Early Method of Engraving on the Side of the Wood With Knives
In early days of wood engraving a close-grained slab of wood of a suitable thickness to print with type was used for the purpose by the engraver—cut the long way of the tree, and not upon the end or section of the wood as in modern work; and the cutting was necessarily executed with the knife. The quaint and rude cut on the accompanying double page is a fair example of the earliest species of woodcut, and is the most ancient Ex Libris known.
Regarding the knife as a cutting instrument, Mr. W. J. Linton, in his “Manual of Wood Engraving,” p. 28, says: “As far as I have been able to ascertain, with the one possible exception of the cuts to Croxall’s Fables, 1722, all engravings on wood from the earliest time to the time of Bewick were done with the knife instead of gravers.”
The most ancient Ex Libris known. It is Jean Knabensberg, called Igler, chaplain to the family of Schönstett. It represents a hedgehog with a flower in its mouth. In the banderole we read, “Hanns Igler das dich ein Igel Kuss.” Its approximate date is 1450. Herr Ludwig Rosenthal, antiquariat, Munich, has a copy of this rare plate in his possession, which he values at 600 marks. See Warnecke’s “Die deutschen Bücherzeichen” (Ex Libris), 1890.
We can to some extent realise the difficulties the early wood engravers laboured under in this respect in producing fine work, but when we examine the later works of the German engravers, and observe the gradual improvement from crudeness to really excellent work, we are amazed that with such disabilities such splendid results were attainable by the knife. The Form-schneider, as the engraver of block pictures was termed, increased in skill and dexterity in deftly cutting the design exactly as it was drawn on the wood, and with exceeding truthfulness; using a finer grained and harder wood and tools more perfectly adapted for the work, so would the art advance by leaps and bounds, until in the time of Dürer and Holbein it had reached its high-water mark of excellence. Boxwood was then, as now, in use, but for delicate work only, and cut plank-wise. For larger work softer woods were good enough: pear and apple woods, privet, sycamore, and any white wood upon which a drawing could be seen—everything being drawn line for line on the plank; the engraver’s business simply to cut away the white spaces between the lines, cutting, as before said, with knives in the smaller spaces, and with chisels and gouges clearing away the larger to a sufficient depth to escape the ink in printing.
At the present day, in the skilfully drawn and engraved block books of the Japanese, the illustrations will be found to be drawn with the brush upon the side of the wood, and cut with a knife; but we are not now astonished at anything done by this wonderful people, who have knocked the wind out of us in so many forms of art.