TEE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 289 



76. Turning, then, to our special subject. All engraving, I 

 said, is intaglio in the solid. But the solid, in wood engrav- 

 ing, is a coarse substance, easily cut ; and in metal, a fine 

 substance, not easily. Therefore, in general, you may be pre- 

 pared to accept ruder and more elementary work in one than 

 the other ; and it will be the means of appeal to blunter 

 minds. 



You probably already know the difference between the 

 actual methods of producing a printed impression from wood 

 and metal ; but I may perhaps make the matter a little more 

 clear. In metal engraving, you cut ditches, fill them with 

 ink, and press your paper into them. In wood engraving, 

 you leave ridges, rub the tops of them with ink, and stamp 

 them on your paper. 



The instrument with which the substance, whether of the 

 wood or steel, is cut away, is the same. It is a solid plough- 

 share, which, instead of throwing the earth aside, throws it 

 up and out, producing at first a simple ravine, or furrow, in 

 the wood or metal, which you can widen by another cut, or 

 extend by successive cuts. This (Fig. 1) is the general shape 

 of the solid ploughshare : 



FIG. 1. 



but it is of course made sharper or blunter at pleasure. The 

 furrow produced is at first the wedge-shaped or cuneiform 

 ravine, already so much dwelt upon in my lectures on Greek 

 sculpture. 



77. Since, then, in wood printing, you print from the sur- 

 face left solid ; and, in metal printing, from the hollows cut 

 into it, it follows that if you put few touches on wood, you 

 draw, as on a slate, with white lines, leaving a quantity of 

 black ; but if you put few touches on metal, you draw with 

 black lines, leaving a quantity of white. 



Now the eye is not in the least offended by quantity of 

 white, but is, or ought to be, greatly saddened and offended 



