THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 297 



so thick, 80 far from the next, that it shall begin here, and 

 stop there. And he is deliberately assigning the utmost 

 quantity of meaning to it, that a line will carry. 



93. It is not fair, however, to compare common work of 

 one age with the best of another. Here is a woodcut of Ten- 

 niel's, which I think contains as high qualities as it is possible 

 to find in modern art.* I hold it as beyond others fine, be- 

 cause there is not the slightest caricature in it. No face, no 

 attitude, is pushed beyond the degree of natural humour they 

 would have possessed in life ; and in precision of momentary 

 expression, the drawing is equal to the art of any time, and 

 shows power which would, if regulated, be quite adequate to 

 producing an immortal work. 



94. Why, then, is it not immortal? You yourselves, in 

 compliance with whose demand it was done, forgot it the 

 next week. It will become historically interesting ; but no 

 man of true knowledge and feeling will ever keep this in his 

 cabinet of treasure, as he does these woodcuts of Holbein's. 



The reason is that this is base coin, alloyed gold. There 

 is gold in it, but also a quantity of brass and lead wilfully 

 added to make it fit for the public. Holbein's is beaten 

 gold, seven times tried in the fire. Of which commonplace 

 but useful metaphor the meaning here is, first, that to catch 

 the vulgar eye a quantity of, so-called, light and shade is 

 added by Tenniel. It is effective to an ignorant eye, and is 

 ingeniously disposed ; but it is entirely conventional and false, 

 unendurable by any person who knows what chiaroscuro is. 



Secondly, for one line that Holbein lays, Tenniel has a 

 dozen. There are, for instance, a hundred and fifty-seven 

 lines in Sir Peter Teazle's wig, without counting dots and 

 slight cross-hatching ; but the entire face and flowing hair 

 of Holbein's preacher are done with forty-five lines, all told. 



95. Now observe what a different state of mind the two 

 artists must be in on such conditions ; one; never in a hurry, 

 never doing anything that he knows is wrong ; never doing a 

 line badly that he can do better ; and appealing only to the 



* John Bull as Sir Oliver Surface, with Sir Peter Teazle and Joseph 

 Surface. It appeared in Punch, early in 1863. 



