§ 107 Chiaroscuro Wood Engravings
The first inventor of engraving on wood in three pieces for showing not only the design but the shadows, half tints, and lights also was Ugo da Carpi.298 He invented the method of wood engraving in imitation of the engravings on copper, cutting them on the wood of the pear tree or the box which are excellent above all other kinds of wood for this work. He made his blocks then in three pieces,299 placing on the first all that is contour and line; on the second all that is tinted near to the outline, putting in the shadow with water colour; and on the third the lights and the ground leaving the white of the paper to give the light, and tingeing the rest for the ground. This third block containing the light and the ground, is executed in the following manner. A sheet printed by the first block, on which are all the contours and lines, is taken wet and placed on the plank of the pear tree and weighted down with other sheets which are not damp and so pressed upon that the wet sheet leaves on the board the impression of all the outlines of the figures. Then the painter takes white lead mixed with gum and puts in the lights on the pear-wood. After this is done the engraver cuts them all out with tools, according as they are marked. This block is that which, duly primed with oil colour,300 is used for the first process, namely, to produce the lights and the ground, the whole surface, therefore, is left tinted except just where it is hollowed out, because there the paper remains white. The second block is that which gives shadows. It is quite flat and tinted with water colour, except where the shadows are not to come, because there the wood is hollowed out. And the third, which is the first to be shaped, is that in which the whole outlined part is hollowed out all over, except where there are no profiles touched in with black by the pen.301
These are printed at the press and are put under it three times, i.e. once for each impression, so that they shall severally have the same pressure. And certainly this was a most beautiful invention.