Relief printing technique and its reflections on the its Turkish printmaking

In the thesis entitled ?Relief Printing Techniques and Its Reflectıons on the Turkısh Prıntmakıng?, the historical process of the oldest printmaking technique which is known as relief printing techniques in the world and in Turkey has been analysed. In this respect, the importance of relief printing techniques in the Turkish printmaking and the artists who have produced art works using relief printing techniques their understanding of art and the art works they have created using relief printing techniques has also been studied.Relief printing techniques is described as the first printmaking technique which rests on the principle that the places which want to be printed in a flat level should be placed higher and the places which do not want to be printed should come out by caving out. In this technique, linoleum and wood blocks are used. While the woodcut ;one of the relief printing techniques; woodcut has first been used on the fabrics, this technique has let one block create many blocks following the discovery of the paper in China. The first woodcut on the paper is called ?Teaching of Diamond Sutra? which includes pictured texts and also described by Wang Chienh in A.D. 868. While, at the beginning, relief printing techniques has only aimed at copying, during the historical process, it has changed, evolved and interpreted thus leading to more application areas. Therefore, relief printing techniques has been used also in the copying and spreading of the art Works of the famous artists after the game cards and the religious books has been printed and spread. While this technique has made progress as the expression of the estetics in the world paralel to the changes in the society and progress, from time to time it has also been used at the expression statements of the political and social events. After the invention of the printing house in the 15th century by Gutenberg, the woodcut technique were used in the religious content books in Germany, France, Italy and Spain and the development of this technique has been the most important technique used by the artists having estetics concerns at the end of 15th century. During the 17th century, relief printing has been applied by Ukiyo-e artists in Japan which has affected the artists in Europe in return and xylography has again acclerated as an expression of the art. Linolium has frst been used in 1867 by the French artist Çizek who has taught art lessons in the schools and reaches to its climax with the reduction technique which is found by Picasso. One of the techniques used in the relief printing techniques; woodcut, has first been used in Turkey in 1730 in the book called ?Tarih-i Hindi Garbi? printed by İbrahim Müteferrika. After the establisment of the Turkish Republic, woodcut and linocut techniques have started to be used in many art schools and many artists have been sent to Europe in order to get art education. With the return of these artists to Turkey, they have undertaken major tasks for the printmaking technique to develop and spread in the country. The artists have given trainings in relief printing technique because of the social and cultural conditions in this period.The artists have used the appropriate substances as their expressions in the universality of the art printing. In this respect, one of the printmaking techniques which is xylography is one of the most suitable techniques for the people who will start the printmaking technique in the first place. The printmaking technique is preferred as the beginning point especially in the Faculty of Fine Arts and this technique has also found its application fields in the museums and the special workshops.In the third part of this thesis, which makes up one of the most important part, interviews have been made with the artists who apply relief printing techniques, their technical choice reasons and their art understandings have been analysed and assessed. In accordance with the content of this thesis, the technique of xylography has been stated ans applications have been used by the researcher using the xylography.