ENGRAVING. 



great vigour and skill, are generally understood to 

 have been executed by Hans Holbein ; but whether 

 he also engraved them, as has been alleged, is 

 more than doubtful. Towards the conclusion of 

 the century, however, the art had made consider- 

 able progress in Italy, where some of the best pro- 

 ductions of Germany were equalled, if not excelled. 

 In England, it did not make much progress. John 

 Daye published almost the only illustrated books 

 of the time, notably Queen Elizabeth's Prayer- 

 book, which contains a tolerably well-executed 

 portrait of Her Majesty. From the beginning of 

 the 1 7th century the art fell into a state of great 

 neglect, not, apparently, for want of engravers, for 

 wood-cuts of a certain kind were always produced, 

 but for want of artists able, or willing, to make 

 drawings worthy of preservation. 



Nothing particularly deserving of notice occurred 

 until the genius of Thomas Bewick gave wood- 

 engraving that impetus which has made it what it 

 now is one of the most important of the illustra- 

 tive arts. Bewick's most important works are his 

 Histories of British Quadrupeds (1790) and British 

 Birds (1804) ; all the quadrupeds, and almost all 

 the birds, were drawn and engraved by himself. 

 The birds especially are executed with a truth- 

 fulness and skill which have rarely if ever been 

 equalled. These works are also famous for their 

 collection of tail-pieces, which display an infinite 

 amount of humour and pathos. Fig. 5 is a reduced 



Fig- 5- 



copy of one of them a poor ewe, in the starvation 

 of winter, picking at an old broom in front of a 

 ruined cot a scene, trifling as it seems, which tells 

 a woful tale of suffering. He entirely abandoned 

 the elaborate system of 'cross-hatching,' which 

 prevailed so much in the works of the older en- 

 gravers, and produced his light and shade by the 

 simplest possible means. The above example 

 affords an excellent specimen of a wonderful effect 

 being produced by a few simple lines. 



Since Bewick's time, wood-engraving has con- 

 tinued to flourish without interruption. He left 

 behind him several pupils, the most successful of 

 whom were Nesbet, Clennell (who engraved some 

 of the tail-pieces in the British Birds'), and William 

 Harvey. Harvey, however, forsook the burin for 

 the pencil ; and his drawings illustrating Milton's 

 Paradise Lost, Thomson's Seasons, &c., especially 

 such as were engraved by John Thomson (perhaps 

 the most skilful engraver that ever lived, and a 

 pupil of Robert Branston, a self-taught engraver), 

 still retain a first-class place as specimens of 

 wood-engraving. The establishment of the Illus- 

 trated London News (1842) tended greatly to 

 familiarise the public with the beauties of wood- 

 engraving. 



Of late years, the art has also made very- 



great progress in France and Germany. The 

 style of engraving, however, is quite different 

 from the English, so much so, that a practised 

 eye can distinguish a French wood-cut at a 

 glance. 



Formerly, the usual practice was for the en- 

 graver to make his own drawings on wood. While 

 the work was limited, and not required of a very 

 high class, and in cases of exceptional genius, such 

 as Bewick, Samuel Williams, and W. J. Linton, 

 this did well enough. The spread of printing in 

 modern times, and the increased demand for good 

 wood-cut illustrations, had the inevitable result 

 of producing a supply of trained artists, many of 

 them beginning as engravers, who, by making the 

 necessities of that art their special study, have 

 brought it as nearly as possible to a state of perfec- 

 tion. Messrs (now Sir) John Gilbert and Birket 

 Foster were the first of this class of artists. It 

 would be difficult to overestimate the value of the 

 services these gentlemen have rendered to the 

 cause of wood-engraving, and their influence in 

 raising it to its present high place as an art. 

 Although both have left the pencil for the brush, 

 they have, by their example and precept, left 

 behind many who are well qualified to carry on 

 the work they had so well begun. 



Practice of Wood-engraving, The wood used 

 for engraving is boxwood, which has the closest 

 grain of any wood hitherto discovered It is prin- 

 cipally imported from Turkey for the purpose, as 

 the English box is too small to be of much use. 

 It is cut across the grain in slices, which are 

 dressed to the same height as type, for convenience 

 in printing. Inferior kinds of wood, such as 

 American rock-maple, pear-tree, plane-tree, &c, 

 are used for coarser purposes ; and for very large 

 and coarse subjects, such as posting-bills, common 

 deal is used, and cut on the side of the wood with 

 chisels and gouges. When blocks as the pieces 

 of wood are termed are required of a larger sue 

 than a few inches square, it is necessary to join 

 two or more pieces together, as the amount of 

 sound wood to be got out of even a large slice 

 is extremely 'limited. There is, however, for all 

 practical purposes, no limit to the joining process, 

 as blocks have been printed consisting of from 50 

 to i oo pieces. The wood having been made very 

 smooth on the surface, and squared to the required 

 size, is prepared for the artist by being cowered 

 with water-colour Chinese white, with the add:' 

 of a little enamel, scraped off an enamelled card ; 

 this gives a very good surface for the pencil to 

 work on the enamel hardens the white, and 

 permits of washing with a brush, which the white 

 itself will not do. The subject is then drawn in 

 the ordinary way, except that everything n 

 necessarily be reversed, the tints beinp ffenerally 

 washed in with India-ink, and the details filled in 

 with pencil. When the drawing is finished, it is 

 given to the engraver, who, previous to commenc- 

 ing, carefully covers the block with paper, fastened 

 round the edges with beeswax ; this is necessary, 

 to avoid rubbing the drawing out in the process. 

 As the engraving proceeds, he gradually tears the 

 paper off. 



The tools or gravers necessary in wood-engrav- 

 ing are of three kinds vix., gravers proper (fig. 6, 

 a) ; tint-tools (fig. 6, b) ; and scoopcrs, or cutting- 

 out tools for clearing out the larger pieces (fig. 6, 

 c). They are arranged in different sixes, to suit 



7T1 



