Prints are familiar to every one of us, and yet the subject of prints is strangely unfamiliar. If we look at a painting, a piece of sculpture, or at a monumental building, we know how these things came into being. Without any effort we can see in our mind’s eye the painter, with palette and brushes, applying the colors on his canvas, we can see the sculptor thumbing the clay model on the stand before him, with alternate gentleness and force, while the spectacle of stone-masons and bricklayers at work is a matter of daily occurrence. Likewise are we daily face to face with prints in our homes. They are familiar objects that have always been there; we are so used to them that we hardly see them. But have we ever conjured up, in our mind’s eye, the vision of an engraver, or etcher, or lithographer at work making the print which is so familiar to us? It is a world, indeed, this field on which the energies of thousands upon thousands of men have been expended, expressive of the thoughts of great masters, expressive, yes, eloquent, of the changing mental attitude, the changing customs and interests of successive periods. There is no field, I am tempted to say, in all the realm of art, more comprehensive, more broadening than this subject of prints. In order fully to appreciate the phases of its development, we must find out, first of all, what a print is, and how it is made. The term “print,” as we use it here, applies to any design conveyed upon paper or any similar substance by means of pressure, usually in the printing-press. Prints are not all produced in one and the same manner;--if this statement should prove surprising, just open any magazine on an illustration page; then place beside it, for comparison, a new dollar bill. Notice the even tone of black in the magazine illustration and the intensity of the black, sharp-cut, metallic lines of the head on the bill. It is quite evident that these two examples have been produced by different means; the magazine illustration shows that the inked lines and dots which constitute the picture have been brought upon the paper with considerable pressure: the ink is embedded into the paper; whereas, if the bill is new, you will notice, upon close inspection, that the ink of every line and dot lies upon the surface of the paper. Pass your finger lightly over some of the heavier lines, and if your finger-tips are sensitive, you will distinctly feel these ridges of ink. Why this difference? Because human ingenuity has devised several ways of obtaining an impression. There are three such possibilities, which divide the graphic arts into three main groups, namely:-- RELIEF PROCESSES: Woodcut, wood-engraving; INTAGLIO PROCESSES: Engraving, dry-point, mezzotinting, and the etching processes; PLANOGRAPHIC PROCESSES: Lithography, and its derivatives.[1]