Litography - Litography development

The lithography development was very quick because of two reasons: the drawing on the stone could be prepared very quickly (quicker than using other techniques) and the work to prepare the matrix was rather light. Although Senefelder developed lithography to publish texts and melody tunes he soon realized that this technique is perfect for copying drawings and pictures too.

Lithography started to develop at the beginning of the 19th century. Such artists like Goya, Gericault, Daumier, Gros, Charlet, Lautrec, and Delacroix were also interested in this technique and participated in the technique’s development. In 1810 Duplait invented dry point on the stone technique. Hildebrandt and Didot worked on colour lithography. Engelman in 1837 improved and patented chromolithography (from many

As a matter of fact the moment of inventing offset can be treated as the moment of the death of commercial lithography. Engelman was special among the other mentioned names. In his book “Traite theoretique et pratique de la lithographie”, 1840 he writes about lithography’s value as the reproductive technique.

Nowadays lithography is a technique practiced by the printmaker artists (in the first quarter of 20th century lithography was practiced to print labels, posters, bills, form sheets. Offset which is the natural evolution of lithography is the most popular technique practiced nowadays.