engraved in that year. The printing could have been done at a later
date. As it is printed in an ink that is almost black (in which feature
it differs from other early image prints, that are almost invariably
in a dull or faded brown ink), there is reason to believe that this
print was made some time after the engraving, when the method of making
prints with permanent black ink was more common. [p072]
This engraving has its merits as well as its absurdities. Chatto
says that the design is better than any he has found in the earlier
type-printed books; that the figure of the saint and that of the
youthful Christ are, with the exception of the extremities, designed in
such a style that they would scarcely discredit Albert Durer himself.
The accessories are grotesquely treated. One peasant is driving an
ass with a loaded sack to a water-mill; another is toiling with a bag
of grain up a steep hill to his house; another, to the right, holds a
lantern. The relative proportions of these figures are but a little
less absurd than those made famous in Hogarth’s ironical study of false
perspective.
[Illustration: The Annunciation.]
These faults of drawing are counterbalanced by real merits of
engraving. There is a noticeable thickening and tapering of lines in
proper places, a bold and a free marking of the folds of drapery, and
a general neatness and cleverness of cutting that indicate the hand of
a practised and judicious engraver. This engraving of St. Christopher
is obviously not the first experiment of an amateur or an untaught
inventor.
In the book which contained this print of the St. Christopher was
also found, pasted down within the cover, another [p073] engraving
on wood, that is now known as the Annunciation. It is of about the
same size as the print of St. Christopher. It is printed on the same
kind of paper, with the same dull black ink. There is some warrant for
the general belief that both engravings were executed at or about the
same time, but they are so unlike that they cannot be considered as
the work of the same designer nor of the same engraver. The lines of
the Annunciation are more sharply cut; the drawing has more of detail;
there are no glaring faults of perspective.
The Virgin is represented as receiving the salutation of the angel
Gabriel; the Holy Spirit descends in the shape of a dove proceeding
from a part of the print which has been destroyed, and in which was
some symbol of the Almighty. The black field in the centre of the print
was left unrouted by the engraver, apparently for no other purpose than
that of lightening the work of the colorist, who would otherwise have
been required to paint it black. This method of producing the full
blacks of a colored print was practised by many of the early engravers.
Full black shoes on the feet of human figures may be noticed in many of
Caxton’s wood-cuts while other portions of the print are in outline.
There are portions of this print in which the practical engraver will
note an absence of shading where shades seem to be needed. The body of
the Virgin appears as naked, except where it is covered by her mantle.
It was intended that an inner garment should be indicated by the brush
of the colorist. What the early engravers on wood could not do with the
graver, they afterward did with the brush. They not only printed but
colored their prints, and the colored work was usually done in a free
and careless manner.
These prints do not contain internal evidences of their origin. They
were found in Germany, but there is nothing in the designs, nor yet in
their treatment, that is distinctively German. The faces and costumes
reveal to us no national characteristics; the legends are in Latin; the
architecture of the Annunciation is decidedly Italian. [p074]
But there is a print known as the St. Bridget, a print supposed to be
of nearly the same age as the St. Christopher, which gives us at least
an indication of the people by whom it was purchased and of the country
in which it was printed.
[Illustration: St. Bridget.]
Saint Bridget of Sweden, born 1302, died 1373, was one of the chosen
saints of Germany. The print represents her as writing in a book while
the Virgin and the infant Christ look down approvingly. The letters
S. P. Q. R. on the shield, and the pilgrim’s hat, staff and scrip
are supposed to indicate her pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem. The
armorial shield has the arms of Sweden. The legend, if it can be so
called, at the top of the print is in German: _O Brigita bit got für
uns_—O, Bridget, pray to God for us. The letters _M. I. Chrs_ at the
bottom of the print have been construed as, Mother of Jesus Christ.
The lines of this print are of a dull brown color. The face and hands
are of flesh color, the gown, hat and scrip are dark grey; the desk,
the staff, letters, lion and crown, as well as the glory or nimbus
about the head, are yellow. The ground is green, and the whole cut is
surrounded with a border of shining lake or mulberry color. This harsh
[p075] arrangement of the colors is a proper illustration of the
inferiority of the workmanship of the colorist to that of the designer.
Other prints in European libraries have been attributed to unknown
engravers of Germany, who are supposed to have practised their art
between the years 1400 and 1450. One of these prints, to which is
attached a short prayer and the date of 1437, and which was discovered
in a monastery in the Black Forest near the border of Suabia,[18]
represents the martyrdom of St. Sebastian. These prints are rare:
of the St. Christopher only three copies are known;[19] of the St.
Bridget and Annunciation there is but one copy each. All of them were
discovered in German religious houses, in which places it seems that
they have been preserved ever since they were printed. They were found
in a part of Germany that is famous as the abode of early engravers on
wood, and as the birthplace of several great German artists. Prints of
a similar nature were subsequently made in Germany in greater quantity
than in any other part of Europe. The legend of St. Bridget is in
German; the costumes of the archers in St. Sebastian are German. They
are trustworthy evidences in favor of the hypothesis that engraving on
wood was first practised in Germany.
This hypothesis has been disputed. It is opposed by several
contradictory theories, which may be stated in the following words:
(1) that engraving on wood was applied to the manufacture of playing
cards in France at the end of the fourteenth century; (2) that it
was derived from China; (3) that it was invented in Italy; (4) that
it was practised in the Netherlands before it was known in Germany.
As the theories of French, Chinese and Italian origin have no early
[p076] prints of images to offer, they need not be considered in this
chapter. The argument in favor of a very early practice of engraving in
the Netherlands is based on its prints of images. [p077]
[Illustration: The Flemish Indulgence Print.]
The illustration on the opposite page is the reduced fac-simile of
an old print once known as the _Indulgence Print of 1410_, and then
considered as of greater age than the print of Saint Christopher. The
inscription at the foot of the indulgence; which is in old Dutch or
Flemish, is to this effect:
“Whoever, regarding the sufferings of our Lord, shall truly repent
of his sins, and shall thrice repeat the _Pater Noster_ and the _Ave
Maria_, shall be entitled to seventeen thousand years of indulgence,
which have been granted to him by Pope Gregory, as well as by two
other popes and by forty bishops. [This has been done so that] the
rich as well as the poor may try to secure this indulgence.”
That this print was made in Flanders is apparent from the language,
as well as from the peculiar shape of the letter t at the end of
words. The perpendicular bar dropping from the top of this t was so
seldom used in Germany that it may be regarded as a very old Flemish
mannerism. That the print was engraved in 1410 is extremely improbable.
The Pope Gregory here mentioned is undoubtedly Pope Gregory xii, who
reigned from 1406 to 1415. It was once believed that the two other
popes mentioned in the indulgence were the rivals of Gregory, the
anti-popes Benedict XII and John XXII. It was supposed that this print
was published during this period,[20] and for this reason, it has
sometimes been called the _Indulgence Print of 1410_. [p078]
M. Wetter, a learned German critic, has pointed out the absurdity of
the belief that three popes at enmity with each other should unite in
the promulgation of this document.[21] It is now understood that the
two other popes mentioned in the indulgence are Pope Nicholas V, who
reigned from 1447 to 1455, and Pope Calixtus III, who reigned from 1455
to 1458. The publication of the indulgence is therefore placed between
the years 1455 and 1471. Consequently, the print is of no value as an
evidence of Flemish priority, for it was made more than thirty years
after the St. Christopher.
A much more satisfactory evidence of the great age of Flemish engraving
on wood is afforded by the _Brussels Print_, which was discovered in
1848 by an innkeeper, pasted down on the inside of an old chest. It
was bought by an architect of the town of Mechlin, who sold it for
five hundred francs to the Royal Library of Brussels, where it is now
preserved. This print bears the date 1418, but the validity of the
date has been challenged. It was alleged that the numerals that form
the date had been repaired with a lead pencil in such a manner as to
provoke doubts of its genuineness; that the true date is 1468, instead
of 1418; that an alteration was made, by scratching out the L from
the middle of the numerals [thus, MCCCC(L)XVIII] and by substituting
a period—a fraud that puts the date backward fifty years. The charge
of fraud has been denied with ability, and seemingly with justice. The
print has passed the ordeal of hostile criticism, and is now accepted
as a genuine print of 1418. It represents the Virgin and infant
Saviour, when surrounded by St. Barbara, St. Catharine, St. Veronica
and St. Margaret. The design is somewhat stiff and mechanical, but the
composition is not devoid of merit. The lines of the engraving were
purposely broken, for it was intended that the print should be more
fully developed by the bright colors [p079] of the stencil painter.
The fac-simile is taken from Holtrop’s _Monuments typographiques_.
Holtrop says that the fac-simile is slightly reduced in height. The
size of the block, as he represents it, is 9-7/8 by 13-3/4 American
inches. [p080]
[Illustration: The Brussels Print.]
The Flemish origin of the _Brussels Print_ is established by an
image, in the Cabinet of Engravings at Berlin, now known as the
_Berlin Print_. It is of the same size as the _Brussels Print_, and
is, apparently, the work of the same designer, for in these prints
a remarkable similarity of treatment in designing and engraving may
be noticed in the wings of the angels, in the figure and position of
the angel who crowns the Virgin, in the crowns of St Catharine and
the Virgin, in the flowing hair of the three saints, and that of the
Virgin, and in the collars on the doves. This print represents the
Virgin as carrying in her arms the infant Saviour. It is described in
the catalogue as an early xylographic engraving, printed by friction
about the middle of the fifteenth century. It is without date or name
of artist. The language of the legend is Flemish. The Virgin holds
in her right arm the infant Jesus, and in her left hand an apple.
The child caresses the chin of his mother with one hand, while he
drops a rose from the other. The Virgin, enshrined in an aureole of
glory, encircled by four angels and four doves, placidly stands upon
a crescent. The legend in the four corners is in metre, and is an
exhortation to the reader to serve the Virgin, and imitate her example.
Who is this queen who is thus exalted?
She is the consolation of the world.
What is her name? tell me, I pray!
Mary, blessed Mother and Virgin.
How did she attain this exaltation?
By love, humility and charity.
Who will be uplifted with her, on high?
Whoever knows her best in life.
Connoisseurs in prints disagree as to the age and merit of this print.
Passavant says that the _Berlin Print_, which he describes as of
fine execution, is undoubtedly of Dutch origin, but he thinks it is
the design of a German artist. He places its date in the same period
as that of the _Brussels Print_, which, according to him, is 1468.
Renouvier says that the outlines of the _Berlin Print_ are in the style
of well-known Dutch or Flemish prints. He hazards no conjecture as to
[p081] the exact date of its publication, but intimates that it may
properly be classified with the older prints of the Netherlands.
[Illustration: The Berlin Print.]
Holtrop says that the language of the legend in the Berlin print
decides its origin; the design is of the [p082] Netherlandish school;
the language is Flemish, and not Dutch. He further says: “These two
prints (of Berlin and Brussels) complement each other; the print of
Berlin shows their common origin; the print of Brussels indicates
their date. It may be said that they were engraved in the Netherlands,
probably in Flanders, and perhaps in Bruges, at the beginning of the
fifteenth century.”
The prints herein described are the earliest prints with dates, but
they are not, necessarily, the earliest of all. There are prints known
to collectors as the _Crucifixion_, the _Last Judgment_ and the _St.
Jerome_, which are regarded by many bibliographers as the work of
unknown engravers at or about 1400. There is a print of _St. George_
which competent judges say was done in the thirteenth century. None
of the prints contain the name or the place of the engravers, but it
is plain that they were made in the Southern Netherlands, as well as
in Southern Germany. It would be premature to assume that they were
made nowhere else; but it must be acknowledged that there are no image
prints on paper which can be ascribed to any engraver in France,
Italy, Spain, Holland or England, during the first fifty years of the
fifteenth century. There is a plausible statement on record, which will
be reviewed on another page, that artistic engravings on wood were
made in Italy before this period. We find, also, a more questionable
statement, that engraving on wood was practised in France before the
year 1400—a statement based entirely on a print in the public library
of the city of Lyons, with a printed date which has been represented
as that of the year 1384. The age of this print has been denied. It is
alleged, with every appearance of probability, that there is mistake or
fraud in the numerals, for the costumes of the figures prove that the
print should have been made in the sixteenth century.
The question whether image prints were first made in the Netherlands
or in Suabia need not now be considered. It is enough to say that,
although the Brussels print bears the earliest date, the manufacture of
these image prints was more [p083] common in Germany, not only in the
first but in the latter half of the fifteenth century. That these few
accidentally discovered prints represent the half, or even one-tenth,
of the images then published, is not at all probable. We have good
reason for the belief that they were as abundant in Southern Germany
during the year 1450 as cheap lithographs were in the United States
during the year 1830. That the greater part of these image prints have
been destroyed and forgotten may be explained by the improved taste
of the succeeding generation. The artistic copper-plate prints which
came in fashion soon after swept away as rubbish the once admired image
prints, just as the chromos of this period have supplanted the painted
lithographic prints of 1830.
How were these images printed? Almost every author who has written on
printing has said that they were printed by friction, with a tool known
as the frotton, which has been described as a small cushion of cloth
stuffed with wool. It is said that when the block had been inked, and
the sheet of paper had been laid on the block, the frotton was rubbed
over the back of the sheet until the ink was transferred to the paper.
We are also told that the paper was not dampened, but was used in its
dry state. The shining appearance on the back of the paper is offered
as evidence of friction. This explanation of the method used by the
printers of engraved blocks has been accepted, not as a conjecture, but
as the description of a known fact. I know of no good authority for
it. I know no author who professes to have seen the process. I know no
engraver who has taken impressions with a cloth frotton. I doubt the
feasibility of the method. The reasons for this doubt will be apparent
when this conjectural method is contrasted with the methods used by
modern printers and engravers for taking proofs off of press.
The modern engraver on wood takes his proofs on thin India paper. He
uses a stuffed cushion to apply the ink to the cut. The ink, which
is sticky, serves to make thin paper adhere to the block. He gets an
impression by rubbing the [p084] back of the paper after it is laid
on the block, with an ivory burnisher. If he is careful, he can take
with a burnisher a neater proof than he could get from a press. But
the only point of similarity between the imaginary old process and the
present process is in the method of rubbing or friction. The materials
are different: the modern paper is thin and soft, the old was coarse
and harsh; modern ink is glutinous, medieval ink was watery; the
burnisher is hard, the frotton was very elastic; the burnisher will
give a shining appearance to the back, the soft frotton will not. If
the modern engraver should attempt to use coarse, thick, dry paper,
fluid ink, and a cloth frotton, he could not keep the sheet in place on
the block during the slow process of rubbing. No care could prevent it
from slipping when rubbed with an elastic cushion. The least slip would
produce a distorted impression.
The modern printer takes his proof on dampened paper with a tool known
as the proof-planer. This proof-planer is a small thick block of wood,
one side of which is perfectly flat and covered with thick cloth. When
the paper, which must be dampened, has been laid on the inked type
or engraving, the printer places the planer carefully on the paper,
holding it firmly with his left hand; with a mallet, held in his right
hand, he strikes a strong hard blow on the planer. He then lifts his
planer carefully and places it over the nearest unprinted surface and
repeats the blow. In like manner he repeats the blow until every part
of the type surface has been printed. Rude as this method may seem,
a skillful workman can obtain a fair print with the planer. Although
the wet paper clings to the type, and the ink is sticky, great care
is needed to prevent the slipping of the sheet, and the doubling of
the impression. The back of a thick sheet printed in this manner often
shows a shining appearance in the places where the blow was resisted by
the face of the type or by the engraved lines.
It will be seen that the printer’s method of taking proof differs in
all its details from the supposititious method of the [p085] early
engravers. We have soft, damp paper, sticky ink, and a sudden flat
pressure against a hard surface shielded with cloth, in opposition to
fluid ink, dry paper, rubbing pressure and an elastic printing tool.
As we can find no positive knowledge of the method of printing which
was adopted by the early printers of engravings on wood, it is somewhat
hazardous to offer conjectures in place of facts. It is begging the
question to assume that they were not printed by a press. The presswork
of early prints is coarse and harsh, and could have been done with
simple mechanism, with rude applications of the screw or of the lever,
that could have been devised by any intelligent workman. It is more
reasonable to assume that the early prints were made by a press, or
with some practicable tool like a proof-planer, rather than with
the impracticable frotton. One cannot resist the suspicion that the
chronicler of early block printing who first described the frotton
attempted to describe what he did not thoroughly understand—that he
mistook the engraver’s inking cushion for the tool by which he got the
impression.
It should be noticed that all these old prints are of a religious
character. Portraits of remarkable men or women, landscapes,
representations of cities or buildings, caricatures, illustrations of
history or mythology—none of these are to be found in any collection
of the earliest prints. The early engravers were completely under the
domination of religious ideas. Their prints seem to have been made with
the permission, and possibly under the direction, of proper clerical
authority. The designs are of much greater merit than any that could
have been created by amateurs in the art of engraving on wood. They
were, undoubtedly, copied from the illuminated books of piety which
were then to be found in all large monasteries. Ecclesiastics of this
period were careful of their books and jealous of their privileges,
and not disposed to allow either to become cheap or common, but they
must have favored an art that multiplied the images of [p086] patron
saints. It was an age of great disbelief, and the image prints were of
service as reminders of religious duty.
There is no evidence that these prints were made by the monks
themselves. There is a statement current in German books of
bibliography that one Luger, a Franciscan monk in Nordlingen, engraved
on wood at the end of the fourteenth century. But this statement
needs verification. It is not at all certain that the word which is
here translated engraver on wood was written with clear intention to
convey this meaning. The earliest typographers were not monks, nor were
they favored with the patronage of the church.[22] It is not probable
that any monk who had been educated for the work of a copyist or an
illuminator, would forsake his profession for the practice of engraving
on wood or printing. Prints, as then made, were coarse, mechanical
copies of meritorious originals. The artistic scribe rightfully felt
that engraving was beneath him. He must have looked on the people who
bought image prints with the same pitying scorn that a true artist
feels for the uneducated taste of those who now buy glaring lithographs
of sacred personages, and he must have felt as little inducement to
engage in their manufacture.
And yet the multitude received them gladly. Wealthy laymen who could
afford to buy gorgeous missals, and priests who daily saw and handled
manuscript works of art, might put the prints aside as rubbish;
but poor men and women, whose work-day lives were unceasing rounds
of poverty and drudgery, unrelieved by art, ideality or sentiment,
must have hailed with gladness the images in their own houses which
shadowed ever so dimly the glories of the church and the rewards of
the righteous. The putting-up of the image print on the wall of the
hut or the cabin was the first step toward [p087] bringing one of the
attractions of the Catholic church within the domestic circle. It was
the erection of a private shrine, an act of rivalry, pitiable enough
in its beginning, but of great importance in its consequences. For
it was the initiation of the right of private judgment, and of the
independence of thought which, in the next century, made itself felt in
the formidable dissent known in all Protestant countries as the Great
Reformation.