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[fw]

Hello everyone.

The following is a passage from an article about Ren� Magritte.

Ren� Magritte�s first paintings were like most other paintings of his time; he used color lithograph in a Realist style. However, he was gradually attracted by the strange combination of objects found in the works of Giorgio de Chirico. Magritte recollects that he was moved to tears when he first saw de Chirico's "Song of Love" (4) in 1922.

My question is about "color lithograph" in the first sentence below. Dictionaries at hand say the word �lithograph� is uncountable noun. I wonder "color lithograph" above should have been "a color lithograph" or "color lithographs."

This may seem to be a trivial thing to native speakers of English, but it sticks with me. Could you give me a hand?

Best regards,

Fw

[MrPedantic]

Hello Fw

"Color lithograph" is uncountable when you're referring to the medium, and countable when you're referring to a particular item. Thus:

1. In these 12 pictures, executed in colour lithograph, woodcut and drypoint, we can see clearly the influence of Kandinsky.

� here, "colour lithograph", "woodcut", and "drypoint" are the mediums.

2. I went out yesterday and bought 12 colour lithographs by Kandinsky.

� here, "colour lithographs" refers to individual artworks executed in that medium.

Bye
MrP

[fw]

Thanks, MrPedantic, for your easy-to-understand explanation.
It helps a lot.

fw