Linocut is a relief printmaking technique in which a design is cut into the surface of a sheet of linoleum using sharp gouges and knives, removing the areas that are not meant to print, so that the raised, uncut surface holds ink and transfers the design to paper under pressure, the same relief-printing principle used in a woodcut. Developed in the early twentieth century as linoleum flooring became widely available, offering artists a softer, easier-to-cut alternative to wood, linocut was adopted by numerous modern artists, most famously Pablo Picasso in a celebrated series of multi-block color linocuts made from the late 1950s onward, and it remains a widely practiced printmaking technique valued for its bold, simplified graphic quality.
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Pablo Picasso, Artists Picasso took up linocut later in his career and developed the reduction linocut method.
Linocut developed directly from the older relief printmaking method of the woodcut, using softer material.
Sources
Linocut (Wikipedia)
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A design is cut into the linoleum surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised (uncarved) areas representing a reversal (mirror image) of the parts to show printed.
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