Lithography

Lithography is a printmaking technique based on the chemical repulsion of grease and water rather than on any incised or raised surface. The artist draws a design directly onto a flat, specially prepared limestone or metal plate using a greasy crayon or ink, the surface is then chemically treated and dampened with water, and an oil-based printing ink is rolled across it: the ink adheres only to the greasy drawn areas and is repelled by the water-saturated blank areas, allowing the image to be transferred to paper under a press. Invented in Germany in the late eighteenth century by Alois Senefelder, lithography was the first fundamentally new printmaking process since the Renaissance and, because it allowed an artist to draw as freely as on paper, it became a favored medium for painters including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Honore Daumier and Edvard Munch, as well as for color poster art and mass-market illustration.