EARLY WootaTTs. The origin of wood-engrav ing is a matter of much controversy. Wood cuts, in various forms. were used to print or stamp in remotest antiquity: by the Babylo nians and Egyptians to indent bricks; by the Romans to print letters and grotesques; dur ing the Aliddle Ages to stamp monograms, and to print color designs on linens, leathers, satins. and silks—a custom practiced in the Ardent from time immemorial. But wood-engraving. in the modern sense, postdates the introduction into Europe of paper during the twelfth century; for it was not practicable to print on papyrus, vellum. or the materials previously used. From most ancient times the Chinese printed both let ters and illustrations from wooden blocks; but the hypothesis that wood-engraving was intro duced into Europe by the commerce of Venice with them lacks confirmation. In Europe it was of independent origin. having been probably prac ticed as early as the fourteenth century. At the beginning of the fifteenth prints from wood cuts were common in Southern Germany, and perhaps in the Netherlands. They are the merest rude outlines, intended to be colored, and rep resent saints and similar subjects (whence the IleIgen), which were distributed by the clergy for purposes of religious instruction. The eaeliest dated example is the welt-known print of "Saint Christopher" (14'23) the date as signed to the far finer "Madonna with the Child and Angels" (1413. Brussels Library) not being certain. Although playing cards were printed at this and even at an earlier date, there is not sufficient reason to find in them, as has been done. the origin of wood-engraving.
Both //Ogee and playing cards antedated con siderably the 'block hooks,' in which illustra tions, with an appropriate printed text, were cut upon the same block of wood, before the in vention of movable type. The origin of block hooks is a matter of dispute, being variously assigned to the Netherlands and to Germany. Among the oldest surviving example the Apoc alypse is of German origin. probably from Cologne. Other celebrated works are the Can ticum Cantieorum, the Biblia Pauperum (q.v.), which survives in the most numerous examples, and the irs Moriendi—all from the Nether lands, where, indeed, the most beautiful block books were made.
The invention of printing from movable types. which was perfected in 1454. gave a new impetus to wood-engraving. Illustrations were required for the books which now became common, and the printing press furnished a better means of taking an impression than the former process of rub bing or printing from a roller. The first. printed book from movable types with woodcut illus trations was a book of fables, Liter turtinis, printed by T'fister at Bamberg in 1401: a very superior artistic stage is represented in illustrations of the Speculum Humarur Vita', a Netherlandish work often erroneously consid ered a block book. The centres of the art shifted
to the cities of Germany, where printing presses were established—like Cologne. Nuremberg. _\ burg, and Basel. Very widely circulated and imitated were the illustrations of the Cologne Bible (1475), remarkable for their vigor and realism, and of the Augsburg Bible 114;51. Of great importance, too, were the different city chronicles, the beSt of which was Sehedel's Libor Chronicarum (Nuremberg, 1493). Its illustrations, designed by Wohlgenmth and Pley denwurtr, the Nuremberg artists. were remark able as being the first. in which the mere out lines were replaced by a system of light and shade. From Basel and Nuremberg wood-engrav ing was introduced into Lyons. where the first engravings date from 1476. Somewhat later it was practiced in Paris, which city 50011 be came lemons for the Lirres des heures of its celebrated printers, execrated with great elegance in imitation of the illuminated manuscripts of the day. The manir're righter (q.v.). in which we find a number of French fourteenth-century was probably not a. wood, hut a metal process: a similar process of wood-engraving is now u-ed for astronomical illustrations.
was introdneed into Italy by tierman printers. the earliest illustrated book being printed at Home in I 017; but the venire of the art, was Veniee. Italian wood-engraving speedily differentiated itself from the Ger man, by a superior skill in the arts of design. Simplicity of line and idealism of forum and conception are the chief characteristics; its spirit is manifest in such works as _Esop's Fables (Verona. 14S1). and in the charming Epistles of Saint Jerome (Ferrara. 1497). The delightful Hypnerotomaehia Poliphili (Venice, 1499) embodies, as does no other illustrated work, the joyous youthful spirit of the Italian Renaissance. Though variously assigned to Bel lini, Raphael, and others, it is probably the work of Benedetto Montoya.
During the fifteenth century woodcuts had been, for the most part, outline drawings, rely ing upon tinting for the final effect. They were cut with an instrument not unlike a penknife from the designs drawn upon blocks of apple or pear wood sawed lengthwise. in the very earliest engravings designer and engraver were usually the same person; but as the art progressed ar tists of importance designed for woodents. Wood engraving was an essentially democratic art. It occupied, in the early sixteenth century, my posi tion analogous to that of the half-tone process in time nineteenth. For this reason its products are of highest interest as embodying the thoughts of the teachers and entertainers of the common people.