I'igure 2. — Wood Engraving 

 Procedure, showing manipula- 

 lion of the burin, from Chatto and 

 Jackson, A /realise on wood engraving, 

 1 86 1. (Sec footnote 6.) 



were needed in books and periodicals, copper plate 

 work was almost invariably used, despite the fact 

 that it was more costly, was much slower in execution 

 and printing, and had to be bovmd in with text in 

 a separate operation. But while the Society of 

 Arts had begun to offer prizes for engraving or 

 cutting on wood (Bewick received such a prize in 

 1775) the medium was still moribund. Dobson •** 

 described its status as follows: 



During the earlier part of the figlucciuii century 

 engraving on wood can scarcely be said to have flomislicd 

 in England. It existed — so much may be admitted — but 

 it existed without recognition or importance. In the 

 useful little El<it des Arts en Angleterre, published in 1755 b\- 

 Roquet the enameller, — a treatise so catholic in its scope 

 that it included both cookery and medicine, — ilieic is no 

 reference to the art of wood-engraving. In the Artist's 

 Assistant, to take another book which might be expected to 

 afford soine information, even in the fifth edition of 1788, 

 the subject finds no record, even though engraving on metal, 

 etching, mezzotinto-scraping — to say nothing of "painting 

 on silks, sattins, etc." are treated with sufficient detail. 

 Turning from these authorities to the actual woodcuts of the 

 period, it must be adinitted that tin- survey is not en- 

 couraging. 



Earlier, among other critics of the deficiencies of 

 the woodcut, Horace W'alpole** had remarked: 



I have said, and for two reasons, shall say little of wooden 

 cuts; that art never was executed with any perfection in 



' Austin Dobson, T/wnuis Bewick and his pupils, Boston, 1884, 

 pp. 1, 2. 



° Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of painting in England. A cata- 

 logue of engravers who /lave been born, or resided in England. Digested 

 from the manuscript of Mr. George Vertue . . . London, 1782 

 (1st ed. 1762), p. 4. 



England; engraving on metal was a final improvement of 

 the art, and supplied the defects of cuttings in wood. The 

 ancient wooden cuts were certainly carried to a great 

 heighth. but that was the merit of the masters, not of the 

 method. 



Woodcut and Wood Engraving 



It is necessary, before continuing, to distinguish 

 clearly between the woodcut and the wood engraving, 

 not only because early writers used these terms inter- 

 changeably, but also to determine exactly what Be- 

 wick contributed technically. The woodcut began 

 with a drawing in pen-and-ink on the plank surface 

 of a smooth-grained wood such as pear, serviceix-rry, 

 or box. The woodcutter, using knife, gouges, and 

 chi.'-els, then lowered the wood surrounding the lines 

 to allow the original drawing, unaltered, to be iso- 

 lated in relief (see fig. 1). Thus the block, when 

 inked and printed, produced facsimile impressions of 

 the drawing in black lines on white paper. Usually 

 an accomplished artist made the drawing, whereas 

 only a skilled craftsman was needed to do the cutting; 

 very few cutters were also capable of making their own 

 drawings. 



The wood engraving, on the other hand, started 

 with a section of dense wood of a uniform texture, usu- 

 ally box or maple, and with the end-grain rather than 

 the plank as surface. For larger engravings a number 

 of sections were mortised together. The drawing was 

 made on the block, not in pen-and-ink although this 

 could be done (certain types of wood engraving repro- 

 duced pen drawings) but in gray washes with a full 

 range of tones. The engraver, using a burin similar 

 to that employed in copper plate work, then ploughed 



PAPER 11: WHY BEWICK SUCCEEDED 



189 



