LINE ENGRAVING AND WOOD ENGRAVING IN GERMANY AND ITALY IN THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY.
Thanks to the Master of 1466 and to Martin Schongauer, line engraving
in Germany was marked by brilliant and unexpected advances, whilst wood
engraving merely followed the humble traditions of early days. It is
true that the latter process was no longer exclusively applied to the
production of occasional unbound prints, or cheap religious pictures on
loose leaves, of which we have a specimen in the "Saint Christopher"
of 1423. In Germany, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the
custom had spread of "illustrating" (as we now call it) type-printed
books with wood engravings. To mention a few amongst many examples, we
have the "Casket of the True Riches of Salvation" ("Schatzbehalter"),
published at Nuremberg in 1491, and the "Chronicorum Liber" called the
"Nuremberg Chronicle," printed in the same town in 1493, both of which
contain numerous wood-cuts interpolated in the text.
These cuts are not so bad as the earlier German work in the same
process, yet they are far from good. They scarcely hold out a
promise of the advance in skill made some years later by wood-cutters
under the influence of Albert Dürer, and if they are compared with
the illustrations which adorn Italian books of the same period--the
"Decameron" of 1492, for instance, and especially the "Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili" of 1499--they appear still worse. Though they are not of
much value in themselves, the prints which accompany the writings in
the "Casket" and the "Nuremberg Chronicle" deserve attention. They were
done from designs supplied by Albert Dürer's master, Michael Wolgemut;
and the gulf between the rather feeble talent of the older man, and the
profound knowledge and powerful originality of his illustrious pupil,
can thus be easily measured.
Albert Dürer was the son of a Hungarian goldsmith established at
Nuremberg. He tells us himself how, at the age of fifteen, he left his
father's shop for Wolgemut's studio: not that he wished to free himself
from parental authority, but simply to hasten the time when he might
do his share towards satisfying the wants of a numerous family. "My
father," says Albert Dürer, in his autobiographical notes, "could only
supply himself, his wife, and children[21] with the strict necessaries
of life; and spent his life in great hardship and severe hard work. He
suffered in addition many adversities and troubles. Every one who knew
him spoke well of him, for he led a worthy Christian life, was patient
and gentle, at peace with every one, and always thankful to God. He
did not seek worldly pleasures, was a man of few words, kept little
company, and feared God. My dear father was very earnest about bringing
up his children in the fear of God, for it was his greatest desire
to lead them aright, so that they might be pleasing to God and man.
And his daily injunction to us was that we should love God, and deal
uprightly with our neighbour.... I felt at length more like an artist
than a goldsmith, and I begged my father to let me paint; but he was
displeased with the request, for he regretted the time I had lost in
learning his trade. However, he gave in to me, and on St. Andrew's Day,
1486, he apprenticed me to Master Michael."
Albert Dürer's progress was indeed rapid, at least his progress in
engraving, for he drew with remarkable talent before he entered
Wolgemut's studio. The charming portrait of himself at the age of
thirteen, still preserved at Vienna in the Albertine Collection,
sufficiently proves that he required no lessons from his new master in
the skilful handling of a pencil: the teaching of his own mind had been
enough. But it was otherwise with engraving, where he had to advance
by way of experiment, and gain capacity from practice. And it was not
till about 1496, after many years of apprenticeship, that he ventured
to publish his first engraved work. His early works, moreover, are very
probably only copies from Wolgemut,[22] whereas the original works
which followed, though retaining something of the traditional manner,
bear nevertheless a stamp of independent feeling. Thus too, and at
nearly the same time, the genius of Perugino's gifted pupil began to
show itself under the borrowed forms of the only style permitted in the
school; and the obedient hand which portrayed the "Sposalizio" in the
manner and under the eyes of his master, in secret already obeyed the
mind of Raphael.
Meanwhile Albert Dürer, whose fame had begun to spread beyond the
walls of Nuremberg, undertook a tour through Germany, and was absent
for four years; and when he returned to settle in his native town, he
married Agnes Frey, the daughter of a respectable and wealthy merchant
in Nuremberg. If we may believe report, the union was unhappy, and
darkened and shortened by cruel domestic troubles the life of the noble
artist. The story has often been told how his imperious and greedy
wife kept him continually at work, and how, as prints paid better
than pictures, she would not allow him to sacrifice the burin to the
brush. Dreading the reproaches and accusations of idleness to which
she gave vent on the smallest provocation, Dürer bent beneath the yoke
and rarely left his studio. One day, for instance, they relate that he
was discovered in the street by his wife, whom he believed to be at
the other end of the town, and was forced to return and to expiate
his momentary idleness by working far beyond his usual time. The poor
artist died at last of overwork and misery; and his hateful widow only
regretted his death because it set a term to his earnings.
Such is the account in all the books that deal with Dürer, from the
work of the German Sandrart, in the seventeenth century, down to the
biographical dictionaries published in our own time by French writers;
such is the story which has served as text to so many denunciations
of this new Xantippe, and to so many elegies upon her victim. But the
facts of the case were not carefully examined. The result of Herr
Thausing's scrupulous investigation of the subject, and the authentic
testimony he has adduced, show, on the contrary, that Albert Dürer
and his wife lived on pretty good terms till his death; so that we
may banish as idle fables the torments which he was supposed to have
suffered, and the sorrows that were said to have shortened his life.
The story so frequently repeated after Vasari, of Dürer's quarrels with
a certain forger of his works at Venice, where copies signed with his
monogram were publicly sold as originals, rests on a surer basis. The
said forger was a young man of no reputation who had conceived this
idea of commanding a sale for his works, and of thus quickly realising
a profit on the renown of Dürer and the simplicity of his customers.
It was not long, however, before the fraud was discovered, when he
tried, it is said, to turn it into a joke; but the German artist could
not be brought to see it in that light. It was a case in which his wife
was not concerned, and he could take his own part openly. He applied
at once to the Senate, denounced the fraud, and obtained a decree
condemning the offender thenceforth to affix to his plates no other
name than his own. This name, destined to become celebrated, was no
other than that of Marc Antonio Raimondi.
In our own days the truth of this story has been more than once
doubted, at least in so far as the legal consequences are concerned,
for the forgery itself cannot be denied. The plates of the "Life of
the Virgin," engraved by Marc Antonio from Albert Dürer, and bearing
the monogram of the latter, are known to every one; but it has been
objected as an argument against the sentence that, in the state of
morals and legislation in the sixteenth century, to affix another
person's signature to these plates did not constitute a misdemeanour;
and that Marc Antonio, by appropriating the name and the works of
Albert Dürer, did no worse than many imitators of Martin Schongauer had
done before him, no worse, indeed, than was presently to be done with
regard to his own works by imitators as unscrupulous as himself. This
is quite true; but it is no less so that Albert Dürer's signature, so
deliberately added by Marc Antonio to the copies he engraved of the
"Life of the Virgin," is not to be found on the plates of the "History
of the Passion," engraved later on by Marc Antonio in imitation of the
German master. It is impossible not to suppose that in the meantime a
judgment of some sort was passed, obliging the copyist to appear under
his true colours.
The just satisfaction accorded to the demands of Albert Dürer was
not, however, to preserve him from the injury afterwards done him by
imitators of another kind. Some Venetian painters followed the example
of Marc Antonio, and, adding insult to injury, energetically abused the
very man whose works they impudently copied. "If you saw these men,"
wrote Dürer to his friend Pirkheimer, "you would take them for the best
people in the world. For my part, I can never help laughing at them
when they speak to me. They are quite aware that one knows all about
their knavery; but they don't care. You may be sure I was warned in
time not to eat and drink with them. There are painters in Venice who
copy my works, clamouring loudly the while that I am ruining art by
departing from the antique."
[Illustration: FIG. 38.-HANS SEBALD BEHAM.
The Jester and the Lovers.]
Albert Dürer, however, found in the welcome he received from the most
celebrated Italian artists a compensation for the bad conduct to
which he was a victim. Old Giovanni Bellini himself overwhelmed his
young rival with praise, and begged for one of his works, for which
he declared himself "eager to pay well." Lastly, when Dürer was once
more in his own country, and might have considered himself forgotten
by the Italian painters, Raphael, the greatest of all, sent him as a
token of his admiration some proofs of plates that Marc Antonio had
just engraved under his own eye. What happened at Venice was nearly
happening at Nuremberg. The German engraver did not dream of copying
the works of his old imitator as a sort of _quid pro quo_; but, as he
really appreciated them at their true value, he did not hesitate to
show them to his pupils, and to recommend them to their imitation.
Aldegrever, Hans Schaüflein, Baldung Grün, Hans Sebald Beham, indeed,
the greater part of the so-called "Little Masters," who were destined
all their lives to remain faithful to tradition, were content to admire
without any thought of imitation; but those who were younger and
less fixed simply took Albert Dürer at his word. Perhaps he scarcely
welcomed such excessive docility. But their master having thus almost
acknowledged a superior, these young men hurriedly left him to put
themselves under the guidance of the conqueror. The deserters were
numerous. Georg Pencz, Bartholomew Beham, and Jacob Binck, who had been
the first to cross the Alps, succeeded in copying Marc Antonio well
enough to cause several of the subjects they engraved to be mistaken
for his own. When in their turn, and in Rome itself, they had educated
German pupils, these latter returned to their own country to finish
the revolution already begun, by spreading still further the taste for
the Italian manner; so that the school of Dürer, the only one known in
Germany some years before, was, after the second generation, almost
entirely absorbed in that of the Italians.
[Illustration: FIG 39.
HANS SEBALD BEHAM.
The Three Soldiers.]
The engravings of Albert Dürer, even those produced in the full force
of his talents, for a long time obtained but little favour in France
and England. They now possess zealous admirers, and modern painting
now and then shows signs of being affected by this enthusiasm; it
is in the new German school, of which Cornelius and Kaulbach were
the chiefs, that the Nuremberg master seems to have exerted the most
important influence, and one which is, even in some respects, to be
regretted. It would, however, be unjust to Dürer to saddle him with the
burden of errors of which he was but the involuntary cause. However
exaggerated may have been the reaction produced by his followers three
centuries after his death, considered separately and apart from them,
he remains, nevertheless, an eminent artist and the greatest of all
his countrymen. Vasari considers that, as a painter and sculptor, "he
would have equalled the great masters of Italy, if he had been born
in Tuscany, and if the study of the antique had helped him to impart
to his figures as much beauty and elegance as they have truth and
delicacy;" as a mathematician he ranked among the first of his time in
Germany; as an engraver--and it is as such only that we can look upon
him here--he enormously advanced the progress of the art. No one before
him ever handled the burin with the same skill and vigour; no one ever
cut outlines on the metal with such absolute certainty, or so carefully
reproduced every detail of modelling.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--ALBERT DÜRER.
Willibald Pirkheimer.]
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--ALBERT DÜRER.
The Holy Face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--ALBERT DÜRER.
The Standard Bearer.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--ALBERT DÜRER.
The Ride.]
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--ALBERT DÜRER.
The Pommel of Maximilian's Sword.]
The qualities which distinguished his talent and manner are found
to nearly the same extent in all his work. As examples, however,
peculiarly expressive of his delicate yet powerful talent, we
may mention the hunting "St. Hubert"--or, more probably, St.
Eustace--kneeling before a stag with a miraculous crucifix on its head,
the "St. Jerome in his Cell," the print called the "Knight and Death,"
and lastly the subject known as "Melancholia," which should rather
be called "Reflection," but reflection in its gravest, darkest, one
might almost say its most despairing, attitude. This piece, which even
Vasari allows to be "incomparable," represents a woman seated, her head
resting on one hand, whilst she holds in the other a compass with which
she is trifling mechanically. As though to suggest the limitations and
nothingness of human knowledge, an hour-glass and various scientific
instruments are scattered about; whilst in the middle distance a child,
doubtless an image of youthful illusions, is attentively writing, and
contrasts in its serenity with the troubled countenance and despairing
attitude of the principal figure. Had Dürer only engraved this one
extraordinary plate, had he only produced this one work, as strikingly
original in execution as in intention, it would be enough to mark
his position for ever in the history of art, and to commend him to
everlasting honour. But there are many other works from the same
hand which might be also mentioned to confirm or to increase our
admiration. There are many, besides the "Melancholia," where the almost
savage energy of the style is allied to an extraordinary manipulative
delicacy in the expression of details. Sometimes, indeed, his energy
degenerates into violence and his precision into dryness; sometimes--as
a rule, in fact--the general effect is impaired by a too detailed
insistence on subordinate forms, while the beauty of these forms is at
least affected by the minute care with which they have been separately
studied and expressed. But these imperfections, or, if you like, these
faults, may be attributed in part to the tendencies and prejudices of
the period, and in part to that national taste for excessive analysis
which has been a characteristic of the German mind in every age. That
Dürer's merits, on the other hand, are entirely his own, may easily be
seen by comparing his works not only with those of former engravers,
but with those of foreign contemporary masters. Neither in Italy, nor
anywhere else, is it possible to find in the sixteenth century an
engraver of such original inspiration and possessing so much knowledge
and technical skill. Even Marc Antonio, superior though he may be in
sentiment and majesty of style, cannot dispossess Dürer of his lawful
renown, nor take from his art its peculiar virtue and authority.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--MARC ANTONIO.
Lucretia. After Raphael.]
Marc Antonio Raimondi was born at Bologna, where he studied in the
school of the painter-goldsmith Francesco Francia, and was still only
an unknown worker in niello, and the author of some rather indifferent
plates engraved from his own or his master's designs,[23] when a
journey to Venice and the careful study of Albert Dürer's engravings
showed him the inmost possibilities of an art of which he had till then
known little more than the mere mechanical processes. Unfortunately, as
we have seen, the young engraver was not content with copying these,
the best models of the day, for his own improvement, but, to secure
a double profit, pushed his imitation a step further, and copied the
signature with as much care as the style.
Some years later he went to Rome, where Raphael, on the recommendation
of Giulio Romano, allowed him to engrave one of his own designs, the
"Lucretia." Other originals from Raphael's pencil were afterwards
reproduced by Marc Antonio with so much success that these fac-similes
of the ideas of the "divine Master" were soon in everybody's hands, and
the best judges, even Raphael himself, were fully satisfied.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--MARC ANTONIO.
Poetry. After Raphael.]
The nobility of feeling, and the purity of taste and execution, which
shine in these now classic plates have never been surpassed. These
are the qualities, and these only, which we must look for and admire
unreservedly; to seek for more, as to regret its absence, would be
superfluous. To complain of the absence of colour and of aërial
perspective would be as unjust as to expect from Rembrandt the style
and types of the Italian school. Rembrandt's prints are impregnated
with poetry in their tone and in the harmony of their effects; those
of Marc Antonio are models of beauty, as regards line and dignity of
form. The two great masters of Bologna and of Leyden, so opposed to
each other in the nature of their aspirations and the choice of their
methods, have yet, each in his own way, proved their case and carried
their point; and to each must be allotted his own peculiar share of
glory.
It would be idle to point out with regret, as some have done, what is
lacking in the masterpieces of Marc Antonio, or to say that greater
freedom in rendering colour or in managing light and shade would have
lent them an additional charm.[24] Such qualities should be looked for
elsewhere than in subjects engraved--not, it must be remembered, from
pictures--but from pen or chalk drawings. In sixteenth century Italy
they could scarcely come from the burin of one of Raphael's pupils:
an epic burin, so to speak, and one contemptuous of qualities then
considered of secondary importance. Moreover, the hand of him who held
it was bold rather than skilful, vigorous rather than patient. To model
a body in shadow, he employed unevenly crossed or almost parallel
hatchings, drawn at different widths apart, and in subordination to
the larger feeling of the form and movement he wished to express. Then
lighter strokes led up to the half-light, and a few dots at unequal
distances bordered on the light.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--MARC ANTONIO.
Apollo. After Raphael.]
What could be simpler than such a method? Yet what more exact in its
results, and what more expressive in drawing? The exact crossing of
lines mattered little to Marc Antonio. What he was taken up with
and wanted to make visible was neither the manner nor the choice of
workmanship: that might be simple indeed, and he was satisfied if only
the beauty of a head or the general aspect of a figure were striking
at a first glance, if only the appearance of the whole was largely
rendered and well defined. Sometimes one outline is corrected by a
second, and these alterations, all the more interesting as we may
suspect that they were ordered by Raphael himself, prove both the
engraver's passion for correct drawing and his small regard for mere
niceties of craftsmanship. The time was yet distant when, in this same
Italy, the trifling search after common technicalities should take the
place of such wise views; when men should set to work to reproduce
the shadows of a face or a piece of drapery by lozenges containing
a semicircle, a little cross, or even something resembling a young
serpent; when engravers like Morghen and his followers should see, in
the reproduction of masterpieces of the brush, only an opportunity for
assembling groups of more or less complicated lines and parading their
dexterity, and should gain by these tricks the applause of all men and
the name of artists.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--MARC ANTONIO.
Portrait of Raphael.]
The school founded by Marc Antonio soon became the most numerous and
active of all. We have seen that the Germans themselves crowded to
Rome, and surrounded the master who had caused them to forget Albert
Dürer. Engravers came to learn or to perfect their knowledge in the
same school from every part of Italy. There were Marco da Ravenna,
Agostino Veniziano, Giovanni Caraglio da Verona, Il Vecchio da Parma,
and Bonasone da Bologna. Some years later came the family of the
Mantovani, a member of which, Diana Scultori, more often called Diana
Ghisi, presented perhaps the first example, so common afterwards, of a
female engraver. Many others, whose names and works have remained more
or less celebrated, descend from Marc Antonio, whether they received
his teaching directly or through his pupils.
He, whilst so much talent was being developed under his influence,
continued the kind of work in which he had excelled from the beginning
of his stay in Rome, confining himself to the engraving of Raphael's
compositions: that is, as we have already said, of his drawings. It is
this which explains the difference, at first sight incomprehensible,
between certain prints by Marc Antonio and the same subjects as
painted by Raphael. The painter often submitted to the engraver pen
or pencil sketches of subjects which he afterwards altered with his
brush when transferring them to walls or panels: the "St. Cecilia,"
the "Parnassus," the "Poetry," for instance, which are so unlike
in the copy and in what wrongly appears to have been the original.
Raphael often drew specially for engraving: as in the "Massacre of the
Innocents," the "Judgment of Paris" the "Plague of Phrygia," &c.; but
in either case Marc Antonio had but to find the means of faithfully
rendering given forms with the graver, without troubling himself about
those difficulties which the luminous or delicate qualities of colour
would certainly have introduced.
Raphael's death, however, deprived the engraver of an influence which,
to the great advantage of his talent, he had obeyed submissively for
ten years. Marc Antonio would not continue to work from the drawings of
the master who could no longer superintend him; but he still continued
to honour him in the person of his favourite pupil, Giulio Romano,
to whom he attached himself, and whose works he reproduced almost
exclusively.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--MARC ANTONIO.
The Three Doctors.]
The connection of the two artists resulted in the publication of some
fine engravings, amongst others the "Hercules and Antæus," but it
unfortunately terminated in a disgraceful business. Giulio Romano,
following the dissolute manners of the day, rather than the example
and traditions of the noble leader of the school, stooped to design
a series of boldly licentious subjects. Marc Antonio consented to
engrave them, and Pietro Aretino helped still further to degrade the
undertaking by composing an explanatory sonnet to be printed opposite
to each plate. The result was a book whose title is still infamous.
In publishing it the two artists took care not to sign their names.
They were, however, discovered by the boldness of the style and the
firmness of the line; for, surprising as it may seem, neither took
the trouble to alter his usual manner: they merely profaned it. Here,
assuredly, their wonted dignity of form and energy of workmanship
appear somewhat incongruous qualities.[25] The culprits were soon
discovered; and Clement VII. issued a warrant to pursue them, ordering,
at the same time, that every copy of the work should be destroyed.
Aretino fled to Venice, Giulio Romano to Mantua, and the only sufferer
was the engraver. He was imprisoned for several months, and only set
at liberty, thanks to frequent requests made by Giulio de' Medici and
the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, from whose original, to prove his
gratitude, he executed the beautiful "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," one
of the masterpieces of Italian engraving.
The rest of Marc Antonio's life is only imperfectly known. It is said
that he was wounded and left for dead in the streets when Rome was
sacked by the Spanish under the Constable de Bourbon; that he was then
taken prisoner, and only recovered his liberty at the cost of a ransom
large enough to ruin him; and that he then took refuge at Bologna,
where it would appear he soon afterwards died: not, as has been
alleged, murdered by the lawful possessor of one of his plates, which
he had himself forged, but, so says Vasari, "nearly reduced to beggary"
("poco meno che mendico"), and at any rate completely forgotten.
Marc Antonio's death did not bring with it the ruin of line engraving
in Italy. The numerous pupils he had educated, and in turn the pupils
of these, handed down to the beginning of the seventeenth century
the master's manner, and propagated his doctrines in neighbouring
countries. We have spoken of the revolution which their works produced
in German art; we shall presently see French art submitting in its turn
to Italian influences. Meanwhile, and even during Marc Antonio's life,
a particular sort of engraving was making rapid progress in Italy.
It consisted in the employment of a process, popularised by Ugo da
Carpi, for obtaining from several wooden blocks proofs of engravings in
camaïeu: that is, as we explained at the beginning of this book, proofs
in two, three, or four tones, offering almost the same appearance as
drawings washed in with water-colour: a process which Ugo did not
really invent, but only improved from the first attempts made at
Augsburg in 1510 by Jobst Necker, which were destined to be still
further improved by Nicolò Vicentino, Andrea Andreani, Antonio da
Trento, and many others.
A great number of pieces, executed in the same manner from Raphael and
Parmigiano, prove the skill of Ugo da Carpi, who unfortunately took
it into his head to introduce into painting even more radical changes
than those he had first promoted in engraving. He conceived the strange
idea of painting a whole picture with his finger, without once having
recourse to a brush, and, the proceeding appearing to him praiseworthy,
he perpetuated the recollection of it in a few proud words at the
bottom of the canvas. Michelangelo, to whom the picture was shown as a
remarkable curiosity, merely said that "the only remarkable thing about
it was the folly of the author." What would he have thought of Luca
Cambiaso, the Genoese, whose talent consisted in painting with both
hands at once?
The practice of engraving in camaïeu was not continued in Italy and
Germany beyond the last years of the sixteenth century. Even before
then wood engraving, properly so called, had reached a stage of
considerable importance in both countries; and it had distinguished
itself by decided enough progress to cause engraving in camaïeu to lose
much of the favour with which at first it was welcomed.
We said at the beginning of this chapter that a real regeneration in
wood engraving took place in Germany under the influence of Albert
Dürer. We have plates from the drawings of the master, engraved, if
not entirely by himself, at any rate to a certain extent with his
practical co-operation; we have others--for instance, the "Life of
the Virgin" and the "Passion," to which we have referred in speaking
of Marc Antonio's copies of them with the burin. But, in addition to
these, we have a number of wood engravings, earlier than the second
half of the sixteenth century, which prove the progress made in
the art at this time in Germany, and the ability with which it was
practised by the successors of Wolgemut. Wood engraving was no longer,
as in the time of Wolgemut, a mere mode of linear imitation, and only
fit to represent form by outlines; it was now capable of suggesting
modelling and effect, not of course with that finished delicacy and
freedom which can only be produced in true line engraving, but with an
energetic exactness quite, in accordance with the special conditions
and resources of the process. The "Triumphal Arch of the Emperor
Maximilian," by Hans Burgkmair and to some extent by Albert Dürer;
the "Theuerdannck," an allegorical history of the same prince by
Hans Schaüfflein; the "Passion of Jesus Christ;" and the "Illustrium
Ducum Saxoniæ Effigies," by Lucas Cranach, as well as many other
collections published at Nuremberg, Augsburg, Weimar, or Wittenberg,
deserve mention as remarkable examples of the peculiar skill of the
German artists of the time. Indeed, when, a little later, the "Dance
of Death," by Lützelburger, from Holbein, made its appearance, this
masterpiece in wood engraving closed the period of progress which had
gone on in Germany from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and
marked in its general history the time when the art itself had told its
last secret, and attained perfection.
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--LÜTZELBURGER.
The Miser. After Holbein.]
Whilst this regeneration in wood engraving was being accomplished in
Germany, the art continued to be practised in Italy, and especially in
Venice, with a feeling for composition, and that delicate reticence
of handling, of which the cuts in the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,"
published before the end of the fifteenth century (1499), and in
other books printed some years later, are such striking examples. The
Italian wood engravers of the sixteenth century, however, did not
limit themselves so entirely to the national traditions as to stifle
altogether any attempt at innovation. They had already tried to
enliven even the execution of the illustrations intended to accompany
letterpress by more decided suggestions of light and shade and general
effect. This is the reason of the successful first appearance, and
the present value, of so many beautiful volumes from the printing
presses of Marcolini da Forli, Giolito da Ferrari and other printers
established at Venice.
[Illustration: PROVER. XXI.
FIG. 51.--LÜTZELBURGER.
The Rich Sinner. After Holbein.]
Little by little, however, the domain of wood engraving widened, or
rather the object which wood engravers set themselves to attain was
changed. Instead of confining themselves, as in the past, to the part
of commentators of authors and illustrators of books, they set to work,
like the line engravers, to publish, in larger dimensions than the size
of a book, prints reproducing separate drawings and sometimes even
pictures. The works of Titian specially served as models to skilful
wood engravers, some of whom, Domenico delle Greche and Nicolò Boldrini
amongst others, are said to have worked in the studio, even under the
master's own eye. According to the careful testimony of Ridolphi,
confirmed by Mariette, Titian gave more than mere advice. He seems,
more than once, to have sketched with his own hand on the wood the
designs to be reproduced by the wood engravers; and amongst the prints
thus begun by him, several "Virgins" in landscapes and a "Triumph of
Christ" may be mentioned: the last "a work," says Mariette, "drawn with
fine taste, in which the hatchings forming the outlines and shadows ...
produce a softness and mellowness understood by Titian alone."
However brief the preceding observations on the progress of engraving
in the sixteenth century in Germany and Italy may appear, they will
perhaps be sufficient to indicate the reciprocal influence then
exercised by the engravers of both countries. Without ceasing to be
Italian in their real preferences, their tastes, and their innate love
of majesty of style, Marc Antonio and his disciples understood how to
improve their practical execution by Albert Dürer's example, exactly
as Dürer's pupils and their followers, while continuing to be German
as it were in spite of themselves, tried to become Italianised as best
they might.
But it is time to speak of the school of the Low Countries, which
appeared to stand aloof, as much from the progress in Germany initiated
by Martin Schongauer and Albert Dürer, as from the more recent advance
in Italy. Apparently unaffected by external influences, it was content
to rely on its own powers, and to make use of its own resources, whilst
awaiting the time, now close at hand, when it should in its turn supply
example and teaching to those who had till then believed themselves to
be the teachers.