Alois senefelder biography of donald

German actor, playwright and inventor (–)

Johann Alois Senefelder (6 November &#;&#; 26 February ) was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in the s.^[1]

Actor, playwright

Born Aloys Johann Nepomuk Franz Senefelder in Prague, then capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, where his actor father was appearing on stage.

He was educated in Munich and won a scholarship to study law at Ingolstadt. The death of his father in forced him to leave his studies to assist his mother and eight siblings, and he became an performer and wrote a successful perform Connoisseur of Girls.

Discovery, progress of lithography

Problems with the printing of his play Mathilde von Altenstein caused him to collapse into debt, and unable to afford to publish a fresh play he had written, Senefelder experimented with a novel etching technique using a greasy, acid resistant ink as a resist on a smooth fine-grained stone of Solnhofen limestone.

He then discovered that this could be extended to allow printing from the flat surface of the stone alone, the first planographic process in printing.

He unified with the André family of music publishers and gradually brought his technique into a workable form, perfecting both the chemical processes and the special build of printing press required for using the stones.

Aloys Senefelder (January 6, 1771 — February 26, 1834 ...: Lithograph of Senefelder, from Specimens of Polyautography. Johann Alois Senefelder (6 November – 26 February ) was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing way of lithography in the s. [1].

He called it "stone printing" or "chemical printing", but the French name "lithography" became more widely adopted. And with the composer Franz Gleißner he started a publishing firm in using lithography.^[2]

The value of the new cheap and exact reproduction process was recognized early by land surveying offices across Europe.

Senefelder was appointed to be the Inspector of a modern Institution set up for this purpose in Bavaria called the "Lithographic Institute" (Lithographische Anstalt) in Munich. Similar Institutions were subsequently set up under his supervision in Berlin, Paris, London and Vienna.^[3]

He secured patent rights across Europe and publicized his findings in in Vollstandiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerei which was translated in into French and English.

Almost every author has difficulties with his publisher at the inception of his career if he finds one at all. In the case of Alois Senefelder, this turned into an epoch-making invention. Because the up-and-coming playwright had decided that he preferred to take the typesetting and printing of his plays into his own hands, he invented a new printing process: lithography. Alois Senefelder, who was born in Prague on 6 Novemberwas the son of a Munich actor.

A Complete Course of Lithography combined Senefelder's history of his own invention with a practical guide to lithography, and remained in print as recently as (Da Capo Press).^[4]

Senefelder was also able to exploit the potential of lithography as a medium for art.

Unlike previous printmaking techniques, such as engraving, that required advanced craft skills, lithography facilitated greater accuracy and textural variety, because the painter could now draw directly onto the plate with familiar pens.^[5] As early as André published in London a portfolio of artists lithographs, entitled Specimens of Polyautography.^[6]

In , lithography had been further developed to allow packed colour printing from multiple plates, and chromolithography was the most important technique in colour printing until the introduction of process colour.^[1]

Awards and legacy

Senefelder was decorated by King Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria and a statue of him stands in the town of Solnhofen, where lithographic stone is still quarried.

A statue of Alois Senefelder by sculptor Rudolf Pohle was erected in in what was then acknowledged as Thusneldaplatz in Berlin. The name of the square was changed to Senefelderplatz in An U-Bahn station named Senefelderplatz was opened in

Alois Senefelder's contribution ranks alongside William Ged's invention of stereotyping, Friedrich Koenig's steam press and Ottmar Mergenthaler's linotype machine in its innovative outcome.

It made printing more affordable and available to more people, and was important in art and newspaper printing. Senefelder lived to see his process get widely adopted both for art printmaking and as the dominant method of pictorial reproduction in the printing industry.

He died in Munich, where he is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof.

Johann Alois Senefelder 6 November — 26 February was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in the s. He was educated in Munich and won a scholarship to learn law at Ingolstadt. The death of his father in forced him to leave his studies to support his mother and eight siblings, and he became an actor and wrote a successful play Connoisseur of Girls. Problems with the printing of his play Mathilde von Altenstein caused him to fall into debt, and unable to offer to publish a new compete he had written, Senefelder experimented with a novel etching approach using a greasy, acid resistant ink as a resist on a smooth fine-grained stone of Solnhofen limestone.

Several plant taxa have been named after him as well.^[7] The genus of SenefelderaMart. (in the Euphorbiaceae family).^[8] and of SenefelderopsisSteyerm. (Euphorbiaceae).^[9]

See also

References

Sources

External links