ABSTRACT
Until the first hesitant applications of photography to copying works of art in the 1840s, a painting could be mass-reproduced only through engravings and other graphic techniques dependent on printing. 1 This set an effective limit to the authenticity of the representation. However sensitively and ingeniously a printmaker might try to reconstitute a picture's iconography, composition, chiaroscuro, and general style, he was defeated by the paint surface itself, by the brushstrokes and handling, the subtleties of impasto, glazing and varnish, and of course pigmentation — which could at best only be crudely approximated by subsequent hand-tinting or by expensive and uncertain processes of color printing. In fact the creator of the print seldom had direct knowledge of the original painting, having to rely instead on the copy made by an intervening interpreter. Furthermore he worked empirically, making countless fine judgments at every stage of execution, always conditioned by the nature of his medium, his own mannerisms, and the aesthetic fashions of his time. Absolute fidelity and objectivity could not be achieved in these circumstances.
