Woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut
1 Division of labour
In both Europe and the Far East, traditionally the artist
only designed the woodcut, and the block-carving was left
to specialist craftsmen, called block-cutters, or Formschneider in Germany, some of whom became well
known in their own right. Among these the best known
are the 16th century Hieronymus Andreae (who also used
Formschneider as his surname), Hans Ltzelburger and
Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops and also operated as printers and publishers. The formschneider in turn
handed the block on to specialist printers. There were
2 METHODS OF PRINTING
The Crab that played with the sea, Woodcut by Rudyard Kipling
illustrating one of his Just So Stories. In mixed white-line (below)
and normal woodcut (above).
This is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as designed by rather than by an artist;
but most authorities do not use this distinction. The divi- including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like
sion of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could pear or cherry were commonly used;[1] in Japan, the wood
adapt to the medium relatively easily, without needing to of the cherry species Prunus serrulata was preferred.
learn the use of woodworking tools.
There are three methods of printing to consider:
There were various methods of transferring the artists
drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Ei Stamping: Used for many fabrics and most early Euther the drawing would be made directly onto the block
ropean woodcuts (140040). These were printed by
(often whitened rst), or a drawing on paper was glued to
putting the paper/fabric on a table or other at surthe block. Either way, the artists drawing was destroyed
face with the block on top, and pressing or hammerduring the cutting process. Other methods were used, ining the back of the block
cluding tracing.
Rubbing: Apparently the most common method for
In both Europe and the Far East, such as Japan and China,
Far Eastern printing on paper at all times. Used
in the early twentieth century some artists began to do
for European woodcuts and block-books later in the
the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement
fteenth century, and very widely for cloth. Also
was called Ssaku hanga, as opposed to the Shin hanga
used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910
movement, which retained the traditional methods. In the
to the present. The block goes face up on a table,
West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut
with the paper or fabric on top. The back is rubbed
instead.
with a hard pad, a at piece of wood, a burnisher,
or a leather frotton.[2] A traditional Japanese tool
used for this is called a baren. Later in Japan, complex
wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the
2 Methods of printing
woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially
Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and
helpful once multiple colors were introduced and
engraving, only low pressure is required to print. As a rehad to be applied with precision atop previous ink
lief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring
layers.
it into rm and even contact with the paper or cloth to
Printing in a press: presses only seem to have been
achieve an acceptable print. In Europe a variety of woods
3
used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printingpresses were used from about 1480 for European
prints and block-books, and before that for woodcut book illustrations. Simple weighted presses may
have been used in Europe before the print-press,
but rm evidence is lacking. A deceased Abbess of
Mechelen in 1465 had unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines ... cum 14 aliis
lapideis printis"an instrument for printing texts
and pictures ... with 14 stones for printing. This is
probably too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing
press in that location.[2]
History
fourteenth.
In Europe, woodcut is the oldest technique used for old
master prints, developing about 1400, by using, on paper, existing techniques for printing. One of the more
ancient woodcuts on paper that can be seen today is The
Fire Madonna (Madonna del Fuoco, in the Italian language), in the Cathedral of Forl, in Italy.
The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle
of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular
prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather later than engraving. Michael Wolgemut was signicant in making German woodcuts more
sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich was
the rst to use cross-hatching (far harder to do than engraving or etching). Both of these produced mainly bookillustrations, as did various Italian artists who were also
raising standards there at the same period. At the end of
the century Albrecht Drer brought the Western woodThe Fire Madonna (Madonna del Fuoco, in Italian), Cathedral
cut to a level that, arguably, has never been surpassed,
of Forl, in Italy
and greatly increased the status of the single-leaf woodWoodcut or woodblock printing is a technique for print- cut (i.e. an image sold separately).
ing text, images or patterns that was used widely through- As woodcut can be easily printed together with movable
out East Asia. It originated in China in antiquity as a type, because both are relief-printed, it was the main
method of printing on textiles and later on paper.The medium for book illustrations until the late-sixteenth cenearliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from tury. The rst woodcut book illustration dates to about
China and are of silk printed with owers in three colours 1461, only a few years after the beginning of printing with
from the Han Dynasty (before AD 220).[3] In the 13th movable type, printed by Albrecht Pster in Bamberg.
century the Chinese technique of blockprinting was trans- Woodcut was used less often for individual (single-leaf)
mitted to Europe.[4] Paper arrived in Europe, also from ne-art prints from about 1550 until the late nineteenth
China via Islamic Spain, slightly later, and was being century, when interest revived. It remained important for
manufactured in Italy by the end of the thirteenth cen- popular prints until the nineteenth century in most of Eutury, and in Burgundy and Germany by the end of the rope, and later in some places.
6 COLOUR
The art reached a high level of technical and artistic development in East Asia and Iran. In Japan woodblock
printing is called "moku hanga", and was introduced in
the seventeenth century for both books and art. The
popular oating world genre of ukiyo-e originated in
the second half of the seventeenth century, with prints
in monochrome or two colours. Sometimes these were
hand-coloured after printing. Later prints with many
colours were developed. Japanese woodcut became a major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a
much lower status than painting. It continued to develop
through to the twentieth century.
White-line woodcut
Japonism
6 Colour
Odawara-juku in the 1830s by Hiroshige in his series The FiftyThree Stations of the Tkaid.
ARTISTS
(halfway between a woodcut and a monotype).[8] A remarkable example of this technique is the 1915 Portrait
of Otto Mller woodcut print from the collection of the
British Museum.[9]
6.1
Europe
Ars moriendi
Drers Rhinoceros
Emblem book
Chiaroscuro woodcuts
Japan
36 Views of Mount Fuji (Hokusai)
The Dream of the Fishermans Wife
Ukiyo-e
8 Grisaille woodcut
The Swedish printmaker Torsten Billman (1909-1989)
developed during the 1930s and 1940s a woodcut
with several gray tones from the ordinary printing ink.
Chiaroscuro woodcut depicting Playing cupids by anonymous The art historian Gunnar Jungmarker (1902-1983) at
16th-century Italian artist
Nationalmuseum called this technique - grisaille woodcut. A time consuming printing process, exclusively for
Chiaroscuro woodcuts are old master prints in woodcut hand printing, with several grey-wood blocks aside from
using two or more blocks printed in dierent colours; the black and white key block.[14]
they do not necessarily feature strong contrasts of light
and dark. They were rst produced to achieve similar
eects to chiaroscuro drawings. After some early ex9 Artists
periments in book-printing, the true chiaroscuro woodcut
conceived for two blocks was probably rst invented by
Irving Amen
Lucas Cranach the Elder in Germany in 1508 or 1509,
though he backdated some of his rst prints and added
Mary Azarian
tone blocks to some prints rst produced for monochrome
printing, swiftly followed by Hans Burgkmair the El Aubrey Beardsley
der.[10] Despite Vasari's claim for Italian precedence in
Hans Baldung
Ugo da Carpi, it is clear that his, the rst Italian examples, date to around 1516[11][12]
Leonard Baskin
Other printmakers to use the technique include Hans Bal Gustave Baumann
dung Grien and Parmigianino. In the German states the
technique was in use largely during the rst decades of the
Torsten Billman
sixteenth century, but Italians continued to use it throughout the century, and later artists like Goltzius sometimes
Carroll Thayer Berry
made use of it. In the German style, one block usually
Erich Buchholz
had only lines and is called the line block, whilst the
7
Hans Burgkmair
Eric Slater
Domenico Campagnola
Utamaro
Ugo da Carpi
Marcelo Soares
Billy Childish
Flix Vallotton
Salvador Dal
Karel Vik
Gustave Dor
Leopold Wchtler
Albrecht Drer
M. C. Escher
Randi Johansson
James Flora
Antonio Frasconi
Robert Gibbings
Vincent van Gogh
Urs Graf
Suzuki Harunobu
Hiroshige
Jacques Hnizdovsky
Hokusai
Tom Huck
Stephen Huneck
Alfred Garth Jones
Hussein el gebaly
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Kthe Kollwitz
J.J. Lankes
Frans Masereel
Hishikawa Moronobu
Edvard Munch
Emil Nolde
10 See also
Jacob Pins
Blockbooks
J. G. Posada
Chiaroscuro
Endi E. Poskovic
Cordel literature
Hannah Tompkins
Linocut
Henriette Tirman
Metalcut
Urs Graf
Clment Serveau
Printmaking
Paul Signac
Rubber stamp
13
Scandinavian at-plane style of woodcarving
Shin hanga
Ssaku hanga
Wood carving
Woodblock printing
Ukiyo-e
11
Notes
EXTERNAL LINKS
12 References
Bartrum, Giulia; German Renaissance Prints, 1490
1550; British Museum Press, 1995, ISBN 0-71412604-7
Lankes, JJ (1932). A Woodcut Manual. H. Holt.
David Landau & Peter Parshall, The Renaissance
Print, Yale, 1996, ISBN 0-300-06883-2
Uglow, Jenny (2006). Natures Engraver: A Life of
Thomas Bewick. Faber and Faber.
13 External links
Ukiyo-e from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Timeline of Art History
[3] Shelagh Vainker in Anne Farrer (ed), Caves of the Thousand Buddhas , 1990, British Museum publications,
ISBN 0-7141-1447-2
Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF),
which contains material on woodcuts
[6] Shi zhu zhai shu hua pu, or, Ten Bamboo Studio collection of calligraphy and painting. Cambridge Digital
Library. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
[7] L Sickman & A Soper, The Art and Architecture of
China, Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1971, Penguin,
LOC 70-125675
[8] Carey, Frances; Griths, Antony (1984). The Print in
Germany, 1880-1933: The Age of Expressionism. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-1621-1.
[9] Portrait of Otto Mller (1983,0416.3)". British Museum
Collection Database. London: British Museum. Retrieved
2010-06-05.
[10] so Landau and Parshall, 179-192; but Bartrum, 179 and
Renaissance Impressions: Chiaroscuro Woodcuts from the
Collections of Georg Baselitz and the Albertina, Vienna,
Royal Academy, London, MarchJune 2014, exhibition
guide, both credit Cranach with the innovation in 1507.
[11] Landau and Parshall, 150
[12] Ugo da Carpi after Parmigianino: Diogenes (17.50.1)
| Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Metmuseum.org. 2012-02-03. Retrieved 2012-02-18.
[13] Landau and Parshall, The Renaissance Print, pp. 179-202;
273-81 & passim; Yale, 1996, ISBN 0-300-06883-2
[14] Sjberg, Leif, Torsten Billman and the Wood Engravers
Art, pp. 165-171. The American Scandinavian Review,
Vol. LXI, No. 2, June 1973. New York 1973.
14
14.1
14.2
Images
File:'The_Prophet',_woodcut_by_Emil_Nolde,_1912.jpg
Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/23/%27The_
Prophet%27%2C_woodcut_by_Emil_Nolde%2C_1912.jpg License: PD-US Contributors:
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Original artist:
Emil Nolde
File:5154_bassenge_anon_c16_italian.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/5154_bassenge_anon_c16_
italian.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:88-minerali._Rena.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/88-minerali._Rena.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Albrecht_Drer_-_The_Four_Horsemen_(NGA_1979.39.1).jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/
Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_The_Four_Horsemen_%28NGA_1979.39.1%29.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: National Gallery
of Art: online database: entry 1979.39.1 Original artist: Albrecht Drer
File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Eisen1.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Eisen1.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http:
//cgfa.sunsite.dk/e/p-eisen1.htm Original artist: Keisai Eisen
File:Formschneider.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Formschneider.jpg License: Public domain
Contributors: ? Original artist: Jost Amman
File:Justso_crabplay.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Justso_crabplay.jpg License: Public domain
Contributors: http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/JustSoStories/chap10_crabplay_ill2.html Original artist: Rudyard Kipling
File:Kirchner_-_Bildnis_Otto_Mueller.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Kirchner_-_Bildnis_
Otto_Mueller.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: repro from art book Original artist: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 - 1938)
File:Madonna_del_Fuoco.JPG Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Madonna_del_Fuoco.JPG License:
Public domain Contributors: Transferred from it.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Metaphysicus using CommonsHelper. Original artist: Original uploader was Perkele at it.wikipedia
File:Preparing_a_Woodcut_Design.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Preparing_a_Woodcut_
Design.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Zephyris
File:Randolph_Caldecott_illustration2.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Randolph_Caldecott_
illustration2.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Library of Congress[1][2] Original artist: Randolph Caldecott, engraved and printed
by Edmund Evans
File:Some_woodcutts_of_Stanislaw_Raczynski.jpg Source:
Stanislaw_Raczynski.jpg License: PD-US Contributors:
Original publication: 1920
Immediate source: my home
Original artist:
Stanislaw Raczynski
(Life time: 1903-1982)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/Some_woodcutts_of_
10
14
File:Tokaido09_Odawara.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Tokaido09_Odawara.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Original artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (
)
14.3
Content license