Annotation – Written descriptions or commentary included within the composition of a two-dimensional work. Bertoia’s annotations often document the development of his sculptural ideas.
Brayer – A rubber roller used to apply ink to the paper or to press the paper onto the inked plate during the printing process.
Block Print – A form of printing Bertoia developed early in his career in which small blocks of geometrically-shaped wood are inked and stamped directly onto paper. This technique allowed for many variations in color and opacity, and the artist often stamped multiple times without re-inking in between.
Chromatic – Artworks that are composed of colors with hue, i.e. all colors except black, white, and gray. Bertoia’s early monotypes (c. 1940-1950) tend to have the greatest variety of color.
Cognate Print – A print that uses ink left over from a first impression to create an additional print. Bertoia’s method of placing paper on an inked plate and making markings on the back removes ink in the marked areas; this means that when a cognate was made, the line and tone were reversed from the original.
Collage – The technique of gluing flat materials (paper, photographs, fabrics) onto a surface to form a new composition. Bertoia made many monotype collages, i.e. monotypes cut and glued onto other monotypes.
Metallic – Bertoia occasionally added metallic powders to the printers' ink used in monotypes. This addition was not simply aesthetic: adding the powder helped thin the ink when it was, in Bertoia's words, “too fresh,” and thus prone to sticking to the paper too much.
Monochromatic – Artworks that are composed of a single color; the color may range from light to dark shades. Many of Bertoia’s monotypes are made with a single color of ink.
Monotype – A unique, or single-impression print. Monotypes do not require a press or specialized equipment; Bertoia typically made his monotypes by coating a plate with ink, pressing a dampened paper over the inked plate, and applying pressure on the back of the paper with small tools or rollers to create an image.
Paper – Bertoia used different kinds of papers for printing, but generally tended toward papers with some translucency. This allowed the artist to see partially the image he was making, but also left some mystery for, in his words, “the inner vision to take over the function of the eye.”
Fabriano Paper – A high-quality, thick cotton rag paper made in Italy, which Bertoia purchased on his trip to Italy in 1957. He used up the supply in the next year or two.
Japanese Paper – Traditional Japanese paper, or Washi, is handmade and composed of fibers from indigenous plants like the paper mulberry (kozo), gampi, and mitsumata. The labor-intensive process of stripping, soaking, beating, and drying the plant bark produces a thin, absorbent, and durable paper.
Laid Paper – Paper with a texture of fine lines, produced by the wire cover of the paper mold. In commercial use, laid paper was largely supplanted by the smoother wove paper in the nineteenth century.
Rice Paper – Papers made from thin layers of plant tissue from rice paper trees cultivated in China, Japan, and Thailand. The pith of the tree is cut in spirals to form long ribbons; these ribbons expose the cellular structure and give the paper a spongy structure. Rice paper is stretchy when wet and brittle when dry.
Tissue Paper – Thin, translucent paper; may be loosely felted and absorbent or it may have a hard, smooth surface.
Plate – A surface that ink is applied to in order to create a print. Bertoia’s plates were usually made of glass or masonite.
Stylus – A small tool used to create lines and markings in prints. Bertoia often used a sharpened stick or metal palette knife as a stylus.
Synchromy (or Synchrome) – A word Bertoia used to describe several groups of monotypes he made in the early 1940s. In a letter to Hilla Rebay from June 18, 1943, Bertoia defined “synchromy” as a “putting together of color,” but also noted that he was interested in the growth of ideas across the time and space of multiple artworks. “Synchromism” was first used by American painters Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell, who coined the term in the 1910s to imply the abstract use of color in a manner analogous to symphonic music. Ultimately, Bertoia may have found the descriptor less than apt: in an interview with Joan Lukach in 1978, the artist remarked that he knew of MacDonald-Wright's ideas, and that his selection of the term might have been mistaken. Noting that he was never very interested in color, Bertoia thought he might have actually meant synchrony. This latter suggestion of a primary relationship to time may be more fitting, as not all of the “Synchromy” prints are made with colored inks, but do often imply the transformation of line, shape, and form over a sequence of monotypes.
Wire (Dog) Brush – Bertoia used this pet grooming tool in many monotypes. Pressing the brush to the paper with a single motion produced many closely-grouped fine lines in the print. Bertoia also occasionally pressed the end of the brush to the paper without dragging it, resulting in a series of tiny dots.
Woodcut – Prints made by carving a design into a wooden block. The raised areas of the carving are inked to create an image, while the recessed areas remain blank. Woodcut prints are used to create multiples; the image is repeated with only small variations.