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Information about Wood Engraving

Wood engraving is a relief printing technique, where the end grain of wood is used as a medium for engraving, thus differing from the older technique of woodcut, where the softer side grain is used.

Origin and technique

The technique of wood engraving developed at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, with the works of Thomas Bewick. Bewick generally made his engraving in harder woods than normally used, and would engrave the end of a block instead of the side. Finding a knife not suitable for working against the grain in harder woods, Bewick used the engraving tool the burin, which has a V-shaped cutting tip. Engraving on wood in this manner produced highly detailed images, usually quite unlike those produced by engraving on copper plates. Furthermore, unlike copper-plate engravings that quickly deteriorated, thousands of copies could be printed from engraved wood blocks. Since wood engraving is a relief process while metal engraving is an intaglio technique, wood engravings could be used on conventional print presses, which were themselves making rapid mechanical improvements during the first quarter of the 19th century. As a result of Bewick's innovation and improvements in the printing press, illustrations of art, nature, technical processes, famous people, foreign lands and many other subjects became more widely available.

Commercial use in the 19th century

Bewick's innovations were developed and expanded by a large group of professional wood engravers. Magazines with large circulations (The Illustrated London News, and Harper's Weekly) were illustrated with large wood engravings that were the product of a collaboration between draftsmen and wood engravers. Gustave Doré's famous works were likewise a collaborative product of Doré and a group of talented wood engravers. In 19th century France wood engravings became besides lithography the medium of choice for caricaturist such as Honoré Daumier, who published his wood engravings in daily satirical papers such as the Charivari.

Wood engraving as a reproductive (rather than artistic) technique has been displaced by advances in printing technology. Wood engraving is now used to create bookplates, fine art limited edition prints, and a few book illustrations and commercial artwork.

Notable wood engravers

In rough chronological order
Enlarge picture
The Gardeners Daughter by Edmund Evans

from The Art Album (1861), reproductions of famous watercolours printed using wood engraving.

Organisations

Further reading

  • Simon Brett, An engravers globe ISBN 1-901648-12-5
  • Simon Brett, Wood engraving: how to do it. ISBN 1-901648-23-0; 1-901648-24-9 (hbk.)
A relief print is an image created by a printmaking process, such as woodcut, where the areas of the matrix (plate or block) that are to show printed black (typically) are on the original surface
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The WOOD callsign may refer to:
  • WOOD-TV – an NBC-affiliated television station in Grand Rapids, Michigan
  • WOOD (AM) – an AM radio station in Grand Rapids, Michigan
  • WOOD-FM - an FM radio station in Grand Rapids, Michigan



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Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold or steel are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing
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Woodcut is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges.
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The 18th Century lasted from 1701 through 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.

Historians sometimes specifically define the 18th Century otherwise for the purposes of their work.
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For the periodical, see .
The 19th Century (also written XIX century) lasted from 1801 through 1900 in the Gregorian calendar. It is often referred to as the "1800s.
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Thomas Bewick (August 1753 – November 8, 1828) was an English wood engraver and ornithologist.

Bewick was born at Cherryburn House in the village of Mickley, in the parish of Ovingham, Northumberland, England, near Newcastle upon Tyne.
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This article is about the modern tool. For the archaeological instrument, see Burin.


A burin refers to a steel cutting tool used by engravers. The word comes from the French burin meaning "cold chisel".
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Intaglio (pronounced in-TAL-yo, IPA: [ɪn'tælɪəʊ]) is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, known as the matrix or plate.
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printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring an image. The systems involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johann Gutenberg in the 1430s.
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The Illustrated London News was a magazine founded by Herbert Ingram and his friend Mark Lemon, the editor of the magazine Punch. With Lemon as his chief adviser, the first edition of the Illustrated London News appeared on 14 May, 1842.
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Harper's Weekly (A Journal of Civilization) was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor.
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Paul Gustave Doré (January 6, 1832 – January 23, 1883) was a French artist, engraver, and illustrator. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.

Life

Doré was born in Strasbourg and his first illustrated story was published at the age of fifteen.
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Honoré Daumier

Honoré Daumier (portrait by Nadar).
Birth name Honoré Victorin Daumier
January 26 1808(1808--)
Marseille
January 10 1879 (aged 72)
Valmondois
French
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bookplate, also known as ex-librīs [Latin, "from the books of..."], is usually a small print or decorative label pasted into a book, often on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner. Simple typographical bookplates are termed 'booklabels'.
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Honoré Daumier

Honoré Daumier (portrait by Nadar).
Birth name Honoré Victorin Daumier
January 26 1808(1808--)
Marseille
January 10 1879 (aged 72)
Valmondois
French
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Thomas Bewick (August 1753 – November 8, 1828) was an English wood engraver and ornithologist.

Bewick was born at Cherryburn House in the village of Mickley, in the parish of Ovingham, Northumberland, England, near Newcastle upon Tyne.
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Paul Gustave Doré (January 6, 1832 – January 23, 1883) was a French artist, engraver, and illustrator. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.

Life

Doré was born in Strasbourg and his first illustrated story was published at the age of fifteen.
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Thomas Nast (September 27, 1840 – December 7, 1902) was a famous German-American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist in the 19th century and is considered to be the father of American political cartooning.
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Eduard Magnus Jakobson (February 5, 1847 Torma, Estonia - July 2, 1903 Tallinn, Estonia) was an Estonian wood engraver and a Baptist missionary. He illustrated many books and designed the masthead logo for Sakala
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Arthur Comfort (1864-1935) was a master wood engraver at The Graphic in London and art teacher in Halifax.

Life

Comfort was born in London, England on November 11, 1864, where he attended the Graphic School of Wood Engraving, and afterwards worked as an engraver
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Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (February 22, 1882 – November 17, 1940) was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement.
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David Jones CH (1 November 1895 – 28 October 1974) was both an artist and one of the most important first generation British modernist poets. His work was formed by his Welsh heritage and his Catholicism. T. S.
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John Nash (11 April 1893 – 23 September1977) was an English painter, illustrator, and engraver. Nash was born in London in 1893, the younger brother of Paul Nash. Educated at Wellington College, he exhibited from 1913, and fought in World War I from 1916 to 1918, working as
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Paul Nash, (11 May 1889 – 11 July 1946) was an English war artist.

Early life

He was the son of a successful lawyer, born in London on 11 May 1889. Nash was educated at St Paul's School and spent a year at the Slade School of Art (unlike his younger brother John, who
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John Buckland Wright (1897-1954) was an illustrator and engraver from Dunedin, New Zealand.

External links

  • Short bio

References

  • A check-list of the book illustrations of John Buckland Wright by Anthony Reid, (1968)

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Gwendoline Mary "Gwen" Raverat née Darwin (26 August 1885 – 11 February 1957) was a celebrated English wood engraving artist who co-founded the Society of Wood Engravers in England.
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Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (before 1898 Adolph Friedrich Erdmann Menzel, December 8, 1815 Breslau - February 9, 1905 Berlin) was a German artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings.
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Eric Ravilious (22 July 1903 - November 1942) was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver.

Early life

Ravilious was born 22 July, 1903 in Acton, London.
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Alan Reynolds Stone (1900-1979) was a noted English engraver, designer, typographer, and painter of the 20th century.

Much of his work was done in the field of printing and publishing, as a designer of typefaces and book jackets.
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