Modern Practice
Prints by artists today may potentially retain their financial value as art (i.e., as an appreciating investment) because they are created by an artistic process rather than by a strictly mechanical one, and may become scarce because the number of multiples is limited. In Rembrandt's time, the limit on the size of an edition was practical: a plate degrades through use, putting an upper limit on the number of images to be struck. Plates can be reworked and restored to some degree, but it is generally not possible to create more than a thousand prints from any process except lithography or woodcut. A few hundred is a more practical upper limit, and even that allows for significant variation in the quality of the image. In drypoint, 10 or 20 may be the maximum number of top-quality impressions possible.
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Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or practice:
“All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“They never consulted with books, and know and can tell much less than they have done. The things which they practice are said not yet to be known.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)