The History of Canvas Printing

Canvas prints are currently the most popular way to personalize a room’s wall and give a unique touch to the room in general. They are known for their power to add interesting texture to the wall since they do not lay flat on it. Additionally, considering the endless printing, framing and size possibilities, it is now very easy to create a piece according to your preferences.

Once you throw in the affordability and possibility to print out any canvas print you want, it is no wonder that canvas prints are so popular among interior designers and artists. But, do you know how canvas prints became as popular as they are now?

We think that the history of the canvas is very interesting, so let’s look back to the beginnings of canvas printing.

The Beginnings of Canvas

It was before the Renaissance that artists used wood panels to create art. Of course, these are great backgrounds for a painting, but they came with various problems. As you probably know already, wood is susceptible to deterioration and rotting and may present a ‘difficult to handle’ painting surface. It was for exactly these reasons that people demanded a better surface for painting. This is the time where canvas becomes introduced in the world of art.

Artists who worked in the 15th Century began to acknowledge that if you stretch canvas across a wooden frame and prime it (usually with a gesso), this becomes an ideal painting surface. The product was versatile, while the fabric was made from almost everything, but mostly cotton, help or flax.

Canvas was much more durable than wood as a material, especially in cities along the Mediterranean where humidity destroyed the wood rapidly. This was a serious problem since wood paintings were not so cost-effective and presented a luxury for the people.

Once the news about canvas was picked up on by Renaissance painters in the 16th century, canvas become what it is today – one of the most popular mediums for painting, first for oil and later for acrylics.

Introduction of Canvas Prints

To make the story shorter, we will flash forward to canvas prints…

Painting on canvas goes back hundreds of years and is very elegant, but printing on canvas has become the biggest trend of today’s interior designers. Printing methods are used for creating canvas photographs for several years now, starting in the 1990s when inkjet and dye sublimation were first used.

This was an expensive process at the beginning, but became much more cost-effective once technology became more widely available. As a result, the number of printed canvasses increased greatly, with canvas prints added to every room in the house or place of business. Today, anyone can order a custom canvas print at a highly affordable price and even use their own photograph for display.

This is the best time to add canvas prints to the walls of your home and office! With the advance in technology, we can now transform any of your photos into a piece of art to hang on the walls!