THE INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS.

stone now alone used, and his dire poverty suggested that these might replace thepum.ce stone. He tried them, and with perfect success. The beautiful surface andpolish of lithographic stones might have suggested to minds less acute and observ-ing than Senefelder’s, the luxury of writing on so fair a face. To him it was atonce clear that copper-plates and pumice stones had no longer a right to eat outhis scant substance. On the stone, as before on copper, he laid an etching ground,with a varnish composed of wax, soap, and spirits of turpentine; then, with asharp point, he wrote through the coating and etched the finished writing intothe stone. After charging these lines with an ink of linseed oil, Frankfort blackand cream of tartar, he took impressions with a copper-plate press. Poor Aloysstruggled on from 1791 to 1796 with the process in this forlorn condition.

In July, 1796, as a memorandum for his mother, he wrote on a stone, in thelack of writing paper, a note of some clothes which a washerwoman was abouttaking, intending afterwards to copy it. Before destroying this memorandum,it occurred to him to try the effect of etching it and charging it with printer’sink from a tampon. He thus in fact printed from lines in relief, and from thiswas led step by step, to observe that the etching was unnecessary, and so reachedthe practice of true lithography. For two years he battled with embarrass-ments and difficulties. When in company with his friend Gleissner, a musicalcomposer, he made the first actual application of the new art to publishing, byprinting some musical airs. In 1799, Senefelder, being pressed with work, andbecause his own writing was poor, employed a professional scribe, and began totransfer his writing on to stone as a labor-saving device, thus inventing autogra-phy or transferring. This fine discovery opened his eyes to the fact that he hadorginated not a mere evasion by which to escape from harpy printers, hut a newart, capable of manifold applications. So early as 1799 he had actually employedpen drawing, crayon designing, point engraving, autography, transferring offresh plate proofs and even the transferring of old prints, the methods pursuedbeing essentially those now practised in all their main features. Almost everyapplication or modification of lithography now in use, was first conceived and at-tempted by Senefelder coarsely and with results indifferent perhaps, yet positive,and in idea, quite correct.

This remarkable man, overflowing with inventions, quick and versatile in hisconceptions, enthusiastic and bold in realizing his ideas, but too full of genius toperfect the minuter details of his numerous processes, and wasting his energiesoften on trials which a more thorough grasp of principles would have obviated,this poor Aloys Senefelder, had at last risen above obscurity and secured recogni-tion not as a son of song, but as one whose assurance of immortal distinction,even poets might envy. He once answered a querist as to how he had made hisdiscovery of lithography, by saying rather characteristically, “ it was in writingthe memoir of my washerwoman.” From the time of his conceded success,he devoted his energies not only to perfecting his art, but to the establish-ment of lithographic printing throughout Europe. Honors were showeredupon him by kings and courts, chances of wealth were freely in his grasp; buthe gave so little heed to either, that they scarcely diverted his thoughts in theleast from inventive pursuits. So he lived, devoted to originating new processesand applications, but with no more capacity than a child to direct large estab-lishments for their practice. He applied lithography to printing cloths and paper-hangings, experimented on artificial stones for lithography, invented mosaic print-ing, a new stereotyping process and a lithographic press, driven and inked bymechanical power. While many of his inventions became of permanent use, manymore shared the fate of his essays in directing balloons, and his solid blue fordyeing cloths.

His career, so stamped with the signs and sufferings of genius, was closed in1834, at Munich. He died, 63 years of age, honored, pensioned, and beloved, andover his grave rose a monument of Kehlheim stone ; the same which once before,on the banks of Iser, flashed its white pebbles across the memory of a man, poor,struggling, resolute, and perplexed; the same which now throughout the world,gives existence to an invaluable art, whence flow forth the means of life to thou-sands and the means of enjoying art to human millions. When we recall theconcurrence at Munich of the three things requisite for the discovery of lithogra-phy, the man, the stone, and the circumstances which directed his genius to thisend, the combination seems almost to betoken evidences of that superhumandesigning, so mysteriously and profoundly underlying the frame of nature andthe progress of man’s destiny.

Lithography was established at Munich in 1800, at Vienna in 1802, at Romeand London in-1807, and in Paris in 1814. The details of its rising fortunes, thevarious publications of its modes and products, the history of its most distin-guished practitioners and of the most successful printing establishments, must notlong detain us from the sulyect of lithography itself. A few leading points maywell be stated, especially the various discoveries of processes by which it hasreached its present condition.

. Manlich, a devotee of art in Munich, among other benefits to lithography,contributed the process of printing flat tints for the grounds of pictures and forincreasing their relief. To Mitteser, a professor of design in Munich, is due, notoijly a great practical development of crayon designing, but an important modi-

fication of the lithographic press. Rapp developed stone engraving in the shopsof Baron de Ootta, at Stuttgard. But the introduction of lithographic art intoParis, the labors of Colonel Lomet, and the more successful efforts of Marcel deSerres ; the burst of enthusiasm which it awakened, even in artists like Vernet,Regnault, and Isaberg; its fashion reign, when it prevailed in the Tuileries, andwhen the Duchess de Berry designed on stone much and well; when the Dukeof Bordeaux pulled proofs, and the Duke of Orleans illustrated Gulliver’s travels:this whole episode is in singular contrast with that of the washerwoman. Sucha flood of favor was however premature, and Paris-like, it soon receded, leavingthe process, tainted with a bad name, to suffer an eclipse of undeservedneglect. Fortunately, Noel soon began to retrieve its good name, and in 1819,Englemann invented the process for making half tints and for grading out blackmasses, by means of ink washes, as in aqua-tinting; a process which enjoyedmuch favor, though crayon shading was afterwards made to produce much thesame results. Legros d’Anysi then brought forward the practice of transferringfrom copper-plates to stone, and from stone to pottery. M. de Lasteyriehad invented an autographic process by which writings made on a specially pre-pared paper, could be transmitted on to stone, and facsimile printing thus becameestablished. This, however, was but one, and not the greatest among his manyservices to lithography. The establishment of De Lasteyrie and Englemann, in-troduced assiduously all those improvements in the details of style and modes ofwork, which were indispensable to perfecting the products of an art so delicaet,and yet so facile in its capacities. Englemann gave a start and proficiency toprinting in colors, which none but a truly scientific artist and a chemist couldhave accomplished; hence color-printing or chromo-lithography has grown to bea principal'department of lithographic practice.

In 1819, Senefelder himself and Gol. Raucourt published full treatises on theart, which proved great aids in establishing its wide practice. The superior skilland knowledge of the French in the chemistry of art generally, united with theirmore widely diffused taste and capacity for artistic pursuits, have together givento lithography in France, a higher tone and quality than it has elsewhere exhib-ited. Paris has outdone even Munich, its birthplace, and the fine prints ofBerlin have been there exceeded in merit. Such well-conducted establishmentsas those of Count de Lasteyrie, of Englemann, of Thierry, and of Lemercier,could not fail to produce results most favorable to the reputation of an art pecu-liarly liable to be traduced through the bad execution and unscientific practice ofbunglers, whether artists or printers. These establishments have indeed beenthe best schools for training thorough adepts in all branches of this varying art.

England has also a well earned title to grateful recognition in the services ithas rendered to lithographic art and practice, more especially in the landscapedepartment. The landscape prints of Ward, Westall, Harding, Lane, and others,the works issued in rich profusion from Ackermann’s immense London establish-ment, and many others less eminent in their claims, quite entitle England tohonorable mention, not so much for processes discovered, as for making excellentuse of old ones and for applying them admirably in a field emphatically her own.In France, Bavaria, Austria and Russia, governmental aid has been extended tothis art for the purpose of establishing and perfecting if, and it is now among thepermanent means of publishing, both prints and fac-similes, in nearly all civil-ised countries. It is used to an incalculable extent in printing bills, checks,scrip, and all the formal papers of commerce and exchange.

Lithography is fully capable of producing either most excellent or pre-eminentlybad artistic effects. It is intrinsically a most beautiful art, and one in whichartistic delicacy of touch may be made to tell most effectively. But unfortunatelyit is pre-eminent in the facility with which it can be abused and perverted to themost ignoble purposes of gain. It is due to the fact that only a small capitalin money, skill, or sense, is required for starting an establishment to produce thepoorer kinds of lithographic trash, that taste and decency are so often outragedby forlorn caricatures, flagrant daubs, ghostly portraits, bald and blotched maps,city views through some monster bird’seye, and sooty peeps into foglandscenery; all of which are alike offensive to art and sensibility, and damaging to thereputation of that art through which they are produced. There is no effectiverestraint on the most desperate competition, hence style is sacrificed to cheapnessuntil a depth of artistic turpitude is reached, too profound to tempt purchaserseven among the most benighted Calibans. In our country, the diffusion of trueart culture is generally assumed not to have reached that point at which thehighest efforts of skill become the most productive to the artist; consequently,whatever capacity for the truest and most elaborate treatment of his subject thelithographic designer may possess, he feels beforehand that skill will neither beappreciated nor rewarded, and thus he is content to be paid for an indifferent pro-duction, on which no time is lavished to exalt his subject or his art. This policyis surely short-sighted except for mere hand-to-mouth living, and the artist whoshould rise to the highest style of his art, must thus soon, if not at once, secureboth a better name and a higher remuneration. Certainly our public would nowliberally buy works in a far higher style than any which lithography has yetrealized among us. The extensive market which this country affords for goodFrench lithographs, Julien’s and Lassale’s series of heads, the prints of Lemer-