DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28460#0285
254
Frauduleut
monograms
ofteu inserted.
Invention of
chiaroscuro
woodcuts.
Their ann.
Early German and Flemish Woodcuts.
cut, by removing the part in need of emendation and plugging the
block with a new piece of wood. on wliicli the corrected design was
drawn and cut again. The blocks of Maximilian’s books were cor-
rected in this way again aud again, wlien the proofs were submitted
to the Emperor, and he required the alteration of some action or some
detail of costume, or even, as in the case of “ Theuerdank,” made some
fundamental change in the text of the book itself, which necessitated
the insertion of a new eharacter in the place of the one at first
represented. The correction was not always carried out by tlie
original designer of the woodcut, and tlrus it is common in “ Theuer-
dank ” to find a head by Leonhard Beck attached to a body by
Schaufelein.1 The blocks of the pedigree of Maximilian on the
Triumphal Arch bear witness by their repeated corrections to the
successive revisions which the pedigree itself underwent.
This process of plugging tlie block lent itself easily to fraud when
the block liad once passed out of the artist’s control. There is no
more commoii instance of sucli fraud than the insertion of Diirer’s
monogram in blocks by other Xuremberg artists, which has had the
effect of preserving these often almost worthless productions from
the destruction that lias overtaken works of much greater merit
wlrich were unsigned and tlierefore exposed to neglect. A signature
could also be stamped on the impression itself witliout being inserted
in the block.
CHIABOSCUBO WOODCUTS.
The most important innovation of the early years of the xvi
century in the matter of technique was the mvention of printing
woodcuts in chiaroscuro from two or three blocks.2 This differs in
principle from the earlier rnethod of colour-printing from severa!
blocks, which was used by Batdolt before 1490, and by Grimm and
Wirsung so late as 1520.3 The older process had airned rnerely at
producing a coloured woodcut by mechanical means mstead of
colouring by hand a black and wliite impression, The new process
aimed at something essentially different from this, viz., the imitation
of a pen-drawing in black on a coloured ground, heightened with
1 I have observed a curious case of the co-operation of the eame two artists in a
woodcut at Vienna (Hofbibl.) not conneeted with Maximilian I. In an undescribed
work of Scbaufelein, dated 1513, repvesenting St. Bridget as the patronees of her order,
the groups of rnonks and nuns or< either side have been inserted by Beck.
2 Tlie most important articles recently publislied on this subject are the following :
F. Lippmann, “ Farbenholzschnitte von Lucas Cranach,” Jahrb. d. h. preuss. Kunst-
samml. xvi, 138; C. Dodgson, “ Zu Jost de Negker,” Repert. f. Knnstw. xxi, 377:
L. Flechsig, “ Cranachstudien,” I. Teil, 32-37.
3 See pp. 36, 37.
Frauduleut
monograms
ofteu inserted.
Invention of
chiaroscuro
woodcuts.
Their ann.
Early German and Flemish Woodcuts.
cut, by removing the part in need of emendation and plugging the
block with a new piece of wood. on wliicli the corrected design was
drawn and cut again. The blocks of Maximilian’s books were cor-
rected in this way again aud again, wlien the proofs were submitted
to the Emperor, and he required the alteration of some action or some
detail of costume, or even, as in the case of “ Theuerdank,” made some
fundamental change in the text of the book itself, which necessitated
the insertion of a new eharacter in the place of the one at first
represented. The correction was not always carried out by tlie
original designer of the woodcut, and tlrus it is common in “ Theuer-
dank ” to find a head by Leonhard Beck attached to a body by
Schaufelein.1 The blocks of the pedigree of Maximilian on the
Triumphal Arch bear witness by their repeated corrections to the
successive revisions which the pedigree itself underwent.
This process of plugging tlie block lent itself easily to fraud when
the block liad once passed out of the artist’s control. There is no
more commoii instance of sucli fraud than the insertion of Diirer’s
monogram in blocks by other Xuremberg artists, which has had the
effect of preserving these often almost worthless productions from
the destruction that lias overtaken works of much greater merit
wlrich were unsigned and tlierefore exposed to neglect. A signature
could also be stamped on the impression itself witliout being inserted
in the block.
CHIABOSCUBO WOODCUTS.
The most important innovation of the early years of the xvi
century in the matter of technique was the mvention of printing
woodcuts in chiaroscuro from two or three blocks.2 This differs in
principle from the earlier rnethod of colour-printing from severa!
blocks, which was used by Batdolt before 1490, and by Grimm and
Wirsung so late as 1520.3 The older process had airned rnerely at
producing a coloured woodcut by mechanical means mstead of
colouring by hand a black and wliite impression, The new process
aimed at something essentially different from this, viz., the imitation
of a pen-drawing in black on a coloured ground, heightened with
1 I have observed a curious case of the co-operation of the eame two artists in a
woodcut at Vienna (Hofbibl.) not conneeted with Maximilian I. In an undescribed
work of Scbaufelein, dated 1513, repvesenting St. Bridget as the patronees of her order,
the groups of rnonks and nuns or< either side have been inserted by Beck.
2 Tlie most important articles recently publislied on this subject are the following :
F. Lippmann, “ Farbenholzschnitte von Lucas Cranach,” Jahrb. d. h. preuss. Kunst-
samml. xvi, 138; C. Dodgson, “ Zu Jost de Negker,” Repert. f. Knnstw. xxi, 377:
L. Flechsig, “ Cranachstudien,” I. Teil, 32-37.
3 See pp. 36, 37.