Studio: international art (58.1913)

Wood-Engraving for Colour

WOOD-ENGRAVING FOR
COLOUR IN GREAT
BRITAIN. BY MALCOLM
C. SALAMAN.

Among the makers of original colour-prints in
Great Britain to-day not the least interesting is that
group of artists who have selected the engraved
wood-block as a medium for pictorial expression in
colour. The charm of the Japanese colour-print
was bound sooner or later to inspire European
artists to adopt its methods for the utterance of
their own ideals of decorative design. But the
Japanese artist was never the actual engraver or
printer of his design, whereas the English artist is
the sole producer of his colour-prints; he makes
his design, he engraves it on as many blocks as he
requires for the colours, and these he inks and
prints with his own hands. Each print, therefore,
is to all intents and purposes an individual work of
art; and this wholeness, this unity, of work it is
that invests with so much artistic interest and
importance the modern movement in engraving for
colour. A particularly interesting fact about the
artists employing wood-blocks is that, while the
technique of the Japanese cutters has undoubtedly

formed the basis and example of most of the English
practice, it is adopted by no means exclusively; in
fact, each artist handles the wood with the crafts-
manship he finds best suited to his own manner of
design.

A notable name in this connection is that of
Mr. F. Morley Fletcher, who was perhaps the first
to devote himself—in conjunction, I believe, with
Mr. J. D. Batten—to studying practically the
methods of the Japanese makers of colour-prints ;
for, even more important than his own prints—of
which one may name The Mountain and Wis/on
River as admirable examples—has been the in-
fluence of his teaching. The great importance of
this will be understood when I mention among his
pupils such individual artists, such successful makers
of colour-prints, as Mr. William Giles, Mr. Allen
W. Seaby, Mr. Sydney Lee, Miss Ethel Kirkpatrick,
and Miss Mabel Royds.

Now, let me describe briefly the procedure which
these artists have borrowed from the Japanese.
First—I am indebted to Mr. Sydney Lee for the
details—the design is transferred, in indelible
Indian or Chinese ink, on to Indiana Mill paper, a
thin tough paper, much resembling that on which
bank notes are printed, only rather more traos-

" ST. IVES BAYt"

BY SYDNEY LEE
283