MEMLING. "DAVID PLACING THE ARK IN THE TABERNACLE"
(GRIMANI BREVIARY).
The black and white effect, however, grew to be liked for its own sake: not only was it found to afford a considerable range of decorative effect by different treatment of line and solid black, but the graphic designer found in the rich vigorous woodcut line a suggestive and emphatic means of expression. The best artists of the time gave themselves to the work, and notably in Germany, the home of the invention of printing itself. Cologne, Mainz, Augsburg, Ulm, Nuremberg were all famous centres of activity in the printer's art, as well as Venice and Florence, Basle and Paris.
Up to the end of the fifteenth century the Gothic and ornamental feeling is still dominant in the treatment of the design of woodcuts in books, and most instructive and suggestive they are in simplicity of method and line, and directness of expression.
Characteristic German work of Gothic feeling and considerable graphic force is seen in the woodcuts of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) designed by Michael Wolgemuth, the master of Albert Dürer. In these vigorous cuts we may plainly see the tradition of that Gothic feeling and style of graphic design afterwards developed in the work of the great German designer.
The splendid woodcuts of Dürer's "Apocalypse," and of the "Little Passion," and the design called "The Cannon" (1518), give us further insight into his method of drawing and his graphic power; and one can hardly go to stronger or better examples for the study of expression by means of bold line work, a command of which is most valuable to designers in all materials, though, of course, especially so to those who desire to make black and white drawing their principal pursuit. For Dürer's finer line treatment on copper there is no better example than the portrait of Erasmus.
ALBERT DÜRER. "THE APOCALYPSE."
