This volume explores the evolution of the technique, composition and colouration of the woodcut beginning with the earliest publications. It features examples from Germany, Italy, France, Spain and The Netherlands.

A comprehensive resource to understanding the hand-press printing of early books Studying Early Printed Books, 1450 - 1800 offers a guide to the fascinating process of how books were printed in the first centuries of the press and shows how the mechanics of making books shapes how we read and understand them. The author offers an insightful overview of how books were made in the hand-press period and then includes an in-depth review of the specific aspects of the printing process. She addresses questions such as: How was paper made? What were different book formats? How did the press work? In addition, the text is filled with illustrative examples that demonstrate how understanding the early processes can be helpful to today’s researchers. Studying Early Printed Books shows the connections between the material form of a book (what it looks like and how it was made), how a book conveys its meaning and how it is used by readers. The author helps readers navigate books by explaining how to tell which parts of a book are the result of early printing practices and which are a result of later changes. The text also offers guidance on: how to approach a book; how to read a catalog record; the difference between using digital facsimiles and books in-hand. This important guide: Reveals how books were made with the advent of the printing press and how they are understood today Offers information on how to use digital reproductions of early printed books as well as how to work in a rare books library Contains a useful glossary and a detailed list of recommended readings Includes a companion website for further research Written for students of book history, materiality of text and history of information, Studying Early Printed Books explores the many aspects of the early printing process of books and explains how their form is understood today.

First full-scale guide to the origins and development of the early printed book, and the issues associated with it.

This richly illustrated publication reproduces and describes effectively every early modern German color 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 color 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 color-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 color-printed objects. The many inventions of color printing in the German-speaking lands began with medieval novel solutions. They were devised long before color printing inks could be formulated. Then, color 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 'D rer Renaissance' until chromolithography revolutionized 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 color 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. Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum offers significant new research, including previously unidentified examples of early modern color-printing. Some are believed to be unique in the world; others were made decades before the landmark invention of colorful chiaroscuro woodcut in Italy in 1516. By modeling a printer- and technology-based approach to the history of printing, it contributes to scholarship by pinpointing attributions to printers--not just to artists or designers. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for a new understanding of the history of print, one that encompasses all forms of printed material. This publication derives from an exhibition at the British Museum curated by Elizabeth Savage.

The Art & History of Books is a tightly written and lavishly illustrated panorama of book design from its earliest history to recent years. Tracing the history of fine books against a background of changing patrons, improving technology, religious and social change, and the state of the arts throughout the world, this volume encompasses both illustrated and unillustrated books with a breadth of detail not found in any other work. With 176 facsimile pages from books of unusual beauty or interest, many of them photographed especially for this volume, The Art & History of Books is more than a valuable reference source: it is a perfect example of expert design, cogent description, and relevant illustration.