In the early days of woodcut, impressions were taken from the wood block by laying a sheet of paper on the inked surface of the block and rubbing the back of the paper with a stiff scrubbing brush, or with a flat piece of wood, so as to bring it in close contact with the inked ridges on the surface of the block. It is evident that neither the quality nor yet the speed of this form of printing could long satisfy even the most easy-going craftsman. A more perfect mode of printing was needed and gradually evolved, culminating in the printing-press. Similarly the cutting of letters of the text on the picture blocks—in the so-called block-books—must soon have proved itself impracticable, for the reign of these books is quite brief. One is tempted to let fancy play around the bald facts, and to watch the artisan, wearily cutting the same letters again and again into the wood block, until he bethinks himself,—a half-dozen others likewise: “Why cannot I saw off the lettering cut on another block, cut it up, word by word, or, better yet, letter by letter, then put the letters together in words and sentences as I need them, and use them with my newly cut picture? It would save a deal of trouble!” Thus the next step was movable type, used around, between, together with, the blocks bearing the illustrations. The rapid spread of type-printing simultaneous with these developments concerns us merely because the vast number of illustrated books published during that period greatly favored the development of woodcut illustration.
Throughout these developments, we always discern the same utilitarian element which I have pointed out. Far from originating in any striving for a higher, more ideal form of artistic expression, the devices for printing both pictures and text were simply means to save labor and expedite publication. The manuscript, the miniature, were the ideals to be approached, and they were high ideals, to be sure. Distinguished humanists like Pope Nicholas V, Poggio, Giannozzo Mannetti, and others, being themselves experts in calligraphy, demanded the best efforts of their scribes and miniaturists. It is a pleasure merely to look at their books. The material used is invariably parchment, the bindings in the Vatican and at Urbino, crimson velvet and silver. It could hardly be expected that these men, who spared neither pains nor expense to show their respect for the contents of a book, would view the advent of printing with anything like satisfaction. Their collective feelings are well summed up in the one remark of Federigo da Urbino, that he would be ashamed to own a printed book.
Not by these nor for their use had type-printing and picture-printing been called into life, but by the needs of the people, and at the people’s call the world was flooded with a multitude of works, informative or entertaining in character. Soon German printers set up presses in Italian cities, and ere long the publishing centers of the South, especially Venice, vied with Germany in importance of production.
Book illustration was considered from a very different point of view in Germany and in Italy. German illustration grew out of a demand for and pleasure in the explanatory picture. The demand for picture books and for books consisting chiefly of illustrations came from a public easily pleased, satisfied with crude outline cuts daubed over with colors. In Italy illustration came in answer to a desire for artistic illustrative ornamentation, on the part of a public of cultivated taste. For this reason the German illustrated book bears a character largely instructive, while the Italian illustration is essentially decorative. Very few of the early books in the German language are devoid of illustrations. The pictures constitute their decoration,—they are used as chapter headings,—long before the advent of purely ornamental embellishments. In Italy the printed book takes over from the manuscript the idea of decorative embellishment. Borders are stamped—with relief-blocks—upon the printed pages of early Venetian books, and colored by hand. This craving for color is as old as mankind; its demands are urged upon the graphic arts at all stages of their development. The demand for color caused the manuscript to be illuminated, and the pen-drawn outline of the early miniature to be filled in with pigment; we have seen its call answered in the crudely colored saint’s picture. The outline is explanatory, intellectual, the coloring adds a sensual pleasure, and this additional feature of bright color was soon demanded also of the printed book. The printer’s answering endeavors are seen in the red initials printed into pages of black text, in title-page designs, arms and ornaments, in borders and diagrams printed in two, sometimes three colors. Another effort in this direction of color is the chiaroscuro[3] woodcut, but that belongs to a later period. A few illustrations will convey a more definite idea of these early woodcuts. Here is a dignified, pleasing example of the “Helgen,” cut in outline, as usual, and colored by hand (the dark tones on the garments and elsewhere are due to this coloring). No shade-strokes are as yet introduced, merely an outline; the rest is left to the colorist. After that, inscriptions are cut into the block, or written in, and this combination of lettering and picture carries us to the block-books.
[3] Pronounce: keearoskooro.
ST. MARGARET OF HUNGARY
Woodcut with hand coloring
BLOCK-BOOK PAGE