print images

This page looks at still images - prints, lithographs, maps, logos - as a communication revolution.

It covers -

• introduction
• the print
• the poster
• logos
• cartography

     introduction

In considering the image it is perhaps most effective to identity a succession of revolutions that encompass

• initial handmade (carved, painted, drawn) representations of nature or abstractions - essentially unique artefacts
• early reprographic technologies such as the etching and lithography, capable of producing several hundred or even thousand copies from a skilled artisan's original before there was a substantial loss of quality
• photography, which allowed non-specialists to capture nature with increasing verisimilitude (eg through faster film stock and the development of colour film) and formed a basis for mass access to information through modern publishing
• new publishing formats such as the postcard (with production of 600 million postcards in France alone in 1906)
• 'non-invasive' technologies such as x-ray and CAT imaging
• mechanisms such as photocopying that allow non-specialists to engage in large-scale reproduction of images without significant loss of quality
• technologies such as digital scanning that potentially allow near-perfect capture of images and their reproduction
• adoption by consumers of low-cost devices, such as mobile phones, that allow painless image capture and disemination.

The effect of those revolutions is that most people in advanced economies are surfing a sea of images. Some have claimed that the plethora of images has lessened the impact of any particular image or that we fetishise originality (although many non-specilists would have difficulty differentiating between master and copy without appropriate cues). Others suggest that the ease of image creation, reproduction and re-creation has devalued image making or renewed questions about whether the camera lies.

Mitchell Stephens' feisty The Rise of the Image, The Fall of the Word (New York: Oxford Uni Press 1998) argues that at some point during the past fifty years "for perhaps the first time in human history it began to seem as if images would gain the upper hand over words", consistent with claims by Marshall McLuhan.

That is questioned in James Elkins' The Domain of Images (Ithaca: Cornell Uni Press 1999) and Picturing the Past: Media, History & Photography (Urbana: Uni of Illinois Press 1999) edited by Bonnie Brennen & Hanno Hardt.

In considering the revolution made by still and moving images start with 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', Walter Benjamin's 1936 classic. It is available in Illuminations (New York: Schocken 1985) translated by Harry Zohn and the MIT PRess edition of his collected works. For a study of the role of the media in the formation of a public sphere see John Hartley's The Politics of Pictures: The Creation of the Public in the Age of Popular Media (New York: Routledge 1992), particularly the role of images in newspapers, and Julie Brown's Making Culture Visible: The Public Display of Photography at Fairs, Expositions & Exhibitions in the United States, 1847-1900 (New York: Routledge 2001). Felice Frankel's Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image (Cambridge: MIT Press 2002) and Richard Benson's The Printed Picture (New York: MOMA 2008) are also recommended.

     the print

William Ivins in Prints & Visual Communication (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1953) argues that the discovery of ways for "making exactly repeatable pictorial statements" in the first half of the fifteenth century was of profound historical importance, surpassing the invention of printing with movable metal type.

Prints added a visual component to communication. That they were exactly the same provided a powerful new way of transmitting knowledge. Before, with reliance on words, descriptions of nature and art were often very imprecise.

That thesis is explored in Hillel Schwartz's The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles (New York: Zone Books 1996) and The Renaissance Computer: Knowledge Technology In The First Age of Print (London: Routledge 2000) edited by Neil Rhodes & Jonathan Sawday. The latter is complemented by Joseph Koerner's The Reformation of the Image (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 2004). There is a general survey in Susan Lambert's The Image Multiplied (New York: Abaris 1987).

Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphic Discovery: A Trout in the Milk and Other Visual Adventures (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 2004) by Howard Wainer and other writings highlighted in our Design Guide provide a demonstration.

Patricia Anderson's The Printed Image & the Transformation of Popular Culture 1790-1860 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994) and Ralph Shikes' The Indignant Eye (Boston: Beacon 1976) deal with consumption and politics respectively. Anderson is complemented by Timothy Clayton's The English Print, 1688-1802 (New Haven: Yale University Press 1997). Claudia Schmölders' Hitler's Face: The Biography of an Image (Philadelphia: Uni of Pennsylvania Press 2005), Roy Strong's Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (London: Thames & Hudson 1987) and Frances Yates' Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge 1975) are suggestive. Other pointers are found in the illustration page of our detailed profile on print culture.

For more recent times Neil Harris' Cultural Excursions: Marketing Appetites & Cultural Tastes in Modern America (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 1990) characterises the half tone revolution of 1850-1900 as having the same impact.

     the poster

For an introduction to the poster see in particular The Complete Masters of the Poster (New York: Dover 1990) edited by Stanley Applebaum, John Barnicoat's Posters: A Concise History (London: Thames & Hudson 1985), The 20th Century Poster (New York: Abbeville Press 1990) edited by Dawn Ades and Therese Heyman's Posters American Style (New York: Abrams 1998).

The literature on specific periods and genres, notably the political poster, is particular rich. For China see Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Posters: From Revolution to Modernization (Armonk: Sharpe 1996) and Paint it Red: Fifty Years of Chinese Propaganda Posters (Groningen: Intermed 1998), Patricia Powell's Mao's Graphic Voice: Pictorial Posters from the Cultural Revolution (Madison: Elvehjem Museum 1996), Michael Wolff's Chinese Propaganda Posters: From the Collection of Michael Wolf (New York: Free Press 1993) and Stephanie Donald & Harriet Evans' Picturing Power: Posters of China (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 1999), supplemented by Julia Andrews' Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979 (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 1994).

The USSR is surveyed in Stephen White's The Bolshevik Poster (New Haven: Yale Uni Press 1990), Nina Baburina's The Soviet Political Poster 1917-1980 (New York: Viking 1985), Victoria Bonnell's Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 1997), Leah Dickerman's Building the Collective: Soviet Graphic Design 1917-1937 (New York: Princeton Architectural Press 1996) and Elena Barkhatova's Russian Constructivist Posters (Paris: Flammarion 1992), complemented by James Aulich's Political Posters in Central and Eastern Europe 1945-1995 (Manchester: Manchester Uni Press 2000) and Stephen Norris' A War of Images: Russian Popular Prints, Wartime Culture, and National Identity, 1812-1945 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois Uni Press 2006).

For WWI and thereafter see Joseph Darracot's The First World War in Posters from the Imperial War Museum (New York: Dover 1974), Peter Paret & Beth Lewis' Persuasive Images: Poster of War and Revolution from the Hoover Institution Archives (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 1992) . Images of War: British Posters, 1939-1945 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1989), Harry Rubenstein & William Bird's Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front (New York: Princeton Architectural Press 1998), Liz McQuiston's Graphic Agitation: Social & Political Graphics Since the Sixties (London: Phaidon 1993) and Daoud Sarhandi's Evil Doesn't Live Here: Posters of the Bosnian War (New York: Princeton Architectural Press 2001).

Rodney Mace's British Trade Union Posters: An Illustrated History (Stroud: Sutton 1999) offers a counterpoint to Catherine Haill's Fun Without Vulgarity: Victorian and Edwardian Popular Entertainment Posters (London: The Stationery Office 1997), Julia Wigg's Bon Voyage Travel Posters of the Edwardian Era (London: The Stationery Office 1996) and Edwin Poole's Cocoa and Corsets: A Selection of Late Victorian Posters and Showcards (Manchester: Manchester Uni Press 2001).

Works on the US political poster include 4973: Berkeley Protest Posters 1970 (London: Francis Boutle & Maggs Bros 2008) by Barry Miles.

     logos

Representing a service or a product through a symbol dates from before the industrial revolution, with the cross forming one of the more enduring 'brand' marks.

Per Mollerup's Marks of Excellence: The History & Taxonomy of Trademarks (London: Phaidon 1999) offers a feast of images that form one of the bases of modern commerce. (If you find it too rich consult Naomi Klein's overhyped but interesting No Logo (London: Flamingo 2000).

We have discussed marks in more detail here and here.

     cartography

It has become a truism that the modern state is built on cartography and as we have noted in discussing geospatial technologies the ability to associate individuals and activities with location poses new challenges for privacy, security and electronic commerce.

The outstanding historical account of cartography is the multivolume The History of Cartography (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press) edited by J. Brian Harley & David Woodward. Volumes available to date are Vol 1 Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, Vol 2 (1) Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies, Vol 2 (2) Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies and Vol 2 (3) Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies.

There is a more concise account in P.D.A. Harvey's The History of Topographical Maps: Symbols, Pictures & Surveys (London: Thames & Hudson 1980) and Harley's The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 2001).

Insights are offered by Alfred Crosby's The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1997), Jerry Brotton's Trading territories: mapping in the early modern world (London: Reaktion 1997) and David Buisseret's The Mapmaker's Quest: Depicting New Worlds in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2003), Mark Monmonier's How to Lie with Maps (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 1996) and Jeremy Black's Maps & Politics (London: Reaktion 1997).

Cognitive aspects are considered in Alan MacEachren's How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, Design (New York: Guilford 1995), Arthur Robinson & Barbara Petchenik's The Nature of Maps (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 1976) and works by Tufte such as The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

For the interaction of printing technology and mapmaking see in particular David Woodward's Five Centuries of Map-Printing (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 1975).

There is a more detailed discussion of technologies, political, economic and other issues in a multi-part note elsewhere on this site.






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