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Collotype Company Benrido, Kyoto, Japan, produced 8 images of Osorezan+Goshogawara in Collotype printing technique.
-- Striving to connect our past with the future
And the revival of beautiful artifacts –
The Legend of Benrido and Collotype
In the digital age of the 21st century, where electronic commercial technology is displacing the traditional ways of making prints at a speed too fast for nostalgia, finely crafted handmade prints are becoming legacies of the past.
In the ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto, where traditional craftsmanship has been inherited from generation to generation, the artistries of paper making, printing, binding, framing, and other forms of workmanship continue to be cultivated while enriching our hearts with beautiful artifacts that account for these splendid artisanship. In the legend of artistry, a tiny rental bookshop founded in 1887 miraculously evolved itself into a prestigious printing establishment long before the arrival of the millennium. For over a century, Benrido has turned in over 2,500 full-scale reproductions of Japanese national treasures and cultural assets by utilizing a printing process known as collotype.
Collotype, a printing process developed in France approximately 150 years ago, is a printing technique invented during the dawning era of alternative process and printing. The distinctive merit of its continuous tone process, which makes it capable of minute expressions, and its archival ability, have been used as a reproduction technique for the preservation, exhibition and research of Japanese cultural assets since its introduction in Japan more than a century past.
Expending beyond the horizon of black-and-white, Benrido, a veteran and a vanguard at composing images created by this technical fusion of photography and printmaking, pioneered its unique multi-layer color collotype process in the 1960's. Highly experienced in replicating significant cultural properties, varied in sizes and formats, the master printers at Benrido are practiced to deliver prints on an array of materials in full scale, including the delicately hand crafted Japanese paper, such as gampi vellum, silk, and linen.
And now, Benrido, a forerunner in the development, advancement and perseverance of collotype, is employing this extraordinary process that has been with us for one and a half centuries to inspire new possibilities in the realm of fine art photography by extending the creative potential of photographic images beyond the limits of conventional photographic paper. Exuberant and richly printed with top quality ink, the collotype prints produced by the atelier at Benrido resurrects all the nuance and ambiance of the original image while maintaining extraordinary archival stability. Needless to say, the warmth and smoothness these prints radiate are digitally incomparable.
-- Striving to connect our past with the future
And the revival of beautiful artifacts –
The Legend of Benrido and Collotype
In the digital age of the 21st century, where electronic commercial technology is displacing the traditional ways of making prints at a speed too fast for nostalgia, finely crafted handmade prints are becoming legacies of the past.
In the ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto, where traditional craftsmanship has been inherited from generation to generation, the artistries of paper making, printing, binding, framing, and other forms of workmanship continue to be cultivated while enriching our hearts with beautiful artifacts that account for these splendid artisanship. In the legend of artistry, a tiny rental bookshop founded in 1887 miraculously evolved itself into a prestigious printing establishment long before the arrival of the millennium. For over a century, Benrido has turned in over 2,500 full-scale reproductions of Japanese national treasures and cultural assets by utilizing a printing process known as collotype.
Collotype, a printing process developed in France approximately 150 years ago, is a printing technique invented during the dawning era of alternative process and printing. The distinctive merit of its continuous tone process, which makes it capable of minute expressions, and its archival ability, have been used as a reproduction technique for the preservation, exhibition and research of Japanese cultural assets since its introduction in Japan more than a century past.
Expending beyond the horizon of black-and-white, Benrido, a veteran and a vanguard at composing images created by this technical fusion of photography and printmaking, pioneered its unique multi-layer color collotype process in the 1960's. Highly experienced in replicating significant cultural properties, varied in sizes and formats, the master printers at Benrido are practiced to deliver prints on an array of materials in full scale, including the delicately hand crafted Japanese paper, such as gampi vellum, silk, and linen.
And now, Benrido, a forerunner in the development, advancement and perseverance of collotype, is employing this extraordinary process that has been with us for one and a half centuries to inspire new possibilities in the realm of fine art photography by extending the creative potential of photographic images beyond the limits of conventional photographic paper. Exuberant and richly printed with top quality ink, the collotype prints produced by the atelier at Benrido resurrects all the nuance and ambiance of the original image while maintaining extraordinary archival stability. Needless to say, the warmth and smoothness these prints radiate are digitally incomparable.
