THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 293 



best wood engravings ever produced by art, two subjects in 

 Holbein's Dance of Death. You will probably like best that 

 I should at once proceed to verify my last and most startling 

 statement, that fine engraving disdained chiaroscuro. 



This vignette (Fig. 2) represents a sunset in the open 

 mountainous fields of southern Germany. And Holbein is 

 so entirely careless about the light and shade, which a Dutch- 

 man would first have thought of, as resulting from the sunset, 

 that, as he works, he forgets altogether where his light comes 

 from. Here, actually, the shadow of the figure is cast from 

 the side, right across the picture, while the sun is in front. 

 And there is not the slightest attempt to indicate gradation 

 of light in the sky, darkness in the forest, or any other positive 

 element of chiaroscuro. 



This is not because Holbein cannot give chiaroscuro if he 

 chooses. He is twenty times a stronger master of it than 

 Rembrandt ; but he, therefore, knows exactly when and how 

 to use it ; and that wood engraving is not the proper means 

 for it. The quantity of it which is needful for his story, and 

 will not, by any sensational violence, either divert, or vulgarly 

 enforce, the attention, he w r ill give ; and that with an unriv- 

 alled subtlety. Therefore I must ask you for a moment or two 

 to quit the subject of technics, and look what these two 

 woodcuts mean. 



84. The one I have first shown' you is of a ploughman 

 ploughing at evening. It is Holbein's object, here, to express 

 the diffused and intense light of a golden summer sunset, so 

 far as is consistent with grander purposes. A modern French 

 or English chiaroscurist would have covered his sky with 

 fleecy clouds, and relieved the ploughman's hat and his horses 

 against it in strong black, and put sparkling touches on the 

 furrows and grass. Holbein scornfully casts all such tricks 

 aside ; and draws the whole scene in pure white, with simple 

 outlines. 



85. And yet, when I put it beside this second vignette, 

 (Fig. 3), which is of a preacher preaching in a feebly-lighted 

 church, you will feel that the diffused warmth of the one sub- 

 ject, and diffused twilight in the other, are complete ; and 



