University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design Art, Art History and Design, School of 2013 The Birth of Mass Media: Printmaking in Early Modern Europe Alison Stewart University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/artfacpub Part of the Book and Paper Commons, and the Illustration Commons Stewart, Alison, "The Birth of Mass Media: Printmaking in Early Modern Europe" (2013). Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design. 22. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/artfacpub/22 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art, Art History and Design, School of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art, First Edition, edited by Babette Bohn and James M. Saslow (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), pp. 253–273. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Used by permission. The Birth of Mass Media Printmaking in Early Modern Europe Alison G. Stewart It is hardly too much to say that since the invention of writing there has been no more important invention than that of the exactly repeatable pictorial statement [called the print]. William Ivins 1 In the digital age, when images and films can be streamed with lightning speed onto computers at the press of a button, it is hard to fathom the society-altering impact the new printed image had when it first appeared in Europe around 1400.