Thus much we have thought it necessary to urge in favour of Diirer's claims to be considered as an engraver on wood, though doubtless his merit ns an artist in to be estimated rather from his other works as a painter, an engraver on copper, and as a sculptor, in all of which he excelled. In the history of the art, however, the question has but little real importance. The prints exist, the date of their production is well ascertained, the progress of improvement definitely marked, let the engravers have been who they might.
In the early part of the 16th century several artists of celebrity were either designers on wood or engravers: Louis Czsnach, Hans Holbein, Hans Burgmair, Hans Schaufilein, Urse Graffb of Berne, and, in Italy, Ugo da Carpi. Their initials or monograms are on the works ; but their claims to the engraving have been denied by Bartsch and by Passavant, as well as by the writer In the Treatise on Wood-Engraving.' To Da Carpi has been attributed the invention of imitating drawings in chiaro scuro, effected by using three or more blocks ; but it has been shown that this had been done earlier by Dienecker, if not by Cranach. though Da Carpi most certainly improved on it, and some of his designs are said to have been drawn on the blocks by Itaffaelle himself, and many of them are from his designs. Books were also at this period most pro fusely illustrated ; but, with the exception of those from the artists already named, and a very few others of some (though inferior) merit, the illustrations are very rude both in design and execution. The art was chiefly practised in Germany, being greatly patronised by the Emperor Maximilian, for whom Burgmair designed the great work called ' Tho Triumphs of Maximilian.' Carpi was the only distin guished name out of that empire at this period, and the Italian wood engravings are, on the whole, even inferior to those produced in the Low Countries.' A selection of the early German and Italian prints in chiaroecuro may be seen in the King's Library at the British Museum.
From about 1545 to 1580 wood-engraving continued to be much used for the illustrating of books, but the style of the designs became much lowered ; and during this period the execution of engravings improved in Italy, in Holland, and at Lyon, while in Germany the reverse took place, although the productions of Jost Amman may be deemed an exception, as they are designed with considerable spirit, and executed with great care and neatness. His works are very nume rous : one of them, his illustrations to Schopper's De omnibus Illibe ralibus sive 3lechanicis Artibus,' contains 115 prints of the prineit al arts and trades then practised. From the end of the 16th century,
while the art continued to decline elsewhere, the cuts in English works showed visible improvement. About this time, also, it became cus tomary to designate the designer as well as the engraver (they had now become separate professions) in the impression ; as, for instance, in the designs by Itubens, engraved by Jegher. From this period there is little to be recorded of essential importance. till the appearance of Bewick, though a regular succession of engravers on wood was kept up both in England and on the Continent. The principal names in Eng land were E. Kirkell, who published prints after old Italian masters, in which the outlines were taken from copper-plates and the tints from wood blocks; and John Baptist Jackson, who resided for some time at Venice, and there executed a series of wood-cuts, intended as fac similes of drawings by Titian and other of the great Italian masters, somewhat in the manner of those of Kirkall.
Bewick, to whom the revival of wood-engraving is chiefly owing, was born in 1753, at Cherryburn, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was apprenticed in 17ti7 to Mr. Italph Beilby, of Newcastle, a general engraver, who undertook anything from book-plates to clock faces, and Bewick's first efforts in wood were made iu engraving diagrams for Dr. Charles Hutton's Treatise on Mensuration ; but though it is known that he endeavoured to improve himself in this line, it was in private, for his master had little or no employment of the kind for him. He devoted himself, however, to the art after the terininatiou of his apprenticeship, and in 1775 he received a premium from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures, for the cut of the Huntsman and the Old Hound, which appeared subsequently lu an edition of Gay's Fables,' published at Newcastle, in 1779, by S. Saint. After a short visit to London, he entered into partnership with his old master in 1777, his brother John becoming their apprentice. He con tinued the practice of his art, furnishing the cuts to the edition of Gay's ' Fables' just mentioned, and to an edition of ' Select Fables' in 1784. In 1785 he commenced engraving the cuts for his ' General History of Quadrupeds,' for which the descriptions were written by Mr. Beilby, and which was published in 1790. The excellence of the work insured its success, and editions rapidly succeeded each other.