_REPRODUCTION OF DRAWINGS BY WOOD ENGRAVING._
Wood engraving, as a fine art, has been virtually invented, developed,
brought to apparent perfection, and yet ceased to exist, temporarily,
almost, as a trade, in this century.
A wood engraving is an engraving made with a graver, upon a cross
section of box-wood, that is upon the end, and not the side, of a
plank, in relief. As in the case of mechanical engraving, all the
wood, excepting that underneath the design upon the block, is cut
away, and the picture remains alone in relief, raised upon the
surface of the block of the same height as the type; thus the block
may be placed on the press and printed with the type.
The first great wood engraver was Thos. Bewick, and he, unlike many of
his followers to-day, was an artist, and mostly made his own drawings
on the block and cut them as he wished. He saw that wood engraving was
a substitute for the slower, more tedious, and more expensive method
of steel engraving; that, most important, many of the qualities of
steel could be imitated in wood, as the same tools were used; that it
could be printed with type; and, save that the richness of colour
could not be retained, that it had most of the advantages of metal and
few of its disadvantages, and was vastly cheaper. From the first, the
imitation of steel was considered the proper aim, and though early in
this century Stothard drew with a pen upon the block, and his designs
were facsimiled in the wood by Clennell, the prevailing fashion was
the imitation of steel engraving, even by Bewick himself. Many of his
lines are exactly those used by the steel engravers. By the middle of
the century steel engraving virtually disappeared, its practitioners
being unable to compete with wood engravers. There have been but few
original engravers in this form of art, and though the work of some of
the steel engravers who reproduced Turner and Roberts, Wilkie and
Landseer, is marvellous, the art is almost dead at present. Cheapness
has killed it. Wood engraving also killed lithography--a lithograph
cannot be printed with type--and consequently the wood engraver became
a most important person. He ran a shop with many assistants; he
commissioned artists to make drawings for his assistants to engrave,
he dictated the way in which these drawings were to be done, the way
in which the lines were to be drawn and washes made, so that they
could be cut most easily. He commissioned writers to work up or down
to the artists; he printed the books and sold them to the publishers,
who were content to put their names on the title pages. And by this
method much good and more bad work was accomplished, but the engraver
finally became supreme, autocratic, dictatorial, insufferable; and
then he vanished, as a shop. Process stepped in, in its turn, on
account of its cheapness; and to-day, unless the engraver is an
artist, he is but the slave of the process man, a hard fate--but his
own. Before the introduction of photography, artists had to make their
designs for the wood engraver the size they were wanted upon the block
of wood, if portraits of places, reverse them, in pen, brush, pencil,
or wash; the engraver cut around and through these designs, making a
translation of them in relief on the block which could be printed
from. But the drawing had disappeared, and the artist had nothing but
the engraving to show for it, hence endless difficulties arose; good
artists hated to have their drawings cut to pieces; good engravers
hated to have their work criticised unfavourably; also, drawing of a
small size, and in reverse on the block was difficult to learn, and
only a mechanical craft of no artistic advantage when learned.
Therefore, as soon as it was possible to escape from the drudgery, to
draw of any size on paper and have that drawing photographed on to a
sensitised wood block, of the size it was wanted, in reverse, all
artists took to it. And a new school of engravers arose, men who tried
to invent new methods of engraving so that they could express the
medium, as well as the subject, in which a picture was produced. True
from Stothard onward, through Meissonier and Menzel, engravers had
tried to render pen and pencil drawings in line on wood; now
everything began to be attempted, charcoal, etchings, steel, water
colours, lithographs, oils. All the imperfections, accidents, and
blemishes were preserved, even if the picture disappeared. But a
number of most distinguished artist wood engravers appeared,
especially in America, though few of them learned their trade in that
country. But they received more encouragement, better pay, better
printing, and better artists worked for them. And so the school of
American wood engravers, many of whom are not Americans, was born.
Now how is the modern work done? The artist's picture in any medium,
of any size, is given to the photographer, who copies and reverses it,
prints it on the block of wood which has been sensitised for that
purpose. The print is usually not very good, that is, it is darker,
with many of the qualities of the drawing lost; but it serves only as
a guide or a tracing for the engraver, who takes his tools, and with
the drawing behind him, reflected in a mirror to reverse it, proceeds
to cut the photograph of the drawing into relief, at the same time
trying to preserve the look of the canvas, paper, or metal on which it
was made, and the feeling of the colour, wash, or paint with which it
was executed. All this is most difficult, but a most artistic result
may be obtained, and one has but to refer to the magazines of America
and some of the weekly papers of Germany, France, and Spain, for a
proof of it.
Here, though much good wood engraving has been printed, outside the
offices of Messrs. Macmillan, Cassell and Co., and the _Graphic_, it
has of late years been mostly in the form of copies, electrotypes,
clichés from foreign blocks which are supplied by their makers, all
over the world, at a very low price, because they are not reserved for
any one paper or book. And when you begin to see a man's painting, or
drawing, or engraving in every paper, you begin to tire of him and his
work. The editors of papers which publish clichés seem to be the only
people who like the multiplication and cheapening of art, but then
there is no accounting for their tastes. The tools and appliances for
making wood engravings are simple enough, but to engrave anything but
_facsimile_ work, or your own designs, will necessitate your going
through considerable practical training; probably some years of
apprenticeship.
To cut line drawings on the wood, or to cut designs in large simple
masses, you do not require so much practice. All the tools you need
are different sized gravers and gouges, a small chisel to cut large
spaces, an engraver's rest for the block, so that it can be turned
freely and easily about, and a whetstone to sharpen your tools.
Lamps and globes for water, shades for your eyes, you will scarcely
need, but a magnifying glass, something like that which watchmakers
use, may be useful. With these simple tools and some box-wood--they
can all be bought in East Harding Street or at any colour maker's--you
have the necessary appliances.
If you draw on the block, a slight wash of Chinese white will help to
make it work easily. Draw with a brush or pencil; or if in wash,
without body colour, as that will chip off. You have only to remember
that the block, either plain or with the drawing on it, would print
perfectly black, and that every line you make with the graver in the
surface of it, will print white. Therefore, as I have said, to get an
outline engraving, you simply cut away everything but the drawing,
which is left in relief on the surface of the block, and which alone
prints, the rest of it being cut away. It is not necessary to engrave
the surface very deeply, only so much that neither the ink nor the
paper will touch in the hollows between the lines or masses. Mistakes
are not easy to remedy, except by making a hole in the block and
inserting a plug of wood, and then engraving that afresh.
The art of engraving in _facsimile_, that is, of engraving around
lines made with pen, or brush, or pencil, is comparatively easy, it
only requires much training and a steady hand. But the ability to
translate a work in colour into black and white, on a wood block, so
that it shall give a good idea of the original, is far more
difficult. To do it well, the engraver must not only have the
knowledge of the technical requirements of his craft at his finger
ends, only to be gained after years of apprenticeship, but he must be
a trained artist as well. If he wishes to get the best results, he
must have the original before him, he must understand it and
appreciate it. And finally, he must have the technical skill to
engrave it. Even then, most likely, the artist will not like the
block. It is a difficult art, a thankless art, save in the rarest
cases: one which requires years of special training, and at present in
this country, no matter how great an artist one is, there is very
little chance to practise it. Work of this sort you cannot expect to
be able to do without years of training; if you care for it you must
apprentice yourself to a wood engraver.
Still there are forms of wood engraving which you may take up, from
the most primitive to the most complicated, and you may carry out the
work from the designing of it to the printing of it yourselves, or,
you may draw on the block and cut away, as in engravings by the late
R. L. Stevenson (or were they done by Lloyd Osbourne or some other
ghost?), and possibly you will have an experience like this:--
"A blemish in the cut appears,
Alas, it cost both blood and tears.
The glancing graver swerved aside,
Fast flowed the artist's vital tide,
And now the apologetic bard
Demands indulgence for his pard."
Or I imagine without much trouble you might invent something in the
style of Valloton, a Frenchman, who is resurrecting wood cutting in a
manner of his own, while carrying on the traditions of the old men. I
hope you may be able to get as much life and go in it as he has. Make
your drawing on the wood, or on paper, have it photographed on the
wood in the latter case, and cut around the lines, leaving only the
drawing. The greatest difficulty is with fine lines, and you see how
cleverly Valloton has avoided making them. Or, like Lepère, another
French artist--he would be a man to study with--do big, bold,
effective things; or again you might attempt, as he does, colour work
on wood, like that done by the Japanese, drawing it, engraving it, and
printing it all yourselves.
Or, take up drawing and engraving in the manner of Caldecott, Crane,
or Kate Greenaway, when they were reproduced and printed by Edmund
Evans.
Process is fighting for colour too, but wood, at least in proofs, and
that is all you would care for, gives some qualities far beyond
process.
In colour printing from wood blocks as many blocks must be made as
there are colours, and there must be as many separate printings made
from these blocks as there are colours in the printed picture. There
must also be an outline block called the key block. Usually in
European colour printing, whether from wood blocks, or by lithography,
or even process, the colours are printed on top of each other; for
example, a blue is printed over a yellow to get green, and at times
several colours are superimposed, with the result that colour is lost
and mud obtained. The Japanese have shown us how to make colour
prints, however, and their method is now adopted by all intelligent
colour printers. It consists in making the right colour before it is
put on the block, and in placing the colours side by side like a
mosaic. The work is done somewhat in this way; the artist makes his
drawing, several tracings (as many as there are colours) are made from
it, and one extra tracing must be made of the outline only. Or rather
the outline alone is cut on the block, other blocks are then made for
each colour, or the parts cut out of the same block; one will contain
all the red, another all the blue, a third the yellow, and so on. They
must be very accurately cut, so as to fit together and print truly,
and you can see from Japanese prints how wonderfully well the work is
done. Of course the editions from such blocks are very limited, and on
this account, like etchings, often vary, the printers having tried
experiments in colour. The grain of the wood is taken advantage of in
printing, as it often gives a lovely pattern; a good printer will wash
in gradated skies with the backgrounds, and no matter how wonderfully
they are worked, if of the same colour, are printed usually from the
same block. The Japanese, I believe, use water-colours; certainly the
French and English, who have tried to imitate them, do, putting the
colour, mixed with a little size or gum, on the face of the block with
a sponge; in fact they are printed water-colours. Several Frenchmen
have obtained in this way most notable results. Very similar was the
fashion of colour printing called chiaroscuro, used in the early part
of the century. The trouble with this was that the oil with which the
inks were mixed, either ran, or spoiled the pages, or did not dry
well. Drawings on grey paper in chalk can be wonderfully imitated in
this way, and there are methods of using steel and copper plates,
bitten into relief to get outlines or tints, which were also employed.
To-day in the printing of wood engravings and process blocks by
steam, at many thousands an hour, the same system of colour printing,
by placing the colours side by side, is being attempted, for it is
impossible to obtain fine tone or rich effect by placing one colour on
top of another, even in slow printing by hand, while it is absurd to
attempt it rapidly by steam. In the most successful attempts yet made,
those of the _Le Quotidien Illustré_ and _Le Rire_, Paris papers,
colour printing from process blocks has been most successfully done,
and I do not doubt that in a very few years colour printing in
magazines and newspapers will be very general.
As I have said, all intelligent printers have now come to the
conclusion that simple flat colours, put on side by side, will alone
give good artistic results; they have only learned this, however,
after going quite to the other extreme: after trying to get pure
colour and rich effects by using the three primary colours on top of
each other, they obtained but crudeness, vulgarity, and mud.
Photography and chemistry are useful in art, but art cannot be created
by these means. It may be that some one, some day, will be able to
photograph a picture in colour, but there is as yet no evidence of it.
Wood engravings may also be made by scraping or lowering the fronts or
backs of blocks, and rich, soft, fat effects can be produced. Very
little has been done, I think, with these lowered blocks, some
remarkable examples of which can be seen in Chatto and Jackson's
"History of Wood Engraving."
Photography has aided the artist very much in wood engraving (though
most engravers say it has not), and especially in colour printing it
can be made great use of; as, instead of tracing a design on to
several blocks, it can be photographed, thus ensuring accuracy--though
the Japanese obtained this without any photographic aids--and saving
much time.
Still, that is about as far as it goes at present, and photography
will never supersede art, though it is engaged in a famous struggle
with artlessness.