This book is not a treatise upon the _art_ of wood-engraving. It is simply
a description of the tools and materials required by a beginner and the
method of using them. It is not intended to assist anyone to become a
commercial engraver, for that trade requires a long and specialized
training. It is intended rather for those who have occasion or opportunity
or inclination to make illustrations or ornaments for books and who are
revolted by the degradation to which the art of formal drawing has been
brought by photographic “process” reproduction.
The “line” block and the “half-tone” have one clear claim to usefulness:
viz. when an exact facsimile is required. It is doubtful, however, whether
process reproduction would have been developed very far if its use had
been confined to those occasions, and those only, when exact facsimile was
of vital importance. Process reproduction owes its success to its
commercial possibilities more than to its real merits, for, in spite of
the frequently reiterated boast of those engaged in business that nothing
can be a commercial success that does not “supply a want,” by photographic
reproduction a speed and cheapness have been obtained which have seduced
both artists and the public. A “want” has certainly been supplied, but it
is a want of quantity rather than of quality, and, as in all cases where
quantitative ideas are the motive force, quality has inevitably
deteriorated so that book production has become a mere business and with
no criterion save that of a commercial success.
It is of course impossible to stem the tide of commercial degradation
until Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience take the place of Riches, Pleasure,
and _Laisser-faire_ as personal and national ideals. Such a change of
heart cannot occur merely as the result of economic or social or
philosophical propaganda; the matter is more fundamental than that. The
modern world is founded upon a denial of absolute values, a denial of
religion, a denial of God; upon such denials nothing can be built.
Goodness becomes what the police will allow or can enforce. Beauty becomes
what pleases the senses and Truth becomes what will pay.
Meanwhile it is possible for any individual that wills to do so to go out
into the wilderness and to live and work in a manner more in harmony with
the nature of man and the will of God. For it is in accord neither with
the will of God nor the nature of man that any one should love himself
more than his neighbour or his neighbour more than God. The present state
of affairs is an unnatural and abnormal thing. It is a disease. And any
one can by the grace of God cure at least himself and put his own affairs
in order.
In the domain of art the remedy is the same as in any other. The thing
good in itself must be found and loved. Relative values must give place to
absolute, the lovely and lovable to the beautiful. “Does it pay?” is not
the question. Is it good in itself?—That is the important thing. And the
more you apply that standard to your own work and to that of others, the
more you will find the necessity of personal responsibility.
But personal responsibility for work done is, from the point of view of
commercial success, actually an evil! Make men responsible for their work
and not merely for doing what they are told; make their own consciences
their masters and the whole of our modern factory system will come
tumbling down like a house of cards. For the factory system is a servile
system in which personal responsibility is denied and of no factory
article may you say: this is the work of such an one—he made it. In the
matter of drawing and illustration and engraving, degradation is
inevitable when one man draws, another touches up the drawing, another
photographs, another touches up the negative, another prints it on the
metal, another etches, another touches up the etching, another routs it,
another mounts it, another proves it and another keeps the accounts and to
crown all, another takes the profits. This excessive sub-division is
inevitable where profit making is the motive power. It is, however, the
artist and the workman who are to be blamed, not the man of business. (The
man of business does his job very well. Certainly he has no right to be
ruler, as he is at present, but it is _our_ fault for allowing him to
rule.) And as good men must precede good law, and not _vice versa,_ so the
individual must revolt against the evil system and not wait until the many
are prepared to revolt with him. Wood-engraving and wood-cutting have gone
out of general use not because photographic process reproduction is
better, or even because it is cheaper and quicker, but simply because
larger profits can be made by employing many persons under a system of
divided labour than by working in a small workshop and putting the quality
of the work before the quantity of the output. The consumer or customer is
flattered and his grosser appetites appealed to. The merchant does not ask
himself what good thing he can supply but what he can supply at a good
profit. The whole trouble is that the responsibility for the making of
things is not in the hands of the workman but in those of the man of
business—and this is hell.
The advantage of wood-engraving then is that it does away with several
sets of middle men and places responsibility upon the shoulders of the
workman. The workman who draws, engraves and prints his own blocks is
master of the situation. He can blame nobody but himself if his work goes
wrong. Whether it goes right or wrong depends upon his notions of right
and wrong. The first thing is that he should be free to satisfy his own
conscience and not be a mere tool in the hands of another. Liber est causa
sui, servus autem ordinatur ad alium (i.e. The freeman is responsible to
himself—but for the slave someone else is responsible. Saint Thomas
Aquinas, _Summa Theologica)._
Another advantage of wood-engraving is that it forces upon the workman
some respect for the thing in itself and makes it impossible for him to
place a merely relative value upon the art of drawing. Mere likeness to
nature is much more easily achieved by drawing, whether in line or wash,
upon paper. The graver and the wood both of them make their own demands
and make mere imitation of nature almost impossible. The workman is
compelled to consider his work primarily as an engraving and only
secondarily as a representation. This is a good thing, for a work of art
is primarily a thing of Beauty in itself and not a representation of
something else, however beautiful that other thing may be. This the public
does not understand. Hence the absurdity of allowing the public to be
supplied by persons who are not workmen and who have no knowledge of the
implications of good workmanship but are simply men of business out to
supply whatever is most profitable to themselves.
He who would be an engraver must therefore start with a clear
understanding that there is “no money in it”; though if he be patient and
devoted he may make a living or a part of a living by it. Further, he must
be prepared to start with the wood and the graver and his sense of what is
beautiful in itself and not strain after effects. He should take it for
granted that a zig-zag pattern such as a child would engrave is better
than the most expert imitation of a sunset. In fact he must be pre pared
to begin at the beginning and to put the first things first.