Richard Benson of Newport.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

Granted, it’s not the sort of thing that keeps most people awake at night. But if you’ve ever wondered about the differences between, say, etchings and engravings or puzzled over arcane terms such as “giclee,” “duotone” and “mezzotint,” you’re in luck.

The Printed Picture, a new book by Newport photographer and print scholar Richard Benson, has the answers you’ve been looking for. Indeed the book, which also serves as the catalog for an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (also titled “The Printed Picture,” through May 2009), may be the best introduction to prints and printmaking in a generation.

“It really is a kind of magnum opus,” says Benson, a longtime Yale University professor and a 1986 winner of a coveted MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” “Most of the book is based on the lectures I’ve been giving at Yale for the past 30 years. Many of the examples are things that I’ve collected. So, yes, it’s sort of a grand summing up of what I’m about.”

But the book also has a secondary purpose — one that Benson is a lot less happy about. That purpose? To sound the death knell for printmaking as we know it.

“Basically, we’re on the verge of one of great artistic extinctions in history,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong. People will continue to make etchings, engravings and other kinds of prints. But increasingly they’re going to be seen as antiquarian processes — of interest mainly to scholars, connoisseurs and other pointy-headed types. Printmaking as it’s been practiced for the past 500 years — and in the case of photography, for the past 150-plus years — is on its last legs.”

For Benson, who comes from a family of artists and artisans that includes the legendary designer and stone-carver John Howard Benson and the painter Christopher Benson, the reasons for printmaking’s demise are as clear as the lines on an Old Master etching.

The digital revolution — and above all the rise of new computer-based printers and scanners — has rendered many of the more traditional printing processes obsolete.

“Just look at what’s happening in photography these days,” he says. “On the one hand, photographs are everywhere — on billboards, in books and magazines, all over the galleries and museums. On the other hand, how many of the people who took those photographs also printed them? How many were even printed in a darkroom? I’ll tell you how many: almost none.”

Benson is especially dismissive of computer-based printing techniques.

“Absolute dreck,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned, the digital printing industry is roughly at the same stage the Model T was around 1910. It’ll get you where you want to go, but it’s really no fun getting there. And, of course, the darn thing keeps breaking down.”

Based on those remarks, it might be tempting to write the 64-year-old Benson off as a technological Luddite, opposed to any change in status quo. But as it turns out, his views on the coming print apocalypse are a lot more nuanced than you might expect.

For example, Benson happily admits to owning a digital camera.

“I think it’s great,” he says. “Years ago, I used to haul around an old view camera which probably weighed upwards of 20 pounds. I don’t think today’s digital cameras can match the picture quality of that old view camera. But they’re a lot easier to carry. What’s more, the amount of information they can record is a lot better than any of the old handheld film cameras.”

Nor is Benson opposed to change in general. After all, many of the art forms described in The Printed Picture evolved from earlier processes and techniques.

So-called copper plate engraving, for example, first came into widespread use in the 16th century. But the process, in which a needle-like tool called a “burin” is used to gouge lines into a copper sheet, was so physically demanding that only a few specialists could master it.

Then, someone had a bright idea.

Rather than working directly on the copper, they coated the plate with a layer of wax, then used the burin to create an image in the (much softer) wax. As a final step, they applied an acid solution that removed the wax while chemically dissolving any exposed parts of the plate. The result — an etching — proved to be one of great breakthroughs in the history of printmaking.

Benson’s own medium, photography, has followed a similar path. The first widely used photographic process, the daguerreotype, produced startlingly detailed pictures. Unfortunately, the daguerreotype (named for its French inventor, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre) also had a major drawback: the process produced one-of-a-kind images that could not be reproduced.

It wasn’t until several decades after the daguerreotype process was introduced that the familiar system of printing photographs from negatives became popular.

So what is Benson against? In a sense, it’s the same objection raised by many people who worry about our increasing reliance on technology: the loss of the human touch.

“Basically, what you’re seeing is a growing distance between prints and printmakers,” he says. “It used to be that the maker was involved in every aspect of the printmaking process. Now, they just push a button — or more likely, pay someone to push the button for them.”

Though he worries about the poor quality of digital printing, Benson’s main concern is for artists who increasingly rely on technology to do their work for them. Ultimately, he says, the growing distance between artists and their work threatens to undermine creativity itself.

“How can you know something if you’re not involved in making it?” he asks.

Benson’s message — that the best art tends to emerge slowly during the art-making process, rather than in a single flash of digitally-enhanced insight — may not be one that today’s art world wants to hear. But it’s one that is deeply rooted in his own work and background.

His father, John Howard Benson, was a towering figure who almost single-handedly raised stone-carving from largely menial trade into the realm of fine art. As the owner of the John Stevens Shop, a Newport stone-carving business that traces its roots back to the Colonial period, Benson created the inscriptions for dozens of monuments around the country.

He was also a noted designer, author and calligrapher.

After the elder Benson’s death in 1956, Benson’s brother, John Everett “Fud” Benson, took over the Stevens shop. Among his many projects are the inscriptions for the John F. Kennedy Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery and Prudential Center in Boston.

Nowadays, the Stevens shop is run by John Everett’s son, Nicholas Benson, who designed and carved the inscriptions for the World War II Memorial in Washington.

Though his tool of choice is a camera not a chisel, Richard Benson also takes a hands-on approach to his work. One of his first jobs, for example, was working for a small printing company in Connecticut. The experience, which included finding ways to improve the quality of company’s products, sparked a lifelong interest in the nuts and bolts side of printing and printmaking.

“That was a great experience,” he says. “It gave me a chance to see things that not many people in my profession get to see. It gave me a chance to get ink under my nails.”

Since then, Benson has continued to tinker with traditional printing and printmaking processes. In the early 1980s, for example, he developed a new process for printing photographs that used an aluminum-based emulsion rather than the traditional silver emulsions. He’s also helped publishers refine the techniques used in printing art books and museum catalogs.

As a photographer, Benson also takes a hands-on approach. Though he uses a digital camera, he prints all of his own photographs by hand. (Note: an exhibit of Benson’s photographs is currently on display at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York City, through Nov. 29.)

Despite his success, Benson refuses to put on airs.

Asked about his MacArthur fellowship, for example, he dismisses it a fluke. “I still think it was a case of mistaken identity,” he says. “Maybe they mistook me for my brother.”

bvansicl@projo.com