MAN OF SORROWS

Fine Art Giclée Print

Co-created & Published by PINEAPPLE GALLERY

Print Dimensions: 22cm x 34cm

Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain (unlike wood engraving, where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Multiple colours can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (using a different block for each color). The art of carving the woodcut can be called “xylography”, but this is rarely used in English for images alone, although that and “xylographic” are used in connection with block books, which are small books containing text and images in the same block. They became popular in Europe during the latter half of the 15th century. A single-sheet woodcut is a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration.

Since its origins in China, the practice of woodcut has spread across the world from Europe to other parts of Asia, and to Latin America.

Images such as the Man of Sorrows were intended to shock the beholder into repentance. The pristine condition, and even survival, of this hand-coloured woodcut is primarily due to its having been pasted-like many early devotional woodcuts-within a protective book cover. This unique impression was discovered amidst the rubble during the bombardment of London in 1945.

This work has been printed using museum grade archival paper and inks.