Agitprop, Part 3b
Ocean Waves, Hokusai, 1760-1849
Graphic Art
The staggering image by Hokusai, above, demonstrates that
impact is not a function of complexity, but of simplicity.
Hokusai’s art, like our Agitprop, was made for mass reproduction.
In those days, there was no polychrome printing. Only one or two colours would
be available, apart from black ink and white paper. The blocks were hand-carved
out of wood, and printed “in register”, one colour after another.
A modern equivalent of this kind of serial colour printing
is the digital duplicator, also called a CopyPrinter. This machine is a
development of the stencil (Gestetner; Roneo) process, now fully automatic and
computerised. It rolls the paper flat and cold passed rotating drums from which
ink is expressed through the stencil image. Different colour drums can be used
to create multi-colour effects, similar to the process used by Hokusai. The top of the range model can print on
both sides of the paper at a rate of up to 240 sheets per minute, although it
is a small machine. This is the cheapest, fastest method of printing at the
scale required by political organisations, and it allows full control.
In the years after the Great October 1917 proletarian
revolution in Russia, the only available colour other than black and white was
red. Yet the posters produced in the Soviet Union in those days are legendary
and they are still studied everywhere.
Have you volunteered for the
Red Army?, Dmitry Moor, 1920
- The above is the
third of three introductory texts that are compiled into a printable
booklet, “Paint, Posters and
Graphic Art”.
