ENGRAVING-PHOTOGRAPHY. 



ENGRAVING. 



HAVING in the preceding sheet endeavoured 

 to explain the method of printing from 

 movable types, known as letter-press printing, and 

 from stone, called lithography, we shall, in the 

 present, give some account of the allied arts 

 employed principally in the embellishment of 

 printed matter, namely, Engraving on wood, 

 copper, steel, and other metals, and the kindred 

 art of Photography. 



WOOD-ENGRAVING. 



During the last twenty or thirty years, everyone 

 must have observed how great has been the 

 increase of works containing wood-engravings, 

 for the purpose cither of illustration or embellish- 

 ment ; and yet there is scarcely an art or pro- 

 fession of which so little is popularly known. 



Wood-engraving, or Xylography, the art of 

 engraving designs on wood, differs from copper 

 and steel plate engraving by having the parts 

 intended to print on the paper, in relief. While 

 plates are printed from the engraved lines by a 

 laborious and necessarily slow process, wood- 

 engravings, having the object to be represented 

 on the surface, in the manner of a type, may be 

 printed along with the matter it is intended to 

 illustrate in the ordinaiy printing-machine. This, 

 of course, is an important point in the illustration 

 of books, on the grounds of cheapness and ex- 

 pedition. Another advantage wood-engravings 

 possess is, that they can be multiplied to any 

 extent by means of the stereotype and electro- 

 type processes. 



The invention of wood-engraving has been 

 claimed for the Chinese, whose books have 

 certainly been printed from engraved wood- 

 blocks for ages. It has indeed been asserted 

 that the art of cutting figures in relief, and 

 printing impressions of them on paper, was 

 known and practised by that nation as early as 

 the reign of the renowned Emperor Wu-Wang 

 (1120 B.C.). There is no doubt that wood-stamps 

 were used by the ancient Egyptians and Romans 

 for stamping bricks and other articles of clay ; 

 and that wood and metal stamps of monograms, 

 &c. were used in various European countries, for 

 attesting deeds and other documents, at a very 

 early period, when the ability to write was an 

 extraordinary accomplishment even for princes. 

 It is not, however, until the beginning of the I5th 

 century that we find any evidence of the existence 

 of wood-engraving as we now understand it. 

 appears to have been used in Germany at that time 

 for printing playing-cards and figures of saints. 

 The earliest print of which any certain information 

 can be obtained is, or was recently, in the collection 

 of Earl Spencer. It was discovered in one of th 

 most ancient convents of Germany the Char- 

 treuse of Buxheim, near Memmingen, in Bavaria 

 pasted within the cover of a Latin MS. ; it 

 101 



represents St Christopher carrying the infant 

 Saviour across the sea, and is dated 1423. Fig. i 

 is a reduced fac-simile of this curious engraving. 

 It is a work of some merit, notwithstanding its 

 apparent roughness ; the infant Saviour and the 



Fig. I. 



drapery of the saint being drawn with consider- 

 able skill and vigour. The inscription at the 

 bottom has been thus translated : ' In whichever 

 day thou seest the likeness of St Christopher, in 

 that same day thou wilt, at least, from death no 

 evil blow incur. 1423-' Shortly afterwards, a 

 series of books, printed entirely from woo 

 engravings, called block-books, were issued. 

 They consisted principally of religious subjects, 

 with short descriptions engraved on the sanv 

 block. The most important of them were I 

 Afiocalypsis, seu Historic Sant/t Johantus ; the 

 Historia Virginis ex CantUo Canticorum; and 

 the Biblia Pauperum, the last containing repre- 

 sentations of some of the principal passages o 

 the Old and New Testaments, with explanatory 

 texts. The illustrations, of which Mr Jacks 

 his treatise on the History and Practice of 

 eneraving, gives an elaborate account and sever 

 specimens, seem to be drawn with a supren 

 contempt for perspective and proportion, but be 

 evidence of the draperies, and hands and I 

 having been carefully studied. Fig. 2 is a copy 

 of one of the cuts in the Afiocalyfisis. 

 sents St John preaching to three men and a 

 woman, with the inscription : ' Convera. abrtalu, 



