Gicleé Prints

Ben johns

Ben johns

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What exactly is a giclee print and is it better than ink jet? I did a quick search but didnt find too much info. I just stumbled onto them in whitewall, doesnt seem to be a big difference in price
 
Ben johns said:
What exactly is a giclee print and is it better than ink jet? I did a quick search but didnt find too much info. I just stumbled onto them in whitewall, doesnt seem to be a big difference in price
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Wikipedia has the history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giclée
It's really just a bit of artspeak jargon, so that galleries and dealers don't have to say anything as crass as 'inkjet' (see also 'gelatin silver print' for conventional black and white print, or 'C Type print' for chromogenic colour). It's implied that high quality materials have been used, though there's no fixed definition.

A LightJet is very different; it's a specific brand of printer that exposes conventional light-sensitive paper (or film) using a laser; the latent image is then developed chemically as usual. This technology can be used to make large, high quality prints.
 
Retune said:
It's really just a bit of artspeak jargon, so that galleries and dealers don't have to say anything as crass as 'inkjet'
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This.
 
Retune said:
Wikipedia has the history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giclée
It's really just a bit of artspeak jargon, so that galleries and dealers don't have to say anything as crass as 'inkjet' (see also 'gelatin silver print' for conventional black and white print, or 'C Type print' for chromogenic colour). It's implied that high quality materials have been used, though there's no fixed definition.

A LightJet is very different; it's a specific brand of printer that exposes conventional light-sensitive paper (or film) using a laser; the latent image is then developed chemically as usual. This technology can be used to make large, high quality prints.
Click to expand...
Ah right ok. I did wonder.
That’s cool, whitewall do light jet for their ilford black and white paper.
 
I used to feel that saying giclée was pretentious b******t and even a bit creepy, like wearing Hush Puppies and a velvet tie, but I've relented a bit since its usage is so widespread. In the end its about communication - if you describe a print just as 'inkjet', the average consumer might well equate that with something produced at home on an all-in-one that might fade over-quickly. So it might be best to qualify the term 'inkjet' with some reference to the inks and papers used - and indeed the quality of mountboard too if that applies.
 
One other reason you might want to avoid the term is the risk of being laughed at by the French:

‘We had a man named Jack Duganne working with us at the time, who recognized there was no way to talk about this,’ says Nash Editions’s Mac Holbert. ‘He felt that if we just called it “digital ink jet print,” it would have absolutely no impact on the art world. So he went home to his French dictionary and found the word “gicler,” which means “to spray” or “to jet.”’ (Later, the printers discovered that the term in French was slang for ‘to ejaculate,’ which pleased them even more.)

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/giclée
 
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