What Is the Art Form Where You Carve Away Wood

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
(1497-8) Woodcut by Albrecht Durer,
the greatest printmaker in Deutschland
and undoubtedly one of the finest
Northern Renaissance artists.

PRINTMAKING TERMS
For an explanation of basic terms
involved in engraving, etching,
lithography, woodcuts etc.,
see: Printmaking Glossary.

Woodcuts: Type of Printmaking

Woodcut, the oldest technique used in fine art printmaking, is a course of relief printing. The creative person's blueprint or cartoon is made on a piece of wood (usually beechwood), and the untouched areas are then cut away with gouges, leaving the raised prototype which is then inked. Woodcut prints are produced past pressing the selected medium (usually newspaper) onto the inked prototype. If colour is used, separate wood blocks are required. Woodcut printing is sometimes referred to as xylography or a xylographic procedure (from the Greek words 'xulon' for woods and 'graphikos for writing/drawing), although these terms are unremarkably reserved for text prints.

Until the advent of car-based engineering science, the entire procedure was relatively labour intensive. Typically, the artist but designed the woodcut - either by drawing directly on the woods, or by showtime drawing information technology on paper then tracing or gluing information technology onto the woods. Specialist craftsmen known every bit 'formschneider' so performed the bodily woods carving of the blueprint, afterwards which the block was given to specialist printers.

Note: For modern forms of fine fine art printing, see: Silkscreen Press (popularized by Warhol), and Giclee Prints (Inkjet printer).

Malaise (1896) Woodcut past the
Norwegian Expressionist creative person
Edvard Munch.

Simple Process

Woodcut or woodblock printing is a much simpler fine art process than either intaglio or surface printing like lithography, and in comparison with etching and engraving, only depression force per unit area is needed to brand a print. Moreover, it can be used together with movable type text-printing every bit both use the relief method - ane reason why it remained the primary printing technique for volume illustration until the tardily-sixteenth century. The terminal woodcut print was obtained in iii different ways.

(1) Stamping. This method was employed for most of the early on Renaissance woodcuts (1400-50). The ground medium (newspaper or fabric) was placed on a apartment surface; the wood cake was placed over it with the inked surface in contact with the medium; the dorsum of the woodblock was then pressed down onto the medium to course the impression and produce the printed prototype.

(ii) Rubbing. This method was used widely in Communist china and Japan, but became popular in Europe merely later on 1450. Information technology involved placing the block on a tabular array, with the inked surface uppermost. Newspaper or material is then placed onto the surface, and the back of it is rubbed with a hard pad, a piece of wood, or a piece of leather known as a frotton (from the French give-and-take 'frotter' to rub). Modern printmakers use a tool called a baren.

(3) Presses. Initially simple weighted presses were used, earlier more complex versions were introduced towards the end of the 15th century, following the development of the Johann Gutenberg press press.

Early History of Woodcuts

Appearing in Chinese fine art during the fifth century, woodcuts start appeared in Europe during the early Renaissance period. The earliest dated instance is Madonna with 4 Virgin Saints in a Garden (1418). Withal, some point to St Christopher Begetting the Infant Jesus, which was found in a monastery in Buxheim, dated 1423 as the oldest piece of work.

Woodcut art developed extensively in the 14th century with the advent of paper being produced in larger quantities, which meant that religious prints and illuminated manuscripts could be produced more easily. Given the difficulties in scraping out forest between lines, and the dangers that if the lines were besides sparse (the wood would crumble), early woodcuts consisted of thick outlines with little shading. Like modernistic twenty-four hours children's colouring books, the woodcut was but designed to print the outline of an epitome, and the details were meant to be coloured in by manus. Still, as the demands for books increased, so did the woodcut process and the subject matter. It was artists similar Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) of the Northern Renaissance who transformed the media with woodcuts similar Samson Rending the Lion (c.1497, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The detail he achieved was stunning, considering that each line was created by carving the wood to either side. His subtle tones and textures made Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) claim that to add colour would 'injure the work'.

Chiaroscuro woodcuts

In Italy, woodcut was taken in a new direction by the Venetian painter Titian (1485-1576). He chose the medium as a style to publicise his fatigued inventions. In his Saint Jerome in the Wilderness (1523, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), his daring bold line-work suggests he may have drawn directly onto the block, then used a cutter to follow his marks equally closely equally possible. It was by woodcut that colour was outset introduced into printmaking, via prints known as chiaroscuro woodcuts. The earliest coloured woodcuts were meant to imitate the advent of a type of drawing which was created on color newspaper, these drawings were known equally chiaroscuro. In these drawings, the coloured paper served as the mid tone, and artists worked towards low-cal (chiaro) by calculation white gouache and towards night (scuro) by adding cross-hatching in dark wash or ink. The chiaroscuro woodcut was developed in 1509 by Hans Burgkmair (1473-1531), and also Hans Baldung Grien (1484-1545) and Parmigianino (1503-40). It involved using line blocks to create a cross-hatching outcome and tone blocks to create flat areas of colour. The Italian artist Ugo da Carpi (1455-1523) brought the technique to Italy, working in collaboration with Titian. However, by the end of the 16th century, Titian appears to accept lost interest in woodcuts, preferring the furnishings of the intaglio technique of engraving.

Developments in European Woodcut Press (1600s-1800s)

Fifteenth century Germany was an early heart of both fine art and text printing. The book illustrators Michael Wolgemut (1434-1519) and Erhard Reuwich (c.1450-1505), as well equally Martin Schongauer (1448-91), were early pioneers (the latter introduced cantankerous-hatching, more problematical in woodcuts than etching or engraving). They were followed by the main artist and printmaker of the German Renaissance, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), whose skills remain unsurpassed. Subsequently in the sixteenth century, the Swiss painter and printmaker Urs Graf (1485-1529) reputedly developed white-line woodcut, in which the image is carved in thin lines, similar to engraving. However, due to the advent of engraving, woodcut became a much ignored art medium for ii centuries. In the 17th and 18th century books were primarily illustrated with fine copper engravings. Woodcuts prints were reserved for inexpensive books called 'chap books'. These images were created from crudely chopped forest blocks. Woodcuts were popular with the printing considering they printed easily with letterpress type. Artists revolted against the mass production effects of woodcut, and took their inspiration instead from the etching prints of Rembrandt (1606-69) and Goya (1746-1828). The virtues of fine cartoon and delicate lines created by printed etchings were promoted by the Barbizon Schoolhouse (c.1830-70). The Impressionists Edouard Manet (1832-83), Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) extended the possibilities of etching with lithography and aquatint.

Woodcut Printing (1900s onwards)

Towards the finish of the 18th century, a metal engraver, Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) recognised the potential of wood-engraving and avant-garde the medium to a new level. He adult the employ of the white line technique. Unlike his predecessors, Bewick carved into harder woods, particularly box wood. He worked confronting the grain, using fine tools normally favoured by metal engravers. This way proved to be far superior, and has been the near popular method used ever since. The Swiss printmaker and artist Felix Vallotton (1865-1925), who was associated with Les Nabis, revived white-line woodcuts, a process which coincided with the Japonism mode for prints which hit Europe in the 1860s. Influences of Post-Impressionism, Symbolism and the Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints (see, in item, works by Hokusai [1760-1849] and Hiroshige [1797-1858]) tin be clearly seen in Vallotton's works. In fact, his woodcut prints take on a more graphic fine art feel, which influenced the artists Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Franz Masereel (1889-1972), Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938). Exponents of German Expressionism revelled in woodcut, producing powerful works, for instance The Prophet (1912, individual collection) past Emil Nolde (1867-1956). Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976) was some other German expressionist who produced uncommonly powerful woodcuts. Other artists influenced included American Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).

A recent development in this art-form is the diggings method - used to distinguish printed areas on the maxtrix from not-press areas. The onetime are covered with a metallic or rubber cement shield, and and so the whole surface is blasted with ink.

Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-due east Style

Woodblock prints were first used in Japan in the 8th century for printing text, in item Buddhist scriptures. Although the designer Tawaraya Sotatsu (died c.1640) used woods stamps in the early 17th century to impress designs on paper and silk, woodblock printing remained primarily a tool for text printing until the 18th century. In 1765 a new technology made it possible to create single-canvas printed in a range of colours. Soon colourful artwork of courtesans and kabuki actors were appearing, accompanied by stories which became hugely popular among the heart classes. The term Ukiyo-eastward means 'floating world', and referred generally to the degenerate themes that artists chose to portray, including bars and brothels. Ukiyo-due east wood-block prints first appeared early in the Edo Period (1600-1868) and swell print masters included Ando Hiroshige (1797–1858) and Suzuki Harunobu (1725–1770).

To create a woodblock print, outset the artist drew the design on newspaper, and so transferred it to a thinner, more than transparent paper. The paper was pasted to the woodblock, and then the carver followed the drawing, chiselling the edges to create a pattern in relief. Ink was applied to the surface of the woodblock. A new canvas of paper ws practical to the cake, and then rubbed with a round pad to transfer the image. Reproductions, sometimes in the thousands could exist produced until the woodblocks became besides worn. Today Ukiyo-eastward remains an important part of Japanese culture, and elements of its pattern have been incorporated into modern graphic art and cartoons. Reproduction posters are highly popular.

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Source: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/printmaking/woodcuts.htm

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