Time, however, has its revenges: wood engraving, in its turn, is being rapidly displaced by “process blocks” (of which more anon), and now, if we take up any recent illustrated book or journal, we find the bulk of the pictures and designs not wood engravings but process blocks.
In every good collection of Ex Libris the majority of examples will be found to be printed from engraved plates, very few relatively being from wood blocks. The reason is not far to seek. The wood engraving as practised in England previous to the opening of the present century was poor in execution, and did not lend itself sufficiently to working out minute details with the same ease and readiness with which they can be executed on copper.
Pure Line Engraving by Robert White,
from a Painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
Reproduced by process block.
That it was the favourite mode of producing these dainty little works is evident also from the fact that copper-plate pictures for book illustrations of every kind had almost entirely superseded wood engraving, which had indeed fallen completely into disfavour. Until the beginning of the present century, when Bewick and others had elevated it into a fine art, wood engraving was in an exceedingly rude condition, and little fitted for small works. Copper-plate engraving, on the contrary, had for several centuries flourished successfully; every goldsmith was able to “chase” and engrave the decorative and heraldic work upon silver plate and goldsmiths’ work, or upon metal of any kind, in relief, or intaglio, as in medals, coins, etc. That this is no mere assumption we know from historical evidence, as well as from a careful comparison of the “handling,” or the manner of cutting the lines upon silver work, which is identical with the style of cutting the lines in so very many engraved book-plates of the last and early part of the present century. Whatever may be thought of the vagaries of the accessories in the Jacobean, [Chippendale], and other kindred styles—which are essentially silver engraving patterns—much of this class of work shows at least a true heraldic spirit in the treatment of the charges.
A Chippendale pattern. Silver Engraver’s style of work,
reproduced by process block.
Benvenuto Cellini, whose works now bring fabulous prices in goldsmith work, was an expert engraver as well, as were probably most of the workers in the precious metals of his time. Hogarth, in the earlier part of his career, did much in the way of engraving arms, crests, etc., for the silversmiths; so did Bewick, who worked on wood and on metal indifferently. The writer has done a fair share of similar work in his younger days; and to his knowledge it was the custom in many establishments for the engravers to do both, as the exigencies of business required, though the tendency when work was plentiful was to specialise, each man doing that part for which he seemed to have an aptitude. This refers particularly to graver work; the pictorial engraver executing his work principally by means of the etching process, and only finishing up with the graver.