A Brief History of Wood-engraving from Its Invention Part 5

(Orthography was not much regarded in those days.) This book is so rare and so keenly sought for that at the sale at Osterley Park in 1855 a perfect copy was bought for the enormous sum of 1,950l. In 1483 appeared 'The Golden Legende,' considered to be his _magnum opus_, on account of the beauty of the typography; and about 1490 'The Talis of Cauntyrburye' with 27 cuts representing individual pilgrims, and one with all the pilgrims seated round a large table. It is {64} said that Caxton printed ninety-nine different works, of which sixty-four survive either in perfect books or in fragments, which may be consulted at the British Museum. He produced the first printed edition of Chaucer, Lydgate, Gower, and Sir Thomas Malory's 'King Arthur.' He was an accomplished linguist, and translated and published Cicero's Orations 'De Senectute' and 'De Amicitia,' Virgil's 'aeneid' and many other cla.s.sical works.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KNIGHT (_From Caxton's 'Game and Playe of the Chesse'_)]

With one exception none of his books has a t.i.tle-page, though some have prologues and colophons; and the pages are not numbered. They are all printed in the Gothic {65} character known as 'black letter,' and nearly all are in small folio size. Caxton, we are a.s.sured, received the patronage and friends.h.i.+p of all the great men of his time and was much esteemed throughout Europe; and from a miniature painting in a beautiful ma.n.u.script in the library of Lambeth Palace we know that Earl Rivers presented him with his first book in his hand to the King, Edward IV. It is supposed that he died at the end of 1491 in his sixty-ninth year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WYNKYN DE WORDE'S MARK _With Caxton's Initials_]

Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's pupil and successor, was a native of Lorraine. He probably came over with him from Bruges, and so attached was he to his master, and so highly did he esteem him, that in all the nine book-marks that De Worde used, he always included the initials W. C. The mark we have given is of rare occurrence, and is one of the best pieces of engraving of the time. Bibliographers have found four hundred books printed by him; among them is 'The Golden Legende,' with woodcuts (1493); a translation of 'Huon de Bordeaux,' from which Shakespeare borrowed the plot of his 'Midsummer Night's Dream'; and his best-known {66} work, often reprinted, 'Treatyses perteynynge to Hawkynge and Huntynge, and Fyshynge with an Angle,' by Dame Juliana Berners (1496), which contains many woodcuts, one of which, a man fis.h.i.+ng, is very quaint (_see engraving_). A book which was 'imprynted at London in Flete Street in 1531,' called 'Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, A devoute Treatyse in Englysshe,' is ill.u.s.trated by three curiously folded woodcuts. De Worde was the first printer in England who used the Roman type. Several of his books have a woodcut on the t.i.tle-page.

In his 'History of Wood-engraving,' Mr. Chatto gives his opinion about the cuts of this period:--'Although I am inclined to believe that within the fifteenth century there were no persons who practised wood-engraving in this country as a distinct profession, yet it by no means follows from such an admission that Caxton's and De Worde's cuts must have been engraved by foreign artists. The manner in which they are executed is so coa.r.s.e that they might have been cut by any person who could handle a graver. Looking at them merely as specimens of wood-engraving, they are not generally superior to the practice-blocks cut by a modern wood-engraver's apprentice within the first month of his novitiate.'

Soon there were other printers in London. Richard Pynson began to publish books from his own press in Fleet Street. His first book ill.u.s.trated with woodcuts appears to have been 'The Canterbury Tales,' printed before 1493.

In the following year Pynson issued Lydgate's 'Falle of Princis' with numerous small woodcuts by a master-hand, which appear too good to be English.

{67}

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'FYSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE'

(_From 'The Book of St. Albans,' printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496_)]

For a 'Sarum Missal' of 1500, he used some beautifully engraved borders and ornaments, as well as a large cut of Archbishop Morton's coat of arms.

Another of his important works was Lord Berners' translation of Syr John Froissart's 'Cronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Spayne, &c.' We give a {68} copy of Pynson's 'Mark,' but we fear both this and De Worde's were engraved on the Continent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHARD PYNSON'S MARK]

In 1498, Julian Notary established an office from which twenty-three books have been traced. Many of them have curious woodcuts, some of which seem to have descended to him from Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde. We find the decoration of the covers of Notary's works mentioned with approval in the early history of book-binding, which arrived at a much greater perfection than wood-engraving in this country at the close of the fifteenth century.

{69}

CHAPTER VIII

_IN GERMANY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY_

We must now retrace our brief history to Germany, where, under the immediate direction and control of such well-known artists as Albrecht Durer of Nurnberg (_b._ 1471, d. 1528) and Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg (_b._ 1472, d. 1531), as well as of Lucas Cranach, a Franconian (_b._ 1472, d.

1553), and, afterwards, of Hans Holbein of Augsburg (_b._ 1497, d. 1543), the art of wood-engraving in its grandest and purest form arrived at its first culmination. This was in a great measure due to the liberal patronage of the Emperor Maximilian, who, possessing a great love of art, esteemed all painters, architects, designers, and engravers as highly as his warriors. He was fond of magnificence in a truly imperial way, and the superb series of wood-engravings--the n.o.blest the world has ever seen--known as 'The Triumphs of Maximilian,' were the outcome of this generous tendency. Of these celebrated works, which were not completed when the Emperor died in 1519, we must speak in their proper place.

It was to the genius of Albrecht Durer and the engravers who translated his drawings into woodcuts that the art received its new vigour. Up to this time wood-engraving in Germany had been the work of craftsmen who were little better than mechanics; but when Durer and Burgkmair, who knew the capabilities of the art, made drawings on the wood expressly for the engravers to reproduce in exact lines, there {70} was a quick improvement which went on increasing in excellence for more than half a century. After the death of Holbein and his immediate successors, the art faded into insignificance in Germany for many years.

The first important work of the early life of Albrecht Durer was a series of fifteen large drawings on wood representing allegorical Scenes from the Apocalypse. They are mystical, indeed almost incomprehensible; at the same time we are obliged to notice the tremendous vigour and the wonderful power of invention in the man who designed them. But his attempt to embody the supernatural led him into the most extravagant conceptions. 'In attempting to bring such themes within the power of expression which art possesses,'

writes Mr. Woodbery, 'he strove to give speech to the unutterable.' Yet the genius of the true artist was apparent through all his work. The most celebrated of the Apocalypse designs is the fourth in the book, 'The Opening of the First Four Seals,' a wonderfully grand conception of the Four Hors.e.m.e.n going forth to conquer; Death on the pale horse below, and 'h.e.l.l following him.' (Revelation vi. 8.) King, burgher, peasant and priest, have all fallen beneath him. Although we are expressly told that Durer himself printed this work in 1498, it by no means follows that he engraved the woodcuts; they are greatly in advance of any previous work of the kind, and this may be attributed to the fact that the artist who designed them knew the best capabilities of the art. If he and the unknown engraver had learned the advantages of lowering the face of the wood when delicate lines were required, and the present methods of overlaying the cuts to produce greater intensity of colour, some of the engravings of Durer's time would be models of excellence.

The series of the Apocalypse was succeeded by three others in which the human interest is far greater. These were what the artist himself called 'The Larger Pa.s.sion of {71} Our Lord,' a series of eleven large cuts, with a vignette on the t.i.tle-page; 'The Life of the Virgin,' a series of twenty cuts; and 'The Smaller Pa.s.sion of Our Lord,' a series of thirty-six cuts of less size, with a well-known vignette of 'Christ Mocked' on the t.i.tle-page.

These works mark an important era in the history of wood-engraving and clearly led onwards to its future development. They were all published between 1510 and 1512, and so great was their popularity that the celebrated Italian engraver, Marc Antonio Raimondi, reproduced the whole of 'The Smaller Pa.s.sion' in copper-plate--much, as may be imagined, to Durer's annoyance.

In the 'Larger Pa.s.sion of Our Lord' we find representations of the Last Supper, Christ on the Mount of Olives, the Betrayal, the Scourging, Christ Mocked, Christ Bearing his Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and other subjects from the New Testament; and so deeply did the highly-wrought artist feel the awful importance of his subject that he repeated some of these events in at least five different series. In all of them his characters are dressed in the uncouth habiliments of German peasants, and we see bits of German villages; but in this respect he only followed the example of the great Italian painters, who clothed the most sacred figures in the costumes of their own towns, and, when possible, gave an Italian landscape for a background to their pictures of the Holy Land.

The series of twenty large engravings called 'The Life of the Virgin' was published and sold by Durer himself in book form at about the same time (1510), and was equally well received by the German people, who were at that time in a state of religious ferment consequent on the preachings of Martin Luther, and Durer was one of his prominent disciples.

{72}

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VIRGIN CROWNED BY TWO ANGELS. BY ALBRECHT DuRER _Engraved by Jerome Andre_ (_?_)]

{73} But it was the series of thirty-seven smaller woodcuts, known as 'The Lesser Pa.s.sion,' that was most popular; in some measure, perhaps, because the prints are of a more handy size. All the subjects of 'The Larger Pa.s.sion' are repeated, with variations, in this series, and twenty-five others from the Life of Christ are added. By a happy chance, thirty-five of the original woodcuts of this series are preserved in the British Museum.

In the year 1840 they were reprinted, by permission of the trustees, under the care of Mr. Henry Cole. The wood was found to be much worm-eaten, but all injury was deftly repaired by Mr. Thurston Thompson, and a small edition of the work was issued[6] with an exhaustive introduction by Mr.

Cole.

The most admired of all the works of Durer are the large plates known as 'The Knight, Death, and the Devil,' 'The Conversion of St. Eustace,'

'Melencolia,' 'St. Jerome in his Chamber,' and several others which he engraved or etched on copper with his own hands and which he himself published. Fine impressions of these marvellous works are now as eagerly sought for as celebrated Rembrandt etchings.

Durer made also many drawings on wood which were engraved and printed under his immediate supervision, and issued in separate sheets. Of one of the most beautiful, of these, 'The Virgin crowned by two Angels,' we are able to give an impression which is an exact facsimile (reduced) of a print of the year 1518. Nothing of its kind can exceed the brilliancy of the original, the engraving is as nearly perfect as possible, and were it not for the hardness of the lines in the faces and other objects where softness is required, no craftsman of the present day could surpa.s.s its excellence as a product of the printing-press. Many other separate large wood-engravings, after Durer's drawings, appeared between the years 1510 and 1518, such as 'The Holy Family with the three Rabbits,' 'St. Jerome in his Chamber,' 'The Flight into Egypt,' 'Beheading of St. John the Baptist,'

and, among other strange subjects, a representation of a Rhinoceros. {74} Durer also designed a frontispiece to his own book of poems, published in 1510.

Three magnificent books ill.u.s.trated with woodcuts of great size, the 'Theuerdank,' the 'Werskunig,' and the 'Freydal,' appeared in Germany early in the sixteenth century. The first is an epic relating to the Emperor Maximilian's journey to Burgundy on matrimonial affairs; it was published in 1517. Hans Schaufelein drew the designs for a hundred and eighteen cuts, measuring 6 inches by 5 inches each. The second is in honour of the Emperor's journeys in distant lands, and the third to celebrate his deeds of prowess. There are 237 designs, chiefly by Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg, in the 'Werskunig'; the blocks are still preserved; they remained unused till long after the Emperor's death, and were not published till 1775. The 'Freydal' has never been completed, though the designs are still in existence.

_THE TRIUMPHS OF MAXIMILIAN_

But we have yet to speak of 'The Triumphs of Maximilian.' This imperial work, the most important production of the art of wood-engraving the world has ever seen, was executed by command of the Emperor Maximilian to convey to posterity a pictorial representation of the magnificence of his court, the splendour of his victories, and the extent of his dominions. It consists of three distinct sets of designs: (I.) The 'Triumphal Arch,'

(II.) the 'Triumphal Car,' both from the hand of Albrecht Durer, and (III.) the 'Triumphal Procession,' by Hans Burgkmair. The size of the work is immense; if the whole series were laid out side by side it would cover about one hundred and ninety-two feet (64 yards!) The drawings were made on pear-wood and were cut by about eleven different engravers, of whom the most famous was Jerome of Nurnberg. Many of the original blocks are happily preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna, and on the backs of them are written the names or {75} initials of the various engravers. It is evident, therefore, that at the beginning of the sixteenth century there was a recognised school of wood-engravers in Germany of considerable importance.

One of them, Jobst de Neger, or Dienecker, came from Antwerp; a few lived at Nurnberg, others at Augsburg.

Some idea of the 'Triumphal Arch' is conveyed to our mind when we learn that it was drawn on ninety-two separate blocks of wood, and that when properly joined it is ten and a half feet high and nine and a half feet wide! It was designed 'after the manner of those erected in honour of the Roman Emperors at Rome;' there are three gateways or entrances--that in the centre is called the Gate of Honour and Power, on the right is the Gate of n.o.bility, on the left the Gate of Fame, a part of which is seen in the ill.u.s.tration. The arch itself is decorated with portraits of the Roman Emperors from the time of Julius Caesar, s.h.i.+elds of arms showing the descent of the Emperor and his alliances, representations of his most famous exploits, including his adventures while chamois-hunting in the Tyrol, with explanatory verses in the German language cut in the wood. Above the central entrance is a grand tower surmounted by a figure of Fortune holding the imperial crown. The whole is a kind of epitome of the history of the German Empire. The 'projector of the design' was Hans Stabius, who calls himself the historiographer and poet of the Emperor. The work was begun in 1515--four years before the Emperor's death--and was not quite finished at the time of the death of the artist in 1528. Although we do not see the greatest excellence of Durer's peculiar genius in this immense production executed to order, for it is too full of German fantasies and very unlike the cla.s.sic simplicity of the old Roman arches, it will be found to contain the finest work of the wood-engraver at that period. Some parts of it are of a marvellous delicacy that can hardly be surpa.s.sed. {76}

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GATE OF FAME (_From the 'Triumphal Arch' by Albrecht Durer. Engraved by Jerome Andre._)]

{77}

The 'Triumphal Car,' also designed by Durer at the suggestion of Stabius, is a richly decorated chariot drawn by six pairs of horses. In it the Emperor in his imperial robes is seated under a canopy amid allegorical figures representing Justice, Truth, Clemency, Temperance, and the like, who offer to him triumphal wreaths. Over the canopy is an inscription: quod . in . celis . sol . Hoc . in . terra . Caesar . est. The Car is driven by Reason with Reins of n.o.bility and Power, and the horses are guided by female figures of Swiftness, Prudence, Boldness, and similar equine virtues. The whole of the design is seven feet four inches in length and about a foot and a half in height.

To modern eyes the car is not prepossessing, the figures of the attendant damsels are by no means elegant, and the horses would not, we fear, meet with the approval of English critics. It brings to us a reminiscence of the funeral car of the Duke of Wellington, which, we remember, was designed by a German artist. Some parts of the decorations are excellent and the whole is well engraved.

The 'Triumphal Procession' is still more important. It consists of a series of one hundred and thirty-five large cuts, which, joined together, would cover in length one hundred and seventy-five feet (upwards of 58 yards!) A herald, mounted on a fantastic, four-footed winged gryphon, leads the procession; next follow two led horses bearing a tablet with these words, doubtless by Stabius: 'This Triumph has been made for the praise and everlasting memory of the n.o.ble pleasures and glorious victories of the most serene and ill.u.s.trious prince and lord, Maximilian, Roman Emperor elect, and head of Christendom, King and Heir of seven Christian kingdoms, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy and of other grand princ.i.p.alities and provinces of Europe.' More horses follow, then come falconers with hawks on their wrists, hunters of the chamois and the bear, behind them are elks and buffaloes, richly caparisoned stags four abreast, and camels drawing decorated chariots in which ride the musicians.

{78}

[Ill.u.s.tration: HORs.e.m.e.n, THREE ABREAST, WITH BANNERS (_From 'The Triumphal Procession' by Burgkmair. Cut by Dienecker and other engravers_)]

The Emperor's favourite jester, Conrad von der Rosen, follows on horseback, bearing an immense flag; then come fools, fencing-masters, and soldiers of all kinds armed for every service, hors.e.m.e.n three abreast, with banners inscribed with the names of the great battles which the Emperor had won, cars filled with trophies taken from conquered nations, among them the 'Savages of Calicut'--natives of India--one of them riding a huge elephant, and numerous other figures filled up the immense length of the engraving.

{79}

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SAVAGES OF CALICUT (_From 'The Triumphal Procession' by Burgkmair. Cut by Dienecker and other engravers_)]

The whole work, though evidently intended to be a glorification of the great Emperor, is much {80} more valuable to us at the present day as a marvellous record of the barbaric magnificence of the middle ages, and an outward aspect of secular life. 'The ideal of worldly power and splendour, the spirit of pleasure and festival, is shown forth in this marvellously varied march of laurelled horses and hors.e.m.e.n, whose trappings and armour have the beauty and glitter of peaceful parade. There is nowhere else a work which so presents at once the feudal spirit and feudal delights in such exuberance of picturesque and feudal display.'

Durer's designs for the 'Prayer-book of Maximilian' also claim a short notice. Only three copies of the work are known to be in existence, one of which is in the British Museum. The margins are full of fanciful designs; amid intertwining branches, birds are singing, apes are climbing, snakes creeping, and gnats flying. King David is charming a stork with his harp; a fox is playing a flute to poultry. It is a curious mixture of the sacred and profane, for which Durer has often been censured. The engraving of the subjects, which are in outline, is excellent.