them
sufficiently for the purpose of being printed from, in the same manner
as copper-plates. He succeeded to some extent in doing so, by means
of diluted nitric acid; and he contrived to obtain about fifty good
impressions from the stone.
In all these attempts at Lithography, the lines were etched into the
stone by the action of nitric acid, and the only advantages professed
to be gained by the process were the questionable ones of comparative
cheapness of material, and greater facility of working. M. Senefelder
admits that there was nothing new in engraving upon stone; all that
he claims in that part of the invention is, the manner of polishing
the surface, and the composition of the ink adapted for printing
from it. The most important step in the progress of the invention of
Lithography, as at present practised, was made by accident, which he
thus describes:--
"I was preparing a slab of stone for engraving, when my mother asked
me to write a memorandum of things she was about to send to be washed.
The washerwoman was waiting impatiently whilst we searched in vain for
a piece of paper, and the common writing ink was dried up. Having no
other writing materials, I wrote the washing bill on the stone I was
about to prepare for engraving, using for the purpose my ink made of
wax, soap, and lamp-black, intending to copy it afterwards on paper.
Whilst looking at the letters I had written, the idea all at once
occurred to me how it would do to cover the stone, with the writing
upon it, with aqua-fortis, so as to leave them in relief, and then to
print from them in the same manner as woodcuts, with a common letter
press. The attempts I had hitherto made to engrave upon stone had
taught me that the relief of the letters thus obtained would not be
much. Nevertheless, I made the attempt. I mixed one part of aqua-fortis
with five parts of water, and poured it on the stone to the height of
two inches, having previously walled it round with wax in the usual
manner. The diluted aqua-fortis was permitted to rest on the stone five
minutes. I then examined the effect, and I found that the letters were
raised above the stone about the thickness of a card. Most of the lines
were uninjured, and retained their original size and thickness. This
gave me the assurance that writing, sufficiently traced, especially
if the letters were in printed characters, would have still greater
relief."[17]
Though M. Senefelder had advanced thus far, he had not yet made
application of the chemical properties of ink and water, which
constitute the distinguishing characteristics of Lithography. That was
reserved for a further discovery, also brought about by accident. The
difficulty he experienced in writing words on the stone in the reverse
way, induced him to adopt the plan of writing the letters on paper with
a soft black-lead pencil, and then transferring them on to the stone by
pressure. He subsequently used lithographic ink for the purpose; and in
the course of his experiments he observed, that when a paper written on
with lithographic ink, and well dried, was dipped into water on which
some oil was floating, the oil adhered to the writing, and left the
rest of the paper clean, and that this effect was most striking when
the water contained some gum in solution. This discovery induced him
to try the effect on printed paper; and, taking a printed page from
an old book, he moistened it with gum-water, and afterwards sponged
the whole surface with oil colour. The colour adhered to the letters,
and left the paper clean, and after further experiments he succeeded
in printing as many as fifty copies from a page of printed paper; the
letters, of course, being reversed. The idea then suggested itself of
transferring, on to stone, letters written with lithographic ink upon
paper. The plan succeeded, and the principle of the art of Lithography
was thus applied to practice. M. Senefelder, in his subsequent
improvements, gave a slight relief to the letters by the original plan
of using diluted aqua-fortis, by which means the impressions obtained
were blacker. He also contrived the means of printing in colours from
stone, by reversing the process of ordinary lithographic printing. To
produce coloured prints, he left uncovered all the parts that were to
receive the colour, and the other parts of the stone were covered with
an oleaginous fluid, that quickly dried. On applying any water-colour
to the stone, it adhered to the uncovered surface, and not to the
covered parts, and that colour was transferred to paper by pressure. In
this manner, by using several stones properly prepared, the different
colours required were printed, and the effect of a coloured drawing was
produced. Thus we perceive, that almost at the first invention of the
art of Lithography, the ingenious inventor showed the way of applying
it to the production of coloured prints, a process which has lately
been carried to great perfection.
Senefelder lived to see his invention extensively adopted, and to reap
benefit from his ingenuity. He died at Munich, in 1834, after having
been many years the director of the Government lithographic office;
and, in the latter years of his life he received a handsome pension
from the King of Bavaria.
There is little to be added to the description of the process of
Lithography, beyond that given by the original inventor in 1819, the
principal advances that have been made in the art having consisted
in improved methods of manipulating. The ink now generally employed
for drawing on the stone consists of equal parts of tallow, wax,
shell-lack, and soap, mixed with about one-twentieth part of
lamp-black; but the composition is varied, according to the kind
of design to be executed. For writing or drawing upon paper, to be
transferred to the stone, more wax is added to the ink, to give it
greater tenacity.
The drawing upon paper, to be transferred to stone, is not attended
with any difficulty, and may be done by ordinary artists. The ink
is applied with a pen, or camel's hair pencil, and when the effect
of chalk drawings is required to be imitated, the ink is shaded by
means of stumps, similar to those used in chalk drawings on paper.
Some artists prefer to work directly on the stone with a camel's hair
pencil, or with a composition called lithographic chalk.
To transfer the drawing from paper on to the stone, the paper is first
sponged with diluted nitric acid, which decomposes the size, and
renders it bibulous. After being placed for an instant between blotting
paper, to remove superfluous moisture, it is laid with the drawing
downwards on the stone, which is slightly warmed. The stone is then
passed through the press, and the drawing adheres firmly to it. To
remove the paper, it is wetted at the back with water, and, when quite
soft, it is rubbed with the hand. In this manner every particle of the
fibrous pulp is cleared away, and the drawing or writing in ink remains
as if it had been drawn directly on the stone. To prepare the stone for
taking the ink, gum water is poured upon it, and it is rubbed over with
a rag containing printer's ink, which serves to blacken the writing and
prepares the lines for afterwards receiving the ink.
The lithograph thus prepared is given to the printer, who first etches
it, in the manner originally practised by M. Senefelder. The nitric
acid employed for the purpose is diluted with about thirty parts of
water, and it is poured over the stone whilst it is inclined on one
side. This process is repeated several times, the object of it being
not so much to give relief to the lines, as to roughen the surface of
the stone, and thus facilitate its absorption of water. The nitric
acid also removes the alkali from the drawing ink. In printing, gum is
added to the water with which the stone is moistened, as an additional
preventive of the ink adhering to those parts not drawn upon. The
printing ink is applied with large rollers, and the damped paper having
been placed carefully upon the stone, with blankets at the back, it is
passed through the press.
The lithographic press somewhat resembles in form an iron printing
press, but differs from it greatly in its mode of action. Instead of
the large flat plate that in a printing press is pulled down upon the
whole surface of the types, a long, narrow arm, called a scraper, is
brought to bear upon the stone, and the table whereon the stone is
laid is pushed forcibly under it, by which means a great pressure is
exerted on a smaller surface at successive times, instead of being
brought to bear all at once. In the principle of its action, indeed, a
lithographic press is like a printing machine, and steam lithographic
presses have been invented to work in a similar manner, though the
practical results have not generally been very successful.
Among the many applications of lithography, the transfer of
copper-plate engravings is one of the most useful. An impression of
the plate is taken on paper that is coated with a compound of flour,
plaster of Paris, and glue, and from the paper it is transferred to
stone. By this plan the original plate remains untouched, and the
printing from the stone is much cheaper than from the copper. Tinted
lithography and chromo-lithography, by which the beautiful effects
of coloured drawings are produced in the manner indicated by M.
Senefelder, have recently been applied very successfully.