A History of Wood Engraving

A Condensed History of Wood-Engraving: Origins, Innovation, and Revival

[adapted, abbreviated and updated from a series of articles originally published by William Andrew Chatto in the Illustrated London News in 1844]

Origins and Early Block Books

Wood-engraving, the technique of carving images in relief on wood for printing, emerged in Europe in the early 15th century. Unlike copperplate engraving, which uses incised lines, wood-engraving leaves the image raised, allowing it to be printed alongside type. This made it ideal for mass production with the early printing press. The earliest dated European woodcut, a depiction of St. Christopher from 1423, was found in a German monastery. Early woodcuts were hand-printed using a burnisher and often coloured by stencil, echoing the technique used for playing cards. Many early engravers were likely Briefmalers or Formschneiders (card-makers).

Block books were a crucial phase in early printing history. Printed entirely from carved woodblocks containing both image and text, examples include the Biblia Pauperum and Apocalypsis Sancti Johannis. These were printed only on one side, often with pages pasted back-to-back. Despite assumptions that they were made for lay audiences, they were primarily used by preaching friars as visual teaching tools. Though wood-engraving was known in China centuries earlier, there's no strong evidence of its transmission to Europe.

The Printing Press and Moveable Type

The inefficiency of carving full pages of text prompted the development of movable type. By 1438, legal disputes reveal that Johann Gutenberg of Mainz had begun working with a press and movable metal type. His financial partner Johann Fust and associate Peter Schoeffer later perfected typecasting using punches and matrices, revolutionising printing. In 1455, Fust sued Gutenberg and took over the press, producing the famous 42-line Bible, with a colophon dated 1456.

Although a rival story claims Laurens Coster of Haarlem invented printing earlier, serious evidence favours Gutenberg. The shift from block books to movable type, and from friction-printing to mechanical presses, allowed for far greater efficiency. Wood-engraving remained relevant by supplying illustrations compatible with letterpress printing.

Wood-Engraving in Early Printed Books

Fust and Schoeffer's Mainz Psalter (1457) featured printed red and blue initials, possibly from woodblocks. The first book to fully integrate printed illustration was Albrecht Pfister's 1461 fables in Bamberg. In Rome, Hahn's Meditationes (1467) continued the trend, followed by Valturius' De Re Militari (1472), the first technical treatise with printed diagrams. The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), with nearly 2,000 images, remains a landmark in illustrated publishing.

Early woodcuts were linear with little shading; tonal variation emerged in Breydenbach's Travels (1486) and reached new heights in Italy with the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), whose graceful woodcuts may have been designed by Mantegna or Raphael. By 1500, woodcut illustration was widespread, particularly in devotional works printed in Paris and Venice. In maps, Ptolemy’s Geographia (1482) featured early cartographic woodcuts, with improvements in legibility through type integration.

The Dürer Era and German Mastery

Wood-engraving reached artistic maturity with Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Trained as a goldsmith and painter, Dürer raised the medium to a new level. His Apocalypse series (1498), Life of the Virgin (1511), and monumental Triumphal Arch (1515) exemplify expressive, naturalistic engraving. Though it remains uncertain whether Dürer personally cut the blocks, his compositions transformed wood-engraving from craft to art.

Other German artists such as Hans Burgkmair, Lucas Cranach, and Hans Baldung Grün furthered the form, often collaborating on large imperial projects. These works included allegorical and historical narratives for Emperor Maximilian I. Chiaroscuro techniques also emerged, with colour blocks adding tonal depth. Although Italian Ugo da Carpi is often credited with the method, German artists used it earlier.

Holbein and the Dance of Death

Hans Holbein the Younger (c.1498–1543) brought wood-engraving into moral satire and narrative with his Dance of Death series (1538). These 41 woodcuts, likely engraved by Hans Lutzelburger, depict Death confronting figures across social classes. Their emotional range, visual clarity, and storytelling made them enduring masterpieces. Despite the comic tone, they carried serious moral themes. Holbein's biblical and historical cuts were also widely copied and pirated, especially in Venice and Cologne.

Decline in the Late 16th and 17th Centuries

As copperplate engraving grew dominant in the late 16th century, wood-engraving declined. Artists like Virgil Solis, Bernard Salomon, and Jost Amman kept the tradition alive with inventive but sometimes formulaic cuts. In England, quality declined significantly. Decorative borders and crude chapbook illustrations dominated. Only occasional works, like Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book (1569), showed ambition.

In the 17th century, figures like Rubens and Christopher Jegher dabbled in the medium, but results lacked artistic finesse. Cornelius van Sichem produced many uninspired cuts based on earlier masters. John Bates’s Mysteries of Nature and Art (1635) reveals that English woodcutting was largely manual and amateurish, relying on tracings and hand-burnished printing.

Wood-Engraving's 18th-Century Revival and Bewick

The 18th century saw little serious wood-engraving until Thomas Bewick (1753–1828) revolutionised the craft. Self-taught in Newcastle, Bewick engraved animals, landscapes, and genre scenes with realism and charm. His History of Quadrupeds (1790) and British Birds (1797–1804) set new standards for both technique and observation.

Bewick avoided the decorative flourishes of copperplate, focusing on clarity and character. His charming tailpieces became models of visual storytelling. His brother John, and pupils Charlton Nesbit, Luke Clennell, and William Harvey, carried the tradition forward. Clennell's career ended tragically in madness, while Harvey became a prolific designer for major illustrated books.

London engraving gained prestige with Robert Branston, and John Thompson emerged as one of the finest wood-engravers of the 19th century. Others like John Orrin Smith and W. J. Linton extended the reach of the medium into atmospheric and political illustration.

The Legacy and Global Reach of Wood-Engraving

Though often overshadowed by intaglio and later photomechanical processes, wood-engraving remained vital into the 19th century. It flourished in France, inspired by English models; in Germany through Gubitz and Kaulbach; and in the U.S., with large-scale projects like Harper’s Illustrated Bible.

The medium had its limitations—notably in reproducing tonal effects without laborious cross-hatching—but it offered speed, durability, and compatibility with text printing. It played a crucial role in the rise of illustrated journalism and educational books.

Thomas Bewick's revival marked not just a technical turning point but a philosophical one: an insistence that images for the many could be as carefully observed and beautifully rendered as those for the few. In this, wood-engraving helped democratise art and visual culture, laying groundwork for modern illustrated media.