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Irving Amen (1918–2011[1]) was an American painter, printmaker and sculptor. Contents 1 Life 2 Notable collections – U.S. 3 Notable collections – international 4 Commissions 5 References 6 External links Life Born in New York City in 1918,[2] Amen began drawing at the age of four. A scholarship to the Pratt Institute was awarded to him when he was fourteen years old.[3] From 1942 to 1945 he served with the Armed Forces. He headed a mural project and executed murals in the United States and Belgium.[4] His first exhibition of woodcut swas held at the New School for Social Research and his second at the Smithsonian Institution in 1949. He also exhibited at the Artists House in Jerusalem, the Library of Congress, and the National Academy of Design. Amen studied in Paris in 1950. Upon his return to the United States, he had one man shows in New York and Washington DC. In 1953, Amen traveled throughout Italy. This resulted in a series of eleven woodcuts, eight etchings and a number of oil paintings. One of these woodcuts, "Piazza San Marco #4" and its four woodblocks constitute a permanent exhibit of block printing in color at the Smithsonian Institution. Travel in Israel, Greece and Turkey in 1960 led to a retrospective show at the Artist's House in Jerusalem. His art is widely owned and loved. Irving Amen has taught at Pratt Institute and at the University of Notre Dame. He had a show of woodcuts at the Artists Studio in NYC. In 1974 he illustrated The Epic of Gilgamesh in linocuts and woodcuts for the Limited Editions Club. He designed a set of stained glass windows depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel for Agudas Achim Synagogue in Bexley, Ohio.[1][5] His work often depicts themes of Judaism, chess, people, music, Italy and Don Quixote. In his later years he lived and worked in Boca Raton, Florida. Commissions include a Peace Medal in honor of the Vietnam War. He created designs for 12 stained glass windows 16 feet high depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel, commissioned by Agudas Achim Synagogue in Columbus, Ohio. He is listed in Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers and the Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists by Paul Cummings. Amen was also a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists. He was elected member of Accademia Fiorentina Delle Arti Del Disegno, an organization to which Michelangelo, his idol, belonged. Born in New York City,[6] he taught at the Pratt Institute and at the University of Notre Dame in the early 1960s.[1] Notable collections – U.S. Museum of Modern Art, New York[7] National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York[8] The National Gallery of Art Washington[9] University of South Alabama – Mobile, Alabama Arizona State University – Tempe, Arizona Tucson Museum of Art – Tucson, Arizona[10] Arkansas Art Center Foundation – Little Rock, Arkansas Arkansas State University – State University, Arkansas Judah L. Magnes Memorial Museum – Berkeley, California Skirball Museum Hebrew Union College – Los Angeles, California' Mills College – Oakland, California Stanford University Museum of Art – Stanford, California Hausatonic Museum – Bridgeport, Connecticut Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut University of Georgia – Athens, Georgia Honolulu Academy of Arts – Honolulu, Hawaii Art Institute of Chicago – Chicago, Illinois[11] Quincy College Art Gallery – Quincy, Illinois Rosary College – River Forest, Illinois Illinois State Museum – Springfield, Illinois Lafayette Art Center – Lafayette, Indiana Art Gallery, University of Notre Dame – Notre Dame, Indiana Davenport Municipal Art Gallery – Davenport, Iowa Des Moines Art Center – Des Moines, Iowa University of Maine Art Gallery – Orono, Maine Baltimore Museum of Art – Baltimore, Maryland Boston Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, Massachusetts Harvard Art Museum – Boston, Massachusetts[12] Town of Brookline Public Library – Brookline, Massachusetts Fogg Art Museum – Cambridge, Massachusetts De Cordova and Dana Museum – Lincoln, Massachusetts Art Museum Mount Holyoke College – South Hadley, Massachusetts Museum of Fine Arts – Springfield, Massachusetts Albion College – Albion, Michigan University of Minnesota – Minneapolis, Minnesota Central Missouri State University – Warrensburg, Missouri Art Gallery University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Nebraska The Art Museum Princeton University – Princeton, N.J. Dartmouth College – Hanover, New Hampshire Rutgers University – New Brunswick, New Jersey Museum of New Mexico – Santa Fe, New Mexico Jewish Museum – New York City, N.Y. New York Public Library – New York City, N.Y. State University of New York – New Paltz, N.Y. University of Rochester Memorial Art Gallery – Rochester, N.Y. Syracuse University Art Collection – Syracuse, N.Y. Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, North Carolina[13] Salem College – Winston-Salem, North Carolina Cincinnati Art Museum – Cincinnati, Ohio Dayton Art Institute – Dayton, Ohio Butler Institute of American Art – Youngstown, Ohio Oklahoma Museum of Art – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Coos Art Museum – Coos Bay, Oregon Oregon State University – Corvallis, Oregon Lehigh University – Bethlehem, Pennsylvania City of Philadelphia Public Library – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia Museum of Art – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art – Carnegie Institute – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The Charleston Museum – Charleston, South Carolina Colombia Museum of Art – Columbia, South Carolina Brooks Memorial Art Gallery – Memphis, Tennessee Virginia Museum of Fine Arts – Richmond, Virginia Corcoran Gallery of Art – Washington, D.C. Library of Congress – Washington, D.C.[14] Smithsonian American Art Museum – Washington, D.C.[15] Huntington Galleries – Huntington, West Virginia Madison Art Center – Madison, Wisconsin Neville Public Museum – Green Bay, Wisconsin Milwaukee Public Library – Milwaukee, Wisconsin Notable collections – international Albertina Museum – Vienna, Austria Bibliothèque Royal – Brussels, Belgium University Art Museum – Edmonton, Canada Fitzwilliam Museum – Cambridge, England Usher Gallery – Lincolnshire, England Victoria and Albert Museum – London, England[16] Biblioteheque Nationale – Paris, France[17] Bezalel National Museum – Jerusalem, Israel Auckland City Art Gallery – Auckland, New Zealand Statische Museum – Elberfeld, Germany Commissions Designed a Peace Medal to commemorate the end of the Vietnam War. Illustrated the classic, GILGAMESH, for the Limited Editions Club. Created Designs for twelve stained glass windows sixteen feet high depicting the twelve tribes of Israel, commissioned by Agudas Achim Synagogue at Columbus, Ohio.*****IRVING AMEN OBITUARY 1918 - 2011 Irving Amen 1918-2011- Artist Studied at the Art Students League and Academy Grande Chaumiere in Paris. His first exhibition was at the New School for Social Research and in 1949 the Smithsonian Institution launched a one man exhibition of his work. He had numerous additional exhibitions including the Artists House in Jerusalem, the Library of Congress and the National Academy of Design. He taught at the Pratt Institute and Notre Dame University. He designed twelve stained glass windows for the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Ohio and illustrated the epic Gilgamesh for the Limited Editions Club. His work is included the collections of many museums including the Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Albertina Museum Vienna, the Bezalel National Museum Jerusalem, the Biblioteque Nationale Paris, the Biblioteque Royal Brussels, the Auckland City Art Gallery Auckland New Zealand, the Corcoran Gallery Washington DC, Dartmouth College, the Fogg Art Museum Cambridge, the Jewish Museum NY, the Judah L. Magnes Memorial Museum Berkeley, CA, the City of Philadelphia Public Library, the NY Public Library, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Butler Institute, the Art Museum of Princeton, the Smithsonian Institution, the Univeristy of Notre Dame, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Yale University Museum and numerous others. He leaves a sister Sharon (Frank) Swersky of Mountainside NJ, a brother Philip (June) Aimen of Glenview, IL and several neices and nephews. *****Brief Biography of Irving Amen Born in New York City, Amen began drawing at the young age of four. By the time he was fourteen years old, he won a scholarship to the Pratt Institute. He emulated Michelangelo's masterpieces and spent years perfecting his own unique style. From 1942 to 1945 he served with the Armed Forces. He headed a mural project and executed murals in the United States and Belgium. He had his first exhibition was at the New School for Social Research in New York and his second at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington in 1949. His travels throughout Israel, Greece and Turkey in 1960 led to a retrospective at the Artists House in Jerusalem. Irving AmenHe then studied in Paris where he had one-man shows in painting, woodcut and sculpture. Besides practicing his art, Amen also taught classes in sculptor and printmaking at such schools as the Pratt Institute (1961) and at Notre Dame University(1962). Commissions include a Peace Medal in honor of the Vietnam War and 12 stained glass windows for the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Ohio. He is listed in Mantle Fielding Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers and the Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists by Paul Cummings. A positive attitude, love of mankind, and religious background emanate from his work. *****From his woodcuts, now on exhibit at the Paul Schuster Art Gallery (24 Palmer St.), Irving Amen might be diagnosed as an artistic schizoid. One can imagine a sweet Amen dominating the show, who produces pretty pictures of little children, prophets and other homey subjects; but occasionally one also finds a bitter Amen, whose work is more profound as well as more pessimistic. In either aspect, however, the artist nearly always proves himself master of his media. He imparts to his line the freedom one would expect of an ink drawing, while still retaining that rugged quality essential to a woodcut. His style, usually a decorative realism, varies with the mood and subject matter; but in almost every print Amen succeeds in evoking his desired effect, whether it be that of power or of mere cuteness. Typical of Amen's more genial work is To Wonder At, a color print depicting a pony-tailed little girl gazing in awe at a large bouquet. The flowers, which take up two-thirds of the picture, would make a tasteful composition standing by themselves. One's attention, however, is drawn to the pouting face which, well done though it is, reminds one of something from a comic strip. Eyes of Wonder portrays a very similar little girl, this time showing her in full face and emphasizing her large, dark and somewhat watery eyes. As one prospective customer remarked, the effect is "too precious for words." Less saccharine, but equally banal, The Prophet attempts to please the more pious Christmas shopper by recreating that familiar image of a Serene Sage and His Book. The tone, while respectably sacred, is unexciting enough to fit well in the most conservative of living rooms. Amen's other self, the darker and deeper one, is best revealed by the large, dramatic print of Adam. In contrast to Michelangelo's noble idealization, this First Man is conceived as a brute. Above his diminutive head, which is dominated by a circle of teeth and a single, piggish eye, he raises a jagged sword. His free hand, meanwhile, hangs ape-like to his knees. Defined in bold line against a blank background, Adam makes a powerful and impressive figure. In Mother and Child, Amen departs sharply from the traditional Madonna ideal. While the plump infant grasps for her breast, the mother appears gaunt; and the multitude of lines evoking the forms of her collar-bone, neck and face seem to suggest a network of veins to her breast. The hint of despair in her eye reinforces the impression that she is being sucked dry by her thoughtless, greedy child. In its bitter message, stated with subtlety and thoughtfulness, this work provides a revealing antithesis to the view of children implicit in Amen's prettified prints like To Wonder At. The mingling of these two attitudes arouses one's curiosity as to the dates of particular woodcuts. The Schuster Gallery, however, supplies none of this information. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the show is minimized by a careless arrangement that breaks up obvious sets, such as Adam and Eve, and ignores considerations of size and color. But what remains the most regrettable artistic defect of this exhibit is the burial of some works of artistic worth in a mass of readily salable trivia.**** The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States;[1] nylon strings came in the 1940s.[1] The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument. There are three main types of modern guitar: the classical guitar (Spanish guitar/nylon-string guitar); the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar; and the Hawaiian guitar (played across the player's lap). Traditional acoustic guitars include the flat top guitar (typically with a large sound hole) or an archtop guitar, which is sometimes called a "jazz guitar". The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the strings' vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber. The classical Spanish guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive fingerstyle technique where each string is plucked individually by the player's fingers, as opposed to being strummed. The term "finger-picking" can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass, and country guitar playing in the United States. Electric guitars, first patented in 1937,[2] use a pickup and amplifier that made the instrument loud enough to be heard, but also enabled manufacturing guitars with a solid block of wood needing no resonant chamber.[3] A wide array of electronic effects units became possible including reverb and distortion (or "overdrive"). Solid-body guitars began to dominate the guitar market during the 1960s and 1970s; they are less prone to unwanted acoustic feedback. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of electric guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars (used in jazz guitar, blues and rockabilly) and solid-body guitars, which are widely used in rock music. The loud, amplified sound and sonic power of the electric guitar played through a guitar amp has played a key role in the development of blues and rock music, both as an accompaniment instrument (playing riffs and chords) and performing guitar solos, and in many rock subgenres, notably heavy metal music and punk rock. The electric guitar has had a major influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a wide variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul, and pop. Contents 1 History 2 Types 2.1 Acoustic 2.2 Electric 3 Construction 3.1 Handedness 3.2 Components 4 Tuning 4.1 Standard 4.2 Alternative 4.3 Scordatura 5 Accessories 5.1 Capotasto 5.2 Slides 5.3 Plectrum 5.4 Straps 5.5 Amplifiers, effects and speakers 6 See also 7 Notes and references 7.1 Notes 7.2 Citations 7.3 Sources 8 External links History See also: Lute § History and evolution of the lute, History of lute-family instruments, Gittern, Citole § Origins, and Classical guitar § History Hittite lute colorized Instrument labeled "cythara" in the Stuttgart Psalter, a Carolingian psalter from 9th century Paris. Hittite lute Turkey. Hittite lute from Alacahöyük 1399–1301 BC. This image is sometimes used to indicate the antiquity of the guitar, because of the shape of its body.[5] Musical-instrument historians write that it is an error to consider "oriental lutes" as direct ancestors of the guitar, simply because they have the same body shape, or because they have a perceived etymological relationship (kithara, guitarra). While examples with guitar-like incurved sides such as the instrument in the Airtam Frieze or the Hittite lute from Alacahöyük are known, there are no intermediary instruments or traditions between those instruments and the guitar.[4] Similarly, musicologists have argued over whether instruments indigenous to Europe could have led to the guitar. This idea has not gotten beyond speculation and needs "a thorough study of morphology and performing practice" by ethnomusicologists.[4] The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times and as such causes confusion. The English word guitar, the German Gitarre, and the French guitare were all adopted from the Spanish guitarra, which comes from the Andalusian Arabic قيثارة (qīthārah)[6] and the Latin cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek κιθάρα This Greek word may also come from the Persian word Sihtar.[7] Kithara appears in the Bible four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. The origins of the modern guitar are not known.[8] Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides."[9] The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas.[10] A 3,300-year-old stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic representation of a chordophone and clay plaques from Babylonia show people playing a lute like instrument which is similar to the guitar. A number of scholars cite many influences as antecedents to the modern guitar. Although the development of the earliest "guitars" is lost in the history of medieval Spain, two instruments are commonly cited as their most influential predecessors, the four-string oud and its precursor the European lute; the former was brought to Iberia by the Moors in the 8th century. It has often been assumed that the guitar is a development of the lute, or of the ancient Greek kithara. However, many scholars consider the lute an offshoot or separate line of development which did not influence the evolution of the guitar in any significant way.[9][11] [12] At least two instruments called "guitars" were in use in Spain by 1200: the guitarra latina (Latin guitar) and the so-called guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar). The guitarra morisca had a rounded back, wide fingerboard, and several sound holes. The guitarra Latina had a single sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers "moresca" or "morisca" and "latina" had been dropped, and these two chordophones were simply referred to as guitars.[13] The Spanish vihuela, called in Italian the "viola da mano", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries, is widely considered to have been the single most important influence in the development of the baroque guitar. It had six courses (usually), lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist. It was also larger than the contemporary four-course guitars. By the 16th century, the vihuela's construction had more in common with the modern guitar, with its curved one-piece ribs, than with the viols, and more like a larger version of the contemporary four-course guitars. The vihuela enjoyed only a relatively short period of popularity in Spain and Italy during an era dominated elsewhere in Europe by the lute; the last surviving published music for the instrument appeared in 1576.[14] Meanwhile, the five-course baroque guitar, which was documented in Spain from the middle of the 16th century, enjoyed popularity, especially in Spain, Italy and France from the late 16th century to the mid-18th century.[A][B] In Portugal, the word viola referred to the guitar, as guitarra meant the "Portuguese guitar", a variety of cittern. There were many different plucked instruments[15] that were being invented and used in Europe, during the Middle Ages. By the 16th century, most of the forms of guitar had fallen off, to never be seen again. However, midway through the 16th century, the five-course guitar[16] was established. It was not a straightforward process. There were two types of five-course guitars, they differed in the location of the major third and in the interval pattern. The fifth course can be placed on the instrument because it was known to play seventeen notes or more. Because the guitar had a fifth string, it was capable of playing that amount of notes. The guitar's strings were tuned in unison, so, in other words, it was tuned by placing a finger on the second fret of the thinnest string and tuning the guitar[17] bottom to top. The strings were a whole octave apart from one another, which is the reason for the different method of tuning. Because it was so different, there was major controversy as to who created the five course guitar. A literary source, Lope de Vega's Dorotea, gives the credit to the poet and musician Vicente Espinel. This claim was also repeated by Nicolas Doizi de Velasco in 1640, however this claim has been refuted by others who state that Espinel's birth year (1550) make it impossible for him to be responsible for the tradition.[18] He believed that the tuning was the reason the instrument became known as the Spanish guitar in Italy. Even later, in the same century, Gaspar Sanz wrote that other nations such as Italy or France added to the Spanish guitar. All of these nations even imitated the five-course guitar by "recreating" their own.[19] 19th century guitar made by luthier Manuel de Soto held by Spanish guitarist Rafael Serrallet Finally, circa 1850, the form and structure of the modern guitar are followed by different Spanish makers such as Manuel de Soto y Solares and perhaps the most important of all guitar makers Antonio Torres Jurado, who increased the size of the guitar body, altered its proportions, and invented the breakthrough fan-braced pattern. Bracing, which refers to the internal pattern of wood reinforcements used to secure the guitar's top and back and prevent the instrument from collapsing under tension, is an important factor in how the guitar sounds. Torres' design greatly improved the volume, tone, and projection of the instrument, and it has remained essentially unchanged since. Types Guitar collection in Museu de la Música de Barcelona The Guitar Player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric guitars. Within each of these categories, there are also further sub-categories. For example, an electric guitar can be purchased in a six-string model (the most common model) or in seven- or twelve-string models. Acoustic Main article: Acoustic guitar See also: Extended-range classical guitar, Flamenco guitar, Chitarra battente, Guitarrón mexicano, Harp guitar, Russian guitar, Selmer guitar, and Tenor guitar Classical Guitar Sample 2:31 Spanish Romance. Problems playing this file? See media help. Acoustic guitars form several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel-string guitars, which include the flat-topped, or "folk", guitar; twelve-string guitars; and the arched-top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers, such as the acoustic bass guitar, which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. Renaissance and Baroque Main article: Baroque guitar Renaissance and Baroque guitars are the ancestors of the modern classical and flamenco guitar. They are substantially smaller, more delicate in construction, and generate less volume. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12-string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six single strings normally used now. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz's Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 contains his whole output for the solo guitar.)[20] Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished, because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. Classical Main article: Classical guitar Classical guitars, also known as "Spanish" guitars,[21] are typically strung with nylon strings, plucked with the fingers, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios, and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but they are associated with a more percussive tone. In Portugal, the same instrument is often used with steel strings particularly in its role within fado music. The guitar is called viola, or violão in Brazil, where it is often used with an extra seventh string by choro musicians to provide extra bass support. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the small requinto to the guitarrón, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full-sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by the Spaniard Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892).[22] Flat-top A guitarist playing a blues tune on a semi-acoustic guitar Main article: Steel-string acoustic guitar Flat-top guitars with steel strings are similar to the classical guitar, however, the flat-top body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar, and has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. The robust X-bracing typical of flat-top guitars was developed in the 1840s by German-American luthiers, of whom Christian Friedrich "C. F." Martin is the best known. Originally used on gut-strung instruments, the strength of the system allowed the later guitars to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. Steel strings produce a brighter tone and a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz, and blues. Many variations are possible from the roughly classical-sized OO and Parlour to the large Dreadnought (the most commonly available type) and Jumbo. Ovation makes a modern variation, with a rounded back/side assembly molded from artificial materials. Archtop Main article: Archtop guitar Archtop guitars are steel-string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved, from a solid billet, into a curved, rather than a flat, shape. This violin-like construction is usually credited to the American Orville Gibson. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co introduced the violin-inspired "F"-shaped hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop guitar has a large, deep, hollow body whose form is much like that of a mandolin or a violin-family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups, and they are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted, upon their release, by both jazz and country musicians, and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Resonator, resophonic or Dobros An eight-string baritone tricone resonator guitar Main articles: Resonator guitar and Dobro All three principal types of resonator guitars were invented by the Slovak-American John Dopyera (1893–1988) for the National and Dobro (Dopyera Brothers) companies. Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, but with a body that may be made of brass, nickel-silver, or steel as well as wood, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by one or more aluminum resonator cones mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the loudspeaker. The original purpose of the resonator was to produce a very loud sound; this purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive tone. Resonator guitars may have either one or three resonator cones. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood at the vertex of the cone (Nationals), or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and mounted around the rim of the (inverted) cone (Dobros). Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section—called "square neck" or "Hawaiian"—is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. Steel guitar Main articles: Lap steel guitar and Pedal steel guitar A steel guitar is any guitar played while moving a polished steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar in that it does not use frets; conceptually, it is somewhat akin to playing a guitar with one finger (the bar). Known for its portamento capabilities, gliding smoothly over every pitch between notes, the instrument can produce a sinuous crying sound and deep vibrato emulating the human singing voice. Typically, the strings are plucked (not strummed) by the fingers of the dominant hand, while the steel tone bar is pressed lightly against the strings and moved by the opposite hand. The instrument is played while sitting, placed horizontally across the player's knees or otherwise supported. The horizontal playing style is called "Hawaiian style".[23] Twelve-string Main article: Twelve-string guitar The twelve-string guitar usually has steel strings, and it is widely used in folk music, blues, and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. The chime-like sound of the 12-string electric guitar was the basis of jangle pop. Acoustic bass Acoustic bass guitar Main article: Acoustic bass guitar The acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than, that of a 6-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar and the double bass, the acoustic bass guitar commonly has four strings, which are normally tuned E-A-D-G, an octave below the lowest four strings of the 6-string guitar, which is the same tuning pitch as an electric bass guitar. It can, more rarely, be found with 5 or 6 strings, which provides a wider range of notes to be played with less movement up and down the neck. Electric Main article: Electric guitar Eric Clapton playing his signature custom-made "Blackie" Fender Stratocaster Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies; solid bodies produce little sound without amplification. In contrast to a standard acoustic guitar, electric guitars instead rely on electromagnetic pickups, and sometimes piezoelectric pickups, that convert the vibration of the steel strings into signals, which are fed to an amplifier through a patch cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices (effects units) or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) or the pre-amp in the amplifier. There are two main types of magnetic pickups, single- and double-coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, R & B, and rock and roll. The first successful magnetic pickup for a guitar was invented by George Beauchamp, and incorporated into the 1931 Ro-Pat-In (later Rickenbacker) "Frying Pan" lap steel; other manufacturers, notably Gibson, soon began to install pickups in archtop models. After World War II the completely solid-body electric was popularized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard), lighter (thinner) strings, and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to techniques less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Some electric guitar models feature piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. Those that combine piezoelectric pickups and magnetic pickups are sometimes known as hybrid guitars.[24] Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three,[25] or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Seven-string and eight-string Main articles: Seven-string guitar and eight-string guitar Solid-body seven-string guitars were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s. Other artists go a step further, by using an eight-string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common seven-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12-string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12-string elements in standard six-string playing. In 1982 Uli Jon Roth developed the "Sky Guitar", with a vastly extended number of frets, which was the first guitar to venture into the upper registers of the violin. Roth's seven-string and "Mighty Wing" guitar features a wider octave range.[citation needed] Electric bass Main article: Bass guitar Hofner 500/1 bass guitar that has been recognized by many music fans for decades as the bass used by Sir Paul McCartney for almost 60 years The bass guitar (also called an "electric bass", or simply a "bass") is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and four to six strings. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest pitched strings of a guitar (E, A, D, and G). The bass guitar is a transposing instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds (as is the double bass) to avoid excessive ledger lines being required below the staff. Like the electric guitar, the bass guitar has pickups and it is plugged into an amplifier and speaker for live performances. Construction Headstock Nut Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) Frets Truss rod Inlays Neck Heel (acoustic) Neckjoint (electric); Cutaway (electric) Body Pickups Electronics Bridge Pickguard Back Soundboard (top) Body sides (ribs) Sound hole, with Rosette inlay Strings Saddle Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Handedness See also: List of musicians who play left-handed Modern guitars can be constructed to suit both left- and right-handed players. Typically the dominant hand is used to pluck or strum the strings. This is similar to the violin family of instruments where the dominant hand controls the bow. Left-handed players usually play a mirror image instrument manufactured especially for left-handed players.[26] There are other options, some unorthodox, including learn to play a right-handed guitar as if the player is right-handed or playing an unmodified right-handed guitar reversed. Guitarist Jimi Hendrix) played a right-handed guitar strung in reverse (the treble strings and bass strings reversed).[27] The problem with doing this is that it reverses the guitar's saddle angle.[26] The saddle is the strip of material on top of the bridge where the strings rest. It is normally slanted slightly, making the bass strings longer than the treble strings.[26] In part, the reason for this is the difference in the thickness of the strings.[28] Physical properties of the thicker bass strings require them to be slightly longer than the treble strings to correct intonation.[28] Reversing the strings, therefore, reverses the orientation of the saddle, adversely affecting intonation. Components Head Main article: Headstock See also: Nut (string instrument) An alternate headless Steinberger bass guitar. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck farthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. The traditional tuner layout is "3+3", in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts, including six-in-line tuners (featured on Fender Stratocasters) or even "4+2" (e.g. Ernie Ball Music Man). Some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage or string buzz. To reduce string friction in the nut, which can adversely affect tuning stability, some guitarists fit a roller nut. Some instruments use a zero fret just in front of the nut. In this case the nut is used only for lateral alignment of the strings, the string height and length being dictated by the zero fret. Neck This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Main article: Neck (music) See also: Fingerboard, Fret, Truss rod, Inlay (guitar), Set-in neck, Bolt-on neck, and Neck-through A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard usually differs from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor-quality one. Triple Neck (Left) and Double Neck (Right) Guitars. The cross-section of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fretboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other types of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminum (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. The neck joint or heel is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic steel-string guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Most classical guitars have a neck and headblock carved from one piece of wood, known as a "Spanish heel". Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by C. F. Martin & Co.), dovetail joints (also used by C. F. Martin on the D-28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints, which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid-body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge is located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. The fingerboard, also called the fretboard, is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against a fret on the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured using composite materials such as HPL or resin. See the section "Neck" below for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. The fingerboard plays an essential role in the treble tone for acoustic guitars. The quality of vibration of the fingerboard is the principal characteristic for generating the best treble tone. For that reason, ebony wood is better, but because of high use, ebony has become rare and extremely expensive. Most guitar manufacturers have adopted rosewood instead of ebony. Sinéad O'Connor playing a Fender guitar with a capo Frets Almost all guitars have frets, which are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. The exceptions include fretless bass guitars and very rare fretless guitars. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 and 24 frets, although guitars have been made with as many as 27 frets. Frets are laid out to accomplish an equal tempered division of the octave. Each set of twelve frets represents an octave. The twelfth fret divides the scale length exactly into two halves, and the 24th fret position divides one of those halves in half again. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is {\displaystyle {\sqrt[{12}]{2}}}{\sqrt[{12}]{2}} (twelfth root of two). In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817—an approximation to 1/(1-1/{\displaystyle {\sqrt[{12}]{2}}}{\sqrt[{12}]{2}}). If the nth fret is a distance x from the bridge, then the distance from the (n+1)th fret to the bridge is x-(x/17.817).[29] Frets are available in several different gauges and can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have a much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets, allow a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action, but require that other conditions, such as curvature of the neck, be well-maintained to prevent buzz. Truss rod The truss rod is a thin, strong metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by aging of the neck timbers, changes in humidity, or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise tightens it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise loosens it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called double action truss systems, tighten both ways, pushing the neck both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only release to a point beyond which the neck is no longer compressed and pulled backward). The artist and luthier Irving Sloane pointed out, in his book Steel-String Guitar Construction, that truss rods are intended primarily to remedy concave bowing of the neck, but cannot correct a neck with "back bow" or one that has become twisted.[30] Classical guitars do not require truss rods, as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. However, their necks are often reinforced with a strip of harder wood, such as an ebony strip that runs down the back of a cedar neck. There is no tension adjustment on this form of reinforcement. Inlays This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar, both for decoration and artistic purposes and, in the case of the markings on the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 12th fret (and in higher octaves), to provide guidance to the performer about the location of frets on the instrument. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. These usually appear on the odd-numbered frets, but also on the 12th fret (the one-octave mark) instead of the 11th and 13th frets. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, colored wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well-trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and soundboards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength or to fill the cavity through which the truss rod was installed in the neck. Body This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Main articles: Sound box, Solid body, Bridge (instrument), and Pickguard See also: Vibrato systems for guitar In the guitar, the sound box is the hollowed wooden structure that constitutes the body of the instrument. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tonewoods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tonewoods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In expensive instruments, the entire body is made of wood. In inexpensive instruments, the back may be made of plastic. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3 mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. Many luthiers consider the top the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound projects. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. The air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterized, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1–2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel-string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing because it is scored, or "kerfed"(incompletely sawn through), to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which is called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the end grain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. Body size, shape and style have changed over time. 19th-century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C. F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create greater volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pickguard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 1970s, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made from two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the center line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies consist of good-sounding, but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material, such as polycarbonate, and aluminum alloys. Bridge The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On all electric, acoustic and original guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge saddles to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm that lets the player modulate the pitch by changing the tension on the strings. The whammy bar is sometimes also called a "tremolo bar". (The effect of rapidly changing pitch is properly called "vibrato". See Tremolo for further discussion of this term.) Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge has saddles that are adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune, but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge saddle position can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the saddle forward and sharp notes by moving it backward. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle is slightly, but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Saddle The saddle of a guitar is the part of the bridge that physically supports the strings. It may be one piece (typically on acoustic guitars) or separate pieces, one for each string (electric guitars and basses). The saddle's basic purpose is to provide the endpoint for the string's vibration at the correct location for proper intonation, and on acoustic guitars to transfer the vibrations through the bridge into the top wood of the guitar. Saddles are typically made of plastic or bone for acoustic guitars, though synthetics and some exotic animal tooth variations (e.g. fossilized tooth, ivory, etc. ) have become popular with some players. Electric guitar saddles are typically metal, though some synthetic saddles are available. Pickguard The pickguard, also known as the scratchplate, is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum ("pick") or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Some performance styles that use the guitar as a percussion instrument (tapping the top or sides between notes, etc.), such as flamenco, require that a scratchplate or pickguard be fitted to nylon-string instruments. Strings This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) See also: Classical guitar strings The standard guitar has six strings, but four-, seven-, eight-, nine-, ten-, eleven-, twelve-, thirteen- and eighteen-string guitars are also available. Classical and flamenco guitars historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon. Modern guitar strings are constructed from metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilizing "steel" strings may have strings made from alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. Pickups and electronics This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Main article: Pickup (music technology) This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a vibrato bar/vibrato unit, and volume and tone knobs. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are within a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed directly underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electric generator. The vibration of the strings creates a small electric current in the coils surrounding the magnets. This signal current is carried to a guitar amplifier that drives a loudspeaker. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced by stray electromagnetic fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s solved this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in opposite polarity to cancel or "buck" stray fields. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnet-coil assemblies attached to each other, are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in the selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower electrical impedance) gives a brighter sound, more wire gives a "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster-type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Piezo pickups usually require a powered pre-amplifier to lift their output to match that of electromagnetic pickups. Power is typically delivered by an on-board battery. Most pickup-equipped guitars feature onboard controls, such as volume or tone, or pickup selection. At their simplest, these consist of passive components, such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for electronic tuning. In many cases, the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. Guitars may be shipped or retrofitted with a hexaphonic pickup, which produces a separate output for each string, usually from a discrete piezoelectric or magnetic pickup. This arrangement lets on-board or external electronics process the strings individually for modeling or Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) conversion. Roland makes "GK" hexaphonic pickups for guitar and bass, and a line of guitar modeling and synthesis products.[31] Line 6's hexaphonic-equipped Variax guitars use on-board electronics to model the sound after various vintage instruments, and vary pitch on individual strings. MIDI converters use a hexaphonic guitar signal to determine pitch, duration, attack, and decay characteristics. The MIDI sends the note information to an internal or external sound bank device. The resulting sound closely mimics numerous instruments. The MIDI setup can also let the guitar be used as a game controller (i.e., Rock Band Squier) or as an instructional tool, as with the Fretlight Guitar. Tuning Main article: Guitar tunings See also: Stringed instrument tunings Standard In standard tuning, the C-major chord has three shapes because of the irregular major-third between the G- and B-strings. By the 16th century, the guitar tuning of ADGBE had already been adopted in Western culture; a lower E was later added on the bottom as a sixth string.[32] The result, known as "standard tuning", has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two-octave range—EADGBE. This tuning is a series of ascending fourths (and a single major third) from low to high.[32] The reason for ascending fourths is to accommodate four fingers on four frets up a scale before moving to the next string. This is musically convenient and physically comfortable and it eased the transition between fingering chords and playing scales.[32] If the tuning contained all perfect fourths, the range would end up being two octaves plus one semitone;[33] the high string would be an F, a dissonant half-step from the low E and much out of place.[32][33] The pitches are as follows: String Scientific pitch Helmholtz pitch Interval from middle C Frequency (Hz) 1st E4 e' major third above 329.63 2nd B3 b minor second below 246.94 3rd G3 g perfect fourth below 196.00 4th D3 d minor seventh below 146.83 5th A2 A minor tenth below 110.00 6th E2 E minor thirteenth below 82.41 The table below shows a pitch's name found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E B C C♯ D E♭ E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E F F♯ G D E♭ E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E F F♯ G A♭ A E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E A fretboard with line-segments connecting the successive open-string notes of the standard tuning In the standard guitar-tuning, one major-third interval is interjected amid four perfect-fourth intervals. In each regular tuning, all string successions have the same interval. For four strings, the 5th fret on one string is the same open-note as the next string; for example, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. However, between the second and third strings, an irregularity occurs: The 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Alternative Chords can be shifted diagonally in major-thirds tuning and other regular tunings. In standard tuning, chords change their shape because of the irregular major-third G-B. Main article: Guitar tunings § Alternative See also: Open tunings and Regular tunings Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with reasonable left-hand movement. There are also a variety of commonly used alternative tunings, for example, the classes of open, regular, and dropped tunings. Ry Cooder plays the guitar. Ry Cooder plays slide-guitar with open tunings. Open tuning refers to a guitar tuned so that strumming the open strings produces a chord, typically a major chord. The base chord consists of at least 3 notes and may include all the strings or a subset. The tuning is named for the open chord, Open D, open G, and open A are popular tunings. All similar chords in the chromatic scale can then be played by barring a single fret.[34] Open tunings are common in blues music and folk music,[35] and they are used in the playing of slide and bottleneck guitars.[34][36] Many musicians use open tunings when playing slide guitar.[35] For the standard tuning, there is exactly one interval of a major third between the second and third strings, and all the other intervals are fourths. The irregularity has a price – chords cannot be shifted around the fretboard in the standard tuning E-A-D-G-B-E, which requires four chord-shapes for the major chords. There are separate chord-forms for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth strings.[37] In contrast, regular tunings have equal intervals between the strings,[38] and so they have symmetrical scales all along the fretboard. This makes it simpler to translate chords. For the regular tunings, chords may be moved diagonally around the fretboard. The diagonal movement of chords is especially simple for the regular tunings that are repetitive, in which case chords can be moved vertically: Chords can be moved three strings up (or down) in major-thirds tuning and chords can be moved two strings up (or down) in augmented-fourths tuning. Regular tunings thus appeal to new guitarists and also to jazz-guitarists, whose improvisation is simplified by regular intervals. On the other hand, some chords are more difficult to play in a regular tuning than in standard tuning. It can be difficult to play conventional chords, especially in augmented-fourths tuning and all-fifths tuning,[38] in which the large spacings require hand stretching. Some chords, which are conventional in folk music, are difficult to play even in all-fourths and major-thirds tunings, which do not require more hand-stretching than standard tuning.[39] In major-thirds tuning, the interval between open strings is always a major third. Consequently, four frets suffice to play the chromatic scale. Chord inversion is especially simple in major-thirds tuning. Chords are inverted simply by raising one or two notes by three strings. The raised notes are played with the same finger as the original notes.[40][41] In contrast, in standard tuning, the shape of inversions depends on the involvement of the irregular major-third.[42] All-fourths tuning replaces the major third between the third and second strings with a fourth, extending the conventional tuning of a bass guitar. With all-fourths tuning, playing the triads is more difficult, but improvisation is simplified because chord-patterns remain constant when moved around the fretboard. Jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan uses the all-fourths tuning EADGCF. Invariant chord-shapes are an advantage of other regular tunings, such as major-thirds and all-fifths tunings.[38] Extending the tunings of violins and cellos, all-fifths tuning offers an expanded range CGDAEB,[43] which however has been impossible to implement on a conventional guitar. All-fifths tuning is used for the lowest five strings of the new standard tuning of Robert Fripp and his former students in Guitar Craft courses; new standard tuning has a high G on its last string CGDAE-G.[44][45] Another class of alternative tunings is called drop tunings, because the tuning drops down the lowest string. Dropping down the lowest string a whole tone results in the "drop-D" (or "dropped D") tuning. Its open-string notes DADGBE (from low to high) allow for a deep bass D note, which can be used in keys such as D major, d minor and G major. It simplifies the playing of simple fifths (powerchords). Many contemporary rock bands re-tune all strings down, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings. Scordatura Many scordatura (alternate tunings) modify the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing Renaissance music repertoire originally written for that instrument. Some scordatura drop the pitch of one or more strings, giving access to new lower notes. Some scordatura makes it easier to play in unusual keys. Accessories Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. Capotasto Main article: Capo (musical device) A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings.[46] Capos are clipped onto the fretboard with the aid of spring tension or, in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fretboard just below the first fret. Its use allows players to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. For example, if a folk guitar player wanted to play a song in the key of B Major, they could put a capo on the second fret of the instrument, and then play the song as if it were in the key of A Major, but with the capo the instrument would make the sounds of B Major. This is because, with the capo barring the entire second fret, open chords would all sound two semitones (in other words, one tone) higher in pitch. For example, if a guitarist played an open A Major chord (a very common open chord), it would sound like a B Major chord. All of the other open chords would be similarly modified in pitch. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to with pejorative names, such as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch". Despite this negative viewpoint, another benefit of the capo is that it enables guitarists to obtain the ringing, resonant sound of the common keys (C, G, A, etc.) in "harder" and less-commonly used keys. Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the Renaissance music lute. Slides Main article: Slide guitar Example of a bottleneck slide, with fingerpicks and a resonator guitar made of metal A slide (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal or glass bar or cylinder) is used in blues and rock to create a glissando or "Hawaiian" effect. The slide is used to fret notes on the neck, instead of using the fretting hand's fingers. The characteristic use of the slide is to move up to the intended pitch by, as the name implies, sliding up the neck to the desired note. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music as improvised slides. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel bars or cylinders, depending on the weight and tone desired (and the amount of money a guitarist can spend). An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so-called Dobro guitar. Some performers who have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters, Rory Gallagher, and George Thorogood. Plectrum Main article: Guitar pick A variety of guitar picks A "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick with a combination of fingernails and fleshy fingertips, the pick is most often used for electric and steel-string acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick-making, but as tortoises and turtles became endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise-shell picks made before the ban are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use, and their scarcity has made them valuable. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between 0.2 and 0.5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between 0.7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick, while noted 1970s and early 1980s session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrums. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the fingertips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles on steel strings. These allow the fingers and thumb to operate independently, whereas a flat pick requires the thumb and one or two fingers to manipulate. Straps A guitar strap is a strip of material with an attachment mechanism on each end, made to hold a guitar via the shoulders at an adjustable length. Guitars have varying accommodations for attaching a strap. The most common are strap buttons, also called strap pins, which are flanged steel posts anchored to the guitar with screws. Two strap buttons come pre-attached to virtually all electric guitars, and many steel-string acoustic guitars. Strap buttons are sometimes replaced with "strap locks", which connect the guitar to the strap more securely. The lower strap button is usually located at the bottom (bridge end) of the body. The upper strap button is usually located near or at the top (neck end) of the body: on the upper body curve, at the tip of the upper "horn" (on a double cutaway), or at the neck joint (heel). Some electrics, especially those with odd-shaped bodies, have one or both strap buttons on the back of the body. Some Steinberger electric guitars, owing to their minimalist and lightweight design, have both strap buttons at the bottom of the body. Rarely, on some acoustics, the upper strap button is located on the headstock. Some acoustic and classical guitars only have a single strap button at the bottom of the body—the other end must be tied onto the headstock, above the nut and below the machine heads. Amplifiers, effects and speakers A range of guitar amplifiers and guitars for sale at a music store Electric guitars and bass guitars have to be used with a guitar amplifier and loudspeaker or a bass amplifier and speaker, respectively, in order to make enough sound to be heard by the performer and audience. Electric guitars and bass guitars almost always use magnetic pickups, which generate an electric signal when the musician plucks, strums or otherwise plays the instrument. The amplifier and speaker strengthen this signal using a power amplifier and a loudspeaker. Acoustic guitars that are equipped with a piezoelectric pickup or microphone can also be plugged into an instrument amplifier, acoustic guitar amp or PA system to make them louder. With electric guitar and bass, the amplifier and speaker are not just used to make the instrument louder; by adjusting the equalizer controls, the preamplifier, and any onboard effects units (reverb, distortion/overdrive, etc.) the player can also modify the tone (also called the timbre or "colour") and sound of the instrument. Acoustic guitar players can also use the amp to change the sound of their instrument, but in general, acoustic guitar amps are used to make the natural acoustic sound of the instrument louder without significantly changing its sound.***** Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain (unlike wood engraving, where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas. Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (using a different block for each color). The art of carving the woodcut can be called "xylography", but this is rarely used in English for images alone, although that and "xylographic" are used in connection with block books, which are small books containing text and images in the same block. They became popular in Europe during the latter half of the 15th century. A single-sheet woodcut is a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration. Since its origins in China, the practice of woodcut has spread around the world from Europe to other parts of Asia, and to Latin America.[1] Contents 1 Division of labour 2 Methods of printing 3 History 4 White-line woodcut 5 Japonism 6 Colour 6.1 Gallery of Asian woodcuts 7 Chiaroscuro woodcuts 8 Modern woodcut printing in Mexico 8.1 Current woodcut practices in Mexico 9 Famous works in woodcut 10 Notable artists 11 Stonecut 12 See also 13 Notes 14 References 15 External links Division of labour This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Block Cutter at Work woodcut by Jost Amman, 1568 In both Europe and East Asia, traditionally the artist only designed the woodcut, and the block-carving was left to specialist craftsmen, called formschneider or block-cutters, some of whom became well known in their own right. Among these, the best-known are the 16th-century Hieronymus Andreae (who also used "Formschneider" as his surname), Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops and also operated as printers and publishers. The formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks. This is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as "designed by" rather than "by" an artist; but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, without needing to learn the use of woodworking tools. There were various methods of transferring the artist's drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block (often whitened first), or a drawing on paper was glued to the block. Either way, the artist's drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing. In both Europe and East Asia in the early 20th century, some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called sōsaku-hanga (創作版画, creative prints), as opposed to shin-hanga (新版画, new prints), a movement that retained traditional methods. In the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead. Methods of printing The Crab that played with the sea, Woodcut by Rudyard Kipling illustrating one of his Just So Stories (1902). In mixed white-line (below) and normal woodcut (above). Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print. As a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe, a variety of woods including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were commonly used;[2] in Japan, the wood of the cherry species Prunus serrulata was preferred.[citation needed] There are three methods of printing to consider: Stamping: Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts (1400–40). These were printed by putting the paper/fabric on a table or other flat surface with the block on top, and pressing or hammering the back of the block. Rubbing: Apparently the most common method for Far Eastern printing on paper at all times. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, and very widely for cloth. Also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top. The back is rubbed with a "hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton".[3] A traditional Japanese tool used for this is called a baren. Later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially helpful once multiple colors were introduced and had to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers. Printing in a press: presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, and before that for woodcut book illustrations. Simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking. A deceased Abbess of Mechelen in 1465 had "unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines ... cum 14 aliis lapideis printis"—"an instrument for printing texts and pictures ... with 14 stones for printing". This is probably too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing press in that location.[3] History Main articles Old master print for Europe, Woodblock printing in Japan for Japan, and Lubok for Russia Madonna del Fuoco (Madonna of the Fire, c. 1425), Cathedral of Forlì, in Italy A less sophisticated woodcut book illustration of the Hortus Sanitatis lapidary, Venice, Bernardino Benaglio e Giovanni de Cereto (1511) Woodcut originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China, from the Han dynasty (before 220), and are of silk printed with flowers in three colours.[4] "In the 13th century the Chinese technique of blockprinting was transmitted to Europe."[5] Paper arrived in Europe, also from China via al-Andalus, slightly later, and was being manufactured in Italy by the end of the thirteenth century, and in Burgundy and Germany by the end of the fourteenth. In Europe, woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about 1400, by using, on paper, existing techniques for printing. One of the more ancient woodcuts on paper that can be seen today is The Fire Madonna (Madonna del Fuoco, in the Italian language), in the Cathedral of Forlì, in Italy. The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather later than engraving. Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcuts more sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich was the first to use cross-hatching (far harder to do than engraving or etching). Both of these produced mainly book-illustrations, as did various Italian artists who were also raising standards there at the same period. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that, arguably, has never been surpassed, and greatly increased the status of the "single-leaf" woodcut (i.e. an image sold separately). Because woodcuts and movable type are both relief-printed, they can easily be printed together. Consequently, woodcut was the main medium for book illustrations until the late sixteenth century. The first woodcut book illustration dates to about 1461, only a few years after the beginning of printing with movable type, printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg. Woodcut was used less often for individual ("single-leaf") fine-art prints from about 1550 until the late nineteenth century, when interest revived. It remained important for popular prints until the nineteenth century in most of Europe, and later in some places. The art reached a high level of technical and artistic development in East Asia and Iran. Woodblock printing in Japan is called moku-hanga and was introduced in the seventeenth century for both books and art. The popular "floating world" genre of ukiyo-e originated in the second half of the seventeenth century, with prints in monochrome or two colours. Sometimes these were hand-coloured after printing. Later, prints with many colours were developed. Japanese woodcut became a major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a much lower status than painting. It continued to develop through to the twentieth century. White-line woodcut Using a handheld gouge to cut a "white-line" woodcut design into Japanese plywood. The design has been sketched in chalk on a painted face of the plywood. This technique just carves the image in mostly thin lines, similar to a rather crude engraving. The block is printed in the normal way, so that most of the print is black with the image created by white lines. This process was invented by the sixteenth-century Swiss artist Urs Graf, but became most popular in the nineteenth and twentieth century, often in a modified form where images used large areas of white-line contrasted with areas in the normal black-line style. This was pioneered by Félix Vallotton. See also: Provincetown Printers Japonism Main article: Japonism In the 1860s, just as the Japanese themselves were becoming aware of Western art in general, Japanese prints began to reach Europe in considerable numbers and became very fashionable, especially in France. They had a great influence on many artists, notably Édouard Manet, Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Félix Vallotton and Mary Cassatt. In 1872, Jules Claretie dubbed the trend "Le Japonisme".[6] Though the Japanese influence was reflected in many artistic media, including painting, it did lead to a revival of the woodcut in Europe, which had been in danger of extinction as a serious art medium. Most of the artists above, except for Félix Vallotton and Paul Gauguin, in fact used lithography, especially for coloured prints. See below for Japanese influence in illustrations for children's books. Artists, notably Edvard Munch and Franz Masereel, continued to use the medium, which in Modernism came to appeal because it was relatively easy to complete the whole process, including printing, in a studio with little special equipment. The German Expressionists used woodcut a good deal. Colour Odawara-juku in the 1830s by Hiroshige, from his series The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō Coloured woodcuts first appeared in ancient China. The oldest known are three Buddhist images dating to the 10th century. European woodcut prints with coloured blocks were invented in Germany in 1508, and are known as chiaroscuro woodcuts (see below). However, colour did not become the norm, as it did in Japan in the ukiyo-e and other forms. In Europe and Japan, colour woodcuts were normally only used for prints rather than book illustrations. In China, where the individual print did not develop until the nineteenth century, the reverse is true, and early colour woodcuts mostly occur in luxury books about art, especially the more prestigious medium of painting. The first known example is a book on ink-cakes printed in 1606, and colour technique reached its height in books on painting published in the seventeenth century. Notable examples are Hu Zhengyan's Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten Bamboo Studio of 1633,[7] and the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual published in 1679 and 1701.[8] Bijin (beautiful woman) ukiyo-e by Keisai Eisen, before 1848 In Japan colour technique, called nishiki-e in its fully developed form, spread more widely, and was used for prints, from the 1760s on. Text was nearly always monochrome, as were images in books, but the growth of the popularity of ukiyo-e brought with it demand for ever-increasing numbers of colors and complexity of techniques. By the nineteenth century most artists worked in colour. The stages of this development were: Sumizuri-e (墨摺り絵, "ink printed pictures") – monochrome printing using only black ink Benizuri-e (紅摺り絵, "crimson printed pictures") – red ink details or highlights added by hand after the printing process;green was sometimes used as well Tan-e (丹絵) – orange highlights using a red pigment called tan Aizuri-e (藍摺り絵, "indigo printed pictures"), Murasaki-e (紫絵, "purple pictures"), and other styles that used a single color in addition to, or instead of, black ink Urushi-e (漆絵) – a method that used glue to thicken the ink, emboldening the image; gold, mica and other substances were often used to enhance the image further. Urushi-e can also refer to paintings using lacquer instead of paint; lacquer was very rarely if ever used on prints. Nishiki-e (錦絵, "brocade pictures") – a method that used multiple blocks for separate portions of the image, so a number of colors could achieve incredibly complex and detailed images; a separate block was carved to apply only to the portion of the image designated for a single color. Registration marks called kentō (見当) ensured correspondence between the application of each block. Children's book illustration by Randolph Caldecott; engraving and printing by Edmund Evans, 1887 A number of different methods of colour printing using woodcut (technically Chromoxylography) were developed in Europe in the 19th century. In 1835, George Baxter patented a method using an intaglio line plate (or occasionally a lithograph), printed in black or a dark colour, and then overprinted with up to twenty different colours from woodblocks. Edmund Evans used relief and wood throughout, with up to eleven different colours, and latterly specialized in illustrations for children's books, using fewer blocks but overprinting non-solid areas of colour to achieve blended colours. Artists such as Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway were influenced by the Japanese prints now available and fashionable in Europe to create a suitable style, with flat areas of colour. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Portrait of Otto Müller (1915) In the 20th century, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner of the Die Brücke group developed a process of producing colored woodcut prints using a single block applying different colors to the block with a brush à la poupée and then printing (halfway between a woodcut and a monotype).[9] A remarkable example of this technique is the 1915 Portrait of Otto Müller woodcut print from the collection of the British Museum.[10] Gallery of Asian woodcuts Coloured woodcut of Gautama Buddha, 10th century, China. Coloured woodcut of Gautama Buddha, 10th century, China. Jiaozi (currency), 10th century, Sichuan, China. Jiaozi (currency), 10th century, Sichuan, China. Actor Ichikawa Ebizō IV as Takemura Sadanoshin, Japanese woodcut by Sharaku, 1794. Actor Ichikawa Ebizō IV as Takemura Sadanoshin, Japanese woodcut by Sharaku, 1794. Dragon, Japanese woodcut by Yoshida Gen'ō, 1892. Dragon, Japanese woodcut by Yoshida Gen'ō, 1892. Modern[when?] woodcut Carp Painting, Đông Hồ painting, Vietnam. Modern[when?] woodcut Carp Painting, Đông Hồ painting, Vietnam. Chiaroscuro woodcuts Chiaroscuro woodcut depicting Playing cupids by anonymous 16th-century Italian artist Chiaroscuro woodcuts are old master prints in woodcut using two or more blocks printed in different colours; they do not necessarily feature strong contrasts of light and dark. They were first produced to achieve similar effects to chiaroscuro drawings. After some early experiments in book-printing, the true chiaroscuro woodcut conceived for two blocks was probably first invented by Lucas Cranach the Elder in Germany in 1508 or 1509, though he backdated some of his first prints and added tone blocks to some prints first produced for monochrome printing, swiftly followed by Hans Burgkmair.[11] Despite Giorgio Vasari's claim for Italian precedence in Ugo da Carpi, it is clear that his, the first Italian examples, date to around 1516.[12][13] Other printmakers to use the technique include Hans Baldung and Parmigianino. In the German states the technique was in use largely during the first decades of the sixteenth century, but Italians continued to use it throughout the century, and later artists like Hendrik Goltzius sometimes made use of it. In the German style, one block usually had only lines and is called the "line block", whilst the other block or blocks had flat areas of colour and are called "tone blocks". The Italians usually used only tone blocks, for a very different effect, much closer to the chiaroscuro drawings the term was originally used for, or to watercolor paintings.[14] The Swedish printmaker Torsten Billman (1909–1989) developed during the 1930s and 1940s a variant chiaroscuro technique with several gray tones from ordinary printing ink. The art historian Gunnar Jungmarker (1902–1983) at Stockholm's Nationalmuseum called this technique "grisaille woodcut". It is a time-consuming printing process, exclusively for hand printing, with several grey-wood blocks aside from the black-and-white key block.[15] Modern woodcut printing in Mexico José Guadalupe Posada, Calavera Oaxaqueña, 1910 Woodcut printmaking became a popular form of art in Mexico during the early to mid 20th century.[1] The medium in Mexico was used to convey political unrest and was a form of political activism, especially after the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). In Europe, Russia, and China, woodcut art was being used during this time as well to spread leftist politics such as socialism, communism, and anti-fascism.[16] In Mexico, the art style was made popular by José Guadalupe Posada, who was known as the father of graphic art and printmaking in Mexico and is considered the first Mexican modern artist.[17][18] He was a satirical cartoonist and an engraver before and during the Mexican Revolution and he popularized Mexican folk and indigenous art. He created the woodcut engravings of the iconic skeleton (calaveras) figures that are prominent in Mexican arts and culture today (such as in Disney Pixar's Coco).[19] See La Calavera Catrina for more on Posada's calaveras. In 1921, Jean Charlot, a French printmaker moved to Mexico City. Recognizing the importance of Posada's woodcut engravings, he started teaching woodcut techniques in Coyoacán's open-air art schools. Many young Mexican artists attended these lessons including the Fernando Leal.[17][18][20] After the Mexican Revolution, the country was in political and social upheaval - there were worker strikes, protests, and marches. These events needed cheap, mass-produced visual prints to be pasted on walls or handed out during protests.[17] Information needed to be spread quickly and cheaply to the general public.[17] Many people were still illiterate during this time and there was push after the Revolution for widespread education. In 1910 when the Revolution began, only 20% of Mexican people could read.[21] Art was considered to be highly important in this cause and political artists were using journals and newspapers to communicate their ideas through illustration.[18] El Machete (1924–29) was a popular communist journal that used woodcut prints.[18] The woodcut art served well because it was a popular style that many could understand. Artists and activists created collectives such as the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) (1937–present) and The Treintatreintistas (1928–1930) to create prints (many of them woodcut prints) that reflected their socialist and communist values.[22][20] The TGP attracted artists from all around the world including African American printmaker Elizabeth Catlett, whose woodcut prints later influenced the art of social movements in the US in the 1960s and 1970s.[1] The Treintatreintistas even taught workers and children. The tools for woodcut are easily attainable and the techniques were simple to learn. It was considered an art for the people.[20] Mexico at this time was trying to discover its identity and develop itself as a unified nation. The form and style of woodcut aesthetic allowed a diverse range of topics and visual culture to look unified. Traditional, folk images and avant-garde, modern images, shared a similar aesthetic when it was engraved into wood. An image of the countryside and a traditional farmer appeared similar to the image of a city.[20] This symbolism was beneficial for politicians who wanted a unified nation. The physical actions of carving and printing woodcuts also supported the values many held about manual labour and supporting worker's rights.[20] Current woodcut practices in Mexico Today, in Mexico the activist woodcut tradition is still alive. In Oaxaca, a collective called the Asamblea De Artistas Revolucionarios De Oaxaca (ASARO) was formed during the 2006 Oaxaca protests. They are committed to social change through woodcut art.[23] Their prints are made into wheat-paste posters which are secretly put up around the city.[24] Artermio Rodriguez is another artist who lives in Tacambaro, Michoacán who makes politically charged woodcut prints about contemporary issues.[1] Famous works in woodcut Europe Ars moriendi Dürer's Rhinoceros Emblem books Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Hypnerotomachia Poliphili Just So Stories Lubok prints Nuremberg Chronicle Japan (Ukiyo-e) Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (includes The Great Wave off Kanagawa) Notable artists The Prophet, woodcut by Emil Nolde, 1912, various collections It has been suggested that this article should be split into a new article titled List of woodcut artists. (discuss) (March 2022) Irving Amen Mary Azarian Aubrey Beardsley Hans Baldung Leonard Baskin Gustave Baumann Torsten Billman Carroll Thayer Berry Emma Bormann Erich Buchholz Hans Burgkmair Domenico Campagnola Ugo da Carpi Billy Childish Salvador Dalí Gustave Doré Albrecht Dürer M. C. Escher James Flora Antonio Frasconi Robert Gibbings Vincent van Gogh Urs Graf Suzuki Harunobu Hiroshige Damien Hirst Jacques Hnizdovsky Hokusai Tom Huck Stephen Huneck Alfred Garth Jones Hussein el gebaly Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Gaga Kovenchuk Käthe Kollwitz J.J. Lankes James Duard Marshall Frans Masereel Hishikawa Moronobu Edvard Munch Emil Nolde Giovanni Battista Palumba (Master I.B. with a Bird) Jacob Pins J. G. Posada Endi E. Poskovic Hannah Tompkins Henriette Tirman Clément Serveau Paul Signac Eric Slater Marcelo Soares Utamaro Félix Vallotton Karel Vik Leopold Wächtler Sylvia Solochek Walters Susan Dorothea White ebay5943 207