Artistic development opportunities based on the reconstruction of reverse printing

Abstract

This article presents the role of artistic development and the potential for the modernisation of techniques based on the practice-based research project “Reconstruction and Artistic Development of Historical Relief Print Technique” conducted at the Estonian Academy of Arts. The aim of the project was to recreate, as faithfully as possible, a unique relief printing technique used in the studio of leather and bookbinding artist Eduard Taska in 1924, and based on this experience, to adapt the technique to meet today’s needs and conditions. The article provides an overview of the recreated historical technique, and then focuses on the results and analysis of the development activities derived from this. The three aspects of the research are presented. First, the article introduces experiments with different printing plate materials and methods for preparing the plates. Second, it analyses printing results with different types of pattern designs and third, the article compares printing results on various kinds of leathers and leather-like materials.

Keywords: artistic research, leather-work, relief printing technique, reverse printing