John Baptist Jackson | Page 5

tradition.
Status of the Woodcut

After the 15th century the woodcut lost its primitive power and became
a self-effacing medium for creating facsimile impressions of drawings
and for illustrating and decorating books, periodicals, and cheap
popular broadsides. At its lowest ebb, in the late 17th century, and in
the 18th, it was used to make patterns for workers in embroidery and
needlework and to supply outlines for wallpaper designs to be filled in
later by "paper-stainers."
The prime deficiency of the woodcut as an art form lay in the division
of labor which the process permitted. Draughtsmen usually drew on the
blocks; the main function of the cutter was to follow the lines precisely
and carefully. Small room existed for individual style or original
interpretation; there was little in the technique to distinguish one cutter
from another. In spite of these limitations, gifted cutters could rise
beyond the dead level of ordinary practice. As fine draughtsmen with a
feeling for their materials they did not trace with the knife, they drew
and carved with it. Their feeling for line and shape was sensitive, crisp,
and supple. But although they created the masterpieces of the medium
they suffered from the traditional contempt for their craft. Creative
ability in a woodcutter was rarely recognized, and the art fell into
gradual decline. By the time the 18th century opened it had been almost
entirely abandoned as a means of creating and interpreting works of art,
and had been relegated to a minor place among the print processes.
The attitude of the print connoisseur was clearly stated as early as 1762
by Horace Walpole:[6]
I have said, and for two reasons, shall say little of wooden cuts; that art
never was executed in any perfection in England: engraving on metal
was a final improvement of the art, and supplied the defects of cuttings
in wood. The ancient wooden cuts were certainly carried to a great
heighth, but that was the merit of the masters, not of the method.
[Footnote 6: Walpole, 1765 (1st ed. 1762), p. 3.]
William Gilpin in 1768 went even further. Describing the various
contemporary print processes he omitted the woodcut entirely as not
worthy of consideration. He acknowledged that "wooden cuts" were

once executed by early artists but made no additional reference to the
medium.[7]
[Footnote 7: William Gilpin, An Essay on Prints, London, 1781 (1st ed.
1768), p. 47. "There are three kinds of prints, engravings, etchings, and
mezzotintos."]
As late as 1844 Maberly[8] cautioned print amateurs to steer clear of
block prints:
Prints, from wooden blocks, are much less esteemed, or, at least, are,
generally speaking, of greatly less cost than engravings on copper; and
there are connoisseurs who may, perhaps, consider them as rather
derogatory to a fine collection.
[Footnote 8: Maberly, 1844, p. 130.]
Specialized histories of wood engraving, written mainly by
19th-century practitioners and bibliophiles, have tended to emphasize
literal rendition rather than artistic vision. The writers favored wood
engraving executed with the burin on the end grain of hard dense wood,
such as box or maple, because it could produce finer details than the
old woodcut, which made use of knife and horizontally grained wood.
They judged by narrow craft standards concerned with exact imitation
of surface textures. Linton, for example, is almost contemptuous in his
references to the chiaroscuro woodcut:[9]
... The poorest workman may suffice for an excellent chiaroscuro. I do
not depreciate the artistic value as chiaroscuros of the various prints
here noted nor underestimate the difficulty of production; but my
business has been solely with the not difficult knifecutting and graver
cutting of the same.
[Footnote 9: Linton, 1889, p. 215. A woodcut in the German manner
was far more difficult to manage than Linton imagined. Bewick tried to
imitate the cross-hatched lines of a Duerer woodcut without success.
He finally concluded (1925, pp. 205-207) that the old woodcutters had
used two blocks, each with lines going in opposing directions, and had

printed one over the other!]
The Chiaroscuro Tradition
The chiaroscuro woodcut was originally designed to serve a special
purpose, to reproduce drawings of the Renaissance period. These were
often made with pen and ink on paper prepared with a tint or with brush
and wash tones on white or tinted paper. Highlights were made and
modeled with brush and white pigment; the result had something of a
bas-relief character. Neither line engraving nor etching was suited to
reproducing these spirited drawings, but the chiaroscuro woodcut could
render their effects admirably. Its nature, therefore, was conceived as
fresh and spontaneous, as printed drawing, in fact.
Chiaroscuros were usually of two types, the German and the Italian.
The Germans specialized in reproducing line drawings made on toned
paper with white highlights. The woodcuts, however, could stand by
themselves as black-and-white prints; the tones