Chapter VII: Revival of Wood Engraving (5)

Robert Branston, like Bewick, acquired his knowledge of wood engraving without the instructions of a master. He was born at Lynn, in Norfolk, in 1778, and died in London in 1827. He served his apprenticeship to his father, a general copper-plate engraver and heraldic painter, who seems to have carried on the same kind of miscellaneous business as Mr. Beilby, the master of Bewick. About 1802 Mr. Branston came to London, and finding that wood engraving was much encouraged, he determined to apply himself to that art. Some of his first productions were cuts for lottery bills; but as he improved in the practice of engraving on wood, he began to engrave cuts for the illustration of books. His style of engraving is peculiarly his own, and perfectly distinct from that of Bewick. He engraved human figures and in-door scenes with great clearness and precision; while Bewick’s chief excellence consisted in the natural representation of quadrupeds, birds, landscapes, and _road-side_ incidents. In the representation of trees and of natural scenery, Branston has almost uniformly failed. Some of the best of his earlier productions are to be found in the History of England, published by Scholey, 1804-1810; in Bloomfield’s Wild Flowers, 1806; and in a quarto volume entitled “Epistles in Verse,” and other poems by George Marshall, 1812.

The best specimen of Mr. Branston’s talents as a wood engraver is a large cut of the Cave of Despair, in Savage’s Hints on Decorative Printing. It was executed in rivalry with Nesbit, who engraved the cut of Rinaldo and Armida for the same work, and it would be difficult to decide which is the best. Both are good specimens of the styles of their respective schools; and the subjects are well adapted to display the peculiar excellence of the engravers. Had they exchanged subjects, neither of the cuts would have been so well executed; but in this case there call be little doubt that Nesbit would have engraved the figure and the rocks in the Cave of Despair better than Branston would have engraved the trees and the foliage in the cut of Rinaldo and Armida. The cut on the previous page is a reduced copy of a portion of that of Mr. Branston.

Mr. Branston, like many others, did not think highly of the cuts in Bewick’s Fables; and feeling persuaded that he could produce something better, he employed Mr. Thurston to make several designs, with the intention of publishing a similar work. After a few of them had been engraved, he gave up the thought of proceeding further with the work, from a doubt of its success. Bewick’s work was already in the market; and it was questionable if another of the same kind, appearing shortly after, would meet with a sale adequate to defray the expense. The three cuts in the opposite page were engraved by Mr. Branston for the proposed work. The two first are respectively illustrations of the fables of Industry and Sloth, and of the Two Crabs; the third was intended as a tail-piece. The cut of Industry and Sloth is certainly superior to that of the same subject in Bewick’s Fables; but that of the Two Crabs, though more delicately engraved, is not equal to the cut of the same subject in Bewick.

Mr. Branston also thought that Bewick’s Birds were estimated too highly; and he engraved two or three cuts to show that he could do the same things as well, or better. In this respect, however, he certainly formed a wrong estimate of his abilities; for, it is extremely doubtful if--even with the aid of the best designer he could find--he could have executed twenty cuts of birds which, for natural character, would bear a comparison with twenty of the worst engraved by Bewick himself. The great North-country man was an artist as well as a wood engraver; and in this respect his principal pupils have also been distinguished. The cut on our present page is one of those engraved by Mr. Branston to show his superiority over Bewick. The bird represented is probably the Grey Phalarope, or Scallop-toed Sand-piper, and it is unquestionably executed with considerable ability; but though Bewick’s cut of the same bird be one of his worst, it is superior to that engraved by Mr. Branston in every essential point.

Between twenty and thirty years ago, a wood engraver named Austin executed several cuts, but did nothing to promote the art. William Hughes, a native of Liverpool, who died in February 1825, at the early age of thirty-two, produced a number of wood engravings of very considerable merit. He chiefly excelled in architectural subjects. One of his best productions is a dedication cut in the first volume of Johnson’s Typographia, 1824, showing the interior of a chapel, surrounded by the arms of the members of the Roxburgh Club. Another artist of the same period, named Hugh Hughes, of whom scarcely anything is now known, executed a whole volume of singularly beautiful wood engravings, entitled “The Beauties of Cambria, consisting of Sixty Views in North and South Wales,” London, 1823. The work was published by subscription at one guinea, or on India paper at two guineas, and was beautifully printed by the same John Johnson who printed William Hughes’ cuts in the “Typographia,” and who, a few years previously, had conducted the Lee Priory Press. The annexed four examples will give an idea of the high finish and perfection of this elegant series.

John Thompson,[VII-89] one of the best English wood engravers of the present day, was a pupil of Mr. Branston. He not only excels, like his master, in the engraving of human figures, but displays equal talent in the execution of all kinds of subjects. Among the very many excellent cuts which have been engraved in England within the last twenty years, those executed by John Thompson rank foremost. As he is rarely unequal to himself, it is rather difficult to point out any which are very much superior to the others of his execution. The following, however, may be referred to as specimens of the general excellence of his cuts:--The title-page to Puckle’s Club, 1817, and the cuts of Moroso, Newsmonger, Swearer, Wiseman, and Xantippe in the same work; the Trout, the Tench, the Salmon, the Chub, and a group of small fish,[VII-90] consisting of the Minnow, the Loach, the Bull-head, and the Stickle-back, in Major’s edition of Walton’s Angler;[VII-91] many of the cuts in Butler’s Hudibras, published by Baldwyn in 1819, and reprinted by Bohn, in 1859, of which we annex an example; the portrait of Butler, prefixed to an edition of his Remains, published in 1827; and The Two Swine, The Mole become a Connoisseur, Love and Friendship, and the portrait of Northcote, in the second series of Northcote’s Fables. One of his latest cuts is the beautifully executed portrait of Milton and his daughters, after a design by Mr. Harvey, already given at page 531. The following cut--a reduced copy of one of the plates in the Rake’s Progress--by Mr. Thompson, engraved a few years ago for a projected edition of Hogarth’s Graphic Works, of which only about a dozen cuts were completed, is one of the best specimens of the art that has been executed in modern times. In the engraving of small cuts of this kind Mr. Thompson has never been surpassed; and it is beyond the power of the art to effect more than what has here been accomplished.

[Footnote VII-89: Charles Thompson, the brother of John, is also a
wood engraver. He resides at Paris, and his cuts are better known
in France than in this country. Miss Eliza Thompson, a daughter of
John Thompson, also engraves on wood.]

[Footnote VII-90: The Salmon, Chub, and group of small fish are
given on the preceding page from the actual cuts referred to.]

[Footnote VII-91: Bewick was accustomed to speak highly of the
cuts of fish in this beautiful work (several of which are given on
the previous pages): the Salmon, engraved by J. Thompson, and the
Eel, by H. White, he especially admired. Among others scarcely
less excellent are the Pike, by R. Branston; and the Carp, the
Grayling, and the Ruffe, by H. White. Major, in his second
edition, went to great expense in substituting other engravings
for most of these, with the intention of surpassing all that, by
the aid of artists, he had done before--in which he to some extent
succeeded. In this second edition, the Salmon is engraved by John
Jackson. All Mr. Major’s wood-cuts, as well as many of Bewick’s,
having passed into the hands of Henry G. Bohn (the present
publisher), his edition of Walton’s Angler is extensively enriched
by them.]

The English wood engravers, who next to Charlton Nesbit and John Thompson seem best entitled to honourable mention, are:--Samuel Williams;* Thomas Williams; Ebenezer Landells; John Orrin Smith;* George Baxter; Robert Branston; Frederick W. Branston; Henry White, senior, and Henry White, junior; Thomas Mosses;* Charles Gorway; Samuel Slader;* W. T. Green; W. J. Linton; John Martin; J. W. Whimper; John Wright; W. A. Folkard; Charles Gray;* George Vasey; John Byfield;* John Jackson;* Daniel Dodd, and John Dodd, brothers.--William Henry Powis, who died in 1836, aged 28, was one of the best wood engravers of his time. Several beautiful cuts executed by him are to be found in Martin and Westall’s Pictorial Illustrations of the Bible, 1833, and in an edition of Scott’s Bible, 1834; both works now published by Mr. Bohn. The following examples, principally taken from Martin and Westall’s Illustrations, will exemplify the talents of a few of the distinguished artists above mentioned. It would swell the book beyond its limits to give more, otherwise we might select from the same work, which contains one hundred and forty engravings, by all the principal wood engravers of the day.

[Footnote *: All the engravers to whose names an asterisk is added
are now deceased.]

The above cut was engraved by Mr. John Jackson in 1833. Abundant evidences of the versatility of his xylographic talent, are scattered throughout the present volume, of which, though not the author in a literary sense, he was at least the conductor and proprietor. Among the subjects pointed out by Mr. Chatto as engraved by Mr. Jackson, those on pages 473, 495, 496, 512, 605, 614, deserve to be mentioned.

Mr. F. W. Branston, brother of Mr. Robert Branston, has long been known as one of our best engravers, as the annexed Specimen will shew.

MR. EBENEZER LANDELLS, the engraver of this beautiful cut, has quite recently been lost to us. He was projector, and for a long time proprietor, of The Ladies’ Illustrated Newspaper, and has engraved an immense number of subjects of all classes.

The talented engraver of the present subject has already been named, with commendation, at page 544. We learn that the sum paid him for engraving it was fifteen guineas, being three guineas more than the average price. Mr. Wm. Bagg, now a successful draftsman of anatomical subjects, made this and all the other drawings on the blocks at the rate of five guineas each, and Mr. John Martin had ten guineas each for the designs. As the volume contains 144 subjects it must have cost the projectors, Messrs. Bull and Churton, upwards of four thousand guineas: it may now be bought for a dozen shillings.

MR. THOMAS WILLIAMS ranks high as an engraver on wood, and the illustrated works of the last twenty years teem with his performances. Some of the engravings in the Merrie Days of England, 1859, are by him.

The only other Illustration which we shall take from Martin and Westall’s Bible Prints is the above, engraved by Mr. W. T. Green, who continues to exercise his burin with great skill, and has recently engraved one of the plates in Merrie Days of England, and Favourite English Poems, and several of Maclise’s designs for Tennyson’s Princess. To this is added, as a vignette finish to the chapter, an engraving recently executed by him for an illustrated edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, now published in Bohn’s Library, and already mentioned at page 531.

One of the principal wood engravers in Germany, about the time that Bewick began to practise the art in England, was Unger. In 1779 he published a tract, containing five cuts of his own engraving, discussing the question whether Albert Durer actually engraved on wood: his decision is in the negative. In the same year, his son also published a dissertation, illustrated with wood-cuts, on the progress of wood engraving in Brandenburg, with an account of the principal books containing wood-cuts printed in that part of Prussia. They jointly executed some chiaro-scuros, and a number of trifling book-illustrations such as are to be found in Heineken’s Idée Générale d’une Collection complette d’Estampes. These cuts are of a very inferior character. Gubitz, a German wood engraver, who flourished about thirty years ago, executed several cuts which are much superior to any I have seen by the Ungers. Several of those engraved by Gubitz, bear considerable resemblance to the cuts of Bewick. The principal French wood engravers in the eighteenth century, subsequent to Papillon, were Gritner and Beugnet; but neither of them produced anything superior to the worst of the cuts to be found in the work of Papillon. With them wood engraving in France rather declined than advanced. Of late years the art has made great progress both in Germany and France; and should the taste for wood-cuts continue to increase in those countries, their engravers may regain for the art that popularity which it enjoyed in former times, when Nuremberg and Lyons were the great marts for works illustrated with wood engravings.