From Papillon’s Treatise, 1766.
We can to some extent realise the difficulties the early wood engravers laboured under in this respect in producing fine work, but when we examine the later works of the German engravers, and observe the gradual improvement from crudeness to really excellent work, we are amazed that with such disabilities such splendid results were attainable by the knife. The [Form-schneider], as the engraver of block pictures was termed, increased in skill and dexterity in deftly cutting the design exactly as it was drawn on the wood, and with exceeding truthfulness; using a finer grained and harder wood and tools more perfectly adapted for the work, so would the art advance by leaps and bounds, until in the time of Dürer and Holbein it had reached its high-water mark of excellence. Boxwood was then, as now, in use, but for delicate work only, and cut plank-wise. For larger work softer woods were good enough: pear and apple woods, privet, sycamore, and any white wood upon which a drawing could be seen—everything being drawn line for line on the plank; the engraver’s business simply to cut away the white spaces between the lines, cutting, as before said, with knives in the smaller spaces, and with chisels and gouges clearing away the larger to a sufficient depth to escape the ink in printing.
Press of Ascensius.
Small Dürer Woodcut, of the Nuremberg family of Kress of Kressenstein.
At the present day, in the skilfully drawn and engraved block books of the Japanese, the illustrations will be found to be drawn with the brush upon the side of the wood, and cut with a knife; but we are not now astonished at anything done by this wonderful people, who have knocked the wind out of us in so many forms of art.
MODERN WOOD ENGRAVING.
To understand the scope and practice of wood engraving, it will be necessary to glance through the illustrated publications of a few years ago, before process blocks had to so large extent superseded the work of the graver. The immense popularity the art has obtained in this country owing to the establishment of the Illustrated London News, Graphic, Art Journal, Magazine of Art, and similar publications, not to speak of book illustrations, has been remarkable. The excellence of the work and the infinite variety of style introduced by the best artists and engravers show it to be capable of representing every artistic quality supposed to be peculiar to copper and steel engraving; other qualities it has, such as power and force in the darker portions, and the use of white-line work on tint, or solid ground—effects obtained with extreme difficulty upon the metal plate.