Early Colour Printing

German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum

Elizabeth Savage

$160

Hardback

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English

Paul Holberton Publishing Ltd
01 February 2020

History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art; Renaissance art; Prints & printmaking

This richly illustrated publication reproduces and describes effectively every early modern German colour print held at the British Museum. It is one of the world's most significant collections of these rare milestones of cultural heritage and technology. New photography reveals 150 impressions in jaw-dropping detail, most life-size. Some have never been seen in public or reproduced. It is the first major study of the first wave of German colour printing. It spans medieval printing in the late 1400s through the Renaissance and Reformation of the 1500s.

Early Colour Printing features masterpieces by leading figures like Erhard Ratdolt, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung Grien, and Hans Burgkmair, as well as unfairly overlooked entrepreneurs and innovators like Erasmus Loy (and his daughter Anna). Their breakthroughs reproduced artworks and simplified astronomical calculations. They created trends in interior design and signalled 'red-letter days'. They helped musicians sight-read and they colour-coded metals for goldsmiths. These diverse new functions and markets might seem unrelated. But they are connected, and they cannot be understood in isolation. From artworks to missals, icons to wallpapers, this book breaks new ground by revealing the fascinating underlying technologies that enabled the production of these colour-printed objects.

The many inventions of colour printing in the German-speaking lands began with medieval novel solutions. They were devised long before colour printing inks could be formulated. Then, colour printing techniques transformed how printed material could be used during the technological and cultural revolutions of the sixteenth century. Later designers and artists around Europe celebrated these techniques' heritage for centuries, from the 'Durer Renaissance' until chromolithography revolutionised the print market in the nineteenth century. Early Colour Printing captures this story in rich detail. It sets the stage for second wave of German colour woodcut, which was triggered by the Expressionist revival at the turn of the twentieth century. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, this collection guide will be a standard reference on German graphic art, early modern visual culture, and the history of printing itself.

By: Elizabeth Savage
Imprint: Paul Holberton Publishing Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 260mm, Width: 216mm,
ISBN: 9781911300755
ISBN 10: 191130075X
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 01 February 2020
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Elizabeth Savage is a senior lecturer in book history and communications at the School of Advanced Study at the University of London.

Reviews for Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum

While Savage’s book is both comprehensive and scholarly, its clear prose also speaks to a general public, and includes her initial careful definitions of the components of her analysis, especially prints, artist-designers, and cutters (Formschneider). In short, her book is rigorous yet accessible, focused on objects but with a sense of the overall contexts and developments. And its range of objects and images goes well beyond the usual focus, including this review, on better-known names especially from the crucial first decades. This study readily serves as both a reference work and a survey introduction for German colored woodcut prints of the long sixteenth century. * Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews 08/09/2022 * … even those who are not early modern or print specialists will find it valuable, as the combination of interesting subject material and engaging images make it a wonderful resource for anyone with an interest in art. * The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 01/12/2022 * With eighty-two entries richly illustrated in brilliant color and carefully described, Savage’s guide to early modern German color prints held at the British Museum is a resource to which scholars and nonspecialists alike will repeatedly return for its high-quality reproductions, clarity of text, and expert insights. * Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 01/12/2022 *