JOHN JACKSON.
London, December 15th, 1838.
[MR. CHATTO’S PREFACE.]
Though several English authors have, in modern times, written on the origin and early history of wood engraving, yet no one has hitherto given, in a distinct work, a connected account of its progress from the earliest period to the present time; and no one, however confidently he may have expressed his opinion on the subject, appears to have thought it necessary to make himself acquainted with the practice of the art. The antiquity and early history of wood engraving appear to have been considered as themes which allowed of great scope for speculation, and required no practical knowledge of the art. It is from this cause that we find so many erroneous statements in almost every modern dissertation on wood engraving. Had the writers ever thought of appealing to a person practically acquainted with the art, whose early productions they professed to give some account of, their conjectures might, in many instances, have been spared; and had they, [ vii] in matters requiring research, taken the pains to examine and judge for themselves, instead of adopting the opinions of others, they would have discovered that a considerable portion of what they thus took on trust, was not in accordance with facts.
As the antiquity and early history of wood engraving form a considerable portion of two expensive works which profess to give some account of the art, it has been thought that such a work as the present, combining the history with the practice of the art, and with numerous cuts illustrative of its progress, decline, and revival, might not be unfavourably received.
In the first chapter an attempt is made to trace the principle of wood engraving from the earliest authentic period; and to prove, by a continuous series of facts, that the art, when first applied to the impression of pictorial subjects on paper, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, was not so much an original invention, as the extension of a principle which had long been known and practically applied.
The second chapter contains an account of the progress of the art as exemplified in the earliest known single cuts, and in the block-books which preceded the invention of typography. In this chapter there is also an account of the Speculum Salvationis, which has been ascribed to Laurence Coster by Hadrian Junius, Scriverius, Meerman, and others, and which has frequently been described as an early block-book executed previous to 1440. A close examination of two Latin editions of the book has, however, convinced me, that in the earliest the text is entirely printed from movable types, and that in the other—supposed by Meerman to be the earliest, and to afford proofs of the progress of Coster’s invention—those portions of the text which are printed from wood-blocks have been copied from the corresponding portions of the earlier edition with the text printed entirely from movable types. Fournier was the first who discovered that one of the Latin editions was printed partly from types, and partly from wood-blocks; and the credit of showing, from certain imperfections in the cuts, that this edition was subsequent to the other with the text printed entirely from types, is due to the late Mr. Ottley.
As typography, or printing from movable types, was unquestionably suggested by the earliest block-books with the text engraved on wood, the third chapter is devoted to an examination of the claims of Gutemberg and Coster to the honour of this invention. In the investigation of the evidence which has been produced in the behalf of each, the writer has endeavoured to divest his mind of all bias, and to decide according to facts, without reference to the opinions of either party. He has had no theory to support; and has neither a partiality for Mentz, nor a dislike to Harlem. It perhaps may not be unnecessary to mention here, that [ viii] the cuts of arms from the History of the Virgin, given at pages 75, 76, and 77, were engraved before the writer had seen Koning’s work on the Invention of Printing, Harlem, 1816, where they are also copied, and several of them assigned to Hannau, Burgundy, Brabant, Utrecht, and Leyden, and to certain Flemish noblemen, whose names are not mentioned. It is not improbable that, like the two rash Knights in the fable, we may have seen the shields on opposite sides;—the bearings may be common to states and families, both of Germany and the Netherlands.
The fourth chapter contains an account of wood engraving in connexion with the press, from the establishment of typography to the latter end of the fifteenth century. The fifth chapter comprehends the period in which Albert Durer flourished,—that is, from about 1498 to 1528. The sixth contains a notice of the principal wood-cuts designed by Holbein, with an account of the extension and improvement of the art in the sixteenth century, and of its subsequent decline. In the seventh chapter the history of the art is brought down from the commencement of the eighteenth century to the present time.