Studio: international art (14.1898)

Letter to the Editor

or artist to make his designs or drawings other-
where than upon the wood; this in itself helps
the engraver and does not hurt the result, because,
except in the very few cases where the engraver
made his own 'drawings, the artist, and the pub-
lisher also, wished to keep the original design to
compare with the engraving, and not to have to
trust to their memory of what had been upon the
wood ; and is not wood-engraving a reproductive
art,as is also mezzo-tinting? The graver, in the hands
of an artist, will show at least as much individuality
as the scraper, and produce results that no photo-
graphic reproduction ca 1 approach. The latter tool
is certainly much the easier of the two to handle ;
but that is nothing against the graver, except a
reason why few artists attempt its use. What are
the illustrations to the article, admirable as they
are, but reproductions of designs drawn upon the
wood, where the rough-edged line made by the
square graver is utilised to assist the result, which
design might, with at least equal advantage, have
been made upon paper and photographed upon the
wood for engraving ?

Wood-engraving has fallen from other reasons
than this, and you can date the great collapse from
the time when these sins against what the art
should always have been were practised to their
fullest extent. The manufacturing of illustra-
tions was, perhaps, the greatest sin. Blocks,
large and small, were each divided and given
to different engravers, who had, without hav-
ing any particular artistic taste, and no artistic
training other than what might be picked up in
an engraving office, after serving a long appren-
ticeship to what their parents and guardians had
thought a good paying business, developed a tech-
nique that was useful in certain directions. When
this business was at its height, you would find that
one man had engraved skies for years and practi-
cally nothing else; another had all the trees that
he could do, and so on, until, in England, very
seldom did one engraver do an important block
throughout. All this was necessary from the stand-
point of the illustration manufacturer, because it
helped the speed in turning out blocks ; but it
prevented development in many places, and has

SETTEE AND WALL-PAPER

194

•> (See London Slitdio- Talk)

BY ELLEN M. STEADMAN AND KATHERINE RAYMENT