Chapter VI (6)

Papillon, who in his desire to dignify his art claims almost every eminent painter as a wood engraver, pretends that Titian executed several large cuts from his own designs. He says that Titian began to engrave on wood when he was twenty-five years old [in 1502], and he mentions a cut of the Virgin and the infant Christ, with other figures,--probably intended to represent the marriage of St. Catherine,--as one of the earliest specimens of his talents as a wood engraver. Papillon also informs us that Titian engraved a large cut of the Triumph of Christ, or of Faith, in 1508; and in another part of his work he describes several others as engraved by Titian himself.

Several of the cuts after designs by Titian, but which were certainly not of his engraving, are of large size, and executed in a free, coarse manner, as if they were rather intended to paste against a wall than to be inserted in a portfolio. One of the largest is the destruction of Pharaoh and his host; it consists of several pieces, which, when united, form a complete subject about four and a half feet wide by about three feet high. A dog, which the painter has introduced in a peculiar attitude,[VI-116] gives to the whole the air of burlesque. The person by whom it was engraved styles himself “depintore,” a word perhaps intended to imply that he was a brother of the guild, or society of painter-stainers, stencillers, and wood engravers.[VI-117] His name, with the date, is engraved thus at the bottom of the cut, which is one of those which Papillon says were executed by Titian himself: “In Venetia p. dominico dalle greche depintore venetiano. M.DXLIX.”

[Footnote VI-116: A dog performing the same act occurs as a
tail-piece in the first edition of Bewick’s Quadrupeds, 1790, page
310.]

[Footnote VI-117: I have seen a large head, which at first sight
might be mistaken for an impression from a wood-block, executed by
means of a stencil after a design of Correggio. It was
unquestionably old, and was about three feet high by two and a
half wide.]

The following is a reduced copy of a cut designed by Titian, and said to have been intended by him to ridicule those painters who, not being able to succeed in colouring, recommended ancient sculptures, on account of the correctness of the forms, as most deserving of a painter’s diligent study. The subject is a caricature of the Laocoon; and the professed admirers of antiquity, who, above all, insisted on correct drawing, and thought slightly of colouring, are represented by the old ape wanting a tail, seen in the distance, attended by three of her young ones. The original cut is fifteen inches and seven-eighths wide by ten inches and a half high. It is coarsely engraved, and contains neither name nor date.[VI-118] There are several chiaro-scuros after designs by Titian, engraved by Boldrini, Andreani, and others.

[Footnote VI-118: The following is Papillon’s description of this
cut: “Une Estampe que je possede, et que l’on regarde assez
indifférement, est le Laocoon gravé en bois par le Titien,
représenté sous la figure d’un singe et ses deux petits entourés
de serpens. Il fit ce morceau pour railler les Peintres de son
temps qui étudoient cette figure et les Statues antiques; et il
prétendit démontrer par cette Estampe qu’ils ressembloient aux
singes, lesquels ne font qu’imiter ce qu’ils voyent, sans rien
inventer d’eux mêmes.”--Traité de la Gravure en Bois, tom.
i. p. 160.]

Wood engraving in Germany at the close of the sixteenth century appears to have greatly declined; the old race of artists who furnished designs for the wood engraver had become extinct, and their places were not supplied by others. The more expensive works were now illustrated with copper-plates; and the wood-cuts which appeared in the commoner kinds of books were in general very indifferent both in design and execution. As Germany was the country in which wood engraving was first encouraged and fostered, so was it also the country in which the art earliest declined and subsequently became most thoroughly neglected. In France and Italy, wood engraving had also by this time experienced a considerable decline, but not to such an extent as in Germany.

Between 1590 and 1610, when the art was rapidly declining in other countries, the wood-cuts which are to be met with in English books are generally better executed than at any preceding period. Engraved title-pages were then frequent, and several of them are executed with considerable skill. A large wood-cut, with the date 1607, in particular displays great merit both in design and engraving. The following is a reduced copy of an impression preserved in the Print Room of the British Museum.[VI-119] The original, exclusive of the verses, and the ornaments at each side of them, is about fourteen inches high by about fourteen and a half wide.

[Footnote VI-119: There is also in the Print Room of the British
Museum a curious wood-cut, of large size, engraved on several
blocks, apparently of the time of James I. The title at the top,
in Latin and English, is as follows: “HUMANÆ VITÆ IMAGO OLIM AB
APELLE IN TABULA QUADAM DEPICTA. The image of the lyfe of man that
was painted in a table by Apelles.” The subject, however, is not
so much a general representation of the life of man in its several
stages, as an allegorical representation of the evils attendant on
sensual indulgence. Several of the figures are designed with great
spirit, and the explanations underneath the principal are engraved
on the same block, in Latin and English. It seems likely that this
cut was engraved for the purpose of being pasted or hung against a
wall. It is about five feet four inches wide by about three feet
high. Some of the figures are engraved with considerable spirit,
but the groups want that well-contrasted light and shade which
give such effect to the large cuts of Durer and Burgmair. It is
likely that large cuts of this kind were intended to be pasted on
the walls of rooms, to serve at once for instruction and ornament,
like “King Charles’s Golden Rules and the Royal Game of Goose” in
later times.--_To this note Mr. Jackson adds in his annotated
copy_: “The drawing appears to have been executed by an artist who
was rather partial to cross-hatching, and the engraving by one who
knew how to render every line before him with a degree of
sharpness and delicacy by no means common at that period.”]

The good / Howſ-holder

The good Howſ-holder, that his Howſe may hold,
Firſt builds it on the Rock, not on the Sand.
Then, with a warie head and charie hand
Pro[v]ides (in tyme) for Hunger and for Cold:
Not daintie Fare and Furniture of Gold,
But handſom-holſom (as with Health dooth ſtand).
Not for the Rich that can as much command
But the poor Stranger, th’Orfan & the Old.

PRINTED AT LONDON IN THE BLACKE FRIERS. 1607]

The following are the six concluding lines of the sonnet underneath the cut: in the original they are printed in smaller type than the others, and in a double column. In the copy they are merely indicated to show the relative size of the type to that of the first eight lines.

And (thus) to these to stand still open wide,
He neither wrings with Wrongs nor racks his Rents;
But saves the charge of wanton Waste & Pride:
For, Thrift’s right Fuel of Magnificence:
As Protean Fashions of new Prodigalitie
Have quight worn out all ancient Hospitalitie.

The flowers at each side of the verses are, in the original, very coarsely executed. They are merely printers’ ornaments, engraved on separate pieces of wood, and not on the same block as the cut above them.

From one or two worm-holes, which have been in the block when it was printed in 1607, and which are apparent in the impression, it seems probable that this cut had been engraved some time previous to the date which appears at the bottom. As it is, however, very likely that the block was of pear-tree, which is extremely liable to the attacks of the worm, it is possible that it might have been injured in this manner within a year or two of its being finished. The bold, _cleanly cut_ lines of the original are very much like the work of Christopher Jegher, one of the best wood engravers of that period. He resided at Antwerp, but he is said to have been born in Germany in 1578. His best works are several large cuts which he engraved for Rubens from drawings made on the block by Rubens himself, who appears to have originally published them on his own account. From the manner in which the great painter’s name is introduced at the bottom of each--“_P. P. Rub. delin. & excud._”--it would appear that they were both designed and printed by him. Impressions of those cuts sometimes occur with a tint printed over them, in sepia, from a second block, in the manner of chiaro-scuros. We here give a reduced copy of one of the largest.[VI-120]

[Footnote VI-120: The original cut is twenty-three inches and a
half wide by eighteen inches high.]

As profit could not have been Rubens’s motive for having these cuts engraved, it is not unlikely that his object was to compare his designs when executed in this manner with those of the older German masters--Durer, Burgmair, and Cranach. The best, however, differ considerably in the manner of their execution from the best old German wood-cuts, for the lines are too uniform and display too much of art; in looking at those which consist chiefly of figures, attention is first called to the _means_ by which an effect is produced, rather than to the effect itself in connexion with the entire subject. This objection applies most forcibly to the cut which represents the Virgin crowned by the Almighty and Jesus Christ. The design displays much of Rubens’s grandeur, with not less of his extravagance in the attitude of the figures; but he seems to have studied less the effect of the whole, than to have endeavoured to express certain parts by a peculiar arrangement of lines und hatchings. The subject does not produce that feeling, which it is the great object of art to excite, in consequence of the attention being diverted from the contemplation of the whole to the means by which it is executed. In such impressions, however, as have a tint of sepia printed over them from a second block, the hardness of the lines and heaviness in the hatchings are less apparent. The following is a reduced copy of another of those cuts, which, for the beautiful simplicity of the design, is perhaps the most pleasing of the whole. The execution of the original is, however, coarse, a defect which is not so apparent in the copy in consequence of the small scale on which it is engraved.[VI-121]

[Footnote VI-121: The original is eighteen inches wide by thirteen
inches and a half high, including the margin with the inscription
“Cum privilegiis,” which is engraved on the same block.]

Cornelius van Sichem,[VI-122] a contemporary of Christopher Jegher, appears to have been one of the most industrious wood engravers of his time. He was a native of Holland, and is supposed to have resided at Amsterdam. One of his best cuts is a large head, engraved from a drawing by Henry Goltzius, with the date 1607. This and several other large cuts, which he probably engraved about the same time, are so much superior to the smaller cuts, with his mark, which appear in books, that I am inclined to think that most of the latter must have been engraved by his pupils; they are indeed so numerous that it seems almost impossible that he should have engraved them all himself. He seems at first to have worked for fame, and afterwards to have turned a manufacturer of wood-cuts for money. The cuts with his mark contained in a quarto book entitled “Bibels Tresoor,” printed at Amsterdam in 1646, by no means afford an idea of his ability as a wood-engraver; many of them are wretched copies of old wood-cuts designed by Albert Durer and other old masters, discreditable alike to the engraver and to the originals. The following is a slightly reduced copy of a cut, engraved by Van Sichem, from a design by Henry Goltzius. The original, which was probably engraved about 1607, may be considered as an average specimen of the engraver’s talents; it is not so well executed as some of his best large cuts, while it is much superior to the greater number of the small cuts which contain his mark. The subject is Judith with the head of Holofernes.

[Footnote VI-122: Papillon, tom. i. p. 274-276, calls this
engraver _C. S. Vichem_; and charges Professor Christ with
confounding three _Sichems_ with three _Vichems_. The name at the
bottom of the cut, in the following page, is most certainly
intended for _C. V. Sichem_.]

About 1625 a French wood engraver of the name of Businck executed several chiaro-scuros chiefly from designs by Lalleman and Bloemart; and between 1630 and 1647, Bartolomeo Coriolano, who sometimes styles himself “Romanus Eques,” practised the same art at Bologna with great reputation.[VI-123] In an edition of Hubert Goltzius’s Lives of the Roman Emperors, enlarged by Casper Gevartius, folio, printed at Antwerp in 1645, the portraits, in the manner of chiaro-scuros, from two blocks, are executed with great spirit. The name of the engraver is not mentioned, but from the mark I. C. I. on a tail-piece at the end of the work, I am inclined to think that he was the same person who engraved the cuts in a little book of devotion, first printed in Latin, French, Spanish, and Flemish, at Antwerp, about 1646.[VI-124] The number of cuts in this little work is forty, and most of them contain the mark of the designer, [[AS]], as well as that of the engraver. From the drawing of these cuts it would seem that the designer was either a pupil of Rubens, or had closely copied his manner. In Professor Christ’s Dictionary of Monograms the mark [[AS]] is ascribed to Andrea Salmincio, “an engraver and pupil of Valesius.” Papillon, Traité de la Gravure en Bois, tom. i. p. 274, adopting Professor Christ’s explanation of the mark, mentions “Andrea Salmincio” as the designer of those cuts; but in page 461 of the same volume, he says, referring to his former statement, that he had since been informed by M. Eisen, a painter, and a native of Valenciennes, that they were designed by “a famous Flemish painter and engraver on wood, named Sallarte, a contemporary of Rubens, and who is supposed to have assisted the latter in some of his great works.” Those cuts may perhaps be considered as the last series that were expressly designed by an artist of talent in the seventeenth century, for the purpose of being engraved on wood. The style in which they are executed is not worthy of the designs, though, considering the period, they are not without merit. The engraver appears to have been extremely partial to a kind of cross-hatching, in which the interstices are more like squares than acute-angled lozenges, thus giving to the figures and draperies a hard and unpliable appearance.

[Footnote VI-123: The twelfth volume of Bartsch’s Peintre-Graveur
contains an ample list of Italian chiaro-scuros, together with the
names of the painters and engravers.]

[Footnote VI-124: The only perfect copy which I have seen of this
little work is in Spanish. The title is as follows: “La Perpetua
Cruz, o Passion de Jesu Christo Nuestro Señor, desde el principio
de su encarnacion hasta su muerte. Representada en quarenta
estampas que se reparten de balde, y explicada con differentes
razones y oraciones de devocion. En Amberes, en la emprenta de
Cornelio Woons, 1650.” The cuts were engraved at the instance of
the Archbishop of Malines. Before the Spanish edition appeared,
thirty thousand copies of the work in Flemish and Latin had
already been circulated.]

Though several English wood engravings of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. have evidently been executed by professed wood engravers, yet a great proportion of those contained in English books and pamphlets printed in this country during the seventeenth century appear to have been the work of persons who had not learnt and did not regularly practise the art. The cuts of those occasional wood engravers, who were most likely printers, are as rude in design as they are coarse in execution, frequently displaying something like the fac-simile of a boy’s drawing in his first attempts to sketch “the human _form_ divine.” Such cuts, evidently executed on the spur of the moment, are of frequent occurrence in tracts and pamphlets published during the time of the war between Charles I. and the Parliament. Evelyn, in the first edition of his Sculptura, published in 1662, thus mentions Switzer as a wood engraver of that period: “We have likewise Switzer for cutting in wood, the son of a father[VI-125] who sufficiently discovered his dexterity in the _Herbals_ set forth by Mr. Parkinson, Lobel, and divers other works.” The cuts of plants in the work, usually called Lobel’s Botany, were most certainly not engraved by the elder Switzer; they are much superior to the cuts of the same kind which are undoubtedly of his engraving, and the work in which they first appeared was printed in London in 1571. He engraved the cuts in Speed’s History of Britain, folio, 1611; and, though the author calls him “the most exquisite and curious hand of that age,” they abundantly testify that he was a very ordinary workman. They are executed in a meagre, spiritless manner; the best are those which represent the portraitures of the ancient Britons. The cuts in Parkinson’s Paradisus Terrestris, folio, 1629, were also undoubtedly engraved by him; his name, “_A. Switzer_,” with a graver underneath, occurs at the bottom of the very indifferent cut which forms the title-page. The portrait of the author is scarcely superior to the title-page; and the cuts of plants are the most worthless that are to be found in any work of the kind. It is not unlikely that the cuts in Topsell’s History of Four-footed Beasts, 1607, and in Moffet’s Theatre of Insects, 1634, were also engraved by the elder Switzer. The taste for wood-cuts must have been low indeed when such an engraver was considered one of the best of his age. Of the younger Switzer’s abilities I have had no means of judging, never having seen a single cut which was known to be of his engraving.

[Footnote VI-125: In Walpole’s Catalogue of Engravers there is the
following notice of the elder Switzer: “In the Harleian Library
was a set of wooden cuts, representing the broad seals of England
from the conquest to James I. inclusive, neatly executed. Vertue
says this was the sole impression he had seen, and believed that
they were cut by Chr. Switzer, and that these plates were copied
by Hollar for Sandford. Switzer also cut the coins and seals in
Speed’s History of Britain, 1614 [1611], from the originals in the
Cottonian Collection. Speed calls him _the most exquisite and
curious hand of that age_. He probably engraved the botanic
figures for Lobel’s Observations, and the plates [cuts] for
Parkinson’s Paradisus Terrestris, 1629. Chr. Switzer’s works have
sometimes been confounded with his son’s, who was of both his
names.”--Catalogue of Engravers, p. 18 note, Edit. 1794. It is
doubtful if the elder Switzer’s Christian name were Christopher.
The initial in Parkinson’s Paradisus Terrestris is an A. It is,
however, possible that this letter may be intended for a Latin
preposition, and not for the first letter of the engraver’s
Christian name.]

Between 1650 and 1700 wood engraving, as a means of multiplying the designs of eminent artists, either as illustrations of books or as separate cuts, may be considered as having reached its lowest ebb. A few tolerably well executed cuts of ornaments are occasionally to be found in Italian, French, and Dutch books of this period; but though they sufficiently attest that the race _of workmen_ was not wholly extinct, they also afford ample proof that _artists_ like those of former times had ceased to furnish designs for the wood engraver. The art of design was then, however, in a languishing condition throughout Europe; and even supposing that wood engraving had been as much in fashion as copper-plate printing then was for the purpose of illustrating books, it would be vain to expect in wood-cuts that excellence of composition and drawing which is not to be found in the works of the best painters of the time. Wood engravings to please must possess _some_ merit in the design--must show some trait of feeling for his subject on the part of the designer. Deficiency in this respect can never be compensated by dexterity of execution: in anything that approaches to fine art, mere workmanship, the result of laborious application, can never atone for want of mind. The man who drew a portrait of Queen Anne with a pen, and wrote the Psalms in the lines of the face, and in the curls of the hair, in characters so small that it required a glass to read them, does not rank with a Vandyke or a Reynolds, nor even with a Lely or a Kneller. At the period of the greatest decline of wood engraving, the want that was felt was not of working engravers to execute cuts, but of talented artists to design them.

The principal French wood engravers about the end of the seventeenth century were: Peter Le Sueur,--born in 1636, died 1716; his two sons, Peter and Vincent; John Papillon the elder--who died in 1710; and his son, of the same name, who was born in 1661, and died in 1723. Though John Michael Papillon, son of John Papillon the younger, and author of the Traité de la Gravure en Bois, speaks highly of the talents of the aforesaid members of the families of Le Sueur and Papillon as wood engravers, yet, from his account of their productions, it would seem that they were chiefly employed in engraving subjects which scarcely allowed of any display of excellence either in design or execution. Their fine works were ornamental letters, flowered vignettes, and tail-pieces for the booksellers; while their staple productions appear to have been blocks for card-makers and paper-stainers, with patterns for embroiderers, lace-workers, and ribbon-manufacturers. In the succeeding century, J. M. Papillon, grandson of the first John Papillon, and Nicholas le Sueur, grandson of the elder Peter Le Sueur, fully supported the character of their respective families as wood engravers. Some account of their works will be given in the proper place.

The tail-piece at the conclusion of this chapter will afford some idea of the primitive style of the wood-cuts previously mentioned as occurring in tracts and pamphlets printed in England during the civil war. It is a fac-simile of a cut which originally appeared on the title-page to the first known edition of Robin Hood’s Garland, printed in 1670.[VI-126] The original block is now in the possession of Mr. William Garret of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was frequently used by the late Mr. George Angus of that town, as it had also been by his predecessors in the same business, to decorate the title-pages of the penny histories and garlands, which they supplied in such abundance for the winter-evenings’ entertainment of the good folks of Northumberland and the “Bishoprick.” Mr. Douce, in the second volume of his Illustrations of Shakspeare, also gives a fac-simile of this cut; and the following is his explanation of the subject.

[Footnote VI-126: The cuts in an edition of “The most Delightful
History of Reynard the Fox,” 4to. London, printed for Thomas
Passinger, 1681, are scarcely superior to this cut in point of
execution, though it must be confessed that the figures are
generally in better “keeping.”]

“Mr. Ritson has taken notice of an old wooden cut ‘preserved on the title-page of a penny history (_Adam Bell, &c._), printed at Newcastle in 1772,’ and which represents, in his opinion, a morris dance, consisting of the following personages: 1. A bishop. 2. Robin Hood. 3. The potter or beggar. 4. Little John. 5. Friar Tuck. 6. Maid Marian. He remarks that the whole is too rude to merit a copy, a position that is not meant to be controverted; but it is necessary to introduce the cut in this place for the purpose of correcting an error into which the above ingenious writer has fallen. It is proper to mention that it originally appeared on the title-page to the first known edition of Robin Hood’s Garland, printed in 1670, 18mo. Now, this cut is certainly not the representation of a morris dance, but merely of the principal characters belonging to the Garland. These are Robin Hood, Little John, _Queen Catherine_, the bishop, the _curtal frier_, (not Tuck,) and the beggar. Even though it were admitted that Maid Marian and Friar Tuck were intended to be given, it could not be maintained that either the bishop or the beggar made part of a morris.”

To give more specimens of wood engraving when in its lowest state of declension has not been thought necessary; for even at this period it would not be difficult to produce cuts which in point of mere execution are superior to many which appeared when the art was at its height. It is sufficient to have stated that, towards the end of the seventeenth century, wood engraving for the higher purposes of the art had sunk into utter neglect; that the best productions of the regular wood engravers of the period mostly consist of unmeaning ornaments which neither excite feeling nor suggest a thought; and that the wood-cuts which appear to have been engraved by persons not instructed in the business partake generally of the character of the following tail-piece. Having now brought down the history of the art of wood engraving to the end of the seventeenth century, its revival in the eighteenth, with some account of the works of Thomas Bewick and the principal English wood engravers of his time, will form the subject of the next chapter.