Category : Prints

Prints include all artworks that involve the use of a printing technique. It generally consists in applying an ink or dye onto a flat surface that can be made out of stone, wood or metal and then make an impression on a sheet of paper or textile. Thus a wide variety of art techniques are possible.

Prints became especially popular with Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the XVth century, making visual arts, along with knowledge, more accessible to the general population. Prints cover a wide variety of techniques, generally divided in three families : relief prints (e.g. woodcut), intaglio (engravings, etchings, dry-point) and planographic prints (lithography).

Nowadays, giclées - or artworks printed on a sheet of paper using an inkjet printer - can also be considered as part of this general category.