the miracle of chromolithography

Victorian chromolithography card, 1880's

chromolithography is a method for making multi-color prints. 

(let's see this interesting short video on chromolithography)  
 

chromolithography was a revelation! (from a private library):

 

let's begin with lithography, a mechanical planographic process in which the printing and non-printing areas of the plate are all at the same level, as opposed to intaglio and relief processes in which the design is cut into the printing block. lithography is based on the chemical repellence of oil and water. 

designs are drawn or painted with greasy ink or crayons on specially prepared limestone. the stone is moistened with water, which the stone accepts in areas not covered by the crayon. an oily ink, applied with a roller, adheres only to the drawing and is repelled by the wet parts of the stone. the print is then made by pressing paper against the inked drawing.

 

the lithography process was refined over the next several decades to include color illustrations. now multiple stones were used, one for each color, and the print went through the press as many times as there were stones. the problem for the printers was keeping the image in register, making sure that the print would be lined up exactly each time it went through the press so that each color would be in the correct position and the overlaying colors would merge correctly....  overprinting. the use of silver and gold inks widened the range of color and design.

novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe called it "magic colouring." 

 

 

illustrations like the one above were sold by the thousands and exhibited in the houses of America's middle class,
 

 L. Prang & Co. sold cards like this by the millions,

 

 

even though chromolithographs served many uses within society at the time, many were opposed to the idea of them because of their perceived lack of authenticity. these new art forms were sometimes tagged as "bad art" because of their deceptive qualities.

many felt that it could not serve as a form of art at all since it was too mechanical and that the true spirit of a painter could never be captured in a printed version of a work. 

what do we have here?

1- cheaper prints because of the simplification of the number of colors used,

2- popularization of a type of image,
3- the refinement in detail in the image.