finer details than the old woodcut, which made use of knife and horizontally 

 grained wood. They judged by narrow craft standards concerned with exact imita- 

 tion of surface textures. Linton, for example, is almost contemptuous in his refer- 

 ences to the chiaroscuro woodcut: ^ 



. . . The poorest workman may suffice for an excellent chiaroscuro. I do not 

 depreciate the artistic value as chiaroscuros of the various prints here noted nor 

 underestimate the difficulty of production; but my business has been solely with 

 the not difficult knif ecutting and graver cutting of the same. 



The Chiaroscuro Tradition 



THE CHIAROSCURO woodcut was originally designed to serve a special pur- 

 pose, to reproduce drawings of the Renaissance period. These were often made 

 with pen and ink on paper prepared with a tint or with brush and wash tones on 

 white or tinted paper. Highlights were made and modeled with brush and white 

 pigment ; the result had something of a bas-relief character. Neither line engraving 

 nor etching was suited to reproducing these spirited drawings, but the chiaroscuro 

 woodcut could render their effects admirably. Its nature, therefore, was conceived 

 as fresh and spontaneous, as printed drawing, in fact. 



Chiaroscuros were usually of two types, the German and the Italian. The 

 Germans specialized in reproducing line drawings made on toned paper with 

 white highlights. The woodcuts, however, could stand by themselves as black-and- 

 white prints ; the tones required separate printing. The typical German chiaroscuro 

 was therefore from two blocks. The earliest dated print in this style is Lucas 

 Cranach's Venus, with "1506" appearing on the black block. But the brown tint 



* Linton, 1889, p. 215. A woodcut in the German manner was far more difficult to manage than 

 Linton imagined. Bewick tried to imitate the cross-hatched lines of a Diirer woodcut without success. 

 He finally concluded (1925, pp. 205-207) that the old woodcutters had used two blocks, each with lines 

 going in opposing directions, and had printed one over the other! 



