German Renaissance Colour Prints

The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London
German Renaissance Colour Prints image
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Event has ended
This event ended on Wednesday 27th of January 2016
Admission
free
Venue Information
The British Museum
Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG
Nearest Tube/Rail Stations
Tottenham Court Road 0.25 miles

This display of colour printmaking in Germany spans the first attempts to incorporate colour into woodcuts in the early 1400s (before Gutenberg invented movable type in about 1450) through the revival of classical forms and learning in the Renaissance and the Reformation (the religious movement that led to the creation of Protestantism) of the 1500s, up to the decline of woodcut around 1600.

It shows that colour printing was integral to the emerging aesthetic of the press in German Renaissance book, print and visual cultures. Early German colour prints are now considered rare because comparatively few impressions have survived. In their day, however, they were commonplace with thousands of them in circulation for uses as diverse as illustrating books to decorating furniture.

This display is curated by Elizabeth Savage (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow). It coincides with the publication of the first handbook of early colour-printing techniques, Printing Colour 1400–1700, which she edited with Ad Stijnman.

Tags: Art

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