Engraving for Illustration: Historical and Practical Notes

"By its very character of freedom, by the intimate and rapid connection which it establishes between the hands and the thoughts of the artists, etching becomes the frankest and...

"When applied to objects of their proper destination, the arts are capable of extending our intellect, of supplying new ideas, and of presenting to us a view of times and places...

=Wood Engraving.=--The most animating event in the whole history of engraving was the development of engraved wood blocks. Wood engraving did not receive the impetus of a new di...

"The influence of the graver is so great and extensive that its productions have constantly been the delight of all countries of the world and of all seasons of life."

"Yet when we have said all our fine things about the arts, we must end in a frank confession that the arts, as we know them, are but initial. He has conceived meanly of the reso...

=The Engraver's Task.=--Engraving, by whatever process it may be accomplished, is not by any means a secondary art. Even when it descends to mere copying, which its commercial a...

It is a distinctly progressive process which possesses immense advantages and represents an effective and by no means inartistic aspect of the graphic arts. The lavish, and in m...

=Its Inception.=--It was the dawn of a new sense when primitive man first ornamented his weapons, utensils, and the walls of his cave dwellings with incised drawings,--pictorial...

"Engraving for Illustration" is pre-eminently a creative art by which the work of the artist is _translated_, "in order to render the effect of his design in such a form as will...