Cards soon became not only an amusement, but an important article of commerce. In the registers of the city of Ulm there is inscribed, in 1402, the name of a burgess who was a painter of cards. In 1418 the burgess-book of Augsburg contains the name of a " Kartenmacher," card-maker. The trade in cards from Augsburg, Niirnberg, and Ulm became so great that Venice prohibited their importation, and in Sicily they were imported by the cask. It is thence almost certain that it must have been by means of some facility in multiplying copies that they could have been manufactured so cheap as to command so extensive a demand in foreign countries, hut none of the specimens now remaining enable us to fix any precise date to their production. We give one specimen, copied from Mr. Singer's work on playing cards :— Jager ('Kunstblatt,' for 1833) found, under the year 1398, the name of one Ulrich, a wood-engraver (Formschnsider), but whether he cut blocks for cards, for seals, or for prints, is at least doubtful. (Passavant. Le Peintre-graveur,' i. 11.) There also occurs, in the necrology of the convent of the Franciscans, at Noerdlingen, which terminated at the beginning of the 15th century, the nsme of a lay brother, Luger, who was an excellent engraver in wood. (" Optimus incisor lignonim ; " Heller, Geschichte,' p.25.) Luger was probably, as Passavant suggests, an engraver of religious subjects, and several wood-cuts of a very early date are still extant, which, if not executed in a monastery, were executed for one. (See list in Passavant, p. 22, &c.) But the first wood-cut with a date known to be in existence is of 1423. It was dis covered by Ifeineken, pasted on the rover of a manuscript in the library of the convent of near Mernmingen, in Suabia, and Is now iu the library of Earl Spencer. It represents St. Christopher carrying our Saviour on his shoulders across a river. The two figures are drawn with much spirit ; but the accessories, a man with a loaded ass, a hermit holding up a lantern, and a man ascending a steep path toward a house, show a deplorable want of knowledge of perspective. It is by no means certain, however, that this print is the most ancient ape einten we possess, as there are several others which, from their greater rudeness, have been held to have superior claims to antiqnity. But this rudeness cannot be accepted as a proof, as there is reason to believe that these scriptural subjects were addressed to the wants of the poorer classes, and were intended to supply the place of the more costly illuminations of the rich, while they admitted of being made to occupy a middle place by being finished of by hand in colours ; and, indeed, many of the remaining specimens owe part of their rudeness to the defect of parts intended to be so supplied. Cheapness was therefore an clement necessarily required in the production of these prints.
The art, however, made rapid progress. The next great step was the production of block books and the adoption of moveable letters. [Pazzereec.] Without entering into the disputed question of the dates of the ' Wein Pauperum,' the ' Speculum Salvationist and others, it will be enough to say that they prove the extension of its use, and many of the early books with moveable types were illustrated with pictorial wood-cuts. Of one of these works we subjoin a facsimile specimen. A selection of rare and beautiful specimens of block-books, including the Biblia Patiperum,' supposed to be the earliest, and the Opera nova Contemplative, the latest block-book, is exhibited in the British Museum, cases 1 and 2 in the Grenville Library.
Maps also were engraved on wood. In an edition of Ptolemy, printed in 1432 at Ulm, there are twenty-seven ; and in a later edition, printed at Venice in 1511, the outline, with the mountains and rivers, is in wood, while the names are printed with type, and in two colours, no doubt by separate workings. In England, the original map of London by Amu, measuring 6 ft. 3 in. by 2 ft. 4 in., to which the data of 156u was assigned by Vertue, though it was probably some years later, was on wood in several blocks, worked on separate sheets of paper. In 1486 the improvement known BA "crosshatching," by which the bold and free effect of a pen-drawing was endeavoured to be attained, was shown In Breiclenberg's Travels,' printed at Mentz. This invention bas been usually attributed to Michael Wolilgcmuth, the master of Albert Darer. This work, however, preceded by seven years the Nitrnberg Chronicle, said to be by Wohlgemuth, but who preltaVy only furnished the designs, and the execution of the cuts is in a very superior style to that of any existing contemporary production : two fee simile specimens are given A Treatise on Wood-Engraving, 11 istorical and Practical,' executed by J. Jackson, the most complete
work that has been produced on the subject in this country, and to which we are much indebted, although we have been compelled to differ from some of the opinions therein.
The art had now attained an excellence which induced artists of celebrity and talent to select it as the means of conveying their designs to the world. Among the most distinguished in this line was Albert Darer, whose productions as a painter,- and an engraver on copper and wood, are so numerous as to excite a doubt whether he was actually an engraver on wood himself, or whether he only put the design on the blocks, leaving them for other hands to execute. The majority of critics regard it as certain that Darer engraved many of his own designs ; the inequality of execution of those marked with his monogram forbids the belief that all were from the same band. Bartsch, in his Peintre-Gmveur,' and the writer of the work above mentioned, A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,' have agreed that Darer did not engrave on wood. The last-named says, of all the wood-engravings marked with the initials of Darer, about two hundred, " the greater part of them, though evidently 'designed by the hand of a master, are engraved iu a manner which certainly denotes no very great excellence, and that none are so superior as to challenge a belief that they must be from his own hand; but lie acknowledges that "the cuts of the Apocalypse' (published in 1493), five years after the Niiruberg Chronicle, and eight from the expiration of his apprenticeship) gene. rally are much superior to all wood-engravings that had previously appeared, both in design and execution." Yet ho asserts that this superiority in execution does not arise from any delicacy or skill in the engraving, "but from the ability of the person by whom they were drawn, and from his knowledge of the capabilities of the art." Another argument is the frequent employment in his cuts of cross-hatching, a work of no artistic difficulty, though one of minute and tedious labour, and which, as an artist, he could have easily avoided. This argument is also applied to others, Cranach, Burgmair, &c., who, it is urged, as draughtsmen on the wood, produced shade thus more easily than by thickening the lines, though in cutting the case is reversed. The last argument is, that, with his other avocations, Diirer could not have found time to execute the great number marked with his name. On this we may remark, that a knowledge of the capabilities of the art was most likely to have been acquired by practice—a fact that is felt even at present by persons who draw on wood ; and it is remarkable that in the Apocalypse' the use of cross-hatchings is much more sparing than in many of his later works. There can be little doubt that, as he advanced in reputation, he availed himself of attsistance not only in wood-engraving, but in painting and engraving on copper. It is known that he had many pupils, and of course it was in this way they were instructed. His wood-cuts are marked precisely as his engravings on copper are marked, and we think there are thus grounds for supposing that the cuts of the Apocalypse' are chiefly from his own hand, and that in the others he at least closely superintended their execution and gave the finishing touches. There is much in his designs that patient fidelity could successfully copy, but there is much of artistic feeling and expression that none but an artist of great talent could reach : we refer, as an example, to the Christ taken from the Cross, of which the block still exists, and from which impressions were printed in Ottley's ' Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving,' and in which the cross-hatching is but sparingly, though effectively, introduced. It is yet a common practice for engravers to employ their pupils in the more tedious and mechanical parts of their business, and this might lead him to adopt the cross-hatching more frequently than in those executed by his own band, in which, however, be would not altogether omit it, as it was then understood to be an improvement. It would be hard, however, in such cases to withhold the merit of the engraving from the master because lie had been assisted perhaps by various persons, according to their capacity, under his immediate supervision. This is also Ottley's opinion. He says, "Darer or Burgmair might have found employment for a dozen young men ;" and that of the Abate Pietro Zani (' Encyclopedia Metodica critico-ragionata dclle Belle Arte,' Parma, 1821). On the other Land, Passavant, who has collected the whole of the evidence, and many of the opinions, on each side (' Peintre-Gmvettr,' vol. i.) inclines to the belief that Durer's designs were certainly for the most part engraved by professional wood-engravers.