The new technology gave the artists a broader creative space and thus also elevated the artistic value of woodcuts as such.20 Printmaking became already in the late fifteenth century a very important art technique as it allowed transposing images from one medium to another, a drawn image was in a rather uncomplicated manner, transformed into a printed one. Printing provided the technological means for multiplying texts and images faster and in a much more uncomplicated manner than through previous techniques.21 In the early sixteenth century there was a growing conviction that works of art are unique objects made by individuals of genius. Woodcuts and engravings challenged and at the same time enhanced this view by transferring the same image to different media and making them accessible to a broader public. The relation of prints to paintings or to drawings became gradually a dynamic one, and one that could be considered equivalent to a creative dialogue.22 Every time an image was transferred in another medium, there was a need for a certain adaptation thus offering a new way of perceiving the work.23 The material element of prints is particularly interesting. Prints became an illustration of Barthesian materiality, as well as of his theoretical definition of a “work”. In this case the “work” is something that is meant for holding in the hand, and at the same time something that is meant to be experienced by many. Prints had three main characteristics they actually share with texts (the focus of Barthesian materiality), they are multiple, portable and rather inexpensive. In fact, printing technology allowed thousands of impressions per edition. Prints were also portable, even the biggest of prints, were due to technological limitations, printed in several sheets instead for in a big one.24 Price 79 frantzeska papadopoulou skarp 20 Wouk, Edward and Eichberger, Dagmar ‘The study.’ InAlbrecht Dürer’s material world, edited by Edward H. Wouk and Jennifer Spinks, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023, pp. 175–178. 21 Wouk, Edward, ‘Albrecht Dürer’s Landscape with a Cannonof 1518: the matter of etching.’ InAlbrecht Dürer’s material world, edited by Edward H. Wouk and Jennifer Spinks, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023, pp. 99–111. 22 Barthes, Roland, ‘La mort de l’auteur’ dans Le bruissement de la langue. Essais critiques IV 1984. 23 Pon, Lisa, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print, Yale, 2004, pp. 20–35. 24 See for instance the wall-sized image of Bird’s Eye View of Venice of 1500. In general, the largest possible sheet of paper was the foglio imperial, standardized at 50 by 73 cm.
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