DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28460#0051
Part I.—Introcluction.
35
with. the wood-block, came more ancl more into use after 1460, and
gradually drove out the more primitive practice of printing with the
rubber. The printing-press has remained in principle the same from
its invention to the present day: ordinary printer’s ink is used for
printing woodcuts, and the paper is pressed clown from above, either
by a “ platen ” or by a cyMnder, upon the face of the block, or of
the block combined with type in the “ forme,” which is inked with a
roller before each impression.
COLOURING.
The study of the colours which occur on woodcuts, with a view of
determining the local school to whicli they belong, has not advanced,
so far as I am aware, beyoncl the stage at which it was left by Weigel,
who has written more fully than anyone else on tliis subject.1 Pro-
gress is rnost likely to be made by a study of the colouring in
illustrated books, a subject which early writers on art used to neglect.
The difhculty of writing on colours is tliat a word may not convey
at all the same notion of colour to tlie reader as it did to the writer;
the subjeet cannot, in fact, be studied in books, ancl the student must
acquire liis own experience for himself. Some grouncl has been
gained, but not much. I do not believe that the colouring of wood-
cuts was influenced by the local schools of painting; I mean, of oil
or tempera painting as a fine art. The woodcuts are connected by
their origin, not witli the painter’s workshop, but with the Scriptorium;
they were produced as substitutes for miniatures or for hand-painted
saints and broadsides in water-colours; the latter have perished, and
the former are little known and little worth knowing, but it is to
them, and not to altarpieces, that we sliould look for analogies to our
coloured woodcuts.
The usual technique was precisely tliat of the modern child who
is presented with a box of paints and a brush and a copy of an
illustrated newspaper to colour. Everything was done by hand and
with a brusli in the same water-colours or body-colours as were used
for illuminations in MSS., except the more complicated business of
impressing leaf-gold ('see p. 13, notc 1). On playing-cards, no doubt, the
designs were painted throngh stencils before they were printed from
wood-blocks, but I have found no indication that stencils (“Patronen”)
were ever used for colouring picture-woodcuts in the- xv century, as
has sometimes been asserted. Stencils, however, were certainly used
by the later xvi century Briefmaler for their broadsides.
There is one group of woodcuts, however, in which the colours
1 W. u. Z. i, xix-xxi, translated and abridged by Willshire;
Prints,” i, 175-6, and by Linton, op. cit., p. 37.
“ Introd. to Ancicnt
D 2
Oolonrs as
a guide to
origin.
Techniquo.
35
with. the wood-block, came more ancl more into use after 1460, and
gradually drove out the more primitive practice of printing with the
rubber. The printing-press has remained in principle the same from
its invention to the present day: ordinary printer’s ink is used for
printing woodcuts, and the paper is pressed clown from above, either
by a “ platen ” or by a cyMnder, upon the face of the block, or of
the block combined with type in the “ forme,” which is inked with a
roller before each impression.
COLOURING.
The study of the colours which occur on woodcuts, with a view of
determining the local school to whicli they belong, has not advanced,
so far as I am aware, beyoncl the stage at which it was left by Weigel,
who has written more fully than anyone else on tliis subject.1 Pro-
gress is rnost likely to be made by a study of the colouring in
illustrated books, a subject which early writers on art used to neglect.
The difhculty of writing on colours is tliat a word may not convey
at all the same notion of colour to tlie reader as it did to the writer;
the subjeet cannot, in fact, be studied in books, ancl the student must
acquire liis own experience for himself. Some grouncl has been
gained, but not much. I do not believe that the colouring of wood-
cuts was influenced by the local schools of painting; I mean, of oil
or tempera painting as a fine art. The woodcuts are connected by
their origin, not witli the painter’s workshop, but with the Scriptorium;
they were produced as substitutes for miniatures or for hand-painted
saints and broadsides in water-colours; the latter have perished, and
the former are little known and little worth knowing, but it is to
them, and not to altarpieces, that we sliould look for analogies to our
coloured woodcuts.
The usual technique was precisely tliat of the modern child who
is presented with a box of paints and a brush and a copy of an
illustrated newspaper to colour. Everything was done by hand and
with a brusli in the same water-colours or body-colours as were used
for illuminations in MSS., except the more complicated business of
impressing leaf-gold ('see p. 13, notc 1). On playing-cards, no doubt, the
designs were painted throngh stencils before they were printed from
wood-blocks, but I have found no indication that stencils (“Patronen”)
were ever used for colouring picture-woodcuts in the- xv century, as
has sometimes been asserted. Stencils, however, were certainly used
by the later xvi century Briefmaler for their broadsides.
There is one group of woodcuts, however, in which the colours
1 W. u. Z. i, xix-xxi, translated and abridged by Willshire;
Prints,” i, 175-6, and by Linton, op. cit., p. 37.
“ Introd. to Ancicnt
D 2
Oolonrs as
a guide to
origin.
Techniquo.