Page from Caxton’s “Myrrour of the Worlde.” (London, 1481.) [To face p. 108.
In judging whether an illustration in a book is printed from a block cut and printed in the manner of a wood block, the first thing to observe is whether the black lines are pressed into the paper or not. The amount of the depression of the black lines may be very slight, but it must always be looked for because although the necessary pressure for printing from type and block is slight, still there is always some of it, and before the introduction of the modern clay-laden papers, the paper used for printing upon was always softened by damp, and consequently very susceptible to pressure. If the depression of the black lines can be recognised, the print is made from a block of some sort, and printed with a slight pressure.
William Blake’s curious illustrated poems are exceptions to any rule. He was very poor and unable to afford to have his writings properly published, so he wrote and drew them out himself on copper, and then etched away the ground very strongly so as to leave his lines in relief. The plates were then printed as relief blocks. As curiosities they are of great interest, and they preserve the individual touch of the artist to just about the same extent as an etching does. The process is exactly analogous to the manner in which names or designs are etched on sword blades, key rings, knife blades and the like, only Blake allowed the acid to work a little more strongly so as to get a slightly higher relief.
The first English printed book that is illustrated is Caxton’s Myrrour of the Worlde, printed in 1481; the cuts are quite elementary in character, like all the wood cuts in English books for a long time. Ornamental borders are found in Caxton’s Fifteen Oes., printed about 1490.
Early English books were not freely illustrated, and it must be supposed that wood cutters were scarce. Many of the cuts used are of foreign origin. One early book is charmingly illustrated in colour; Dame Juliana Bernes’ so-called Book of St. Albans, printed in 1486, has a long series of coats-of-arms printed from wood blocks. The colour has been added either from other blocks separately inked or else by means of stencil plates.
In the sixteenth century wood illustrations became more numerous, but many of them were still of foreign workmanship.
Borders and designs by Holbein were used by Pynson, and these had a renaissance feeling which was quite foreign to the existing style. The mixed style which consequently made its appearance is very curious. It shows well in the semi-classical device of Lucretia used by Thomas Berthelet, royal printer to Henry VIII. Towards the end of the century there were several large volumes of chronicles published in England, Halle, Grafton and Holinshed, and these and similar volumes are all well illustrated with wood cuts. Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs,” published in 1563 by John Day, is also an example of a well illustrated and popular book, the cuts in which were all probably made here.
“The Peacock.” Wood engraving by Thos. Bewick, from the “History of British Birds.” (Newcastle, 1797-1804.) [To face p. 110.
Wood engravings in England gave way gradually in the seventeenth and the earlier half of the eighteenth centuries before the advancing tide of line engraving, but in the latter half of the eighteenth century Thomas Bewick came to give it a new impetus. Bewick’s style was quite original, and although his particular “white line” style, good as it was, does not ever seem to have retained any hold upon the mass of engravers, yet somehow or other we find that the revival of wood cutting, both here and abroad, is generally put down to his influence.