The Studio: Photomechanical Reproduction and the Changing Status of Design

Abstract

The 1890s marked the beginning of a new era in visual representation. It was during this decade that photographic images were first successfully incorporated alongside written texts in illustrated weekly and monthly magazines. Photo relief reproduction processes, which had been developed over the previous decades, were refined to a level where they became commercially viable and culturally acceptable. Line methods had been in use since the 1870s. They produced an image which was fixed onto a sensitized metal plate, and etched to produce a type-compatible relief block. The halftone techniques first developed in the 1880s transformed the continuous tones of an original into tiny dots, which then were etched in much the same way as photo relief line methods. Halftone techniques could duplicate photographs, paintings, and wash images, while line methods were widely used for the printing of pen and ink drawings. Collectively, these photographic approaches were known as "process." These techniques were able to challenge the existing reproduction technology of wood engraving, which had dominated the illustrated press up to this point. This essay looks at one particular aspect of this shift in the mass-produced image: the depiction of art and design. It examines The Studio, a monthly art magazine which was launched in London in April 1893, and which used only photomechanical methods to visualize an extended range of artistic practice. I examine the meanings and effects of the reproduction processes as they relate to the status of design.Clive Ashwin has suggested: "The Studio was the first visually modern magazine to the extent that it adopted the reproductive medium which would dominate art publishing, indeed publishing in general, for the century to come." 1 Certainly, around this time, a number of English magazines were applying this new imaging technology. The Sketch, the first middle-class, photographically reproduced weekly was launched in February of 1893, just before The Studio. By the early-1890s, most magazines, including the specialist art monthlies, were using a mixture of reproduction methods including wood engravings and photographic halftones. So why did The Studio switch entirely to this new method? I will examine the early days of the magazine in some detail to analyze the significance of its image reproduction decisions. 2

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“…Netherlandish artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 22 It was widely noted that the colours of early Netherlandish oils and Italian temperas seen in the National Gallery were much fresher, brighter, and altogether more sound than more recent works by Joshua Reynolds and Turner, perhaps the nation's most famed colourist. 23 In particular, Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (1434), acquired by the National Gallery in 1842, was considered the paragon of durable, vivid colour, and his technique was much discussed in technical manuals at the time.…”

“…The catalogue can now act as primary information for the exhibition, as opposed to secondary information about art in magazines, catalogues, etc., and in some cases the "exhibition" can be the "catalogue". 22 Indeed, in the very same periodical the following year, Siegelaub guestedited an entire issue given over to just such primary information, a fortyeight-page exhibition which collapsed the spaces of art gallery and catalogue into a single object reproduced in the multiple format of the art magazine ( Fig. 7).…”

“…Cyril Connolly, in his editorial "Comment" for the Irish number of Horizon, went so far as to suggest that the "tact" and "gentility" of Britain towards a neutral Ireland are "proof of the fundamental democracy of the empire, a spirit utterly different and superior to that of Fascism". 22 Official British patronage of Yeats's work-an artist who was openly committed to the cause of Irish nationalism-could be read as a shrewd gesture of cultural propaganda, demonstrating the tolerance of the British to dissident traditions, as opposed to the intolerant authoritarianism of the Axis powers. In any case, it was aimed at an elite Irish audience, demonstrating respect for Irish art and an affiliation (through the pairing of Yeats and Nicholson) between certain visual traditions shared by Britain and Ireland.…”

“…21 Attractions were also judged in tandem, with journalists frequently comparing the charms of one venue's offerings to those of another. 22 This approach offers lessons for our own practice of art history today. The ecosystem of exhibitions in early nineteenth-century London had room for-and need for-many different kinds of actors.…”

“…Consequently I did the casting myself and therefore can guarantee their genuineness. 22 Neither this speech nor any other source documents the particular method she employed to create the intricate form of Clasped Hands. It would have posed myriad challenges to even a skillful caster: many undercuts, narrow shapes, the necessity of removing two hands from the mold, and, above all, the need to accommodate the comfort of both sitters.…”