TEXTILE PRINTING

The Printing of Textiles:

• Textile printing, the various processes by which fabrics are printed in colored design, is an ancient art. 
• India exported block prints to the Mediterranean region in the 5th cent. B.C., and Indian chintz was imported into Europe during the Renaissance and widely imitated.
• Early forms of textile printing are stencil work, highly developed by Japanese artists, and block printing. 
• In the latter method a block of wood, copper, or other material bearing a design in intaglio with the dye paste applied to the surface is pressed on the fabric and struck with a mallet. 
• A separate block is used for each color, and pitch pins at the corners guide the placing of the blocks to assure accurate repeating of the pattern. 
• In cylinder or roller printing, developed c.1785, the fabric is carried on a rotating central cylinder and pressed by a series of rollers each bearing one color. 
• The design is engraved on the copper rollers by hand or machine pressure or etched by pantograph or photoengraving methods
• The color paste is applied to the rollers through feed rollers rotating in a color box, the color being scraped off the smooth portion of the rollers with knives.
• More recent printing processes include screen printing, a hand method especially suitable for large patterns with soft outlines, in which screens, one for each color, are placed on the fabric and the color paste pressed through by a wooden squeegee; 
• spray printing, in which a spray gun forces the color through a screen; and electrocoating, used to apply a patterned pile. 
• Color may be applied by the various processes directly; by the discharge method, which uses chemicals to destroy a portion of a previously dyed ground; or by the resist, or reserve, method, which prevents the development of a subsequently applied color to a portion of the fabric treated with a chemical or with a mechanical resist.