WHY BEWICK SUCCEEDED 



A Note in the History 



of Wood Engravijig 



By Jacob Kainen 



Thomas Bewick has been acclaimed as the pioneer of 

 tnoderii wood engraving whose genius brought this popular 

 medium to prominence . This study shows that certain 

 technological developments prepared a path for Bewick 

 and helped give his work its unique character. 



The Author: Jacob Kainen is curator of graphic 

 arts. Museum of History and Technology)', in the Smith- 

 sonian Institution's United States National Museum. 



No OTHER ARTIST has approached Thomas Bewick 

 (1753-1828) as the chronicler of English rustic 

 life. The little wood engravings which he turned out 

 in such great number were records of typical scenes 

 and episodes, but the artist could also give them social 

 and moral overtones. Such an approach has at- 

 tracted numerous admirers who have held him in 

 esteem as an undoubted homespun genius. The fact 

 that he had no formal training as a wood engraver, 

 and actually never had a lesson in drawing, made his 

 native inspiration seem all the more authentic. 



The Contemporary View of Bewick 



After 1790, when his A general history of quadrupeds 

 appeared with its vivid animals and its humorous and 

 mordant tailpiece vignettes, he was hailed in terms 

 that have hardly been matched for adulation. Cer- 

 tainly no mere book illustrator ever received equal 

 acclaim. He was pronounced a great artist, a great 

 man, an outstanding moralist and reformer, and the 

 master of a new pictorial method. This flood of 

 eulogy rose increasingly during his lifetime and con- 

 tinued throughout the remainder of the 19 th century. 

 It came from literary men and women who saw him 

 as the artist of the common man; from the pious who 

 recognized him as a commentator on the vanities and 

 hardships of life (but who sometimes deplored the 

 frankness of his subjects); from bibhophiles who wel- 



comed him as a revolutionary illustrator; and from 

 fellow wood engravers for whom he was the indis- 

 [jensable trail blazer. 



During the initial wave of Bewick appreciation, 

 the usually sober \Vord.sworth wrote in the 1 805 edi- 

 tion of I.yriial ballads: ' 



O now (h;U the tjeiiius of Bewick were mine, 

 And the skiU w'hich he learned on the banks of the Tyne ! 

 Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose, 

 For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose. 

 What feats would I work with my magical hand ! 

 Book learnini; and books would he banished the land. 



If art critics as a class were the most con.scrvative 

 in their estimates of his ability, it was one of the most 

 eminent. John Ruskin, whose praise went to most 

 extravagant lengths. Bewick, he asserted, as late as 

 1890,^ ". . . without training, was Holbein's equal 

 ... in this frame arc set together a drawinsi; by Hans 

 Holbein, and one by Thomas Bew ick. I know which 

 is most scholarly; but I do mil know which is best." 

 Linking Bewick with Botticelli as a draughtsman, he 

 added:' "I know no drawing so subtle as Bewick's 

 since the fifteenth century, except Holbein's and 

 Turner's." .\nd as a typical example of popular 

 ap|)reciation, the following, from the June 1828 issue 



' William Woi-dswoith, Lyrical ballads, London, 1805, vol. 1. 

 p. 199. 



- John Ruskin, Ariadne Florenlina, London, 1 890, pp. 98, 99. 

 3 llml., p. 246. 



186 



BULLETIN 218: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY .\ND TECHNOLOGY 



