A PROSPECT OF

THE

іш&ш ш wacasi©

Щаіей

A SERIES OF WATER-COLOURS
BY KENNETH ROWNTREE

Illustrated and described

b\

AND AN ESSAY BY
GWYN JONES

BARBARA JONES

Penguin Books

HARMONDSWORTH- MIDDLESEX

PENGUIN BOOKS
LONDON

Two King Penguin title pages, 1950 and 1948,
reduced. The illustrations in both books are
strong paintings, reproduced in colour.

86

WOODCUTS OF
ALBKECHT DÜKER.

WOODCUTS OF ALBRECHT DÜRER

BY T. D. BARLOW

PENGUIN BOOKS
LONDON

The art of printing from wood blocks upon fabrics or paper is of
great antiquity. It is, however, impossible to say when it was first
invented or even to date its introduction into Germany. The
fifteenth century saw a rapid development of the woodcut in that
country, and the famous Buxheim St Christopher is dated as early
as 1423, though it is not certain that this date does actually refer
to the year of its execution.

The medium was used for making playing-cards, of which
there was a large manufacture at Ulm, and for woodcuts, primitive
in design and usually crudely coloured, that were produced for
distribution to pilgrims at popular shrines. Somewhat later, or even
contemporaneously, followed the block books, though the majority
of those which survive are not as early as was formerly supposed.
Lastly the woodcut came to be used for book illustration, a de'
velopment which infinitely increased its scope and potentialities.

Woodcutting in its modern form - the form which should really
be called wood engraving — developed at the end of the eighteenth
century. The wood engraver works with a graver agami the grain
of the block, which is commonly boxwood. The woodcuts of
Diirer’s period were produced by a totally différent technique.
The block consisted of a softer wood, such as pearwood, and was
cut with a knife with the grain. There is thus no real relationship
between the two processes, and even the woods used are of totally
different consistency. In Diirer’s day the artist drew the design
on the block, or it was transferred thereto by a copyist; the block
was then cut by a professional woodcutter, or Formscbneider as he
was called. The name of one, Hieronymus Andrea, who cut a
number of Diirer’s blocks with extreme skill, should especially be
mentioned.

Title page and first text page of a King Penguin,
1948. Dürer's woodcuts are all reproduced in
fine line.

87