Part 2

The origin of the processes of reproduction is invariably utilitarian. Every advance, every new technical attainment, can be traced to the demand for devices which would lessen labor and save time. The graphic arts do not share with painting a development based upon a desire for æsthetic expression. Their origin is imitative, thoroughly democratic, and every process continues in that lowly sphere, until the genius of some powerful artist lifts it into realms of art. For the very reason of this utilitarian tendency, and because of a gamut of expression restricted to line and tone for the interpretation of a world of color and form, the graphic arts, even more than other forms of artistic expression, need the steady hand of the gifted artist to sustain them on a high plane of excellence. Deprived of this guiding support, their decline to levels of mediocrity and commercialism is swift and inevitable.

If we glance at early periods of history, we are readily convinced that before the fifteenth century there existed no demand for pictorial work widespread or emphatic enough to call into life speedier substitutes for hand work. Surely no need of such substitutes was felt in the Græco-Roman world, where a well-developed system of scribes met the demands of their patrons. Nor were multiplying devices needed in the early days of Christianity. The new faith, to be sure, made its appeal to everybody, to the high-born and lowly alike, but it relied mainly on the word of the preacher for the transmission of its simple creed. During the dark ages of ferment, migration, and strife which followed, the monuments of antique culture, erudition, knowledge were engulfed. What demand could there have been for the multiplying arts in that period of dense ignorance, of ceaseless struggle for life itself, for the bare necessities of life, for merely endurable conditions? The Church, the only institution of stability in this sea of unrest, became the repository of whatever remained of tradition and erudition,--mysteries, these, to be jealously guarded and held as a privilege of the clergy.

Owing to the prevalent illiteracy among the people in these dark ages, the Church, in its mission of spiritual guidance, relied, as of old, on the preacher’s word. The power of his exhortations was seconded, however, by silently eloquent, impressive teachings surrounding the worshipers, namely, the scenes and figures of religious import, painted upon the walls of the church. That same endeavor to stimulate pious thoughts carried the miniature into liturgical books, into religious manuscripts generally. The writing-room of the monastery was all-sufficient to provide for the pious needs of clergy, rulers, and nobles. Here the patient copyist drew again and again the outlines of the large illuminated initials of his text, until he bethought himself of the labor he might save by imitating the cloth-printer, and cutting wooden relief-blocks of these outlines which he might stamp upon his parchment. An early device this, adopted in the twelfth or thirteenth century, but clearly foreshadowing the development which was soon to follow.

Meantime, in that iron age religious enthusiasm had fired the crusaders, the armor-clad Occident had met the Orient, bringing back some of the wisdom of the ancient East into the scholar’s study and the convent cell, and broadening man’s outlook upon the world.

We know how Gothic architecture grew up in the North, how in the Gothic church the ample wall space, which had been heretofore the realm of painting, was divided, reduced, suppressed. We know how the curtailed pictorial art sought new spheres of expression, how the panel picture took possession of the altars. Before long this picture, which could be shifted from one position to another, was used independently of altars, for the adornment of suitable wall spaces in the church, until finally it found its way from the church to the home, henceforth to be one of its indispensable adornments.

As painting made its way into the lay world, the impersonal, traditional, dogmatic character of sacred subjects faded away. Not that ecclesiastic art had lost its deeply religious sincerity, but the artist saw nature with new eyes; he realized the beautiful world around him, and lovingly painted the plants and flowers at the feet of the Virgin. He removed her throne from the formal diapered background of gold, and placed it in the midst of the actual living world. The figures became more personal and lifelike; worldly subjects, even portraits, or at least efforts in the direction of individual differentiation, came within the artist’s sphere, while as yet the sacred subject remained the one great theme of artistic expression.

The panel picture had come into the home as a means of decoration, but the wealthy only could gratify their desire for this costly form of artistic adornment. The burgher, the artisan, the economical household, could not think of owning such painted luxury, not any more than they could afford the costly miniatures painted on parchment. Then some bethought themselves that they might cut the outline of figures on blocks of wood, after the manner of the cloth-printers and of the initial blocks which we have found in use in monastic writing-rooms. These outlines could then be printed on parchment, or on that new and cheaper product, paper, as an inexpensive substitute for panel picture and miniature. In this manner the common people obtained their saints’ pictures or “Helgen” (_Heiligen_), more or less crude in design, clumsy in the execution of knife-work, colored with the gayest pigments which the _Briefmaler_ could find. With all their imperfections these early woodcuts were prized and evidently found a ready market, as souvenirs of pilgrimages, as fit embellishments of wayside shrines or altars of the chapels and churches of poor parishes, as scapulars, or pasted in books, as makeshifts for the unattainable miniatures, or else they were simply fastened on the wall, as a decoration. Tastes were simple, and with all their crudeness, these productions--of greatly varying size and of every degree of careful or careless execution--are not without charm even to the twentieth-century beholder.

The same artisans who cut and printed these saints’ pictures found lucrative employment in a field quite remote from religious matters. Playing-cards had been introduced into Europe from the Orient, probably in the latter part of the thirteenth century. They quickly won popular favor and were used by rich and poor with equal zest. Cards exquisitely painted or charmingly engraved attest the favor accorded the game by people of rank and wealth, but in making cards for the use of the people at large, cheapness of production far outweighed any æsthetic considerations which might have existed. Cards had to be sold cheaply, and they had to be produced in large quantities to satisfy the growing demand. How were these conditions to be met? One solution of the problem was stenciling, another stamping the outlines on paper by means of relief-blocks; both were resorted to by the artisans of the fifteenth century, and their trade spread beyond the confines of Germany, to the south of the Alps, causing Venetian craftsmen to clamor for legislative protection of their home production.

In all these early manifestations, we saw woodcut in the service of the common people; we saw it used instead of other means of production for reasons purely utilitarian. But a change is at hand, for has not the crusader sown a seed throughout the land; has not the human mind been awakened from its mediæval lethargy? The humanist arises, seeking enlightenment and the solution of life’s problems amid the meager surviving relics and records of the art and thought of antiquity. Feudal conditions are grudgingly modified, under pressure from a new element, which brings about a gradual shifting of the balance of power, intellectually as well as economically and politically: the rise of the Town. During our early, turbulent centuries with their grim

“simple plan, That he shall take who has the power, And he shall keep who can,”--

misery not only loved company, as the old proverb has it, but absolutely needed it. Groups of those, too weak singly to withstand the attacks of that vast, lawless element which lived by oppression and plunder, huddled themselves together, built themselves shelters, and intrenched themselves against the common foe. In the course of time, owing to an advantageous position or to intensity of commerce or industry, these one-time shelters grew into towns, rising in wealth, power, and independent spirit, girt about with strong walls and moats, each town a state within the state, protected by imperial grants and privileges, bound together by the common enmity of the feudal power, and within the walls by an ardent local patriotism. Strong in their guilds and associations, in touch with each other and with the world by the constant travel of merchants and craftsmen, the towns became not only centers of wealth, but also the bearers of progressive thought, of art, of mental enlightenment. Here the graphic arts might well originate and flourish, for here were their patrons, the burgher, the craftsman, the people.

The time was at hand when the call for the multiplying arts would become imperative--compelling. Man looked about, and beheld a world full of beauty and abuses; he felt himself a unit, an individual, not merely part of the mass of mankind, and he was going to think for himself; he demanded to know, to learn, to grasp the truths and probe the problems of his world. For the instruction of this untutored multitude, eager for light, there were two modes of expression, instantly intelligible: the simple spoken word, and that other--the illustrative, explanatory picture. This latter must now go forth also among the people, to help in the task of enlightenment; not the panel picture, to be sure, nor the miniature in the costly manuscript, for aside from their costliness they could never numerically satisfy so universal a demand. In response to the call--we are now in the fifteenth century--we see woodcut pictures pasted into manuscripts, to form edifying picture books, the pictures printed from wood blocks, a few lines of text added with the pen. Then both picture _and_ text are cut into the same wood block in imitation of the picture manuscripts. These early “block-books,” of Biblical or moralizing contents, were intended for the use of pupils in the monastic schools which were then the only educational institutions.

In the early days of woodcut, impressions were taken from the wood block by laying a sheet of paper on the inked surface of the block and rubbing the back of the paper with a stiff scrubbing brush, or with a flat piece of wood, so as to bring it in close contact with the inked ridges on the surface of the block. It is evident that neither the quality nor yet the speed of this form of printing could long satisfy even the most easy-going craftsman. A more perfect mode of printing was needed and gradually evolved, culminating in the printing-press. Similarly the cutting of letters of the text on the picture blocks--in the so-called block-books--must soon have proved itself impracticable, for the reign of these books is quite brief. One is tempted to let fancy play around the bald facts, and to watch the artisan, wearily cutting the same letters again and again into the wood block, until he bethinks himself,--a half-dozen others likewise: “Why cannot I saw off the lettering cut on another block, cut it up, word by word, or, better yet, letter by letter, then put the letters together in words and sentences as I need them, and use them with my newly cut picture? It would save a deal of trouble!” Thus the next step was movable type, used around, between, together with, the blocks bearing the illustrations. The rapid spread of type-printing simultaneous with these developments concerns us merely because the vast number of illustrated books published during that period greatly favored the development of woodcut illustration.

Throughout these developments, we always discern the same utilitarian element which I have pointed out. Far from originating in any striving for a higher, more ideal form of artistic expression, the devices for printing both pictures and text were simply means to save labor and expedite publication. The manuscript, the miniature, were the ideals to be approached, and they were high ideals, to be sure. Distinguished humanists like Pope Nicholas V, Poggio, Giannozzo Mannetti, and others, being themselves experts in calligraphy, demanded the best efforts of their scribes and miniaturists. It is a pleasure merely to look at their books. The material used is invariably parchment, the bindings in the Vatican and at Urbino, crimson velvet and silver. It could hardly be expected that these men, who spared neither pains nor expense to show their respect for the contents of a book, would view the advent of printing with anything like satisfaction. Their collective feelings are well summed up in the one remark of Federigo da Urbino, that he would be ashamed to own a printed book.

Not by these nor for their use had type-printing and picture-printing been called into life, but by the needs of the people, and at the people’s call the world was flooded with a multitude of works, informative or entertaining in character. Soon German printers set up presses in Italian cities, and ere long the publishing centers of the South, especially Venice, vied with Germany in importance of production.

Book illustration was considered from a very different point of view in Germany and in Italy. German illustration grew out of a demand for and pleasure in the explanatory picture. The demand for picture books and for books consisting chiefly of illustrations came from a public easily pleased, satisfied with crude outline cuts daubed over with colors. In Italy illustration came in answer to a desire for artistic illustrative ornamentation, on the part of a public of cultivated taste. For this reason the German illustrated book bears a character largely instructive, while the Italian illustration is essentially decorative. Very few of the early books in the German language are devoid of illustrations. The pictures constitute their decoration,--they are used as chapter headings,--long before the advent of purely ornamental embellishments. In Italy the printed book takes over from the manuscript the idea of decorative embellishment. Borders are stamped--with relief-blocks--upon the printed pages of early Venetian books, and colored by hand. This craving for color is as old as mankind; its demands are urged upon the graphic arts at all stages of their development. The demand for color caused the manuscript to be illuminated, and the pen-drawn outline of the early miniature to be filled in with pigment; we have seen its call answered in the crudely colored saint’s picture. The outline is explanatory, intellectual, the coloring adds a sensual pleasure, and this additional feature of bright color was soon demanded also of the printed book. The printer’s answering endeavors are seen in the red initials printed into pages of black text, in title-page designs, arms and ornaments, in borders and diagrams printed in two, sometimes three colors. Another effort in this direction of color is the _chiaroscuro_[3] woodcut, but that belongs to a later period. A few illustrations will convey a more definite idea of these early woodcuts. Here is a dignified, pleasing example of the “Helgen,” cut in outline, as usual, and colored by hand (the dark tones on the garments and elsewhere are due to this coloring). No shade-strokes are as yet introduced, merely an outline; the rest is left to the colorist. After that, inscriptions are cut into the block, or written in, and this combination of lettering and picture carries us to the block-books.

[3] Pronounce: keearoskooro.

A typical page from the “Ars Memorandi” (probably cut in the Netherlands) shows the character of these school books. This is designed to help theological students in memorizing the Holy Writ. The pictures are good; the text, hard to read, was soon to be replaced by movable type.

A page, from the Nuremberg “Chronicle” of 1494, shows us the state of woodcut, technically as well as its use in books. Many examples might be shown, from different parts of Germany, from schools swayed by various currents of artistic thought. Common to them all, despite their crudity, is a growing familiarity with woodcut, a realization of its possibilities and of its limitations. Artistic talent of a high order--compared with earlier productions--reveals itself, resulting from a division of labor. The artisan of the playing-cards and early saints’ pictures could never have risen to these heights of creative independence. His simple figures were copied from manuscripts, or from some other handy model, but when it came to supplying the growing demands of book-illustration with material from fields without precedent in past productions, the publishers were constrained to entrust artists with these designs, and the woodcut maker was given the task--not easy, though mechanical--of cutting with precision the lines drawn by the artist.

This development is common to Germany and Italy alike; but throughout the early productions of the Southern country, we seem to hear an echo of the sublime harmonies achieved in painting. For instance, in this large “Helgen” of Italy: a simple outline woodcut, this Virgin and Child with St. John, but in its simplicity what dignity and strength. The accents introduced by slight decorative indications and the shade-lines in the hair add charm to the simple, charming composition, by contrast of tone. Excellent cutting, this, after a masterly design. But in a country which has just reached the zenith of artistic achievement, we may expect, likewise, such remarkable decorative designs as the title-page border for the Venetian “Herodotus” of 1494, which frames the title of this volume.

It is the golden era of typography, this last decade of the fifteenth century. Brought to Italian towns by German printers, both type and illustration soon fall in line with the prevailing high standard of excellence. If further proof were needed, it would be found in this page from a Venetian publication, the “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.” See how well the beautiful type of the text harmonizes with the illustration, how nicely the values of both are adjusted to form a harmonious page. Simple, unpretentious outline is used to convey the beauty of the artistic conception. These same characteristics will be met again in engraving as it is used by Italian masters. Woodcut as well as the other forms of reproductive art remain the servants, never become the friends of artists in Italy.

For brevity’s sake, we must pass by northern Italy and turn to Florence which was, next to Venice, the foremost southern publishing center. In this example, taken from Pulci’s “Morgante Maggiore,” published in 1500, we notice a keener appreciation of the possibilities of woodcut. Broad masses of white, with severe outline, scantily shaded, contrast with bold masses of black, whose intensity of effect is modified and blended by means of tenuous white lines, a manner likewise adopted in illustrations for the forceful sermons of Savonarola, whose teachings, widely read, necessitated a number of successive editions.

III

THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING

Having followed woodcut from its beginnings to the end of the fifteenth century, it behooves us now to devote our attention to the earliest intaglio process, namely, engraving.

Ever since the days of antiquity it had been the practice of metal-workers to cut decorative designs into the surface of the metal. Armorers and goldsmiths practiced this art of engraving in mediæval and Renaissance times. For our present purposes the absorbing question is this: How did the idea of printing from this decorated metal first suggest itself? We may get a clue by watching the engraver at work. With the graver he cuts a maze of lines into the metal; it is almost impossible to see the design owing to the glitter of each new-cut furrow. This troubles the engraver himself, and in order to see just what he has done, he smears the plate over with a mixture of lamp-black and oil, rubbing it well into the furrows. Then he wipes the plate clean, and now the design stands out plainly in black lines upon the shining metal surface. If he were now to take a piece of paper and press it against the plate, the black color in the furrows would adhere to the paper, and every line cut into the metal would be reproduced there. In such an accidental way, no doubt, the possibility of obtaining impressions from intaglio plates became known some time about or before the middle of the fifteenth century. But, of course, such an impression taken by hand pressure is bound to be very imperfect, and it may have been some time before some goldsmith thought it worth while to experiment with these printing possibilities. At first impressions may have seemed useful as guides for further work on the metal, or they may have served as memoranda of work done and delivered. As a matter of fact, goldsmiths did make use of this new-found mode of printing, and took impressions from their small decorative niello plates, before filling in the engraved lines with the final black enamel,--the “nigellum.”

If woodcut were dubbed the democrat among the graphic arts, certainly engraving must be called the aristocrat of the family. It originates in the goldsmith’s workshop, amidst a guild of skilled designers, who not unfrequently practice painting together with their craft. No wonder that in such hands engraving should shape itself along artistic lines from the start. In Germany engraving finds a ready welcome among other manifestations of an art essentially of the town, of the burgher, while the art of the Italian quattrocento celebrates its great triumphs in the erection or adornment of sumptuous edifices, under the fostering care of princes and prelates. The German naïvely depicts, with minute precision, the scenes and environments of his homely sphere; all subjects, whatever their time or country, are shifted into the familiar setting of his own time and his own surroundings. Hence we see the crucifixion taking place in a clearing amidst firs; we find German and Dutch burghers in the scenes of the Passion, or kneeling in adoration--as Magi--before the new-born Child.

The Italian artist is no less zealous in his search for nature’s truths, but at the same time he harks back to those remains of former artistic perfection which are just then being reclaimed from the soil, heirlooms from classical antiquity. Guided by both, he imparts a semblance of life to his ideal forms, that they may appear real, though belonging to a higher world. The cult of antiquity establishes a retrospective tendency in the choice of subjects represented. Traditional themes taken from the Bible, from legend and mythology, are used again and again with changes in the composition, in costume, lighting and color scheme, all in the constant endeavor to excel in perfection of form and composition, and in harmonious, beautiful coloring.