JAPANESE WOOD-CUTTING AN1> WOOD-CUT PRINTING. 23S 



The tools arc knives, which with us have been displaced by gravers 

 It is interesting - to compare the representation of a Japanese wood. 

 cutter (PI. vi) with the oldest known representation of a European 

 wood-cutter (Fig. 2), here reproduced from Jost Amman's "Beschrei- 

 bung aller Stande" (generally, although not quite correctly, called 

 "Book of Trades"), published in Frankfort-on-the-Main in the year 

 15G8. As Jost Amman was a very prolific designer for wood-cutters, 

 he must have been thoroughly familiar with the craft, and his repre- 

 sentation may therefore be 

 accepted as reliable. At 

 first sight the way of hold- 

 ing the tool adopted by Am- 

 man's " Formsehneider " 

 (form -cutter, i. e., wood- 

 cutter) impresses one as 

 peculiar, and perhaps un- 

 warranted. A glance at PL 

 VI, however, shows a strik- 

 ing analogy between the 

 manner of holding the tool 

 of the Japanese "Form 

 Schneider" of to-day aud 

 that of his European prede- 

 cessor of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, i. e., they both hold 

 the tool perpendicularly, 

 the only difference being 

 that the Asiatic uses also 

 the left hand in guiding it. 

 The modern Japanese docu- 

 ment may therefore serve 

 to confirm the correctness 

 of Jost Amman's delineation. 



Of the shape of the knife used by the old wood-cutters of Europe 

 and of the way of grinding it, we have no positive knowledge, as the 

 representations of tools which often accompany the monograms of the 

 "Forinschiieider" on sixteenth century wood-cuts are too small, and 

 oftentimes too fantastic, to be of any use for information. The knives 

 or "engraving points," as he called them, used by J. M. Papillon, the 

 well-known French wood-cutter of the eighteenth century, are figured 

 and fully described in his "Traite de la Gravure en Bois," 2 volumes, 

 Paris, lTlili. The blades were made of clock springs mounted in split 

 wooden handles, in which they were fastened by means of a piece of 

 string wound around them. Fig. 3 shows one of these knives, actual 

 size, reproduced from PI. iv in Papillon's second volume. It is flat on 

 the side not shown in the illustration, beveled on the side shown, and 



Fig. 2. 

 A European Wood-Cutter of ihe xvi. Century. 



F lost Amman's "Book ol Trades," [568. 



