works of American engravers individually; but while the increased
productiveness and improved technique of the art during the third
quarter of the century are being noticed, it would be unjust to make no
mention of the quiet, careful, and refined woodcuts of Mr. Anthony, or
of the long and unflinching fidelity of Mr. Linton, with its reward in
admirable work, or of the exquisite skill of Mr. Henry Marsh, the best
of American engravers of that period. The latter’s marvellous rendering
of insect life in the illustrations to Harris’s Insects Injurious to
Vegetation, published in 1862, can never be forgotten by any who have
been fortunate enough to see the artist-proofs. His work is in the
manner of copperplate-engraving, and affords one of the few instances in
which wood-engraving has equalled the rival art in fineness, delicacy,
softness, and gradation of tone. Whatever the critic’s theory may be, he
must remember that genius has a higher validity than reason, and must
acknowledge such work as this to be its own justification.
Unfortunately, the cuts in the published volume were not--perhaps at
that time could not be--printed with the success they deserved. The work
of these three engravers illustrates what advance had already been made
in skilful line-arrangement and in technique before 1870, about which
time the indications of an approaching change in the art became
plainly evident. Since then progress has been uninterrupted, swift,
marked by bold experiments and startling surprises. Now American
engravers excel all others in knowledge of the resources of their art,
and in control of its materials, as well as in the interest of their
work. They have not, it is true, produced, as yet, anything to rank in
artistic value with the designs of the older masters; but, in their
hands, the art has gained a width and utility of influence among our
people hitherto unequalled in any nation at any period. From the
beginning of its history wood-engraving has been distinctively a
democratic art; at present the ease and cheapness of its processes and
the variety of its applications make it one of the most accessible
sources of inexpensive information and pleasure; for this reason it has
acquired in our country, where a reading middle class forms the larger
portion of the nation, a popular influence of such far-reaching and
penetrative power as to make it a living art in a sense which none other
of the fine arts can claim. It now enters into the intellectual life and
enjoyment of our people to a degree and with a constancy impossible to
other arts. In this respect, too, it is only at the beginning of its
career; for, as popular education spreads, the place that the art holds
in the national life will continually become more important. These
social conditions, the technical skill of the engravers, and the
appearance among the people of a critical spirit concerning their
work--not perhaps to be called intelligent as yet, but forming, nascent,
feeling its way into conscious and active life--make up a group of most
favorable circumstances for a real artistic development. Whether such a
development will take place depends in large measure on the clearness
with which engravers understand the laws of their art, as presented by
their materials, and on the degree in which such knowledge controls
them. The experiments of recent years are to be judged finally by the
results; but, in spite of the novel effects obtained, and of the new
character that has been given to the art, there is at present no such
unanimity, either among the engravers or the public, as to be decisive
of the worth of the new work as a whole. While the issue is still
doubtful, and the stake is the future of the only art by which those who
care for the growth of civilization can develop in the people a sense of
art, bring them to an appreciation of its value, open their
understandings to its teachings, and fill their lives with its delights,
something may be gained by recurring to fundamental principles, as
illustrated by the practice of the older masters, not with an end to
limit the future by the past, but to foresee it. Such a brief review and
summary of past thought respecting the aims and methods of
wood-engraving, with such corrections as modern improvements in
processes justify, will afford the surest ground for criticism of the
work still to be considered.
All the graphic arts have to do with some one or more of the three modes
under which nature is revealed to the artist--the mode of pure form, the
mode of pure color, the mode of form and color, as they are affected by
the different lights and shadows in which they exist. In nature these
three modes do not exist separately, and usually no one of them is so
prominent as to efface the others; in the several arts, however, the
principal attention is given, now to one, now to another, of them,
according to the capacities of the art and the powers of the artists.
Thus sculpture deals only with form, and even in painting, which
includes all within its province, different masters make a choice, and
aim principally at reproducing color, or chiaroscuro, or form, as their
talents direct them, for a genius seldom arises with the power to
combine all these with the truth and harmony of nature. Wood-engraving,
there is no need to say, cannot reproduce the real hues of objects, nor
the play of light upon hue and form, nor the more marvellously
transforming touch of shadow; it can represent the form of a peach, but
it cannot paint its delicate tints, nor adequately and accurately show
how the beauty of its bloom in sun differs from the beauty of its bloom
in shade. More broadly, a landscape shot with the evanescent shadows
that hover in rapidly moving mists, or the intermingling light and gloom
of a wind-swept moonlit sky half overcast with clouds, wood-engraving
has no power to mirror in true likeness. The most it can do in this
direction is to indicate, it cannot express; it can exhibit strong
contrasts and delicate gradations of light and shadow, and it can
suggest varying intensity of hues, by the greater or less depth of its
blacks and grays; but real color and perfect chiaroscuro it relinquishes
to painting.
Form, therefore, is left as the main object of the wood-engraver’s
craft, and the representation of form is effected by delineation,
drawing, line-work. This is why the great draughtsmen, such as Dürer and
Holbein, succeeded in designing for wood-engraving. They knew how to
express form by lines, and they did not attempt to do more even when
suggesting color-values by the convention of black and gray. Line-work
is thus the main business of the engraver, because form must be
expressed by lines. Line-work, however, is of different kinds, and all
kinds are not equally proper for the art. Hitherto the fineness of line
by which copperplate-engraving easily obtains delicacy of contour and
soft transitions of tone, has been rarely and with difficulty attained
by the best-skilled hand and eye among wood-engravers, and when attained
has, usually, not been successfully printed. There remains, however, no
longer any reason to exclude fine lines from wood-engraving, when once
it has become plain that such work is possible without a wasteful
expenditure of labor, that its results are valuable, and that it can be
properly printed. But if it shall prove that the character of the line
proper to copperplate is also proper to wood, it may be looked on as
certain that the line-arrangement proper to the former material can
never be rationally used for the latter. The crossing of lines to which
the engraver on copperplate resorts is especially laborious to the
engraver in wood, and after all his toil does not give any desirable
effect which would not have resulted from other methods of work. It has
been seen that Dürer employed this cross-hatching in imitation of
copperplate-engraving; but he did so because he was ignorant of the way
to arrange color so that this difficult task of engraving
cross-hatchings would be unnecessary. Holbein, who was equally ignorant
of the possibilities of white line, rejected cross-hatching. Bewick also
rejected it, and proved it was unnecessary even where much color was to
be given. In the later work of the sixteenth century, and in modern
English work, wood-engraving imitated its rival art both in the
character and the arrangement of its lines; it failed in both instances
mainly because such imitation involved a waste of labor, and did not
result in works so valuable artistically as were obtained by
copperplate-engraving with far greater ease. At present the objection
to the use of cross-hatching in wood-engraving is as serious as ever,
but the employment of fine lines for some purposes, as in the rendering
of delicate textures and tones, has been justified, mainly in
consequence of innovations in the modes of printing. The charm of this
new and surprising beauty in fine-line woodcuts, however, has not at all
deprived the old broad and bold line of its force and vigor, nor made
less valuable the strong contrasts in which the art won its earlier
success. On the contrary, it is in the old province and by the old
methods that wood-engraving has worked out its most distinctive and
peculiar effects of real value.
[Illustration: FIG. 79.--Mount Lafayette (White Mountains). By J.
Tinkey.]
In what has been thus far said of the line-work proper to
wood-engraving, black line-work only has been referred to.
Wood-engraving is also an art of design in white line, and here a
different set of considerations applies. There is not the same
difficulty in cutting fine and delicate white lines, as is the case with
black lines, nor the same unlikelihood of their effect being felt in the
printed design. There is, too, no objection whatever to crossing white
lines, as a mode of work, for it is as easy a process for the
wood-engraver as crossing black lines is for the copperplate-engraver,
and the result thus obtained is sometimes of great value, particularly
in the moulding of the face. The art of design in white line, however,
is but little developed; but, not to depreciate the older method of
black line, which is extremely valuable, nevertheless it is clear that
white line-work is the peculiar province of the wood-engraver, and that
in developing its capacities the future of the art mainly lies, so far
as it rests with him. The merit of all line-work, whether black or
white, fine or broad, bold or subtle, depends upon the certainty with
which the lines serve their purposes. If, as with Holbein, every line
has its work to do, and does that work perfectly; if it fulfils its
function of defining an outline, or marking the moulding of a muscle, or
deepening the intensity of a shadow, or performing some similar service,
then the designer has followed the method of high art, and has produced
something of value. The work of all who practise the art--the
draughtsmen who draw in black line, and the engravers who draw in white
line--has worth just in proportion as they acquire the power to put
intention into their lines and to express something by every stroke;
and, other things being equal, he who conveys most meaning in the fewest
lines, like Holbein and Bewick, is the greatest master. By means of such
lines so arranged wood-engraving does represent form with great power,
and also texture, which is only a finer form; it indicates positive
hues, and, within limits, suggests the play of light and shadow on form
and hue. It thus aims chiefly, in its bolder and more facile work, at
force, spirit, and contrast, and, in its more rare and difficult
efforts, at delicacy, finish, and nice gradation of harmonious tones.
If there is any value in the teaching of the past, either these
principles must be shown to be no longer valid, or by them the engraving
of the last ten years must be judged. A considerable portion of it
consists of attempts to render original designs--for example, a washed
drawing--not by interpreting its artistic qualities, its form, color,
force, spirit, and manner, so far as these can be given by simple,
defined, firm lines of the engraver’s creation, but by imitating as
closely as possible the original effect, and showing the character of
the original process, whether it were water-color, charcoal-sketching,
oil-painting, clay-modelling, or any other. However desirable it may be
to make known the original process, such knowledge does not enhance the
artistic value of the cut; and however pleasing it may be to the public
to obtain copies even successfully, indicating the general effects,
without the charm, of originals in other arts with which wood-engraving
has little affinity, such work will rather satisfy curiosity than
delight the eye. The public may thus derive information; they will not
obtain works of artistic value at all equal to those which
wood-engraving might give them, did it not abdicate its own peculiar
power of expressing nature in a true, accurate, and beautiful way and
descend to mechanical imitation. The application of the art to such
purposes, as little more than another mode of photography, is a
debasement of it; it ceases to be a fine art when it ceases to be
practised for the sake of its own powers of beautiful expression. Such
work, therefore, has only a secondary interest, as being one more
process for the defective reproduction of beautiful things, and requires
only a passing mention.
[Illustration: FIG. 80.--“And silent were the sheep in woolly
fold.”--KEATS, _St. Agnes Eve_.
Engraved by J. G. Smithwick.]
[Illustration: FIG. 81.--The Old Orchard. Engraved by F. Juengling.]
Aside from these imitative cuts, the most striking portion of recent
engraving, that which has been hailed as opening a new career to the
art, is characterized either by a great refinement of line or by a
practical abandonment of line. Of the former tendency Mr. Henry Marsh
affords the most prominent examples by his engravings in illustration of
insect life, or similarly delicate work. The skill of his hand and the
charm of the style he has adopted are beyond question; there is as
little doubt of the truthfulness and beauty of the effects secured in
the rendering of individual objects, the butterfly wing, the pond-lily,
or the spray of the winter forest; the only deduction to be made from
his praise is, that when he binds these several objects into one
picture, as in a landscape, he suffers the too frequent penalty of
fine detail, and loses in the delicacy and finish of the parts the
beauty that should have characterized the whole. There is always in his
cuts grace, poetic feeling, exquisite workmanship, but there is in some
of them a lack of body, substance, distance, of skill in placing the
objects in a natural relation to one another, that mars the total
result. Mr. Marsh is one of the older men, and deserves the credit of
first showing what wood-engraving is capable of in refinement of line;
but younger men have joined him in developing these capacities of the
art, and have made work in this style more common. The best of it is by
Mr. F. S. King, being equal in every quality to Mr. Marsh’s most
admirable cuts. Such engraving is exceptional, of course; but the
evenness and transition of tone, the care for line, the discrimination
of both line and color values, shown in these butterflies (Fig. 77),
are characteristic of Mr. King’s work in general, although in some of
it a lack of definition in outlines is noticeable. The refinement of
line in these two engravers is justifiable, because they put meaning
into the lines, and express by them something that could not otherwise
be interpreted to the eye through this art; and so long as this remains
the case they will meet with commendation and encouragement. It is only
when such refinement is needlessly resorted to, or is confusing or
meaningless, that it is rightly rebuked.
[Illustration: FIG. 82.--Some Art Connoisseurs. Engraved by Robert
Hoskin.]
The second and more evil tendency of recent engraving, toward an
abandonment of line, is exhibited in many phases, and by nearly all the
younger men. In some cases the central portion of the cut seems alone to
be cared for, and is much elaborated, while the surrounding parts fade
off into the background with the uncertainty of a dissolving view; in
other cases there seems to be entire indifference about form or texture:
there is no definition of the one nor discrimination in the other, but
an effect only is sought for, usually vague or startling, always
unsatisfactory, and not infrequently ugly. Such work is the product of
ignorance or carelessness or caprice. In it wood-engraving ceases to be
an art of expression. These obscure masses, meant for trees, in which
one may look with a microscope and see neither leaf, limb, nor bark;
these mottled grounds, meant for grass or houses, in which there is
neither blade nor fibre; these blocks of formless tints, in which all
the veracity of the landscape perishes, do not record natural facts, or
convey thought or sentiment; they are simply vacant of meaning. To
illustrate or criticise such work would be an ungracious as well as a
needless task; but even in the best work of the best engravers, with
which alone these pages are concerned, the marks of tendency in this
wrong direction are palpably present. Here, for example, is some
charming work by Mr. King (Fig. 78), wholly successful in securing the
effect sought--beautiful, well worth doing. The spirit of the season,
the moist days, the April nature, the leafing and budding in mist and
cloudiness, and gleam of light and breath of warm, soft air along
full-flowing streams, the swift and buoyant welcome borne on the forward
flight of the birds straight toward us, the ever-renewed marvel of the
birth of life and the coming on of days of beauty--the feeling of all
this is given, and the success is due in large part to the vagueness
that dims the whole design; but why should the wreathing flowers, the
tender crown of all, lose the curve of their petals and darken the
delicate form of each young blossom, all blurred into the background,
and half-effaced and marred, and tiring the eye with the effort to
define them? If the value of form had been more felt, if the definition
of outline had been firmer, if the spray had really blossomed, would not
the design have been better? There is less doubt of the error in the
next cut. The disappearance of texture and the attenuation of substance
into flat shadow is very plain. To a true woodsman, to one who has lived
with trees, and knows and loves them, there is little of their nature in
these vague, transparent, insubstantial forms, that seem rather skeleton
leaves than strong-limbed, firm-rooted trees that have sung in the
frosty silence and lived through the “bitter cold” of many a St. Agnes
Eve. Who, looking on these pale shadows, would remember that the same
poet, whose verse is here put into picture, thought of trees as
“senators” of the woods? In the disposition of the light of the
atmosphere, in the management of the gray tints, particularly in the
lower portion of the cut, the eye takes more pleasure: there is some
discrimination between the sheep, the old man, and the fold--as much,
perhaps, as the prevailing obscurity admits; but the cut as a whole is
much harmed by the lack of relief, which seems to be a recurring fault
in fine-lined and crowded work. The cut (Fig. 81) by Mr. Juengling,
whose engravings exhibit the tendencies of the new methods in the most
pronounced way, shows, like the preceding illustration, an inattention
to texture in the foliage, and an entire negligence of cloud-form in the
sky, which is a fair example of the abandonment of line, or of
meaningless line, as one chooses to call it. An effect is gained, a
horizon light and shadowed masses, but the landscape is not faithfully
rendered.
[Illustration: FIG. 83.--The Travelling Musicians. Engraved by R. A.
Muller.]
Of a different order are the two following cuts, simple, quiet, and
refined. The mountain scene (page 183) is admirable for the disposition
of its lights and shadows, the gradation and variation of its tints, and
the subordination of every element to a truthful total effect. The cut
by Mr. Hoskin (Fig. 82) is a good example of his always excellent work,
showing his power of economy and his feeling for line and tone, while it
evinces self-restraint in methods of work.
[Illustration: FIG. 84.--Shipwrecked. Engraved by Frank French.]
The change that has taken place in recent engraving has been less marked
in cuts of landscape, however, than in cuts of figures. In the former
line-arrangement has been affected somewhat, and usually for the worse,
but in the latter the transformation has been greater, and the results
already worked out of more striking novelty. The development, however,
has been in the same directions, in refining or abandoning line, and
examples exhibit the same or analogous variation in the engravers’
regard for form and texture. The first group here given (Fig. 83) shows
clearly, by the character and the direction of its lines, that it is a
reproduction of copperplate-engraving, and as a piece of imitative work
it is remarkable; the figures are life-like, full of vivacity and force,
and the faces are natural and very expressive. It is, however, in the
style of copperplate, and in the qualities mentioned it does not excel
the next cut (Fig. 84), in which the character and direction of the
lines are those peculiar to wood-engraving. The former has an appearance
of more finish, as also of more hardness, but it does not by its more
difficult mode of engraving, accomplish what is aimed at in any higher
degree than does the latter by its simpler, easier, and freer manner.
The Tap-room (Fig. 85), by the same engraver, is less careful work, and
its novel technical quality, while of the same general character as that
of the last cut, is more pronounced and less pleasing. The figures as a
whole are good, but the faces are poor; the use of the cross white line
or stipple for fire, apron, rafter, table-cloth, and face indifferently
cannot be commended, and the character of many of the lines
(particularly in the lower part of the seated figure) is beyond
criticism. It is the still bolder and more general use of the peculiar
modes of engraving in this design that results in the most meaningless,
negligent scratchiness of the new school. Mr. J. P. Davis’s “Going to
Church” (Fig. 86) is a favorable example of another considerable class
of cuts that is on first sight novel and pleasing. On examination one
sees that the figures are certainly the best part of the cut; but why
should the maiden’s dress be the same in texture as the cow’s breast,
and the young man’s trousers the same as the cow’s back? and why should
the child’s face be of a piece with its collar? Notice, too, beyond the
wall the familiar flat and insubstantial trees, with their foliage that
would serve as well for the ground at the foot of the steps.
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--The Tap-room. Engraved by Frank French.]
[Illustration: FIG. 86.--Going to Church. Engraved by J. P. Davis.]
The best work in these figure-cuts, however, is by Mr. T. Cole, who
stands at the head of engravers in the new manner, though he is not
confined by it. The portraits, by which he first became widely known,
were remarkable for an entire absence, in some cases, of any demarcation
between picture and background, and for a concentration of attention
upon some few specially characteristic features of the face. Whoever
deserved the blame so liberally meted out to these heads, Mr. Cole’s
reputation rests now upon better work--upon such an exquisitely refined
portrait as that of Modjeska as Juliet, in the Scribner Portfolio of
Proofs, and other cuts of hardly less merit there to be found.
Frequently, however, there is noticeable in some of his best work an
analogous characteristic to that of the earlier portraits--the
concentration of attention on the central figures, to the neglect of the
minor portions of the designs. Thus in the example here given (Fig. 87),
so long as the eye is concerned only with the two stately figures, there
is only pleasure in such admirable workmanship; but when the gaze
wanders to the near, and especially the remote, background, there is
nothing to delight the lover of art or nature in such confusion,
insubstantiality, flat, waving shadows without beauty or meaning. Who
would guess from that obscure and formless net-work in the distance that
the next line of these verses is--
“And all the sunset heaven behind your head?”
This “generalization” of the landscape, as it is called, empties it of
all that makes it lovely. To the cut, as an example of figure-engraving,
the highest praise may be given, but as an entire picture it is harmed
by its imperfection of detail. To subordinate by destroying is not the
mode of high art, but it is often the mode of the new school.