The word lithography is made up of the Greek terms "Lithos" which means " stone " and "graphia" which means drawing. Therefore lithography is a drawing technique, which during its beginnings consisted of stamping a text or drawing on a stone or metal plate. The person who devised this technique was the German-born typewriter Aloys Senefelder in the year 1796.
At first, lithographic printing was carried out in the following way: the image was drawn on the stone, which was generally of the limestone type. Later, the image was covered with a thin layer of nitritic acid and gum arabic, which is immediately repelled by the drawn parts, because they are not compatible. The stone is immediately inked, causing only the drawn area to be impregnated with ink, thanks to the natural adherence existing between greasy substances. Finally, a sheet of paper is pressed on the lithographic stone, to obtain the impression of the drawing.
Another characteristic of the characteristics of this technique is that for each color used, it is necessary to use a different stone and, obviously, the paper will have to be moved through the printing press as many times as inks are used. Moreover, in lithographic images, letters can not be removed and reused much less at another site, since they are unique and require redrawn for each use.
At present this technique has stopped being used a lot and is only used in the reproduction of artistic works. When newspapers and other publications emerged, flexible sheets of zinc, aluminum, and lately plastic began to be used, thus replacing heavy lithographic stones.
A las empresas de artes gráficas, en la actualidad, todavía se le llaman litografías.
