Figure 3.—Late 15th-Century White-Line Engraving "The crowning of the Virgin," in the "dotted manner" executed on metal for relief printing. Parts were hand colored.
For purposes of realism, this was an enormous improvement over the old black-line woodcut. Natural tones and textures could be imitated. The engraver was no longer a mere mechanical craftsman cutting around existing lines; special skill was needed to translate tones in terms of white lines of varying thickness and spacing. The opportunity also existed for each engraver to work his own tones in his own manner, to develop a personal system. In short, the medium served the same purpose as copper plate line engraving, with the added virtue that it could be printed together with type in one impression. If it failed artistically to measure up to line engraving or to plank woodcut, this was not the fault of the process but of the popular reproductive ends which it almost invariably served.
Actually, white-line engraving for relief printing dates from the 15th century. The most conspicuous early examples are the so-called "dotted prints" or "gravures en manière criblée," in which the designs were brought out by dots punched in the plates, and by occasional engraved lines (see fig. 3). Until Koehler's[10] study made this fact plain, 19th-century critics could hardly believe that these were merely white-line metal relief prints, inked on the surface like woodcuts. But a number of other examples of the same period exist which were also made directly on copper or type metal—the method, although rudimentary, being similar in intent to 19th-century wood engraving. One of these examples (fig. 4), in the collection of the U. S. National Museum, is typical. This was not simply an ordinary line engraving printed in relief rather than in the usual way; the management of the lights shows that it was planned as a white-line engraving. The reason for this treatment, obviously, was to permit the picture and the type to be printed in one operation.
The well-known wood engravings of soldiers with standards, executed by Urs Graf in the early 1500's, are probably the only white-line prints in this medium by an accomplished artist until the 18th century. But these are mainly in outline, with little attempt to achieve tones. No advantage was gained by having the lines white rather than black other than an engaging roughness in spots: the prints were simply whimsical excursions by an inventive artist.
[10] Sylvester R. Koehler, "White-line engraving for relief-printing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries," in Annual report of the ... Smithsonian Institution ... for the year ending June 30, 1890, report of the U. S. National Museum, Washington, 1892, pp. 385-389.
Figure 4.—White-Line Engraving on Metal for Relief Printing, "The Franciscan, Pelbart of Temesvar, Studying in a Garden," from "Pomerium quadragesimale, fratris Pelbarti ordinis sancti Francisci," Augsburg, 1502.
Relief engraving on type metal and end-grain wood really got under way as a consistent process in England at the beginning of the 18th century. Chatto[11] gives this date as conjecture, without actual evidence, but a first-hand account can be found in the rare and little-known book, published in 1752, in which the combination of anonymous authorship and a misleading title obscured the fact that it is a digest of John Baptist Jackson's manuscript journal. This eminent woodcutter, who was born about 1700 and worked in England during the early years of the century, must be considered an important and reliable witness. The unknown editor paraphrases Jackson on the subject of engraving for relief purposes:[12]