THE FINE-ART LIBRARY.
EDITED BY JOHN C. L. SPARKES,
_Principal of the National Art Training School, South Kensington
Museum_.
ENGRAVING:
_ITS ORIGIN, PROCESSES, AND HISTORY._
BY
LE VICOMTE HENRI DELABORDE.
TRANSLATED BY
R. A. M. STEVENSON.
_With an Additional Chapter on English Engraving_,
BY
WILLIAM WALKER.
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE._
1886.
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
EDITORIAL NOTE.
The author of "La Gravure," of which work the present volume is a
translation, has devoted so little attention to English Engraving, that
it has been thought advisable to supplement his somewhat inadequate
remarks by a special chapter dealing with this subject.
In accordance with this view, Mr. William Walker has contributed an
account of the rise and progress of the British School of Engraving,
which, together with his Chronological Table of the better-known
English Engravers, will, we feel sure, add much to the value of the
Work in the eyes of English readers.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE PROCESSES OF EARLY ENGRAVING. THE BEGINNINGS OF
ENGRAVING IN RELIEF. XYLOGRAPHY AND PRINTING WITH
MOVABLE TYPE 1
II. PLAYING CARDS. THE DOT MANNER 30
III. FIRST ATTEMPTS AT INTAGLIO ENGRAVING. THE NIELLI OF
THE FLORENTINE GOLDSMITHS. PRINTS BY THE ITALIAN AND
GERMAN PAINTER-ENGRAVERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 49
IV. LINE ENGRAVING AND WOOD ENGRAVING IN GERMANY AND
ITALY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 86
V. LINE ENGRAVING AND ETCHING IN THE LOW COUNTRIES, TO
THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 118
VI. THE BEGINNING OF LINE ENGRAVING AND ETCHING IN
FRANCE AND ENGLAND. FIRST ATTEMPTS AT MEZZOTINT. A
GLANCE AT ENGRAVING IN EUROPE BEFORE 1660 150
VII. FRENCH ENGRAVERS IN THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV 178
VIII. ENGRAVING IN FRANCE AND IN OTHER EUROPEAN
COUNTRIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. NEW
PROCESSES: STIPPLE, CRAYON, COLOUR, AND AQUATINT 211
IX. ENGRAVING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 248
A CHAPTER ON ENGLISH ENGRAVING 287
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ENGLISH ENGRAVERS 331
INDEX 343
ENGRAVING.
CHAPTER I.
THE PROCESSES OF EARLY ENGRAVING. THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGRAVING
IN RELIEF. XYLOGRAPHY AND PRINTING WITH MOVABLE TYPE.
The nations of antiquity understood and practised engraving, that is
to say, the art of representing things by incised outlines on metal,
stone, or any other rigid substance. Setting aside even those relics of
antiquity in bone or flint which still retain traces of figures drawn
with a sharp-pointed tool, there may yet be found in the Bible and in
Homer accounts of several works executed by the aid of similar methods;
and the characters outlined on the precious stones adorning the
breastplate of the high-priest Aaron, or the scenes represented on the
armour of Achilles, might be quoted amongst the most ancient examples
of the art of engraving. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Etruscans have left
us specimens of goldsmith's work and fragments of all kinds, which, at
any rate, attest the practice of engraving in their countries. Finally,
every one is aware that metal seals and dies of engraved stone were in
common use amongst the Romans.
Engraving, therefore, in the strict sense of the word, is no invention
due to modern civilisation. But many centuries elapsed before man
acquired the art of multiplying printed copies from a single original,
to which art the name of engraving has been extended, so that nowadays
the word signifies the operation of producing a print.
Of engraving thus understood there are two important processes
or methods. By the one, strokes are drawn on a flat surface, and
afterwards laboriously converted by the engraver into ridges,
which, when coated with ink, are printed on the paper in virtue of
their projection. By the other, outlines, shadows, and half-tints
are represented by incisions intended to contain the colouring
matter; while those parts meant to come out white on paper are left
untouched. Wood-cutting, or engraving in relief, is an example of the
first method; while to the second belongs metal-work or copperplate
engraving, which we now call engraving with the burin, or line
engraving.
In order to engrave in relief, a block, not less than an inch thick,
of hard, smooth wood, such as box or pear, is used. On this block
every detail of the design to be engraved is drawn with pen or pencil.
Then such places as are meant to come out white in the print are cut
away with a sharp tool. Thus, only those places that have been covered
beforehand by the pencil or the pen remain at the level of the surface
of the block; they only will be inked by the action of the roller; and
when the block is subjected to the action of the press, they only will
transfer the printing ink to the proof.
This method, earlier than that of the incised line, led to engraving
"in camaïeu," which was skilfully practised in Italy and Germany during
the sixteenth century. As in camaïeu engraving those lines which define
the contours are left as ridges by the cutting away of the surrounding
surface, we may say that in this method (which the Italians call
"chiaroscuro") the usual processes of engraving in relief are employed.
But it is a further object of camaïeu to produce on the paper flat
tints of various depths: that is to say, a scale of tones somewhat
similar to the effect of drawings washed in with Indian ink or sepia,
and touched up with white. Now such a chromatic progression can only
be arrived at by the co-operation of distinct processes. Therefore,
instead of printing from a single surface, separate blocks are employed
for the outlines, shadows, and lights, and a proof is taken by the
successive application of the paper to all these blocks, which are made
to correspond exactly by means of guiding marks.
A third style of engraving in relief, the "early dot manner," was
practised for some time during the period of the Incunabuli, when the
art was, as the root of this Latin word shows, still "in its cradle."
By this method the work was no longer carried out on wood, but on
metal; and the engraver, instead of completely hollowing out those
parts destined to print light, merely pitted them with minute holes,
leaving their bulk in relief. He was content that these masses should
appear upon the paper black, relieved only by the sprinkling of white
dots resulting from the hollows.
We just mention by way of note the process which produced those rare
specimens called "_empreintes en pâte_." All specimens of this work are
anterior in date to the sixteenth century, and belong less strictly to
art than to industry, as the process only consisted in producing on
paper embossed designs strongly suggesting the appearance of ornaments
in embroidery or tapestry. To produce these inevitably coarse figures
a sort of half-liquid, blackish gum or paste was introduced into
the hollow portions of the block before printing. On the block thus
prepared was placed a sheet of paper, previously stained orange, red,
or light yellow, and the paste contained in the hollow places, when
lodged on the paper, became a kind of drawing in relief, something like
an impasto of dark colour. This was sometimes powdered with a fluffy or
metallic dust before the paste had time to harden.
Though simple enough as regards the mere process, in practice line
engraving demands a peculiar dexterity. When the outlines of the
drawing that is to be copied have been traced and transferred to a
plate usually made of copper,[1] the metal is attacked with a sharp
tool, called the dry-point. Then the trenches thus marked out are
deepened, or fresh ones are made with the graver, which, owing to its
shape, produces an angular incision. The appearance of every object
represented in the original must be reproduced solely by these incised
lines: at different distances apart, or tending in various directions:
or by dots and cross-hatchings.
Line engraving possesses no other resources. Moreover, in addition
to the difficulties resulting from the use of a refractory tool, we
must mention the unavoidable slowness of the work, and the frequent
impossibility of correcting faults without having recourse to such
drastic remedies as obtaining a fresh surface by re-levelling the plate
where the mistakes have been made.
Etching by means of aquafortis, originally used by armourers in their
damascene work, is said to have been first applied to the execution
of plates in Germany towards the close of the fifteenth century.
Since then it has attracted a great many draughtsmen and painters,
as it requires only a short apprenticeship, and is the quickest kind
of engraving. Line engravers have not only frequently used etching
in beginning their plates, but have often employed it, not merely to
sketch in their subject, but actually in conjunction with the burin.
Many important works owe their existence to the mixture of the two
processes, among others the fine portraits of Jean Morin, and the
admirable "Batailles d'Alexandre," engraved by Gérard Audran, after
Lebrun. But at present we are only occupied with etching as practised
separately and within the limits of its own resources.
The artist who makes use of this method has to scoop no laborious
furrows. He draws with the needle, on a copper plate covered with a
coating of varnish, suggestions of form as free as the strokes of pen
or pencil. At first these strokes only affect the surface of the copper
where the needle has freed the plate from varnish. But they become of
the necessary depth as soon as a certain quantity of corrosive fluid
has been poured on to the plate, which is surrounded by a sort of wax
rampart. For a length of time proportioned to the effect intended, the
acid is allowed to bite the exposed parts of the metal, and when the
plate is cleaned proofs can be struck off from it.
With the exception of such few modifications as characterise prints in
the scraped or scratched manner, called "sgraffio," and in the stippled
manner, the methods of engraving just mentioned are all that have been
used in Europe from the end of the Middle Ages up to about the second
half of the seventeenth century. We need not, therefore, at present
mention more recent processes, such as mezzotint, aquatint, &c., each
of which we shall touch upon at its proper place in the history of the
art. Before proceeding with this history, let us try to recollect
the facts with which we have prefaced it; and, as chronological order
proscribes, to differentiate and classify the first productions of
relief engraving.
However formal their differences of opinion on matters of detail,
technical writers hold as certain one general fact. They all agree in
recognising that the methods of relief engraving were practised with a
view to printing earlier than the method of intaglio. What interval,
however, separates the two discoveries? At what epoch are we to place
the invention of wood engraving? or if the process, as has been often
alleged, is of Asiatic origin, when was it brought into Europe? To
pretend to give a decisive answer to these questions would be, at
least, imprudent. Conjectures of every sort, and even the most dogmatic
assertions, are not wanting. But the learned have in vain evoked
testimony, interpreted passages, and drawn conclusions. They have gone
back to first causes, and questioned the most remote antiquity; they
have sometimes strangely forced the meaning of traditions, and have
too often confounded simple material accidents with the evidences
of conscious art properly so called. Yet the problem is as far from
solution as ever, and, indeed, the number and diversity of opinions
have up till now done little but render conviction more difficult and
doubt more excusable.
Our authorities, for instance, are not justified in connecting the
succession of modern engravers with those men who, "even before the
Deluge, engraved on trees the history of their times, their sciences,
and their religion."[2] Nor is the mention by Plutarch of a certain
almost typographical trick of Agesilaus, King of Sparta, excuse enough
for those who have counted him among the precursors of Gutenberg. It is
by no means impossible that Agesilaus, in a sacrifice to the gods on
the eve of a decisive battle may have been clever enough to deceive his
soldiers, by imprinting on the liver of the victim the word "Victory,"
already written in reverse on the palm of his hand. But in truth such
trickery only distantly concerns art; and if we are to consider the
Greek hero as the inventor of printing, we must also allow that it has
taken us as long as eighteen centuries to profit by his discovery.
We shall therefore consider ourselves entitled to abandon all
speculations on the first cause of this discovery in favour of an
exclusive attention to such facts as mark an advance from the dim
foreshadowing of its future capabilities to the intelligent and
persevering practice of the perfected processes of the art. We shall
be content to inquire towards what epoch this new method, the heir of
popular favour, supplemented the old resources of the graphic arts
by the multiplication of engravings in the printing press. And we
may therefore spare ourselves the trouble of going back to doubtful
or remote information, to archæological speculations, more or less
excused by certain passages in Cicero, Quintilian, and Petronius, or
by a frequently quoted phrase of Pliny on the books, ornamented with
figures, that belonged to Marcus Varro.[3]
Moreover in examining the historical question from a comparatively
modern epoch only, we are not certain to find for ourselves, still
less to provide for others, perfectly satisfactory answers. Reduced
even to these terms, such a question is complicated enough to excuse
controversy, and vast enough to make room for a legendary as well as
a critical view of the case. Xylography, or block printing, which may
be called the art of stamping on paper designs and immovable letters
cut out on wood, preceded without doubt the invention of printing in
movable metal characters. Some specimens authentically dated, such as
the "St. Christopher" of 1423, and certain prints published in the
course of the following years, prove with undeniable authority the
priority of block printing. It remains to be seen if these specimens
are absolutely the first engraved in Europe; whether they illustrate
the beginning of the art, or only a step in its progress; whether, in
one word, they are types without precedent, or only chance survivals of
other and more ancient styles of wood engraving.
Papillon, in support of the opinion that the earliest attempts took
place at Ravenna before the end of the thirteenth century, brings into
court a somewhat doubtful story. Two children of sixteen, the Cavaliere
Alberico Cunio and his twin sister Isabella, took it into their heads
in 1284 to carve on wood "with a little knife," and to print by some
process seemingly as simple a series of compositions on "the chivalrous
deeds of Alexander the Great." The relations and friends of the two
young engravers, Pope Honorius IV. amongst others, each received a
copy of their work. After this no more was heard of the discovery till
the day when Papillon miraculously came across evidences of it in
the library of "a Swiss officer in retirement at Bagneux." Papillon
unfortunately was satisfied with merely recording his discovery. It
never occurred to him to ensure more conclusive publicity, nor even
to inquire into the ultimate fate of the prints he only had seen. The
collection of "The Chivalrous Deeds of Alexander the Great" again
vanished, and this time not to reappear. It is more prudent, in default
of any means of verification, to withhold our belief in the precocious
ability of the Ravenna twins, their xylographic attempts, and the
assertions of their admirers, although competent judges, such as the
Abbé Zani,[4] and after him Emeric David, have not hesitated to admit
the authenticity of the whole story.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE ST. CHRISTOPHER OF 1423.]
The learned Zani had, in truth, his own reasons for taking Papillon
at his word. Had the story tended to establish the pre-existence of
engraving in Germany, he would probably have investigated the matter
more closely, and with a less ready faith. But the glory of Italy was
directly at issue, and Zani, honest though he was, did not feel
inclined to receive with coldness, still less to reject, testimony
which, for lack of better, might console his national self-respect,
and somewhat help to avenge what the Italians called "German vanity."
Pride would have been a better word, for the pretensions of Germany
with regard to wood engraving are based on more serious titles and
far more explicit documents than the one discovered by Papillon, and
recklessly passed on by Zani. Heinecken and the other German writers on
the subject doubtless criticise in a slightly disdainful manner, and
with some excess of patriotic feeling. For all that, they defend their
opinions by documents, and not by mere traditions; and if all their
examples are not quite evidently German, those which are not should in
justice be attributed to Flanders, or to Holland, and by no means to
Italy.
In this struggle of rival national claims the schools of the Low
Countries are entitled to their share of glory. It is quite possible
that their claims, so generally ignored towards the end of the last
century, should in the present day be accounted the most valid of all;
and that, in this obscure question of priority, the presumption may be
in favour of the country which supplied an art closely connected with
engraving with its first elements and its first examples. It would
be unbecoming in every way to pretend to enter here on a detailed
history of the origin of printing. The number of exhaustive works
on the subject, the explanations of M. Léon de Laborde, M. Auguste
Bernard, and more recently of M. Paeile, would render it a mere lesson
in repetition or a too easy parade of borrowed learning. Anyhow, the
discovery of printing with type is so intimately connected with the
printing of engravings, and the practical methods in both are so much
alike, that it is necessary to mention a few facts, and to compare a
few dates. We shall therefore, under correction, reduce to the limits
of a sketch the complete picture drawn by other hands.
If printing be strictly understood to mean typography, or the art of
transferring written matter to paper by means of movable and raised
metal types, there can be no doubt that its discovery must date from
the day on which there was invented at Mayence the process of casting
characters in a mould previously stamped in the bottom by a steel die
bearing the type to be reproduced.
Gutenberg, with whom the idea of this decisive improvement originated,
is in this sense the earliest printer. His "Letters of Indulgence" of
1454 and his "Bible" are the oldest examples of the art with which he
is for ever associated. In a general sense, however, and in a wider
meaning of the word, it may be said that printing was known before
Gutenberg's time, or at least before he published his typographical
masterpieces. People previously knew both how to print broadsides from
characters cut on a single block, and how to vary the arrangement of
the text by using, in place of an immovable row of letters, characters
existing as separate types, and capable of various combinations. On
this point we must trust to the testimony of one of Gutenberg's
workmen, Ulrich Zell, the first printer established in Cologne. Far
from attributing to his master the absolute invention of movable type,
he merely contrasts with the process known and practised in the Low
Countries before the second half of the fifteenth century "the far more
delicate process" of cast type "that was discovered later." And Ulrich
Zell adds, "the first step towards this invention was taken in 1440 in
the printing of the copies of Donatus,[5] which were printed before
this time in Holland (_ab illis atque ex illis_)."
Now if these copies of Donatus were not printed by means of movable
type, why should they be mentioned rather than the many other works
equally fitted to give a hint to Gutenberg? Why, in going back to
the origin of the discovery, should his pupil say nothing of those
illustrated legends which were xylographically cut and sold in all
the Rhenish towns, and which the future inventor of printing must
have seen hundreds of times? For the attention of Gutenberg to have
been thus concentrated on a single object, there must have been some
peculiar merit and some stamp of real progress in the mode of execution
to distinguish the copies of Donatus printed at Haarlem from other
contemporary work. Laurence Coster--the name attributed to the inventor
of the process which Gutenberg improved--must have already made use of
a method more closely allied than any other to the improvements about
to follow, and destined to put a term to mere experiments.
To suppose the contrary is to misunderstand the words of Ulrich Zell
and the influence which he attributes to the Dutch edition of Donatus,
from which Gutenberg derived "the first idea of his invention." It
is still more difficult to understand how, if the Donatuses are
block-printed, reversed letters are sometimes found in the fragmentary
specimens which survive. There is nothing the least extraordinary
in such a mistake when it can be explained by the carelessness of
a compositor of movable type, but such a mistake would really be
incredible on the part of a xylographic workman. What possible caprice
could have tempted him to engrave occasional letters upside down? One
could only suppose he erred, not from inadvertence, but with voluntary
infidelity and in calculated defiance of common sense.
The discovery which has immortalised the name of Gutenberg should be
recognised and admired as the conclusion and crown of a series of
earlier attempts in printed type. Taking into account the inadequacy
of the movable type, whether of wood or of any other substance, first
employed by the Dutch, and the perfection of the earliest specimens
of German printing, it can and should be admitted that, before the
publication of the "Letters of Indulgence," the "Bible," and other
productions from the workshop of Gutenberg and his fellow-labourers,
attempts at genuine typography had been already pursued, and to a
certain extent rewarded with success.
From the very confession of Ulrich Zell, a confession repeated by the
anonymous author of the "Chronicle of Cologne" printed in 1499,[6] the
first rude essay in the art (_prefiguratio_) was seen in the town of
Haarlem. We may, in short, conclude that the idea of combining designs
cut on wood with a separate letterpress in movable types, belongs in
all probability to Holland.
One of the oldest collections of engravings with subject matter printed
by this process is the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," mentioned by
Adrian Junius in his "Batavia"--written, it would seem, between the
years 1560 and 1570, but not published till 1588, many years after his
death. Therein it is expressly stated that the "Speculum" was printed
before 1442 by Lourens Janszoon Coster. It is true that Junius is
speaking of events which occurred more than a century before the time
to which he ascribes them: "on the testimony," as he says, "of very
aged men, who had received this tradition, as a burning torch passed
from hand to hand." And this belated narrative has appeared, and may
still appear, somewhat doubtful. We ourselves consider the doubt to be
exaggerated, but we shall not insist on that. The specimens survive
which gave rise to such legends and commentaries; and it is fitting
they should be questioned.
Four editions of the "Speculum" are known, two in Dutch and two in
Latin. It must be understood that we only speak of the editions which
have no publishers' names, no dates, nor any sign of the place where
they were published: the "Speculum," a sort of Christian handbook,
much used in the Low Countries, having been frequently reprinted, with
due indication of names and places, during and after the last twenty
years of the fifteenth century. The oldest Dutch edition that is
dated, the one of 1483, printed by John Veldenaer, reproduces certain
engravings which had already embellished the four anonymous editions,
with the difference that the plates have been sawn in two to suit the
dimensions of a smaller volume. Hence, whatever conjectures may exist
as to the date of the first publication, we have, at least, a positive
fact: as the original plates only appear in a mutilated state in the
copies printed in 1483, it is evident that the four editions where they
appear entire are of earlier date. These questions remain:--first,
whether they are earlier, too, than the second half of the fifteenth
century--earlier, that is, than the time when Gutenberg gave to the
world the results of his labour? and second, whether they originated,
like the edition of Donatus, in a Dutch workshop?
Doubt seems impossible on the last point. These four editions are all
printed with the same cuts, on the same paper made in Brabant, and
under the same typographical conditions, with the exception of some
slight differences in the characters of the two Dutch editions, and the
insertion of twenty leaves xylographically printed in one of the two
Latin editions. Is it, then, likely, or even possible, that these books
belong, as has been supposed, to Germany?
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--THE HOLY VIRGIN AND THE INFANT JESUS.
German Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]
The thing might, indeed, be possible, were it merely a question of
the copies in Latin; but the Dutch ones cannot be supposed to have
been published anywhere but in Holland; and the origin of the latter
once established, how are we to explain the typographical imperfection
of the work if not by ignorance of the process which Gutenberg was
to popularise? According to M. Paeile, a competent judge in such a
matter,[7] the letterpress of the Dutch "Speculum" is written in the
pure dialect of North Holland, as it was spoken in those parts towards
the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth.
Armed, therefore, with but a few particulars as to printing and idiom,
it will not be too bold in us to fix the date of publication between
the first and second quarters of the fifteenth century. It may be added
that the costume of the figures is of the time of Philip the Good;
that the taste and style of the drawing suggests the influence of the
brothers Van Eyck; and that there is a decided contrast between the
typographical imperfection of the text and the excellent quality of the
plates. Art, and art already well on its way and confident of its
powers, is thus seen side by side with an industrial process still in
its infancy: a remarkable proof of the advances already accomplished in
wood engraving before printing had got beyond the rudimentary period.
For our present purpose, this is the chief point, the essential fact to
verify.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--ST. VERONICA.
German Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--ST. JOHN.
Flemish Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]
The discovery of printing, therefore, is doubtless a result of the
example of relief engraving, and there is no doubt either that the
first attempts at printing with type originated in Holland. Whilst
Coster, or the predecessor of Gutenberg, whoever he was, was somewhat
feebly preparing the way for typographical industry, painting and the
arts of design generally had in the Low Countries attained a degree
of development which they had not before reached, except in Italy.
Amongst the German contemporaries of Hubert and John van Eyck, what
rival was there to compare with these two masters?--what teacher with
so notable an influence, or so fertile a teaching? Whilst, on the banks
of the Rhine, artists unworthy of the name and painters destitute of
talent were continuing the Gothic traditions and the formulæ of their
predecessors, the school of Bruges was renewing, or rather founding, a
national art. By the beginning of the fifteenth century the revolution
was accomplished in this school, which was already distinguished by
the Van Eycks, and to which Memling was about to add fresh lustre.
Germany, too, in a few years was to glory in a like success; but the
movement did not set in till after the second half of the century.
Till then everything remained dead, everything betrayed an extreme
poverty of method and doctrine. If we judge the German art of the time
by such work, for instance, as the "St. Christopher," engraved in
1423, a single glance is sufficient to reveal the marked superiority
of the contemporary Flemings. It is, then, far from unnatural that,
at a time when painters, goldsmiths, and all other artists in Flanders
were so plainly superior in skill to their co-workers in Germany, the
Flemish engravers should likewise have led the van of progress, and
taken their places as the first in the history of their art.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--THE INFANT JESUS.
Flemish Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--JESUS, SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD.
German Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--THE CRUCIFIXION.
German Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]
It may be said that the proofs are insufficient. Be it so. We shall
not look for them in the "Virgin" on wood, belonging to the Brussels
Library, and bearing the date 1418, as the authenticity of this date,
to our thinking perfectly genuine, has been disputed; nor shall we seek
for them in the anonymous examples which it seems to us but just to
ascribe to the old school of the Low Countries.[8]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN.
Dutch Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]
Up to now we are willing to admit that only Germany is in a position
to produce a piece of evidence beyond suspicion. With its imposing
date of 1423, its time-honoured rights, and official renown, the "St.
Christopher," now in the library of Lord Spencer, has privileges which
cannot be disputed or questioned. But it does not follow that the
wood-cuts of the "Speculum," of the "Biblia Pauperum," of the "Ars
Moriendi," and of similar undated publications, must be more recent.
Nor, because a dated German print has survived, must it therefore be
concluded that nothing was produced at that time except in Germany. It
should be particularly observed that the plates of the "Speculum" seem
well-nigh prodigies of pictorial skill and knowledge in comparison
with the "St. Christopher;" that their author must have served a long
apprenticeship in a good school; that, in short, no art begins with
such a piece of work, and that, even supposing these cuts did not
appear till after the German print, some time had doubtless elapsed
during which the progress they involve had been prepared and pursued.
It is therefore reasonable to suppose that, from the first years of
the fifteenth century, the engravers of the Low Countries began, under
the influence of the Van Eycks, to be initiated into the conditions
of art, and that, like their countrymen the printers, they showed
the path which others were to clear and level. It must be remarked,
however, that in the beginning printing and wood engraving do not
always march on parallel lines--that they do not meet in like order
their successive periods of trial and advance. In Germany, up till
the time when Gutenberg attained the final stage, and popularised
the last secrets of the printing process, painters, draughtsmen, and
engravers were all helpless in a rut: from the author of the "St.
Christopher" to the engravers of thirty years later, they boast but the
roughest and coarsest of ideas and methods. Heinecken, the exaggerated
champion of the German cause as against the partisans of Coster, whom
he contemptuously calls "the beadle"[9]--Heinecken himself, speaking
of the first German books engraved on wooden tablets, is obliged to
admit that "when the drawing is examined with a connoisseur's eye, a
heavy and barbarous taste appears to reign throughout."[10] In Germany
the artistic part was to wait upon and follow the example of the
industrial: was to lag behind and to plod on in barbarism long after
the industrial revolution was accomplished at its side. And it was long
before the "wood-cutting" engravers acquired anything like the skill of
the printers employed by Gutenberg and by Füst.
In the Low Countries, on the other hand, the regeneration of art
preceded mechanical improvement. Even when the latter was in full
progress, nay, even when a grand discovery had revealed all the
capabilities and fixed the limits of printing, engraving was by no
means subordinated, as in Germany, to the advance of the new process,
but, on the contrary, had long since acquired a clearness and certainty
of execution which was still lacking in the works of the printers. The
"Speculum," as we have said, bears testimony to that sort of anomaly
between the mechanical imperfection of the Dutch printed texts of
the fifteenth century and the merit of the plates by which they were
accompanied. Other examples might be mentioned, but it is useless to
multiply evidence, and to insist on details. We shall have accomplished
enough if we have succeeded in accentuating some of the principal
features, and in summing up the essential characteristics of engraving,
at the time of the Incunabuli.