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the tools of the early printers.
535
Gutenberg, Schœffer, Zell, Mentel and many early printers of France and Italy neglected engraving on wood.[1] It may be that this neglect originated in the difficulties of printing
Reduced Fac-simile of a large Wood-cut, said to be of the Fifteenth Century.
[From Jackson.]
types and wood-cuts together,[2] or in a despisal of the rude productions of the block-printers,[3] and in the intention of the
- ↑ No exception need be made for the initial letters of the Psalter of 1457. The thin curved lines of the ornamental portions of these letters could not have been cut on the flat boards then used by all engravers on wood. The absence of cracks and broken lines, after long service, in every print taken from these cuts is presumptive evidence that they were cut on metal. The ornamentation is unlike that of the professional engravers of block-books and at once suggests the thought that they were cut on brass or type-metal by the hand that cut the types of the text.
- ↑ That the early printers did encounter serious difficulties in the use of wood-cuts in type forms is proved by their selection of blocks of smaller size. Full-page cuts are rare in the books of Koburger, Leeu and Veldener. Von Os of Zwoll cut up the blocks of the Bible of the Poor. Blades says that Colard Mansion printed the types and wood-cuts that appeared on the same page by two impressions. Sad experience in the warping and cracking of blocks of wood in forms of types was, no doubt, the reason for this extra labor. This difficulty seems to have been avoided by Pigouchet, Kerver and the printers of ornamental books, whose cuts have all the mannerisms of engraving on metal.
- ↑ The disconnection between the arts of engraving on wood and typography is fairly indicated by the quarrel between the type-printers and block-printers of Augsburg.
