Woodcut, Wood-enyraviuij, and Belief-Prints from Metal-plates. 13 



subject to render various tones or colours, is called the chiaroscuro * 

 method, from its imitation of light and dark tones. The main black 

 outlines are given on one block (the Jcey-blocJc), and the spaces of tone or 

 colour cut out on other blocks, one being used for each tone. In 

 ordinary chiaroscuro-cuts it is not often that more than two or three 

 tone blocks are used. In colour-woodcuts a much larger number might 

 of course be used. The printing from several blocks needs care to 

 ensure the corresponding parts of the subject being exactly superposed. 

 The exact register in making the tone-blocks would be obtained by 

 transfering to the surface a print from the key-block. And by the use 

 of pins, exactly corresponding places in the corners of each block could 

 be marked so that the impressions could be pulled with exact register. 



Colour- or tone-prints are also sometimes pulled from metal plates 

 in conjunction with wood-blocks (e.g. by the late chiaroscuro-engravers 

 and by George Baxter). 



It may also be added that plates for relief printing have occasionally 

 been produced (e.g. by William Blake) by etching away the negative 

 parts of the design. The design would need to be drawn on the surface 

 with a varnish that would resist the acid. 



Finally it should be observed that a large proportion of XlXth century 

 illustrations described as wood-engravings are printed not from the 

 wood, but from electrotypes taken from the wood. The electrotype 

 gives, of course, an almost perfect facsimile of the block, but it is 

 distinctly open to question as to whether prints for electrotypes should 

 not be strictly classed as reproductions, like photogravures of etchings 

 or engravings. 



History. 



The earliest impressions on paper from wood-blocks date about the 

 end of the XlVth century. The art, developed out of the practice, 

 common throughout the Middle Ages, of printing patterns on textiles 

 (ZeitgdrucJi-e) from wood-blocks, or forms, as they were called. The 

 cutter of these pattern-blocks, who was classed in the guilds with the 

 carpenter, was the original Form schii eider, the term frequently used for 

 the earlier woodcutters. 



One of the earliest uses to which woodcut was applied was to 

 printing pictures of the Passion of Christ and of Saints {Heiligenhilder, 

 Helgen), to be sold or distributed to pilgrims at tlie different shrines. 

 Most of these early single leaf cuts of saints were probably produced by 

 the monks, or at least in the convents. Pax^er was not procurable in 

 any large quantities in central Europe until the XlVth century, and the 

 popularity of these prints of saints may have encouraged the manufacture. 

 In the Middle Ages vellum had been almost universally used for manu- 

 scripts, but only a small proportion of the early woodcuts are on this 

 material. 



Another of the early uses of woodcut was the production of playing- 

 cards. Playing-cards are known to have been introduced into Germany 

 by 1377, and they may have been cut on wood as early as any of the 

 pictures of saints, but no existing packs can be dated with any certainty 

 before the middle of the XVth century. 



Another branch of early woodcut work is seen in the hlock-hools, i.e. 



* Cainaleu is the French term. 



