Please note The text in this file has been automatically extracted and may contain minor errors. For the original version please consult the paper copy held in the Swinburne Library. A Seed of Consequence A Seed of Canseque~lee Indirect Image Transfer and Chemical Printing The Role Played by LITHOGRAPHY in the Development of Printing Technology Dennis Bryans Q - 24 October 2000 Synopsis The history of printing is printing processes into photographic images possible dominated by studies of classes based upon depth of for the first time. In the mechanical typography. In this impression which is, nineteenth century, thesis the role of lithography essentially, a mechanical idea lithography also provided the in modernising printing is grounded in the typographic first means by which presented as an alternative tradition. photographs could be path. The conventional reproduced with printing ink The idea presented here is explanation of how different in books - typography follow- that Gutenberg's application printing processes work is ing here rather than leading of indirect image transfer in generally made by dividing the way. them into relief, intaglio and his invention of moveable planographic processes. This type provoked changes of These issues have not been explanation is of questionable greater importance than did clearly recognised by many. value now, in a world where the alternative invention of The widely acknowledged digital pre-press and offset printing illustrations directly superiority of typography to printing hold sway. from metal plates or print economically, sharply, wooden blocks. and at speed, was not It is an outmoded idea to surpassed by lithographers Similarly, direct lithography think that different ways of (who tended to concentrate was transformed by delivering ink under pressure on technical illustration and Senefelder into a vehicle for is at the core of printing. decorative printing) for many indirect image transfer by the Instead, it is more useful to years. It was not until indirect invention of lithographic focus our attention on the image transfer was applied to transfer paper. This invention role played by direct and the lithographic press that had important ramifications indirect image transfer. The this barrier to progress was for the future of lithography similarities between the uses overcome, and, at last, text and for the preservation of made by Gutenberg and and image were efficiently photographic images. The Senefelder of direct and transferred photographically combination of chemical indirect image transfer has a to the rotary offset press. greater importance than has printing and indirect image the simplified division of transfer made the capture of Chapter Contents Page Introduction 1 A New Printing Paradigm: The Physics and Chemistry of Indirect Transfer 26 The Double Invention of Printing 46 Chemical Lithography Combines the Twin Inventions of Printing The Spread, Improvement and Effects of Direct Lithography on Printing The Duel Role Played by Lithographic Transfer 135 in the lnvention of Photography John Osborne and the lnvention of Photolithograhy 166 Direct Transfer and the lnvention of the Collotype 202 Process Indirect Transfer and the lnvention of Offset Printing 243 Conclusion 264 Bibilography 282 Appendices i 'The Beginning of Type Founding in Sydney: Alexander Thompson's Type, His Foundry, and His Exports to Inter-Colonial Printers' 298 'Nineteenth-Century Australian Type Foundries' 311 Thomas Arthur Davey, (patent 20.420/29, 1929) 328 PhillipStephan Photo-litho and Typographic Process Co. Ltd., (patent, 1888) 332 F. W. & H. N. Niven, (patent, 8862, 1891) 335 Illustrations Figure Page The Hoe 'Web' perfecting machine c1879 The Web of Development in Printing Technology Mechanical and Chemical Printing Mustard Pot, London, c1780 Wood cut, copper engraving, foundry type, stereotype and wood poster type The press room from Diderot's Encyclopedie William Playfair's 'Imports and Exports to and from England from the Years 1700 to 1782 C. J. Minard, Carte Figurative des partes successives en hommes de I'Armee Fran~aise dans la campaigne Russie 1812- 1813 Useful properties of different materials used in transfer ink Useful properties of different materials used in transfer paper Senefelder's pole press The Engine House at Swindon, lithograph Great Western Railroad, lithograph Foot of an Iguanadon, lithograph Compsognathus, lithograph The Great Eastern, lithograph Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lithograph, 1796 Madame de Stael, lithograph, 1834 Charlotte Bronte, lithograph, n. d. Guiditto Pasta, lithograph, n. d. Lithographic lettering 'Tuscan Shaded' foundry type 'Thorne Shaded' foundry type Camera obscura iii illustrations Figure Page 25 T. S. Boys, Le Pont Royal et le Quay d'0rsay 26 H. Florence, Immigrant Family, c1833-9 27 J. N. Niepce, Heliotype, 1827, The Holy Family 28 J. N. Niepce, Heliotype, 1826, the first photograph 29 A. Poitevin, Memoirs of a Madman, photolithograph 30 A. Poitevin, Picture of a Woman, photolithograph 31 Map : Colony of Victoria 32 Gridlines of C. W. Ligar's proposed geodetic survey 33 J. W. Osborne, photolithographed map : Parishes of Ravenswood and Mandurang, issued 3 September, 1859 Photolithographic maps issued by Osborne before 14 February 1860 174 J. W. Osborne, Temperature of the air from the month of March 1858 to March 1859 175 A. D. C. Scott, Photozincograph of an engraving, 1863 194 A. D. C. Scott, Photozincograph of an engraving, 1863 194 A. D. C. Scott, Photozincograph, A leaf from the Doomsday Book, originally issued 14 February 1860 194 A. D. C. Scott, Halftone photozincograph, Trees on Southampton Common, 1863 J. Degotardi, Anastatic Process and Photolithograph 1861 211 Banner, Ballarat Punch, first series 220 F. W. Niven, Ballarat Punch, loose leaf, design for a cover? F. W. Niven, Ballarat Punch, loose leaf, verso : design for a lithographic press? Design for a four colour sheet fed rotary press initialled F. W. N. 227 Bell and Valentine, four colour press, 1908 Drawing of a two colour Hughes & Kimber litho. press (modified) initialled F. W. N. Drawing of a two colour Hughes & Kimber litho. press, detail 228 illustrations Figure Page 48 Drawing of a three colour press on F. W. Niven company letterhead issued prior to 1905 228 Furnival lithographic press 228 F. W. Niven, drawing of a direct rotary two colour sheet fed lithographic machine, signed F. W. Niven 228 The CrispPhoto Process Illustrated 236 The offices of F. W. Niven & Co., 40 - 42 Flinders Street Melbourne E. S. & A. Bank letter to F. W. Niven & Co. 239 F. W. Niven 240 Donald Taylor & Co. collotype post card, Light's Monument, Adelaide c1905-6 Donald Taylor & Co. collotype post card, Light's Monument, Adelaide (verso) photograph by J. Taylor 242 I. W. Rubel, patent offset lithographic machineand F. Sears, Sears-Nuttall patent high-speed direct lithographic rotary machine, 1908-9 253 Rubel and Sears 262 1 Plattel, The War between Engraving and Lithography 266 Daumier lamrpooning photography 266 i Mr Moeller's Excavation, photograph by R. Daintree, lithograph after photograph by R. Shepherd 269 Rush near Navarre, photograph by R. Daintree, wood engraving after photograph. 269 Please note The text in this file has been automatically extracted and may contain minor errors. For the original version please consult the paper copy held in the Swinburne Library. Chapter 1 Introduction The nineteenth century still belonged to the discoverer and the explorer. One of the most characteristic phenomena of the mid-twentieth century, the mechanical age in which we live, is the combination of research and teamwork. Specialisation has reached such a degree that to explain the mechanical complexities of present- day printing machinery and equipment would confuse rather than clarify the picture in the print-lover's and print-user's minds. - Charles Rosnerl 1 Charles Rosner. So writes Rosner in a 1951 survey Printer's Progress, Printer's Progress The Sylvan Press. London, a hundred years of British printing history that compares the 1951. unpaginated text. numbered art of printing at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 with illustrations. Rosner, the state of the printer's art in 1951. It is perhaps unfair to an author and topical reviewer of the graphic point out the patronising assumption in Rosner's introductory arts and design in The Penrose Annual, remarks, yet he was not alone in assuming that new printing represented Charles Rosner and Associates technologies were beyond the understanding of the ordinary London.-For more ~y Rosner see also 'Art reader. Rosner still speaks of living in a mechanical age. It is is Invisible' The clear that for him, and for many others who shared this view, Penrose Annual. V. 50. London. 1956. editor there is no useful distinction to be made between the parallel R. B. Fishenden. published by Lund progress of chemistry and physics in the industrialised state. Hurnphries, pp. 41-4; -'Alliance Graphique Internationale' The 1 Penrose Annual. V. 51. By 1951, although it was not yet obvious, we had already London. 1957. editor outstripped the mechanical age in printing. The comfortable R. B. Fishenden, published by Lund textbook division of printing processes into letterpress, gravure . Hurnphries. pp. 13-5; --Graphic '57'. The and offset printing concealed a deep divide between the Penrose Annual. V. 52, London, 1958, editor substance and appearance of printing; that is, between the Allan Delafons. published by Lund methods of the past and the future. An analysis of fundamental Hurnphries. pp. 61-3. differences in printing processes was not an issue that A review of a graphic arts and printing occupied the minds of either technical writers or print exhibition at Lausanne.Switzerland; historians. In 1951 the specialist did indeed hold sway over -'Report from Poland' The Penrose Annual. the detail of printing technology. Better printing plates, V. 54, London. 1960. editor Allan Delafons. improved makeready, finer dot screens, improved inks and published by Lund paper occupied the minds of the 'scientific' print technologist Hurnphries, pp.