Читать книгу Prints. A Brief Review of Their Technique and History онлайн

5 страница из 9

Relief processes: Woodcut, wood-engraving;

Intaglio processes: Engraving, dry-point, mezzotinting, and the etching processes;

Planographic processes: Lithography, and its derivatives.ssss1

ssss1 In order to keep the subject as simple as may be, we will leave aside that vast array of modern processes based upon photography, and therefore known as photo-mechanical processes (half-tone, photogravure, and the like) and devote our attention to the hand processes only.

Examples from two of these main divisions have just been under discussion, the magazine illustration being a relief print, the bill an engraving on steel, consequently intaglio. Let us now devote a few moments to their technical features, taking first the oldest of all the processes, woodcut.

If we take a block of wood, nicely planed, finish its face with sandpaper, and cover it with printer’s ink, an impression from that blackened surface would naturally be an unbroken, rectangular patch of black. Now we take a knife with a strong, short blade, a woodcutter’s knife, and with two slanting cuts we take out a thin long sliver from the middle of this blackened surface of wood. The result of an impression will now be a black surface with a white line where we have cut away the wood. Another two cuts parallel with the first will result in another white line, or rather we shall now have a black line, with a white space on either side, the black line being the ridge of wood standing between the two pieces which we have cut away. Could anything be simpler than this working recipe?—wherever black is wanted, leave the wood standing; where you need white, cut away the wood. The same theory applies to wood-engraving, with some changes in material and implements. The wood-engraver uses cross-grain blocks of the hard boxwood, instead of planks of cherry or pear wood, and on this hard surface the graver replaces the knife. The graver—most useful of tools—is a long, thin, diamond-shaped bar of steel, ending in a blunt point with cutting edges; its wooden handle fitting the palm of the hand. The graver is pushed forward and ploughs with great precision across the block or plate, cutting lines of any degree of delicacy or boldness. Like the knife, it removes the wood, consequently leaving a white line or dot wherever it has passed. Hence the term “white-line engraving,” often used for wood-engraving.