NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Wood engraving

The technique of wood engraving developed at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, with the works of Thomas Bewick. Bewick generally made his engraving in harder woods than normally used, and would engrave the end of a block instead of the side. Finding a knife not suitable for working against the grain in harder woods, Bewick used the engraving tool the burin, which has a V-shaped cutting tip. Engraving on wood in this manner produced highly detailed images, usually quite unlike those produced by engraving on copper plates. ^[1] Furthermore, unlike copper-plate engravings that quickly deteriorated, thousands of copies could be printed from engraved wood blocks. Since wood engraving is a relief process while metal engraving is an intaglio technique, wood engravings could be used on conventional print presses, which were themselves making rapid mechanical improvements during the first quarter of the 19th century. As a result of Bewick's innovation and improvements in the printing press, illustrations of art, nature, technical processes, famous people, foreign lands and many other subjects became more widely available. (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Thomas Bewick (August 1753 - November 8, 1828) was an English wood engraver and ornithologist. ... Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. ... In lithic reduction, a burin is a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which prehistoric humans may have used for engraving or for carving wood or bone. ... Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. ... A relief print is an image created by a printmaking process, such as woodcut, where the areas of the matrix (plate or block) that are to show printed black (typically) are on the original surface; the parts of the matrix that are to be blank (white) having been cut themselves... Intaglio (pronounced in-TAL-yo, IPA: ) is a printmaking technique in which the image is incised into a surface. ... The printing press is a mechanical device for printing many copies of a text on rectangular sheets of paper. ...

Commercial use in the 19th century

Bewick's innovations were developed and expanded by a large group of professional wood engravers. Magazines with large circulations (The Illustrated London News, and Harper's Weekly) were illustrated with large wood engravings that were the product of a collaboration between draftsmen and wood engravers. Gustave Doré's famous works were likewise a collaborative product of Doré and a group of talented wood engravers.^[2] In 19th century France wood engravings became besides lithography the medium of choice for caricaturist such as Honoré Daumier, who published his wood engravings in daily satirical papers such as the Charivari. The Illustrated London News was a magazine founded by Herbert Ingram and his friend Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch magazine. ... Harpers Weekly Inauguration Number 1897 Harpers Weekly (A Journal of Civilization) was an American political magazine published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916. ... DorÃ© photographed by Felix Nadar. ... HonorÃ© Daumier (portrait by Nadar). ...

Wood engraving as a reproductive (rather than artistic) technique has been displaced by advances in printing technology. Wood engraving is now used to create bookplates, fine art limited edition prints, and a few book illustrations and commercial artwork. For other articles which might have the same name, see Print (disambiguation). ... Figure 1. ... In printmaking, an edition is a set of prints off one plate, composing a limited run of prints. ...

Notable wood engravers with articles in Wikipedia

In rough chronological order

HonorÃ© Daumier (portrait by Nadar). ... Thomas Bewick (August 1753 - November 8, 1828) was an English wood engraver and ornithologist. ... DorÃ© photographed by Felix Nadar. ... Thomas Nast (September 27, 1840 â€“ December 7, 1902) was a famous caricaturist and editorial cartoonist in the 19th century and is considered to be the father of American political cartooning. ... Eduard Magnus Jakobson (February 5, 1847 Torma, Estonia - July 2, 1903 Tallinn, Estonia) was an Estonian wood engraver and a Baptist missionary. ... Arthur Comfort (1864-1935) was a master wood engraver at The Graphic in London and art teacher in Halifax. ... Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (February 22, 1882â€“November 17, 1940) was a British sculptor, typographer and engraver. ... David Jones CH (November 1, 1895-1974) was both an artist and one of the most important first generation British modernist poets. ... John Nash (11 April 1893 â€“ 23 September 1977) was a painter, illustrator, and engraver. ... The Ypres Salient at Night, 1917 - 1918, Imperial War Museum. ... John Buckland Wright was an illustrator and engraver from Dunedin, New Zealand. ... Gwendoline Gwen Darwin (1885-1957) was a celebrated English wood engraving artist who co-founded the Society of Wood Engravers in England. ... Eric Ravilious (1903 - 1942) was an English painter, book illustrator, and wood engraver. ... Alan Reynolds Stone (1900-1979) was a noted English engraver, designer and painter of the 20th century. ... Agnes Miller Parker (1895 - 1980) was a Scottish engraver and illustrator. ... Lynd Kendall Ward (26 June 1905 â€“ 28 June 1985) was an American artist and storyteller, and son of Methodist minister and prominent political organizer Harry F. Ward. ... Clare Leighton (1901 - 1989) was an American artist, writer and illustrator, best known for her wood engravings. ... Barry Moser is a renowned artist, most famous as a printmaker and illustrator of numerous works of literature. ... Gaylord Schanilec (Born 1955) is a notable american wood engraver. ... Andy English (born 1956) is an English wood engraving artist and educator who pioneered the use the of the Internet to teach a wider audience about wood engraving and how to do it. ... Vija Celmins (b. ...

Organisations

Reference

↑ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

EncyclopÃ¦dia Britannica, the 11th edition The 11th edition of the EncyclopÃ¦dia Britannica (1910â€“1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the EncyclopÃ¦dia Britannica. ...

External links

Extensive information on Honoré Daumier and his life and works, bibliography, and exhibitions

Categories: Printing | Engraving

Results from FactBites:

Wood Engraving - LoveToKnow 1911 (4141 words)
	Wood engraving, then, is really nothing but that primitive block-cutting which prepared for the printer the letters in relief now replaced by movable types, and the only difference between a delicate modern woodcut and the rude letters in the first printed books is a difference of artistic skill and knowledge.
	The wood engraving of the 16th century was a singularly positive art, as positive as carving; indeed, most of the famous woodcuts of that time might be translated into carved panels without much loss of character.
	Wood engraving in the first three quarters of the 19th century had no special character of its own, nothing like Bewick's work, which had a character derived from the nature of the process; but on the other hand, the modern art is set to imitate every kind of engraving and every kind of drawing.

Wood engraving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (503 words)
	The outlines of the design to be engraved were put down on a side of smooth-grained wood, and, usually with a knife, the excess surface of the wood block (all but the lines) would be cut away, a process called blocking.
	The technique of wood engraving was further developed, roughly 350 years later, at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, with the works of Thomas Bewick.
	Since wood engraving is a relief process while metal engraving is an intaglio technique, wood engravings could be used on conventional print presses, which were themselves making rapid mechanical improvements during the first quarter of the 19th century.

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Contents

Origin and technique GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Commercial use in the 19th century

Notable wood engravers with articles in Wikipedia

Organisations

Further reading

Reference

External links

Origin and technique