De jachtavonturen van Tartarin 1876 - 1898

This print by L. Le Riverend presents Tartarin's hunting adventures. It's a lithograph, which is a printmaking technique using a flat stone or metal plate, where the design is drawn with a greasy substance. The stone is then treated so that the non-drawn areas attract water and the drawn areas attract ink. This method allowed for relatively quick reproduction of images, fitting into the expanding print culture of the time, feeding into mass media and consumption. The image is of a series of comic strip scenes. The lithographic process allowed the artist to create delicate lines and tonal variations, which define the forms, animals, and people depicted in the artwork. It's not just about the image, but also about the means of production. The lithograph medium itself— a product of industrialization—became a vehicle for humor and storytelling, blurring the lines between art and mass culture. It reminds us that art doesn't exist in a vacuum, but in the messy, complicated world of labor, technology, and politics.