Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

Professor: You'll remember we talked about the 19th century French artist Edgar Degas, who was greatly influenced by the artistic movement called Impressionism. I think he makes a good starting point for our discussion this morning. Degas and the Impressionists sought to portray objects and people in a whole new way. For instance, they tried to capture the changing effects of sunlight on a landscape or the swirl of color in a room full of ballet dancers. Anyone remember what we said about the evolution of Degas's style, Charles?

Male Student: Okay, so he starts out as a very realistic painter, very precise detail, but as time goes on he starts emphasizing movement and light rather than exact representations.

Professor: Fine. So, and we'll see how this change in his style was influenced by a new way of producing graphic work, one that Degas experimented with extensively. Well, I really shouldn't say new way because it was actually developed two hundred years earlier, but it was virtually ignored until the 19th century until it was adopted by Degas and a few of his contemporaries. I'm referring to the monotype.

Professor: A monotype is made by painting the design on a flat glass or metal surface and then transferring the design onto a piece of paper. You lay the paper atop the painted surface and apply pressure. This creates a mirror image of the design. And because the paint smears and spreads during the pressing in- somewhat unpredictable ways- there's always an element of surprise in the outcome. The artist relinquishes some degree of control over the final product. Yes, Marsha?

Female Student: Now that I really don't get the unpredictability. Artists like Degas were so careful and concerned about every detail in their paintings. Why wouldn't they just paint exactly what they wanted directly onto the canvas?

Professor: Perhaps because this process creates spontaneous configurations and textures which can be appealing to an artist and impossible to achieve through normal painting techniques—happy accidents, you might say. Now, because most of the paint is transferred to the paper during the first printing, the artist can make only one print.

Female Student：So how is that an advantage? Professor: Well, it...it gives the print singularity, uniqueness. Although actually it's sometimes possible to create one or two so-called echo prints—lighter copies with whatever paint still remains on the surface. Now, what I've just described to you is known as the light field method of making monotypes. It produces a dark image on a light-colored background. There's also another method-the dark field method, which creates the opposite effect. The artist completely covers the glass or metal with paint and then draws a design in it using fingers, a paintbrush handle, whatever, to remove some of the paint. When the design is transferred to paper, those areas appear light on a dark background.

Female Student: You know, that reminds me of when we discussed ancient Greek vase painting. Professor: Uh huh.

Female Student: All the vases were made of red clay, but there were two kinds. One type had black figures, uh...mainly people—painted onto the clay, so black figures on a red background. With the other type, the whole vase was painted black and then the figures were created by scratching some paint off. So the figures appear to be red on a black background. Professor: Right, good analogy. Question.

Female Student: Yeah, ah I was skimming through our textbook and I remember seeing something about... um, monoprint, so I was wondering, is monoprint just another way of saying monotype?

Professor: Ah, okay. Actually there is a distinction, but many people, many publications have used these two terms interchangeably. And well, they'd really have to be forgiven for this, right? However, technically the essential difference is that the monoprint can be reproduced many times over. The artist carves or designs directly into the glass or metal using a sharp tool and then applies paint and makes prints as many times as he or she wants. The artist can also create different versions of the print by adding new elements, varying the color of the paint, and so forth. But the monotype, that's pretty much a one-time deal. And back to the nineteenth century, a number of impressionist artists were intrigued by this technique. Degas notably created hundreds of monotypes, often highlighting the resulting unplanned patterns by touching them up, defining them with pastel chalks, taking advantage of the spontaneity.