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WOOD ENGRAVING
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See also:WOOD See also:ENGRAVING , the See also:art of engraving (q.v.) on wood, by lines so cut that the See also:design stands in See also:relief. This method of engraving was historically the earliest, done for the purpose of taking impressions upon See also:paper or other material. It is natural that wood engraving should have occurred first to the See also:primitive mind, because the manner in which woodcuts are printed is the most obvious of all the kinds of See also:printing. If a See also:block of wood is inked with a greasy See also:ink and then pressed on a piece of paper, the ink from the block will be transferred at once to the paper, on which we shall have a See also:black patch exactly the See also:size and shape of the inked See also:surface. Now, suppose that the See also:simple See also:Chinese who first discovered this was ingenious enough to go a step further, it would evidently occur to him that if one of the elaborate signs, each of which in his own See also:language stood for a word, were See also:drawn upon the block of wood, in See also:reverse, and then the whole of the See also: European wood engraving See also:dates certainly from the first See also:quarter of the 15th See also:century. It used to be believed that a cut of St See also:Christopher (now in the See also:Rylands library, See also:Manchester), rudely executed and dated 1423, was the See also:Adam of all our wood-cuts, but since 1844 investigations have somewhat shaken this theory. There is a cut in the See also:Brussels library, of the " Virgin and See also:Child " surrounded by four See also:saints, which is dated 1418, but the See also:composition is so elegant and the See also:drawing so refined and beautiful, that one has a difficulty in accepting the date, though it is received by many as See also:authentic, while it is repudiated by others in the belief that the letters have been tampered with. The " Virgin and Child " of the See also:Paris library is without date, but is supposed, apparently with See also:reason, to be earlier than either of the two mentioned; and See also:Delaborde proved that two cuts were printed in 1406. The "Virgin and Child " at Paris may be taken as a See also:good representative specimen of very See also:early European wood engraving. It is simple art, but not See also:bad art. The forms are drawn in bold thick lines, and the black blot is used with much effect in the hollows and recesses of the design. Beyond this there is no shading. Rude as the See also:work is, the artist has expressed exquisite maternal tenderness in the See also:chief details of the design. The Virgin is crowned, and stands against a See also:niche-like decoration with pinnacles as often seen in illuminated See also:manuscripts. In the woodcut this architectural decoration is boldly but effectively drawn. Here, then, we have real art already, art in which appeared both vigour of See also:style and tenderness of feeling. The earliest wood engraving consisted of outlines and white spaces with smaller black spaces, cut with a See also:knife, not with a graver, and shading lines are rare or absent. Before passing to shaded woodcuts we may mention a kind of wood engraving practised in the See also:middle of the 15th century by a See also:French engraver (often called See also:Bernard Milnet, though his name is a matter of doubt) and by other engravers nearer the beginning of that century. This method is called the crible, a word for which there is no convenient See also:translation in See also:English, unless we See also:call it drilled. It means riddled with small holes, as a See also:target may be riddled with small shot. The effect of See also:light and dark is produced in this kind of engraving by sinking a See also:great number of See also:round holes of different diameters in the substance of the wood, which, of course, all come white in the printing; it is, in effect, a sort of stippling in white. When a more advanced kind of wood engraving had become prevalent the crible was no longer used for See also:general purposes, but it was retained for the grounds of decorative wood engraving, being used occasionally in See also:borders for pages, in printers' marks and other designs, which were survivals in black and white of the See also:ancient art of See also:illuminating. Curiously enough, this kind of wood engraving, though See also:long disused for purposes of art, was in See also:recent times revived with excellent effect for scientific purposes, 'mainly as a method of See also:illustration for astronomical books. The black given by the untouched wooden block represents the See also:night See also:sky, and the holes, smaller or larger, represent in white the stars and See also:planets of lesser or greater magnitude. The See also:process was perfectly adapted to this purpose, being cheap, rapid and simple. It has also been used in a spasmodic and experimental manner by one or two modern engravers. The earlier workmen turned their See also:attention to woodcut in simple black lines, including outline and shading. In early work the outline is See also:firm and very distinct, being thicker in See also:line than the shading, and in the shading the lines are simple, without See also:cross-hatchings, as the workmen found it easier and more natural to take out a white line-like space between two parallel or nearly parallel black lines than to cut out the twenty or See also:thirty small white lozenges into which the same space would have been divided by cross-hatchings. The early work would also sometimes retain the simple black patch which we find in Japanese woodcuts, for example, in the " See also:Christmas Dancers," of See also:Wohlgemuth, all the shoes are black patches, though there is no discrimination of See also:local See also:colour in anything else. A precise parallel to this treatment is to be found in a Japanese woodcut of the " See also:Wild See also:Boar and See also:Hare," given by Aime See also:Humbert in his See also:book on See also:Japan, in which the boar has a cap which is a perfectly black patch though all other local colour is omitted. The similarity of method between Wohlgemuth and the Japanese artist is See also:close: they both take See also:pleasure in drawing thin black lines at a little distance from the patch and following its shape like a border. In course of See also:time, as wood engravers became more See also:expert, they were not so careful to spare themselves trouble and pains, and then cross-hatchings were introduced, but at first more as a variety to relieve the See also:eye than as a See also:common method of shading. In the 16th century a simple kind of wood engraving reached such a high degree of perfection that the best work of that time has never been surpassed in its own way. Wood engraving in the 16th century was much more conventional than it became in more recent times, and this very conventionalism enabled it to See also:express what it had to express with greater decision and See also:power. The wood engraver in those days was See also:free from many difficult conditions which hampered his modern successor. He did not care in the least about aerial See also:perspective, and nobody expected him to care about it; he did not trouble his mind about local colour, but generally omitted it, sometimes, however, giving it here and there, but only when it suited his See also:fancy. As for light-and-shade, he shaded only when he wanted to give relief, but never worked out anything like a studied and balanced effect of light-and-shade, nor did he feel any responsibility about the matter. What he really cared for, and generally attained, was a firm, clear, simple kind of drawing, conventional in its indifference to the See also:mystery of nature and to the poetic sentiment which comes to us from that mystery, but by no means indifferent to fact of a decided and tangible kind. The wood engraving of the 16th century was a singularly See also:positive art, as positive as See also:carving; indeed, most of the famous woodcuts of that time might be translated into carved panels without much loss of See also:character. Their See also:complete See also:independence of pictorial conditions might be illustrated by many examples. In Darer's " Salutation " the dark See also:blue of the sky above the Alpine mountains is translated bydark shading, but so far is this piece of local colour from being carried out in the See also:rest of the composition that the important foreground figures, with their draperies, are shaded as if they were white statues. Again, the sky itself is false in its shading, for it is without gradation, but the shading upon it has a purpose, which is to prevent the upper See also:part of the composition from looking too empty, and the conventionalism of wood engraving was so accepted in those days that the artist could have recourse to this expedient in See also:defiance alike of pictorial harmony and of natural truth. In See also:Holbein's admirable See also:series of small well-filled compositions, the " See also:Dance of See also:Death," the firm and matter-of-fact drawing is accompanied by a sort of light-and-shade adopted simply for convenience, with as little reference to natural truth as might be expected in a stained-See also:glass window. There is a most interesting series of little woodcuts drawn and engraved in the 16th century by J. See also:Amman as illustrations of the different handicrafts and trades, and entitled " The See also:Baker," " The See also:Miller," " The See also:Butcher," and soon. Nothing is more striking in this valuable series than the remarkable closeness with which the artist observed everything in the nature of a hard fact, such as the shape of a See also:hatchet or a See also:spade; but he See also:sees no mystery anywhere—he can draw leaves but not foliage, feathers but not plumage, locks but not hair, a See also: For example, in the magnificent portrait of See also:Christian III. of See also:Denmark by See also:Jacob Binck, one of the very finest examples of old wood engraving, the See also:face and See also:beard are drawn with few lines and very powerfully, but the See also:costume is treated strictly as decoration, the lines of the patterns being all given, with as little shading as possible, and what shading there is is simple, without cross-hatching.
The perfection of simple wood engraving having been attained so early as the 16th century by the use of the graver, the art became extremely productive. During the 17th and 18th centuries it still remained a comparatively severe and conventional See also:form of art, because the workmen shaded as much as possible either with straight lines or simple curves, so that there was never much appearance of freedom. Modern wood engraving is quite a distinct art, being based on different principles, but between the two stands the work of an See also:original See also:genius, See also: Such a thing as a fishing-See also:net is an excellent test of this disposition. In the interesting series by J. Amman already mentioned there is a cut of a man fishing in a See also:river, from a small See also:punt, with a net. The net comes dark against the light surface of the river, and Amman took the trouble to cut a white See also:lozenge for every mesh. Bewick, in one of his vignettes, represents a fisherman mending his nets by the side of a stream. A long net is hung to dry on four up-right sticks, but to avoid the trouble of cutting out the lozenges, Bewick artfully contrives his arrangement of light and shade so that the net shall be in light against a space of black shade under some bushes. This permits him to cut every See also:string of the net by a simple white line, according to his practice of using the white line whenever he could. He used it with great ability in the scales of his See also:fish, but this was simply from a regard to technical convenience, for when he engraved on See also:metal he marked the scales of his fish by black lines. These may seem very trifling considerations to persons unacquainted with the See also:fine arts, who may think that it can matter little whether a fishing-net is drawn in black lines or in white, but the fact is that the entire destiny of wood engraving depended on preserving or rejecting the white line. Had it been generally accepted as it was by Bewick, original artists might have followed his example in engraving their own inventions, because then wood engraving would have been a natural and comparatively rapid art; but when the black line was preferred the art became a handicraft, because original artists have not time to cut out thousands of little white spaces. The reader may at once realize for himself the tediousness of the process by comparing the ease with which one writes a See also:page of See also:manuscript with the labour which would be involved in cutting away, with perfect accuracy, every space, however See also:minute, which the See also:pen had not blackened with ink. Wood engraving in the first three quarters of the 19th century had no See also:special character of its own, nothing like Bewick's work, which had a character derived from the nature of the process; but on the other See also:hand, the modern art is set to imitate every kind of engraving and every kind of drawing. Thus we have woodcuts that imitate line engraving, others that copy See also:etching and even See also:mezzotint, whilst others try to imitate the crumbling See also:touch of See also:charcoal or of See also:chalk, or the See also:wash of See also:water-colour, the greyness of See also:pencil, or even the wash and the pen-line together. The art has been put to all sorts of purposes; and though it is not and cannot be free, it is made to pretend to a freedom which the old masters would have rejected as an affectation. Rapid sketches are made on the block with the pen, and the modern wood-engraver set himself patiently to cut out all the spaces of white, in which See also:case the engraver is in reality less free than his predecessor in the 16th century, though the result has a false appearance of See also:liberty. The woodcut is like a polyglot who has learned to speak many other See also:languages at the See also:risk of forgetting his own. And, wonderful as may be its See also:powers of See also:imitation, it can only approximate to the arts which it imitates; it can never See also:rival each of them on its own ground. It can convey the See also:idea of etching or water-colour, but not their quality; it can imitate the manner of a line engraver on See also:steel, but it cannot give the delicacy of his lines. In its most modern development it has practically succeeded in imitating the See also:grey tonalities of the photograph. Whatever be the art which the wood engraver imitates, a practised eye sees at the first glance that the result is nothing but a woodcut. Therefore, although we may admire the suppleness of an art which can assume so many transformations, it. is certain that these transformations give little See also:satisfaction to severe See also:judges. At the same time, as the ultimate See also:object was not only See also:reproduction, but reduplication by the printing-See also:press, the drawbacks mentioned are far outweighed by the See also:practical advantages. In See also:manual skill and in variety of resource modern wood engravers far excel their predecessors. A Belgian wood engraver, Stephane Pannemaker, exhibited at the See also:Salon of 1876 a woodcut entitled " La Baigneuse," which astonished the art-See also:world by the amazing perfection of its method, all the delicate modelling of a nude figure being rendered by simple modulations of unbroken line. Both English and French publications have abounded in striking proofs of skill. The modern art, as exhibited in these publications, may be broadly divided into two sections, one depending upon line, in which case the black line of a pen or pencil See also:sketch is carefully preserved, and the other depending upon See also:tone, when the tones of a sketch with the brush are translated by the wood engraver into shades obtained in his own way by the burin. The first of these methods requires extreme care, skill and See also:patience, but makes little demand upon the intelligence of the artist; the second leaves him more free to interpret, but he cannot do this rightly without understanding both tone and texture.
The woodcuts in See also:Dore's See also:Don Quixote are done by each method alternately, many of the designs having been sketched with a pen upon the block, whilst others are shaded with a brush in Indian ink and white, the latter being engraved by interpreting the shades of the brush. In the pen drawings the lines are Dore's, in the brush drawings the lines are the engraver's. In the night scenes See also:Pisan usuallyadopted Bewick's See also:system of white lines, the block being left untouched in its blackness wherever the effect permitted. English wood engraving showed to great See also:advantage in such See also:newspapers as the Illustrated See also:London See also:News and the Graphic of that See also:day, and also in vignettes for book illustration. A certain See also:standard of vignette engraving was reached by See also:Edmund See also:Evans in Birket See also:Foster's edition of See also:Cowper's Task, not likely to be surpassed in its own way, either for delicacy of tone or for careful preservation of the drawing.
An important See also:extension of wood engraving was due to the invention of See also:compound blocks by See also: The surface of the block is lightly whitened with Chinese white so as to produce a light yellowish-grey tint, and on this the artist draws, either with a pen if the work is intended to be in line, or with a hard-pointed pencil and a brush if it is intended to be in shade. If it is to be a line woodcut the cutter simply digs out the whites with a See also:sharp graver or scalpel (he has these tools of various shapes and sizes), and that is all he has to do; but if the drawing on the wood is shaded with a brush, then the cutter has to work upon the tones in such a manner that they will come relatively true in the printing. This is by no means easy, and the result is often a disappointment, besides which the artist's drawing is destroyed in the process. It therefore became customary to have the block photographed before the engraver touches it, when the drawing is specially See also:worth preserving. This was done for See also:Leighton's illustrations to Romola. By a later development the drawing, made upon paper, was by See also:photography printed on the block, and the drawing remained untouched as a See also:witness for or against the engraver.
In recent years the position of wood engraving in Great See also:Britain has wholly changed. Up to 188o and for a little while longer it was the chief means of book and newspaper illustration, and a frequent method of fine-art reproduction; but by the beginning of the zoth century it had been all but driven out of the See also: The See also:rank and See also:file of the engravers—even those who can " engrave " after a picture as well as " cut " a "special artist's " sketch—succumbed not only to the public, but to the artists themselves, who frequently insisted upon the process-block for the translation of their work. They preferred the greater truth of outline (though not necessarily of tone) which is yielded by " process," to all the inherent See also:charm of the beautiful (and expensive) art of xylography. In Great Britain a few engravers of high rank and ability still followed the art which was raised to so high a See also:pitch by W. J. See also:Linton (d. 1898). Such were Mr Charles See also:Roberts, Mr Biscombe See also:Gardner, Mr Comfort, Mr See also:Ulrich and a few more—the first two the better engravers for being also practising artists. But there is every reason to fear that if wood engraving as a See also:craft, for See also:ordinary purposes, ceases to exist, wood engraving as a fine art must disappear as well—as there would be nothing to support the See also:young craftsman during the years of See also:apprenticeship and practice required to make an " artist " of him, and nothing to compensate him if he fail to attain at once the highest accomplishment. Another circumstance which has contributed to the overthrow of wood engraving in See also:England is the rapture begotten of the extra-ordinary executive perfection to which the art had been brought in America. These engravings, published in magazines and books having wide circulation in England, awakened not an intelligent but a foolish appreciation among the public. Just as the over-refinement of engraving on steel of See also:Finden and his school killed his art by stripping it of all See also:interest, so the unsurpassable perfection of the See also:American wood engraver, by the See also:law of See also:paradox, effectually stifled xylography in England, as it has since done to an almost equal degree in America. The reason is simple. With the object of " disindividualizing " himself, as he called it, the engraver sought to suppress his own recognizable manner of craftsmanship When translating the work of the artist for the public; and the more he succeeded in effacing himself, and the more he refined and elaborated his technique and imitated textures, and the more he See also:developed extreme minuteness and excessive dexterity (so as to secure faithfulness and smoothness), the more closely did the result approximate to a photograph and nothing more. The result, in fact, became the reductio ad absurdum of the See also:passion for the minute and the perfection of See also:mere technique. The result was amazing in its completeness, but curiously grey and monotonous; and matter-of-fact publishers and public alike preferred the photograph, which in their eyes did not differ so very much (except in being a little greyer and more monotonous) reproduced by the See also:half-tone block, while the cost of the latter was but a fraction of that of the former. The extreme elaboration, satisfying a craving of an acrobatic kind, defeated, its own end. The public were pleased for a time, and the result has been disastrous for the art. In England, in spite of the See also:International Society of Wood En-gravers, of which little is now heard, there are no signs of a general revival, and it seems as if the art must be See also:born again, so long as the public interest in photographs continues. Charles Ricketts and See also:Miss See also:Housman have gone back to a Dureresque, or Florentine, manner cf the Early See also:Renaissance woodcut, while others are striving to begin engraving where Bewick began it. If the true art is ever restored, the revival will rather be based on a revolt against the greyness of the process-block, and the offensively shiny surface of the chalk-coated paper on which it is printed, than on anyaestheticdelight in intelligent wood engraving, its expressive line, its delicate, pearly tones, and its See also:rich, See also:fat blacks. In America, where the power of resuscitation is great, the miraculous technical perfection brought about by See also:Timothy See also:Cole and See also:Frederick Juengling, as leaders of the school, has promptly given way to a greater feeling for art and a lesser See also:worship of mechanical achievement, and, within strict limits, wood engraving is saved. Curiously enough, Cole (an Englishman by See also:birth) was equally a See also:leader in recognizing the danger which his own brilliant proficiency had helped to bring about. The " decadent " de luxe who had overwhelmed his art in the refinements which threatened to destroy it, and who had been seconded by the splendid printing-presses of America (which might without exaggeration be called See also:instruments of precision), gave up what may be termed hyper-engraving, and, surrendering his wonderful power of imitating surfaces and textures, changed his manner. He became broader in handling; his example was followed by others, and wood engraving in a very few hands still prospers in the See also:United States. In See also:France, where the art has reached the highest perfection and the most consummate and logical development, it flourishes up to a certain point on the true artistic See also:instinct of the engraver, on the See also:taste of an intelligent and appreciative public, and on See also:official recognition and encouragement. Nevertheless, it was found necessary to establish a " Society of Wood Engravers " (with a See also:magazine of its own) to protect it against the inroad of the process-block. The art doubtless produces more engravers of skill than it can provide work for; but that is See also:evidence rather of vitality than of decay. Lepere, Baude, Jonnard and See also:Florian have been among the leaders who, in different styles of wood engraving, have sustained the extraordinarily high level which has been attained in France, and which is fairly well maintained by virtue of the encouragement on which it has thriven heretofore. Florian, who died in 1900, was a man who successfully sought to obtain effects of tone rather than line, leaving masses of unengraved surface to enhance the delicate beauty of his pearly greys. But in rebelling against the mechanical style formerly so much in See also:vogue in See also:Germany, of indicating roundness of form by curved lines carried as far as possible at right angles to the convexity, and in substituting more or less See also:longitudinal lines of shading, he sacrificed a good See also:deal of the See also:logic of form-rendering, and started a method that as not been entirely successful. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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