Eternal Values
«Goznak» has gained Paris in cards
At the World exhibition in 1937
In the middle of the 30s Moscow printing factory, being a member of the Association Goznak, had got an unusual order- for producing playing cards. Now the cards are kept in the special fund of Goznak together with the diploma of the World exhibition of art and technique in Paris. In 1937 at the exhibition a playing card of Goznak received the Grand Prix, having become the main sensation of the season.
The unique feature of these playing cards is that multicoloured (till 36inks) representation was made by the method of lithographic printing, with an ideal registration in colours including. It means- with complete absence of laying different inks on each other.
For getting it, a complex of special lithographic stones was made for every card from the deck. The technology of lithographic printing is of such kind that every colour in the representation requires its own stone. It means that if all 36 colours were used for the card, 36 stones were prepared for it.
The pictures themselves for the exhibition cards were chosen at the special competition. There were many drafts presented- painters decorated card queens, kings and jacks into either eastern dresses or folk costumes of people of the USSR. The winner became a painter from Palech Pavel Bazenov, the basic idea of the card pictures was sure to be Palech"s themes.
All the cards were with gold edges (unique "decoration" by tinsel). The combination of it with exclusive quality of printing and Palech"s pictures impressed the jury very much. And the Grand Prix directed from Paris to the Soviet Union.
For information. The method of lithographic reproduction of multicoloured images is called chromolithography. The colour-separating process is made by a master-chromolithographer approximately. While doing it there is no possibility to set the basic colours (yellow, purple and light-blue) apart from the mixed ones to the extent to reflect all colour shades of the original with their help. The same time representative elements are placed in the lithographic process manually: strokes by a pen or a pencil, dots by a pen and etc. All these are the reason for the fact that in the chromolithographic process, for example, instead of one light-blue colour it is necessary to use several shades of blue and light-blue ones, instead of one red colour- different shades of pink and red colours, moreover it is necessary to have separate forms for brown, green and other colours.
Anna Zaitseva
