\\iinn KNt.KAVIXi;. 





library of tlic convent of KuxK-im. ; ninj-en, in Suabiu. ami i 



now "in tlie library ol i ^topher 



carrying our Saviour on his shoulders aoroa * river. The two \ 

 are dr.n. n with much spirit ; but the accessories, a man with .1 

 au, a hermit holding up a 1 intern, and a man amending a steep path 

 toward a house, show a deplorable want of knowledge of perspect 

 is by DO means certain, however, that this print is the most ancient spe- 

 ! possess, as there are several others which, from their greater 

 rudeness, have been held to have superior claims to antiquity. But 

 thin rndeness cannot be accepted as a proof, as there is reason to 

 oelicvi> that these scriptural subject* were addressed to the wants of 

 the poorer classes, and were intended to supply the place of the more 

 costly illuminations of the rich, while they admitted of being made to 

 occupy a middle place by being finished off by hand in colours ; and, 

 indeed, many of the remaining specimens owe part of their i 

 to the defect of parts intended to be BO supplied. Cheapness was 

 therefore an element necessarily required in the production of these 

 print*. 



The art. however, made rapid progress. The next great stop w.-n 

 the production of block books and the adoption of moveable letters. 

 [PRINTING.] Without entering into the disputed <jiiestiun of the dates 

 of the ' Biblia Pauperum,' the ' Speculum Salvationis,' and others, it 

 will lie enough to say that they prove the extension of ite use, and 

 many of th early books with move-able types were illustrated with 

 pictorial wood-cuts. Of one of these works we subjoin a fac-simile 

 n. A selection of rare and beautiful specimens of block-books, 

 including the ' Biblia Pauperum,' supposed to be the earliest, and the 

 ' Opera nova < 'ontemplativa,' the latest block-book, is exhibited in the 

 British Museum, cases 1 and 2 in the Grenville Library. 



Vtise Men'* Offering. 



Maps also were engraved on wood. In an edition of Ptolemy, 

 printed in 1482 at Ulm, there are twenty-seven ; and in a later edition, 

 printed at Venice in 1S11. the outline, with the mountains and rivers, 

 a in woexl, while the names are printed with type, and in two colours, 

 n.. il'iubt by separate workings. In England, the original map of 

 London by Aggns, measuring 6 ft. 3 in. by 2 ft. 4 in., to which tin- <laf < 

 > was assigned by Vertue, though it was probably some years 

 later, was on wood in several blocks, worked on separate sheets of 

 paper. In 1488 the improvement known as "cross-hatching," by 

 which the bold and free effect of a pen-drawing was endeavoured to ! 

 attained, was shown in Breidenbcix*" ' Travel",' printed at Mentz. 

 This invention has bwn usually attributed to Michael Wohlgemuth, 



the master of Albert l>nivr. Thix work, however, preexM 

 years tin- NiirnU-rK ('' I to be by Wuhlgemuth, I" 



v only furnJKhrd the 1 designs, and the execution of the cuts is 



| . 



two fac simile > ' A Treatise on Wood-Engraving, 



i! and I'lactic.-il.' executed b\ .1. Jack-on, the most cor 

 it has been produced on tin- subject in this, country, and to 

 vhi.lt we are much indebted, although we have been compelled to 

 differ from some of ttic opinions t.h- 



The art h.od now attained an e iiich induced art 



I talent to select it as the means m 

 designs to the world. Among the ino-t distinguished in ' 

 Albert 1 hirer, whose productions as a painter, and an engra- 

 copper and wood, are so numerous as to excite a doubt win 

 actually an engraver on wood himself, or whether he only put the 

 design on the blocks, leaving them for ol The 



majority of critics regard it as certain that Diircr engraved m; 

 bin own designs ; the inequality of execut .t h his 



monogram forbids the belief that all were from the same hand. I'. 

 m In I'. i'tire-Graveur,' and tile writer of the work above mentioned, 

 *A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,' have af,'re<d that 1 hirer did not 

 engrave on wood. The last i . of all the wood-engravings 



marked with the initials of Diirer, about two hundred, 

 part of them, though evidently designed by the hand of a master, are 

 engraved in a manner which certainly denotes no very great excellence, 

 and that none are so superior as to challenge a belief that tin 

 be from his own hand ; but he acknowledges that " the cute of the 

 'Apocalypse' (published in 1498), five years after tl. 

 Chronicle, anel eight from the expiration of his apprenticeship) gene- 

 rally are much superior to all w.. n,'3 that ha 1 

 appeared, both in design and execution asserts that this 

 superiority in execution does not arise from any delicacy or hkill in the 

 engraving, " but from the ability of the person by whom they were 

 drawn, and from his knowledge of the capabilities of the art.' Another 

 argument is the frequent employment in his cuts of cross-hatching, a 

 work of no artistic difficulty, though one of minute ai 

 and which, as an artist, he could have easily avoided. This arj; 

 is also applied to others, Cranach, Burgmair, &c., who, it is urged, as 

 draughtsmen on the wood, produced shade thus more easily than by 

 thickening the lines, though in cutting the case is reversed. The last 

 argument is, that, with his other avocations, Diirer could not have 

 found time to execute the great number marked with his nam< 

 this we may remark, that a knowledge of the capabiliti. of the art 

 was most likely to have been acquired by practice a fact that is felt 

 even at present by persons who elraw on wood ; and it is remarkable 

 that in the ' Apocalypse ' the use of cross-hatchings is much more 

 sparing than in many of his later works. There can be little doubt 

 that, as he advanced in reputation, he availed himself of assistance not 

 only in wood-engraving, but in painting and engraving on copper. It 

 is known that he had many pupils, and of course it wax in tl 

 they were instructed. His wood-cuts are marked 

 engravings on copper are marked, and we think there are thus gi 

 for supposing that the cuts of the ' Apocalypse ' are chiev 

 own hand, and that in the others he at least closely superintended 

 their execution and gave the finishing touches. There is much in his 

 designs that patient fidelity could successfully copy, but there is much 

 of artistic feeling and expression that none but an artist of great 

 could reach : we refer, as an example, to the Christ taken from tin- 

 Cross, of which the block still exists, anel from which imp-. 

 printed in Ottley's ' Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of 

 Kngraving,' and in which the cross-hatching is but sparingly, though 

 effectively, introduced. It is yet a common practice for engravers to 

 employ their pupils in the more tedious and mechanical parts of their 

 business, and this might lead him to adopt the cross-hatching more 

 frequently than in those executed by his own hand, in which, h. 

 he would not altogether omit it, as it was then underst. 

 improvement. It would be hard, however, in such cases to withhold 

 the merit of the engraving from the master because he had been 

 assisted perl ms persons, according to their capacity, under 

 his immediate supervision. This is also Ottley's opinion. II. 

 " Diirer or Burgmair might have found employment for a dozen young 

 men ; " and that of the Abate Pietro Zani (' Encyclopc, 

 critico-ragionata dclle Belle Arte,' Parma, 1821). On the other hand, 

 Passavant, who has collected the whole of the evidence, 



nions, on each side (' 1'eintre-Gravcur,' vol. i.) inclines to the 

 belief that Diirer's designs were certainly for the most p. 

 by professional wood-engrav 



Thus much we have thought it necessary to urge in favour of I < 

 claims to be considered as an engraver on wood, though doubt] 

 merit as an artist is to be estimated rather from li othei 

 painter, an e-ngraver on copper, and as a sculptor, in all of which he 

 excelled. In the history of the art, however, the question h 

 little real importance. The prints exist, the date of tli- ir pro 

 in well ascertained, the progress of improvement definitely marl. 

 the engravers have been who they might. 



In the early part of the 16th century several artists of celebrit\ 

 either designers on wood or engravers: Louis Cranach. 1 1 

 Hans Burgmair, Hans Schaufflein, Urge Graffe of Berne, and, in Italy. 



