By Daniele Crégut, expert in modern and contemporary art
January 2008


"Art finally accessible…
Today, there is an alternative to the original and unique piece of art and to the poster printed in large quantities : Digigraphy…. "

In reading this advertisement published in the newspaper "Libération" dated 5th and 6th January 2008, one may ask the question whether in fact, a print made with Digigraphy, ie a digital printing can be regarded as an original work, not unique but in a limited edition, as well as lithography, for example. In other words, is it a form of expression that can stimulate the creativity of an artist, as could have been other techniques of prints, or is it simply a means of reproduction ?

On the other hand, one can be surprised by this statement: "Today there is a choice between the unique work and the poster." This alternative is not new. It has been existed since a long time, it is the signed print in limited edition.

But let's answer to the first question : Can we assimilate digital printing to lithography and print in general? What's new in this process ? 

During a long time, making a print was to engrave an image, on copper, wood, stone, zinc, or any material, and then  to ink and print the obtained trace.  At the moment, the print remains a printed image, but it is clear that the advent of digital technology and the ink-jet printing has totally changed its design and printing.

The basic principle of lithography, in the late eighteenth century is drawing with a pencil or a special pen dipped in greasy ink on a very dense limestone. Then, with a solution of acid and arabic gum, the tracks drawn on the stone are fixed, and by the action of acid, the undrawn surfaces are made slightly porous. During the printing, only drawn surfaces accept the greasy ink of the ink roller, and are transmitted on paper. By contrast, virgin surfaces become saturated with water and refuse the ink of the ink roller, so let the paper white.

It should be noted, that initially Senefelder, its inventor, had imagined this technique to print texts, and that throughout the nineteenth century, artists will take it over and make it evolve into a medium of plastic expression. To confer a title of nobility on this process, leading industrialists involve artists, Count de Lasteyrie and Delacroix for example. Therefore, "the workshop of the printer" becomes sometimes the "artist's studio" who comes to draw or check prints. A rendezvous between printers and art get organized, particularly for the poster. A tradition of print directly made by the artist develops therefore, some becoming technicians who develop this technology to obtain effects that the printer never use.

Many artists express themselves through this process, with freedom and invention, adapt it to their needs, sometimes in an hazardous way.

Around 1970, stone lithography became certainly an artistic process, its reputation is made, it has been brilliantly exploited by many artists (especially Picasso, Chagall or Miro).

The market for signed and numbered prints is doing well.

And precisely because it is doing well, there are abuses on the part of some editors. One wonders how Dali, for example, even working as a demon for work, could have involved himself in every suite edited by five or six publishing houses, in those years.

At that time, precisely because of such abuses, the Committee of the National French Engraving, the Union of Estampes dealers, The French Customs seek and adopt the same definition of original printg : "the plate for its printing needs to be conceived and executed by the hand of the artist, to the exclusion of any mechanical or photomechanical process, the prints must be limited ".

This restrictive definition was established with the aim of making potential buyers more cautious about the investment value of some prints and thereby to limit abuses, but it seems to me that it no longer really correspond to the evolution of the lithography process.

Because, precisely around 1970/75, we arrive at the end of the traditional lithography as it was defined by the authorities. One begins to use flat offset machines and thus pre-sensitized plates, which accept the photographic transfer, screens and thus the quadrichromy  for the reproduction.

It may certainly be considered that this is a technique in the continuity of the traditional lithography, to the extent that the principle of printing is the same (opposition of water and oily ink). And if the artist has drawn himself on the plate or on transparency film, (if there is no photographic intermediary) the layer of the sensitive offset plate registers directly that act, and it can therefore be considered as analogous to direct drawing, executed as in the past, on the stone or zinc. But the real problem is not to know whether the artist has drawn himself or not, the problem is to know if he has something to say through these new processes : has he simply given to technicians a work to reproduce, or has he created a work ?

Moreover around 1990, that commitment to directly draw on the stone or on zinc, as a definition of original print, will fly shine with the use of digital printers. There is a complete break with previous techniques. It is no longer the intervention in one way or another on stone or metal, but to gather some existing digital images on a computer screen, or to build work, in this way and then print it. The print is no longer performed manually, it is thought, and printed with the programmes and capabilities of this new technology.

For example, the artist can vectorize forms that he choses, (his own works or other documents) and then proceed on the screen to assemblies, on funds backgrounds. The computer work offers thousands of new opportunities. Colors are selected from color charts, one module them at will, make test strips, and so on. The process is obviously much faster, more accurate, less cumbersome. The artist conceives more than he executes himself.

So, can we still talk about original print, if the artist no longer manufactures by his hand  the matrix that will be printed ?

Yes, because the print remains "original" even though it is no longer "executed by the hand of the artist," provided that the design of the image is the product of a close collaboration between the artist and the printer, or still better, if the artist himself masters these new tools and builts "directly" on the screen what will be printed.

The important thing is of course that the artist desires to express himself through this specific language that is print, that he is stimulated by this field of new experiences, that he appropriates, just as some artists in the nineteenth and twentieth century had explored and transformed lithography into artistic practice.

In October, I was able to attend thanks to the kindness of Eric Linard, publisher/printer/gallery at the Val des Nymphes,  La Garde Adhémar, to the creation of a Michel Duport's print. Eric Linard workshop offers the possibility of making silk screening, lithography, but also Digigraphy, (we know that this is a label brand of Epson, digital printing which provides a light guarantee of more than one hundred years) It was there that I realized how much this new technology could be a new field of investigation and creation, for an artist who is interested in this form of expression, the print.

Michel Duport has always practiced lithography in parallel with the preparation of paintings, of volumes. There is since a long time ago in his work a constant relationship, a sort of comes and goes, of game, of repercussion between the forms of his plastic vocabulary generated by these three techniques.

This new technology, digital media, by the lightening of all this manual work that requests traditional lithography, allows to find more freely associations, interesting constructions. It is truly a new means of expression, different from the lithography, neither better nor worse : different. We can very well see this difference by looking at the results : on the one hand lithographs executed during the last decade and part of the exhibition "P.M.A.D.B, paintings, paintings / volumes, prints, books by Michel Duport," which was hold until January 27th 2008 at the Museum PAB in Alès and on the other hand the eight digigraphies series that have been created at Eric Linard's, on the occasion of the exhibition of paintings and volumes by Michel Duport in October and who are still visible on the site of Eric Linard.

Do I have given an answer to the first question : I have often noticed that even for an enlightened connoisseur the print processes are still a little mysterious. I hope, with this article,  that I helped to understand the new opportunities that offer the digital technlologies to create an original work, on a limited edition, signed and numbered

Such as lithography, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, became an artistic process, there is no doubt that digital technology becomes, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, another process, a new way of expression for artists wishing to make an artistic practice of it.

Will the art will finally be accessible through the Digigraphy, as written in the advertising of Liberation? Another question.

This idea of the democratization of art, of the multiple print, allowing the less fortunate to access to the market of art is not new. It arises whenever the unique work sells well. It was the case in the 50/60s, after the war. A new market of signed and numbered prints was born because the painting had become an object of speculation. An original print particularly lithography, by a more or less known artist, became a way for modester classes than buyers of painting to acquire a work of an artist and make an investment. That was what the publishers asserted.  This was not wrong, despite of the abuses and the collapse of the following years. Simply it must be admitted that as the art market is cyclical, the investment may  be considered on the long run.

We can observe the same phenomenon in the years 85/91: a fresh impetus on the print market, which follows the one of  the painting market, before the collapse of 1991.

Again, this same publishers speech arises, in 2008. Would it not be a sign of a new boom in the market? Vast issue that could be the subject of another article.


(Translated from French by elandarts.com)