A treatise on wood engravings : historical and practical . relief, according to the generalpractice of wood engravers ; the Italian, on the contrary, often cutsthem, with much greater ease, in intaglio; and thus the form of theletter, and its ornaments, appear, when printed, white upon a blackground.* The letter C at the commencement of the present chapter isan example of the German style, with the ornamental parts in relief;the letter M at the commencement of chapter V. is a specimen of themanner frequently adopted by old Italian wood engravers, the form ofthe letter and the ornamental foliag
A treatise on wood engravings : historical and practical . relief, according to the generalpractice of wood engravers ; the Italian, on the contrary, often cutsthem, with much greater ease, in intaglio; and thus the form of theletter, and its ornaments, appear, when printed, white upon a blackground.* The letter C at the commencement of the present chapter isan example of the German style, with the ornamental parts in relief;the letter M at the commencement of chapter V. is a specimen of themanner frequently adopted by old Italian wood engravers, the form ofthe letter and the ornamental foliage being cut in intaglio. At asubsequent period a more elaborate manner of engraving beoan toprevail in Italy, and cross-hatching was almost as generally employedto obtain depth of colour and shade as in Germany. The wood-cutswhich appear in works printed at Venice between 1550 and 1570 aregenerally as good as most German wood-cuts of the same period ; and * The letter M at the commencement of the next chapter affords an example of thisstyle of IN CONNEXION WITH THE PEESS. 225 many of them, more especially those in books printed by tlie Giolitos, areexecuted with a clearness and delicacy which have seldom been surpassed. Before concluding the present chapter, which is more especiallydevoted to the consideration of wood engraving in the first period of itsconnexion with typography, it may not be improper to take a briefglance at the state of the art as practised by the Briefmalers andFormschneiders of Germany, who were the first to introduce thepractice of block-printing, and who continued to exercise this branch oftheir art for many years after typography had been generally establishedthroughout Europe. That the ancient wood engravers continued topractise the art of block-printing till tov/ards the close of the fifteenthcentury, there can be little doubt. There is an edition of the PoorPreachers Bible, with the date 1470, printed from wood-blocks, withoutplace or eng
Size: 1098px × 2277px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectwoodengraving, bookye
