What Is A Monotype Print

Edgar Degas: Woman Reading

Edgar Degas:

Woman Reading

monotype, in printmaking, a technique that generally yields only one good impression from each prepared plate. Monotypes are prized because of their unique textural qualities. They are made by drawing on glass or a plate of smooth metal or stone with a greasy substance such as printer's ink or oil paint. Then the drawing is pressed by hand onto a sheet of absorbent paper or is printed on an etching press. The pigment remaining on the plate is usually insufficient to make another print unless the original design is reinforced. Further, any subsequent prints will invariably differ from the first one, because variations in repainting and printing are inevitable. Since each is unique and hand executed, monotypes cannot be considered a technique of multiple replication. But, because they are prints on paper, they are usually classed with printmaking media.

One of the earliest artists to explore the technique was Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (c. 1610–65), who made monotypes from copper etching plates. In the 19th century the English poet and artist William Blake and the French artist Edgar Degas experimented with the technique.

Mary Cassatt: Woman Bathing

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

printmaking: Monoprint (monotype)

A monoprint is a unique print. The artist paints on a surface such as metal, plastic, or glass and then transfers the wet design to paper, either by rubbing or with an etching press. The primary reason for making a monoprint is that, when…
Edgar Degas: A versatile technician

He effectively developed the black-and-white monotype as an independent medium, for example, sometimes with an added layer of pastel or gouache, as in
Dancer with a Bouquet Bowing
(1877). The results can be exhilarating, notably when the effects of light and texture are subtly expressive of the chosen subject, but…
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
, Italian painter and one of the most important technical innovators in the history of printmaking. Beginning in the highly artificial style of Mannerism, Castiglione was a productive painter who…