Many of Edward Lloyd’s early publications feature woodcut illustrations. What follows is an extract from London and Westminster Review, xxix (1838) pp. 265–78, which was written at about the same time.

MODERN WOOD ENGRAVING—Henry Cole

THOUGH the word ‘engraving’ is applied alike to impressions from plates of copper and blocks of wood, the means by which the impressions are obtained in the two arts of copper and wood engraving, are directly opposite to each other. The engraver on copper hollows out of the plate the lines of the impression he wishes to produce, while the engraver in wood leaves them standing on the block. The engraver in copper leaves the surface of the plate higher than the lines; the engraver on wood cuts it down below the lines. The black lines in a copperplate engraving are produced by incisions or grooves; the black lines in a wood-cut are produced by prominences. The wood engraver cuts away the part in the block which is to remain white or colourless; but the part in the copper-plate which is to be white in the engraving is left untouched by the engraver on copper. If an impression of a plain block of wood were taken as blocks are printed, it would present one uniform surface of black, but if an impression were taken from a plate of copper as copper-plates are printed, it would be colourless, or no impression at all. The wood engraver starts from black, the copper-plate engraver from white, the one toils to get white, the other to get black. If the reader refers to any of our illustrations in which black is conspicuous (the “Don Pedre” is a special instance of this) he will see effects of black or the deepest shadow produced by absolutely no labour whatever. The production of shadows exactly equal in colour, and similar in character, is impossible in copper, and when he sees anything approaching them in a copper-plate, they are the result, he may be assured, of great labour.

The manner of using the ink in the two arts is also opposite; it is put into the hollow lines of the copper-plate, but on the upstanding lines of the wooden block. The block is like the type which prints the words the reader is now reading, because it produces its black lines in the same way in which the forms of the letters are made, by ink put upon projecting lines. The copper or steelplate is placed above a charcoal fire, and warmed before the ink is rubbed into the hollowed lines by a woollen ball. When enough of ink is thus put into the lines, the surface of the plate is wiped with a rag, and cleaned and polished with the palm of the hand lightly touched with whiting. The paper is then laid on the plate, and the engraving is obtained by pressing the paper into the inked lines. The wooden block is generally inked like type, by beating with a ball or a roller. Another difference between engraving on wood and on copper is that in the latter the lines are not merely cut, they are also corroded into the copper by aquafortis.1

The production of black is a great advantage which wood possesses over copper. Hence there are several effects in which the wood engraver excels. It is true, indeed, that as absolute black does not exist in shadow, it is not needed in the representations of it; but there is still a great advantage in having it ready for use or modification as wanted. However superior copper may be as to delicacy, and sharpness, and variety, and the touches by which flesh tints and aerial perspective are obtained, whereby even the “Nineveh” of Powis—so full of the spirit and the poetry of the prophecies, where the solitary stork, a thing of life, is the image of death, so deep and still is the desolation around it—is surpassed; there are powers in the shadows of the wood-cut which when wielded by a master—a Thompson or a Williams— the capacities of copper are incapable of matching. The “Brazen Laver,” by Samuel Williams, by its skilful contrast of extreme light and shadow, seems to realize the very sparkle of the metal and bubble of the water. It is to a perception and appreciation of this peculiar advantage, rather than to any surpassing excellence of the engravings themselves, that the great merits of the French illustrations of ‘Paul et Virginie’ are owing—the draughtsmen understood the blocks. The most skilful and elaborate workmanship, which neglects this advantage of wood, is eclipsed by even an inferior order of art, which makes a happy use of it. As an illustration of this we may mention in contrast with the “Brazen Laver,” the “Merchant and the Jinnee,” also engraved by Samuel Williams. The latter, though more imposing to the imagination, and more elaborate in treatment, yields in effect to the former, with its sparkles, its bubbles, and its blackness.

But the greatest advantage wood engraving has over copper is that there neither need be, nor is, any intermediate person or process between the designer and the engraver. In almost all eases of engraving on copper, the picture has first of all to be reduced from its original size to the intended size of the engraving; in all cases it has to be drawn reversed on the plate and after being thus twice translated, usually by two different translators, the process of engraving not the picture itself but the second version of it begins, which in the case of copper is really a third translation, because the engraver has to make the lines, which in the other case are made by the draughtsman.

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