The word lithograph comes from the Greek lithos (stone) and graphein (to draw). A lithograph is a print made using the printing technique of lithography, which is a drawing on stone. Lithography uses a flat and heavy limestone polished to a very soft and flat surface to allow for an image or text to be drawn upon it for printing.
The process of lithography uses greasy crayons and pencils which an artist uses to directly draw their creation onto the lithographic stone. Limestone has certain properties which allows it to receive water and grease. After an artist finishes drawing their work on the stone, one can wet the stone and then ink it. The stone will receive water in the areas that were not drawn because the grease of the pens with repulse the water. Then one applies the inks, which will stick to where the drawing or text has been applied to the lithographic stone. After this you can print the image on paper which becomes your lithograph.
The lithograph will often look like an original drawing or pastel, but it will not smudge when you touch it. Lithography was accidentally discovered by the Austrian Alois Senefelder in the late 1700s while he was looking for a cheap way to reproduce images. Before Senefelder's discovery images had to be printed using specialized printing techniques in the hands of very highly skilled craftsmen, such as engravers and etchers.
The use of lithography allowed artists to draw their art directly to a stone and then print it, whereas earlier the artist needed to entrust their drawings or paintings to engravers that would then reproduce the art onto copper plates using specialized tools. The use of this middle-man left much room for error. Lithography changed all of this and allowed the artist to remove the intermediary of the craftsman and deliver the artist's inspiration directly without error of interpretation.
In the fields of science and technology the advent of lithography was revolutionary. For the first time in history accurate prints could be made to enhance all facets of science. For example, a great proliferation of botanical, animal, insects and fish prints were beginning to be made using the new technology of lithography. New techniques in industry could be illustrated with detail which allowed colossal change to take place and helped the industrial revolution of the 19th century spread as fast as it did. The world we lived in was catapulted to modernity thanks to the use of lithography as a new technology in printing. This fact is often forgotten in today's history books.
Today the use of lithography still continues almost exclusively as an industrialized printing method using photography and metal plates, however the art world has adopted lithography for artistic creation in large part thanks to the contributions of early 20th century artists such as Picasso who used the technique to produce prints of his modern art.
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