Thinking about the three book viewings that we’ve had over the past few weeks, I have kind of grouped everything together in my head. But when I focus on the first book viewing as opposed to our most recent one, I can see that there have been a lot of changes in print, style, paper…etc. over the years. Needless to say, a lot has changed from our viewings of papyrus and parchment to our viewings of more modern books (Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice). What comes to mind from our first books viewing is the Pope Joan picture we got to see. When we viewed that, I was really impressed with it’s detail. However, after seeing the lithographs of Lafayette on Tuesday, the Pope Joan drawing seemed more like a stick figure. The Lithographs were so intricate, expressing so much detail as opposed to the bolded looking, one dimensional Pope Joan. So, the artwork and designs in books definitely would have been much more detailed back then had they known about lithography. Although the lithographic process was seemingly a bit more complicated as the “image transmission depends not on mechanical actions, but on the chemical properties of attraction between oils” (Howard 131), it is well worth the difference in the beauty of the end product.
Had Lithography been invented….
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