Woodcut

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Four horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albrecht Dürer.

For the origins of the technique, and non-artistic use, see Woodblock printing ,for the related technique invented in the eighteenth century see wood engraving

Woodcut is a relief printing 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. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). In Europe beechwood was most commonly used; in Japan a special type of cherrywood.

The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (where a different block is used for each color). The art of carving the woodcut can be called "xylography", but this is rarely used in English.

1 Division of labour
2 Methods of Printing
3 History
4 Le Japonisme
5 Colour
6 Modern variant
7 Examples
8 Artists
9 References
10 See also
11 External links

[edit] Division of labour

In both Europe and Japan, traditionally the artist only designed the woodcut, and the block-carving was left to specialist craftsmen, called "formschneider" in German, some of whom became well-known in their own right. They in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks.

There were various methods of transferring the artist's drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block (often whitened first), or a drawing on paper was glued to the block. Either way, the artist's drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing.

This is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as "designed by" rather than "by" an artist; but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, without needing to learn the use of woodworking tools.

In both Europe and Japan, in the early twentieth century some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called Sōsaku hanga, as opposed to the Shin hanga movement, which retained the traditional methods. In the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead.

[edit] Methods of Printing

Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print. As a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper of cloth to achieve an acceptable print.

There are three methods of printing to consider:

Stamping: Used for many fabrics, & most early European woodcuts (1400-40) These were printed by putting the paper/fabric on a table or other flat surface with the block on top, & pressing or hammering the back of the block

Rubbing: Apparently the most common method for Far Eastern printing on paper at all times. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, and very widely for cloth. Also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top. The back is rubbed with a "hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton" .<ref name="Hind">An Introduction to a History of Woodcut, Arthur M. Hind,p64-94, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1935 (in USA), reprinted Dover Publications, 1963 ISBN: 0-486-20952-0</ref> A modern tool used for this is called a baren. Later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially helpful once multiple colors began to be introduced, and needed to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers.

Printing in a press: Presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, and before that for woodcut book illustrations. Simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking. Later printing-presses were used (from about 1480). A deceased Abbess of Mechelen in 1465 had "unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines ... cum 14 aliis lapideis printis" - "an instrument for printing texts and pictures ... with 14 stones for printing" which is probably too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing press in that location.<ref name="Hind"/>

[edit] History

Main articles Old master print for Europe and Woodblock printing in Japan for Japan.

Woodcut has been most widely practised in Japan and Europe.

In Europe, Woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about 1400, by using on paper existing techniques for printing on cloth. As woodcut can be easily printed together with movable type, because both are relief-printed, it was the main medium for book illustrations until the late-sixteenth century. It was used less often for individual ("single-leaf") fine-art prints from about 1550 until the late nineteenth-century, when interest revived. It continued to be important for popular prints until the nineteenth century in most of Europe, and later in some places.

The art reached a high level of technical and artistic development in East Asia and Iran. In Japan woodblock printing is called "moku hanga", and was introduced in the seventeenth century for both books and art. The popular "floating world" genre of ukiyo-e originated in the second half of the seventeenth century, with prints in monocrome or two colours. Sometimes these were hand-coloured after printing. Later prints with many colours were developed. Japanese woodcut became a major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a much lower status than painting. It continued to develop through to the twentieth century.

In China and Tibet printed images mostly remained tied as illustrations to accompanying text until the modern period. Some notable Chinese artists designed woodcuts for books, but the individual print did not develop in China as it did in Europe and Japan.

[edit] Le Japonisme

Main article: Japonism

In the 1860s, just as the Japanese themselves were becoming aware of Western art in general, Japanese prints began to reach Europe in considerable numbers, and became very fashionable, especially in France. They had a great influence on many artists, notably Edouard Manet, Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Paul Gaugin and Mary Cassatt. In 1872 Jules Claretie dubbed the trend "Le Japonisme".<ref>C F Ives, "The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints", 1974, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ISBN 0-87099-098-5</ref>

Though the Japanese influence was reflected in many artistic media, including painting, it did lead to a revival of the woodcut in Europe, which had been in danger of extinction as a serious art medium. Most of the artists above in fact used lithography, especially for coloured prints.

Artists, notably Edvard Munch and Franz Masereel, continued to use the medium, which in Modernism came to appeal because it was relatively easy to complete the whole process, including printing, in a studio with little special equipment. The German Expressionists used woodcut a good deal.

[edit] Colour

European woodcut prints with coloured blocks were invented in Germany in 1508 and are known as chiaroscuro woodcuts. However colour did not become the norm, as it did in Japan. In Europe and Japan, colour woodcuts were normally only used for prints rather than book illustrations.

In China, where the individual print did not develop until the nineteenth century, the reverse is true, and early colour woodcuts mostly occur in luxury books about art, especially the more prestigeous medium of painting. The first known example is a book on ink-cakes printed in 1606, and colour technique reached its height in books on painting published in the seventeenth century. Notable examples are the Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten Bamboo Studio of 1633, and the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual published in 1679 and 1701.<ref>L Sickman & A Soper, "The Art and Architecture of China", Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1971, Penguin, LOC 70-125675</ref>

In Japan colour technique, called nishiki-e in its fully developed form, spread more widely, and was used for prints, from the 1760s on. Text was nearly always monochrome, as were images in books, but the growth of the popularity of ukiyo-e brought with it demand for ever increasing numbers of colors and complexity of techniques. By the nineteenth century most artists worked in colour. The stages of this development were:

Sumizuri-e (墨摺り絵, "ink printed pictures") - monochrome printing using only black ink
Benizuri-e (紅摺り絵, "crimson printed pictures") - red ink details or highlights added by hand after the printing process；green was sometimes used as well
Tan-e (丹絵) - orange highlights using a red pigment called tan
Aizuri-e (藍摺り絵, "indigo printed pictures"), Murasaki-e (紫絵, "purple pictures"), and other styles in which a single color would be used in addition to, or instead of, black ink
Urushi-e (漆絵) - a method in which glue was used to thicken the ink, emboldening the image; gold, mica and other substances were often used to enhance the image further. Urushi-e can also refer to paintings using lacquer instead of paint; lacquer was very rarely if ever used on prints.
Nishiki-e (錦絵, "brocade pictures") - a method in which multiple blocks were used for separate portions of the image, allowing a number of colors to be utilized to achieve incredibly complex and detailed images; a separate block would be carved to apply only to the portion of the image designated for a single color. Registration marks called kentō (見当) were used to ensure correspondence between the application of each block.

[edit] Modern variant

In modern printmaking, a quick method of separating printing from non-printing areas is to cover the printing areas with a shield, and then blasting the whole surface, either by sandblasting or shotblasting. The shield may be a metal outline, or a thick coat of rubber cement or similar compound.

[edit] Examples

[edit] Artists

[edit] References

[edit] See also

Woodblock printing - Overview of history, including non-artistic uses
Printmaking - main article covering all techniques
Relief print
Ukiyo-e - main article on Japanese woodcut prints
Shin hanga - C20 "New Prints" movement in Japan
Sōsaku hanga- C20 "Creative Prints" movement in Japan
old master print - Social and Art History of the woodcut and other print techniques
blockbooks - Medieval European books with both text and pictures in woodcut
wood engraving - invented by Bewick; much used in C19
Linocut
metalcut - C15 woodcuts from metal plates
Cordel literature - Popular Brazilian woodcut books
Rubber stamp
Chiaroscuro - Western woodcuts in colour