The American Printer: A Manual of Typography / Containing practical directions for managing all departments of a printing office, as well as complete instructions for apprentices; with several useful tables, numerous schemes for imposing forms in every variety, hints to authors, etc.

by Thomas MacKellar

ENGRAVING.

The invention of wood engraving has been claimed for the Chinese, whose books have certainly been printed from engraved wood blocks for ages. It is not, however, until the beginning of the fifteenth century that we find any evidence of the existence of wood engraving as we now understand it.

It is probable that Italy was the first European country to make engravings, but only for printing playing-cards. Holland and Germany soon applied the art to better ends.

The earliest print of which any certain information can be obtained is in the collection of Earl Spencer. It was discovered in one of the most ancient convents of Germany,—the Chartreuse of Buxheim, near Memmingen in Bavaria,—pasted within the cover of a Latin MS.; it represents Saint Christopher carrying the infant Saviour across the sea, and is dated 1423. We give a reduced fac-simile of this curious engraving. The inscription at the bottom has been thus translated:—

In whichever day thou seest the likeness of St. Christopher,

In that same day thou wilt, at least from death, no evil blow incur.—1423.

Shortly afterward, a series of books printed entirely from wood engravings, called block-books, were issued. The most important of them were the Apocalypsis, seu Historia Sancti Johannis; the Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum; and the Biblia Pauperum, the last containing representations of some of the principal passages of the Old and New Testaments, with explanatory texts. The illustrations seem to be drawn with a supreme contempt for perspective and proportion, but bear evidence of the draperies and hands and faces having been carefully studied. The above is a copy of one of the cuts in the Apocalypsis. It represents St. John preaching to three men and a woman, with the inscription: “Conversi ab idolis, per predicationem beati Johannis, Drusiana et ceteri,” (By the preaching of St. John, Drusiana and others are withdrawn from their idols.) The adjoining cut, from the Biblia Pauperum, is curious as showing the general manner of representing the creation of Eve during the fifteenth century. Both have the appearance of careful drawings “spoiled in the engraving.” Previous to the invention of movable types, whole books of text were also engraved on wood, and the impressions were evidently taken by rubbing on the back of the paper, instead of a steady pressure, as in the printing-press, the ink used being some kind of distemper colour.

The wood to be engraved on is carefully selected, and cut up into transverse slices seven-eighths of an inch thick. This is done by circular saws, which are necessarily very rigid, so as to insure good even cuts.

After being cut, the slices are placed in racks something like plate-racks, and thoroughly seasoned by slow degrees in gradually heated rooms. When sufficiently seasoned they are reduced to parallelograms of various sizes, the outer portion of the circular section near the bark being cut away, and all defective wood rejected; such, for instance, as knots, irregular grain, as that resulting from the position of branches, which are indicated by light-coloured markings in the wood, known in the trade as “comets,” from their resemblance in shape to those fiery bodies. They are softer than the surrounding wood, and consequently do not cut well with the graver; therefore much care and a practised eye are needed in selecting suitable wood. A section of boxwood almost always exhibits parts of widely different values; the more so as it deviates from the circle in form, for then the annual rings are compressed, and consequently closer on one side than on the other, the side with the wide open rings being usually far inferior in value to the denser and smaller side.

In former times, engravers’ blocks were cut parallel with the grain, the present system of cutting them across the grain being introduced about the middle of the last century. In the preparation of a block, say for a newspaper plate, the parallelograms before spoken of are assorted as to size and fitted together at the back by brass bolts and nuts. So accurately do the edges of the wood fit together, that after the artist has finished his drawing on the smooth face of this compound block, the screws and bolts are loosened, and the pieces separated and given to several men to engrave the design; all that is needed after they have finished their work being to fit the pieces together and screw them up again, when they form one engraved block ready for the printing-press.

Turkey boxwood, from a region of country in the vicinity of the Black Sea, is used for fine engravings. The best is of a delicate yellow colour free from spots or “eyes,” and cuts smoothly without crumbling or tearing.

The tools or gravers necessary in wood-engraving are of three kinds,—viz., gravers proper (a); tint tools (b); and scoopers, or cutting-out tools, for clearing out the larger pieces (c). They are arranged in different sizes, to suit the various portions of the work.[9]

According to Vasari, the important discovery of chalcography or engraving on brass or copper was made by Tommaso Finiguerra, a Florentine goldsmith of the fifteenth century, who lived from 1400 to 1460. The manner in which he made this discovery is thus stated by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin:—

“Of engraving upon copper, the earliest known impression is that executed by one Tommaso Finiguerra, a goldsmith of Florence, with the date of 1460 upon it. One of the following circumstances is supposed to have given rise to the discovery. Finiguerra chanced to cast, or let fall, a piece of copper, engraved and filled with ink, into melted sulphur; and, observing that the exact impression of his work was left on the sulphur, he repeated the experiment on moistened paper, rolling it gently with a roller. This origin has been admitted by Lord Walpole and Mr. Landseer; but another has been also mentioned by Huber. ‘It is reported,’ says he, ‘that a washerwoman left some linen upon a plate or dish on which Finiguerra had just been engraving, and that an impression of the subject engraved, however imperfect, came off upon the linen, occasioned by its weight and moistness.’”