Taş Basmalarım (Söyleşi) | Prof. Mustafa Aslıer

INTERVIEW WITH ASLIER

My Lithography

I was twenty years old when I first saw monotype technique pictures that gave stone printing pictures.

I wanted to produce human images that look like those of Goya, Daumier's charcoal drawings.

It was written in the books and magazines that they had 'Lithography' under the Daumier drawings, which I saw similar prints.

I had the passion to learn what this technique is. I was a student at Gazi Education Institute Painting Department. There were no materials and equipment about lithography in the department.

I turned to the monotype technique, which gave pictures with lithography look. By drawing on the back side of the paper I lay on the very fine printing paint I applied with a roller on the glass face, I got the same results as the lithographs I saw. I pictured human subjects from my close environment with this technique. These paintings, which were exhibited at the "Young Santy Exhibition" at the Community Center, in 1947, were liked and awarded.

My passion for learning techniques like lithography and metal engraving has become unbearable. One day, I learned that there is a master of stone pressing in the workshops of Ankara Male Clock Institute.

I found Rasim Arseven master while working at the beginning of the stone pressing handpress, which I saw in the books.

Rasim Arseven was an artist who knew his work well enough to draw original line art on the stone by pressing. The information was a secret for others. Seeing that I drew a group of people quite well from a dream on a small stone he gave, he opened his secret information to me. The first stone prints of 1949 on porters and coffee were realized with the help of Rasim Usta.

I translated a book about Daumier's art, which I received in those days, into Turkish with the help of a dictionary and a student friend in the French Department. In this way, I learned the history and technique of stone pressing.

Aloys Senefelder of German origin found and developed the technique. The name of the Turkish language in the 'Stone Basman money with German called it ' Steindruck' . In a few years the French ancient called it in Greek Litos: Stone, Grafayn: removing the write-draw the word 'Lithography ' have coined the term. Senefelder also accepted and used this name.

Stone, which is the main element of this technique, is a kind of limestone formed by the sedimentation of the shells of microscopic creatures in the waters underground. While dry on a flattened face, a picture is drawn with a sealer pen or ink. The oil is applied to the face of the stone after wetting. The fact that oil and water repel each other ensures that only traces of painting are paint. Then the painting is printed on paper with the help of a press. If you know what you paint on paper with a pencil, nib or watercolor brush, you can paint it on the stone and print it in the same look.

Senefelder developed this technique by trying all the possibilities. Multicolored prints are like using metal sheets instead of stone molds. Zinc, aluminum and their alloys can be used instead of stone today. Lithographic stones mined from two quarries are no longer removed in Bavaria alone. Old stones are also scarce. However, all the pictorial results achieved with stone mold can be achieved with grainy metal and also specially prepared paper molds.

I tried all kinds of patterns. I use the stone molds of all sizes and enough for the prints I will make in Istanbul and metal engraving press during the winter months.

My stones and stone presses are in my workshop in Marmara Island. I work with them in the summer.

Prints titled "Analı Lament" (1980), "Mysterious Carpet" (1993) were printed in grainy zinc and aluminum molds and 1993 small-sized color images were printed on paper molds.

In Germany, where I went to learn graphic arts and techniques, I had the opportunity to learn all the printing and original printing and painting techniques, and especially the printing technology that includes offset, at the engineering level. In addition, I worked with original printed painting techniques such as lithography, metal and wood engravings, screen printing, and I could see the originals and workshops of the works of old and new great painters in Europe.

I made the full copy of an oversized stone printing press that I saw at the National Education Press at the Sultan Ahmet Arts Institute. In 1992, 70x150cm. I bought a press plate metal engraving press from Germany. According to those years, Turkey's first and fully equipped printmaking studio State Applied founded in the School of Fine Arts oldu.öğrenci Among together an intensive study başlattık.k I except katıldılar.bedr to work in our workshop as a guest, as I said in other artists Dabas Rahmi Eyüpoğlu Jihad He also came from foreign countries such as Burak, like Swiss Gahnang, German Josua Reichert, American Lingreen.

Let's come to my stone pressures; After the metal press was installed, students and guest artists liked metal engraving more. I think it was difficult to deal with heavy stones. I joined this trend. For ten years, I only worked on metal engraving.

In 1970, I again pressed stone to encourage young artists.

The events of the workshop in these years gained general interest with the works of an artist like Fevzi Karakoç. The stone prints of Karakoç, who works as a student, as an assistant and then as a lecturer in the workshop, deserve all kinds of praise.

Especially in recent years, the number of people working in the workshop as assistants or art proficiency students has increased. These young people produce original and new very successful works in terms of art and technique with new experiments and research that exceed the techniques and dimensions of stone pressing.

Let's finally come to the artistic scrutiny of my stone prints; As I said at the beginning, I turned to the art of painting to produce pictures with people. I used stone-pressing techniques to enrich the pictorial experiment traces, image diversity and expression possibilities, as I did in other techniques. Undoubtedly, painting consists of purely pictorial elements.

The subject was not important. It is the answer to the question of what, not what, that gives personal originality. I believe that original expressions, which also address human emotions and thoughts without neglecting the answers to the question of how, contribute only to formal originality.

Have I been able to integrate what and how I have formalized my personal originality in the same direction from the beginning? As I was writing this article, I asked myself again.

My answer is ' ' You believe that your paintings are the traces left after your experiments and researches. Keep trying. I also think that our people are not reflected in the sound and vocal arts. So don't hesitate to put people together when dealing with painting elements. ''

In my stone prints, do people and elements of painting integrate in new form and color relationships, new constructions and expressions and create a contemporary "Aslier painting"? I am in an effort to create and maintain this integrity every time I try new. At least by seeing those people are my people.