Photomechanical Processes Research Articles

The Semiotics of Willem de Kooning’s Easter Monday

Critics have frequently employed strict binary schemes to explain Abstract Expressionism’s singular contributions to art history: the victory of abstraction over figuration, avant-garde over kitsch, pure art over anecdotal illustration, action over premeditation, or escapist detachment over direct political engagement. Taking Willem de Kooning’s Easter Monday as a case study, this paper will question the efficacy of such dyadic explanations to encapsulate the diversity of New York School practice. Easter Monday includes both figural and abstract elements, some that parade the work’s impulsive and spontaneous character and others that were created by a photo-mechanical process. Some celebrate the artist’s personal and idiosyncratic touch, others the impersonality of popular forms of advertising. In contradistinction, the semiotic terminology of C.S. Pierce reveals not only multiple points of intersection with de Kooning’s work; it also effectively identifies and differentiates the plurality of elements the artist conjoined in a single visual field, some of which qualify as iconic, indexical, symbolic, or even as hybrid combinations of the above. These more elastic descriptors, it will be argued, are well-suited to address de Kooning’s variegated surfaces: they can address his accommodation of diverse techniques, as well as the multiple ways the artist constructed meaning and responded to popular culture.

Made real: artifice and accuracy in nineteenth-century scientific illustration

In their 1992 essay ‘The image of objectivity’, and again in Objectivity (2007), Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison describe the development of ‘mechanical objectivity’. Nineteenth-century scientists, they argue, pursued ‘truth-to-nature’ by enlisting ‘self-registering instruments, cameras, wax molds, and a host of other devices […] with the aim of freeing images from human interference’. This emphasis on self-recording devices and the morals of machinery, important as it is, tends to focus our attention away from the often messy and convoluted means of image reproduction – by lithograph, hand-coloured engraving or photomechanical process, and often involving steps that seem sharply at odds with narratives of increasing standardization and scientific restraint. This essay draws on the Science Museum’s pictorial collections in order to look again at the construction of objectivity, this time from the point of view of making and reproducing images. Case studies are presented of the Luke Howard collection of cloud drawings and James Nasmyth’s lunar photographs, suggesting that scientists were more flexible in their approach to depictions of the truth than has previously been supposed, and that ‘manufactured’ may be a better term than ‘mechanical’ when we talk of objectivity in the nineteenth century. But this is also a reflexive story, about the collections of the Science Museum – an institution whose own history is, I argue in conclusion, particularly tied up with issues of accuracy, depiction and genre. These are brought together in the consideration of ‘atmosphere’ – a term as important for the historian of science as for the exhibition curator.

The use of 19th - century Cartography Printing Processes in Contemporary Printmaking


 
 
 In the 19th century, the field of cartography grew exponentially when photomechanical printing became a stabilised procedure for the graphic arts industry. With the introduction of photomechanical processes, in the early developments of chromolithography, maps not only became a widespread product in Europe and the United States but they were also refined and became increasingly visually complex.
 The interaction between scientists and printmakers also changed. As photomechanical processes allowed cartographers to autonomously transfer, reduce or enlarge maps, scientists and military personnel took over the task of translating images onto the wood or copper plates - a job traditionally assigned to a skilled engraver (Cook, 2002) This has also shifted the authorship of printmaking literature to scientists and military personnel, such as captains or colonels (Twyman, 1990).
 Early printing techniques - such as woodcut or intaglio - are practised today within a very specific setting for particular needs. In the framework of contemporary art, design, or illustration, aspects such as the materiality of images are discussed, visually experimented with, and exhibited. While some industrial printing techniques have gained artistic standing - serigraphy, for example - a wider range of processes are hidden in the past (R. Williams and D. Williams, 1986). Cook (2002) argues that both cartography and printmaking owe each other a great deal for their progress. In the history books, however, one rarely recognises the other. We argue this is because printmaking as a profession has been split between art and science.
 
 

Analysis of molecular photomechanical performance using a one-dimensional harmonic model

The photochemical reaction of a molecule leads to a change in the position of its nuclei that can be harnessed to perform mechanical work. Photomechanical materials use this effect to act as light-powered actuators. In this paper, a one-dimensional model based on coupled harmonic potential energy surfaces is developed to describe the photomechanical response of a molecule. This model generates predictions that are qualitatively consistent with standard mechanochemistry models for ground state rate reactions. To analyze the photomechanical process, excited state dynamics like photon absorption and relaxation are included. The model allows us to derive analytical expressions for the work output, blocking force, and absorbed photon-to-work efficiency. The effects of nonadiabatic electronic coupling, unequal frequency potentials, and the cycling efficiency are also analyzed. If the starting state is the stable (lower energy) isomer, it is possible to attain photon-to-work efficiencies up to 55.4%. If initial state is higher in energy, for example a metastable isomer, then one-way efficiencies > 100% are possible due to the release of stored potential energy. Photomechanical materials can be competitive with photovoltaic–piezoelectric combinations in terms of efficiency, but current materials will require substantial improvement before they can approach the theoretical limits.Graphical abstract

Making Pictorial Print: Media Literacy and Mass Culture in British Magazines 1885–1918

Making Pictorial Print: Media Literacy and Mass Culture in British Magazines 1885–1918

Colour Deceives Continually

This paper explores the relationship between additive and subtractive mixing for printing colour. Using mica pigments that are based on additive colour mixing principles, that when combined, create white. Although currently used for decorative effects for printing, can present a challenge to traditional print markets. We describe different plate making and printing methods for photographic and photomechanical processes, and discuss their applications and limitations.

Positive/Negative Phototropism: Controllable Molecular Actuators with Different Bending Behavior

Herein, a series of molecular actuators based on the crystals of (E)-2-(4-fluorostyryl)benzo[d]oxazole (BOAF4), (E)-2-(2,4-difluorostyryl)benzo[d]oxazole (BOAF24), (E)-2-(4-fluorostyryl)benzo[d]thi...

The role of laser pulse overlap in ultrafast thin film structuring applications

In this work, we demonstrate the importance of laser pulse overlap in controlling the ablation process of a thin film just above the single pulse material ablation threshold. A 532 nm, 15 ps ultrafast diode pump solid-state (DPSS) laser has been employed to pattern a gold alloy source–drain layer during the production of organic thin film transistor (OTFT) for flexible display applications. Maintaining the laser fluence constantly above and in proximity of the ablation threshold value, different process windows are identified by varying the pulse overlap. With less than four overlapping pulses per area, a debris-free removal process is achieved with almost no edge delamination. By increasing the number of pulses per area up to 20, edge delamination progressively grows stronger and eventually ablation terminates altogether. If the pulse overlap increases further, ablation starts again but with more evidence for thermal, cumulative irradiation effects. This behavior can be attributed to the progressive transition from initially a photomechanical stress-assisted ablation process, dominant at low pulse overlap to increasingly a more thermally driven removal process, at higher pulse overlaps.

Ultrafast dynamics of hard tissue ablation using femtosecond-lasers.

Several studies on hard tissue laser ablation demonstrated that ultrafast lasers enable precise material removal without thermal side effects. Although the principle ablation mechanisms have been thoroughly investigated, there are still open questions regarding the influence of material properties on transient dynamics. In this investigation, we applied pump-probe microscopy to record ablation dynamics of biomaterials with different tensile strengths (dentin, chicken bone, gallstone and kidney stones) at delay times between 1 picosecond and 10 microseconds. Transient reflectivity changes, pressure and shock wave velocities and elastic constants were determined. The result revealed that absorption and excitation show the typical well-known transient behavior of dielectric materials. We observed for all samples a photomechanical laser ablation process, where ultrafast expansion of the excited volume generates pressure waves leading to fragmentation around the excited region. In addition, we identified tensile-strength-related differences in the size of ablated craters and ejected particles. The elastic constants derived were in agreement with literature values. In conclusion, pressure-wave-assisted material removal seems to be a general mechanism for hard tissue ablation with ultrafast lasers. This photomechanical process increases ablation efficiency and removes heated material, thus ultrafast laser ablation is of interest for clinical application where heating of the tissue must be avoided.

Effect of indirect irradiation on surface morphology of Au film by nanosecond laser

Indirect nanosecond-pulsed laser ablation of Au film of 10 nm–600 nm has been performed to investigate the ablated surface morphology of Au film as compared to direct pulsed laser ablation. This work shows that both the direct and indirect ablations give similar trend of ablation threshold fluence for film thickness equal or less than 170 nm. In this region, the ablation mechanism is driven by melting and vaporization. However, for film thickness greater than 170 nm, indirect ablation exhibits superior film quality with 3.0–3.6 factors less applied laser fluence compared to direct ablation and thus has no heat-affected zone and no recast material. As a result, the ablation mechanism for indirect ablation is driven by photomechanical process. This work highlighted the significant role of irradiation orientation (direct and indirect) as well as the correlation of heat penetration depth with different Au film thickness in influencing the ablation mechanism of Au film on glass substrate.

A Second Edition ofLepidoptera,Rhopaloceres and Heteroceresby Herman Strecker, with Notes on the First Edition and Supplements

The first edition of the book Lepidoptera, Rhopaloceres and Heteroceres, Indigenous and Exotic by F. H. Herman Strecker was originally published in 15 parts between 1872 and 1878. The first few parts were partially financed by Edward P. Boas, a banker in Reading, Pennsylvania. Contrary to popular accounts, Emily L. Morton was employed to color many of the plates for the first edition. Strecker suffered a great deal of criticism for his scathing remarks about other lepidopterists. Based on new evidence, the publication date of Part 15 is amended to 9 July 1878. Virtually overlooked in entomological literature, a rare second edition of the book was published as a single volume in 1879. At least five plates were ultimately reproduced for this edition using a photomechanical process with hand-coloring. Five signatures of letterpress were slightly revised for the second edition. The three supplements to the book are also discussed, including a one-page description, which is best treated as an addendum to the third supplement. Finally, a summary of the publication of Rhopaloceres and Heteroceres, including its supplements, is presented.

La Sección de Cartografía y Publicaciones del Instituto Geográfico y la introducción de las técnicas de reproducción fotomecánica (1904-1956)

In the middle of the twentieth century the Cartographic and Publications Section of the Instituto Geografico was the main publisher of maps of Spain. The process that would lead this fact began in 1905, when was decided to replace the lithographic reproduction of maps system, adopted en 1875 for engraving and printing the sheets of the Topographical Map of Spain at scale 1:50,000 scale, by a photomechanical process of map reproduction. In 1915 was published the first sheet of this map engraved with copper heliogravure and in 1926 was implemented a new technique of photomechanical reproduction, the zinc photolithography, that was in operation until 1956. These changes resulted, during the first third of the twentieth century, in several organizational reforms, the formation of two technical bodies and one great investment in technical material and buildings. As consequence of it, between 1915 and 1956 were recorded and stamped 883 of the 1,106 sheets that formed the first edition of this map.

Faith in Facsimile? The Invention of Photography and the Reproduction of Spanish Art

This paper considers the relationship between traditional prints, painted copies, and photography in the reproduction of art, including the development of photomechanical processes in book illustration, from the point of view of the historiography of art. Its aim is to examine the impact of these on the methodology of the emerging discipline of art history and the establishment of a canon of Spanish art during the nineteenth century. Focusing principally on the Scottish writer Sir William Stirling Maxwell (1818-1878), and including comparison and contrast with another pioneer in the historiography of Golden Age art in Spain, the German art historian Carl Justi (1832-1912), it explores some of the concerns they expressed around the reliability of both new and established methods of reproduction of art, including notions of facsimile and translation of meaning, and ponders the continuing relevance of such concerns in today's digital age.1

A Process of Selection: Édouard Baldus, the New Louvre Photographs and Palais du Louvre et des Tuileries

Édouard Baldus, a prominent figure in the history of French photography, is known almost exclusively for his silver-based photographs of the 1850s and early 1860s. Yet Baldus was also at the forefront of developments in photomechanical reproduction, publishing seven albums of photogravure prints between 1866 and 1884. Palais du Louvre et des Tuileries. Motifs de décorations, published in various editions between 1869 and 1875, was the first to reproduce his own photographs rather than engravings by earlier artists. It depicts architectural elements of the Louvre and Tuileries palaces, images that derive largely from Baldus’s commission between 1855 and 1857 to document the construction of the New Louvre. Drawing from analyses of Palais’s prints and their corresponding photographs, this article examines Baldus’s photogravure process and his strategies as an editor and publisher of his own work. It furthermore demonstrates that he chose to illustrate Palais with photogravures rather than photographs for specific aesthetic and conceptual reasons in addition to concerns about economy and the stability of silver-based prints. Lastly, this article argues for the significance of Baldus’s photogravure production to his entire oeuvre and to the development of photomechanical processes in the mid-nineteenth century.

„Argint şi soare”. Originile fotografiei prin evoluții tehnice între 1800 şi 1900 / “Silver and sunshine”. The Origins of Photography by means of Processes between 1800 and 1900

„Argint şi soare”. Originile fotografiei prin evoluții tehnice între 1800 şi 1900 / “Silver and sunshine”. The Origins of Photography by means of Processes between 1800 and 1900

Cartography as Engagement

When addressing at the question: ‘What does Cartography mean to you?’ I reflected on my career in Cartography in order to properly provide an answer. At the very core of what it means to me is drawing the map and the very poetics of what we do to make maps ‘work’. However, it is more than the design and drawing (in its widest sense) of the map. It is the engagement in thinking about, developing and considering various design iterations and finally drawing the map. These process of problemsolving means that we need to think about the logics ‘behind’ the cartographic process, as well be attuned to what is actually feasible/possible for replicating and communicating the completed drawing, software, computer package or integrated media suite. My time in cartography has taken me from the era of pen and ink, to photo-mechanical production, to the early days of computer-assisted cartography, to digital cartography to the application of DeskTop Publishing to map production, to multimedia, the Web, to mobile mapping and, now, to the era of ubiquitous map provision and collaboration in cartography. When I started my career in cartography it was in the era of pen and ink. I worked for Shell Exploration as a cartographer. Here, the engagement with cartography was the design of a geologic or geophysical map, compiling information from (paper) resources, preparing the draughting film, constructing the grid, plotting the information from geologists fieldnotes (in pencil – probably a 5H, sharpened within an inch of its life with sandpaper), drawing lines with Rotring pens and adding lettering with Wrico lettering guides. Those hand-drawn lines and letters on plastic draughting film, once reproduced on a diazo printing machine, were used as tools to assist in making decisions about whether to embark on a costly geological exploration and drilling project. The engagement here was both a mental process (of map design – considering how all of the elements ‘fitted’ and accorded to geological mapping standards – and a tactile experience – actually handling the tools and making contact with the plastic draughting film, film cleaning pads, metal weights, Rotring pens and Wrico lettering guides, metal straight edges, erasers and razor blades. This engagement was rewarded through pleasure of completing a design, and drawing it by hand. The tactual experience of handling materials and manipulating tools resulted in a technical document that conveyed information from the geologist’s field book to decisionmakers. Unfortunately, my experience with scribing did not quite cut it – in terms of engagement. I really couldn’t become as engaged with the process of removing an emulsion from the top of stable plastics using a sapphire scribing tip. Yes, the process was accurate, produced standardized media and was quick, but the engagement was not the same as the tactual experience of actually drawing. The associated photomechanical processes were a bit different, especially when completing non-standard jobs. Manipulating images during the developing process was an art as well as a science, and techniques like warming parts of the photographic emulsion in certain areas of the film by hand to change the development process in that area produced some satisfying work outputs. I guess that there was more engagement with the photo-mechanical process. This was not so for me with scribing, perhaps due to the fact that what one could do with a drawing was more controlled.

Evidence of Two Distinct Mechanisms Driving Photoinduced Matter Motion in Thin Films Containing Azobenzene Derivatives

Photoinduced matter motion in thin films containing azobenzene derivatives grafted to a polymer backbone is investigated by means of near-field probe microscopy. We evidence the existence of two different photomechanical processes which produce mass transport. One is governed by the light intensity pattern and the other by the light polarization pattern. The intensity-driven mechanism is found to critically depend on the polymer matrix while the polarization-driven mechanism occurs with almost the same efficiency in different materials. Depending on the relationship between the polarization and intensity patterns, the two processes may either compete or cooperate giving rise to a nontrivial directional mass transport process.

Progress of Photomechanical Process

Progress of Photomechanical Process

Artwork Photography in Hungary: The Early Years (1859–1885)

This study presents an overview of the historical photography collections in Hungary documenting artworks from the late 1850s through the mid‐1880s. Initially, photographs were acquired by museums, art educational institutions, archaeological and historic preservation organizations either through purchase or as donations. Soon curators, librarians, and cultural administrators recognized the value of documenting Hungary’s important artistic and cultural treasures. By using photographs as the bases for engravings and later photomechanical processes in publications, they could very effectively record and promote Hungary’s collections outside the country. Over the years, photography was also used to record artworks exhibited in temporary exhibitions. The curators, backed with financial support from the cultural ministry, hired the most qualified artwork photographers to create records of the collections as well as exhibitions, such as the Book Exhibition of Budapest in 1882 and the Goldsmith’s Exhibition of 1884. Many photographers (summarized in the appendix at the end of this article) were involved in these early documentation efforts and their legacies remain in Hungarian libraries, museums, and cultural organizations. This article reveals how these artwork photography collections began and where they are today.

A history of the Woodburytype: the first successful photomechanical printing process and Walter Bentley Woodbury

A history of the Woodburytype: the first successful photomechanical printing process and Walter Bentley Woodbury