Printmaking during the First World War: the ‘unseen moving goal’

Abstract : The broad aim of this chapter is to examine the ethical function of wartime art during the FOrst World War. It focuses on printmaking in the context of the revival of the graphic arts and draws from the theory of craft to determine how media such as lithography and wood-engraving contributed to an ethics of the creative gesture in a way that differed from photography and painting. As specific modes of individual expression and responsiveness, they displayed a utopian ideal that conveyed an implicit critique of mechanised war.