Why Bewick Succeeded Part 1

Why Bewick Succeeded.

by Jacob Kainen.

_A Note in the History of Wood Engraving_

_Thomas Bewick has been acclaimed as the pioneer of modern wood engraving whose genius brought this popular medium to prominence. This study shows that certain technological developments prepared a path for Bewick and helped give his work its unique character._

The Author: _Jacob Kainen is curator of graphic arts, Museum of History and Technology, in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution's United States National Museum._

No other artist has approached Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) as the chronicler of English rustic life. The little wood engravings which he turned out in such great number were records of typical scenes and episodes, but the artist could also give them social and moral overtones. Such an approach has attracted numerous admirers who have held him in esteem as an undoubted homespun genius. The fact that he had no formal training as a wood engraver, and actually never had a lesson in drawing, made his native inspiration seem all the more authentic.

The Contemporary View of Bewick

After 1790, when his _A general history of quadrupeds_ appeared with its vivid animals and its humorous and mordant tailpiece vignettes, he was hailed in terms that have hardly been matched for adulation. Certainly no mere book ill.u.s.trator ever received equal acclaim. He was p.r.o.nounced a great artist, a great man, an outstanding moralist and reformer, and the master of a new pictorial method. This flood of eulogy rose increasingly during his lifetime and continued throughout the remainder of the 19th century. It came from literary men and women who saw him as the artist of the common man; from the pious who recognized him as a commentator on the vanities and hardships of life (but who sometimes deplored the frankness of his subjects); from bibliophiles who welcomed him as a revolutionary ill.u.s.trator; and from fellow wood engravers for whom he was the indispensable trail blazer.

During the initial wave of Bewick appreciation, the usually sober Wordsworth wrote in the 1805 edition of _Lyrical ballads_:[1]

O now that the genius of Bewick were mine, And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne!

Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose, For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose.

What feats would I work with my magical hand!

Book learning and books would be banished the land.

If art critics as a cla.s.s were the most conservative in their estimates of his ability, it was one of the most eminent, John Ruskin, whose praise went to most extravagant lengths. Bewick, he a.s.serted, as late as 1890,[2] "... without training, was Holbein's equal ... in this frame are set together a drawing by Hans Holbein, and one by Thomas Bewick. I know which is most scholarly; but I do _not_ know which is best."

Linking Bewick with Botticelli as a draughtsman, he added:[3] "I know no drawing so subtle as Bewick's since the fifteenth century, except Holbein's and Turner's." And as a typical example of popular appreciation, the following, from the June 1828 issue of _Blackwood's Magazine_, appearing a few months before Bewick's death, should suffice:

Have we forgotten, in our hurried and imperfect enumeration of wise worthies,--have we forgotten "_The Genius that dwells on the banks of the Tyne_," the matchless, Inimitable Bewick? No. His books lie in our parlour, dining-room, drawing-room, study-table, and are never out of place or time. Happy old man! The delight of childhood, manhood, decaying age!--A moral in every tail-piece--a sermon in every vignette.

This acclaim came to Bewick not only because his subjects had a homely honesty, but also, although not generally taken into account, because of the brilliance and clarity with which they were printed. Compared with the wood engravings of his predecessors, his were more detailed and resonant in black and white, and accordingly seemed miraculous and unprecedented. He could engrave finer lines and achieve better impressions in the press because of improvements in technology which will be discussed later, but for a century the convincing qualities of this new technique in combination with his subject matter led admirers to believe that he was an artist of great stature.

[1] William Wordsworth, _Lyrical ballads_, London, 1805, vol. 1. p. 199.

[2] John Ruskin, _Ariadne Florentina_, London, 1890, pp. 98, 99.

[3] _Ibid._, p. 246.

Later, more mature judgment has made it plain that his contributions as a craftsman outrank his worth as an artist. He was no Holbein, no Botticelli--it is absurd to think of him in such terms--but he did develop a fresh method of handling wood engraving. Because of this he represents a turning point in the development of this medium which led to its rise as the great popular vehicle for ill.u.s.tration in the 19th century. In his hands wood engraving underwent a special transformation; it became a means for rendering textures and tonal values. Earlier work on wood could not do this; it could manage only a rudimentary suggestion of tones. The refinements that followed, noticeable in the highly finished products of the later 19th century, came as a direct and natural consequence of Bewick's contributions to the art.

Linton[4] and a few others object to the general claim that Bewick was the reviver or founder of modern wood engraving, not only because the art was practiced earlier, if almost anonymously, and had never really died out, but also because his bold cuts had little in common with their technician's concern with infinite manipulation of surface tones, a feature of later work. But this misses the main point--that Bewick had taken the first actual steps in the new direction.

[4] William Linton, _The masters of wood engraving_, London, 1889, p.

133.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 1.--Woodcutting Procedure, showing method of cutting with the knife on the plank grain, from Jean Papillon's _Traite de la gravure en bois_, 1766.]

Unquestionably he gave the medium a new purpose, even though it was not generally adopted until after 1830. Through his pupils, his unrelenting industry, and his enormous influence he fathered a pictorial activity that brought a vastly increased quant.i.ty of ill.u.s.trations to the public.

Periodical literature, spurred by accompanying pictures that could be cheaply made, quickly printed, and dramatically pointed, became a livelier force in education. Textbooks, trade journals, dictionaries, and other publications could more effectively teach or describe; scientific journals could include in the body of text neat and accurate pictures to enliven the pages and ill.u.s.trate the equipment and procedures described. Articles on travel could now have convincingly realistic renditions of architectural landmarks and of foreign sights, customs, personages, and views. The wood engraving, in short, made possible the modern ill.u.s.trated publication because, unlike copper plate engraving or etching, it could be quickly set up with printed matter.

Its use, therefore, multiplied increasingly until just before 1900, when it was superseded for these purposes by the photomechanical halftone.

But while Bewick was the prime mover in this revolutionary change, little attention has been given to the important technological development that cleared the way for him. Without it he could not have emerged so startlingly; without it there would have been no modern wood engraving. It is not captious to point out the purely industrial basis for his coming to prominence. Even had he been a greater artist, a study of the technical means at hand would have validity in showing the interrelation of industry and art although, of course, the aesthetic contribution would stand by itself.

But in Bewick's case the aesthetic level is not particularly high. Good as his art was, it wore an everyday aspect: he did not give it that additional expressive turn found in the work of greater artists. It should not be surprising, then, that his work was not inimitable. It is well-known that his pupils made many of the cuts attributed to him, making the original drawings and engraving in his style so well that the results form almost one indistinguishable body of work. The pupils were competent but not gifted, yet they could turn out wood engravings not inferior to Bewick's own. And so we find that such capable technicians as Nesbit, Clennell, Robinson, Hole, the Johnsons, Harvey, and others all contributed to the Bewick cult.

Linton, who worshipped him as an artist but found him primitive as a technician, commented:[5] "Widely praised by a crowd of unknowing connoisseurs and undiscriminating collectors, we have yet, half a century after his death, to point out how much of what is attributed to him is really by his hand."

Chatto,[6] who obtained his information from at least one Bewick pupil, says that many of the best tailpieces in the _History of British birds_ were drawn by Robert Johnson, and that "the greater number of those contained in the second volume were engraved by Clennell." Granted that the outlook and the engraving style were Bewick's, and that these were notable contributions, the fact that the results were so close to his own points more to an effective method of ill.u.s.tration than to the outpourings of genius.

[5] _Ibid._

Low Status of the Woodcut

Bewick's training could not have been less promising. Apprenticed to Ralph Beilby at the age of fourteen, he says of his master:[7]

... The work-place was filled with the coa.r.s.est kind of steel-stamps, pipe moulds, bottle moulds, bra.s.s clock faces, door plates, coffin plates, bookbinders letters and stamps, steel, silver and gold seals, mourning rings, &c. He also undertook the engraving of arms, crests and cyphers, on silver, and every kind of job from the silversmiths; also engraving bills of exchange, bank notes, invoices, account heads, and cards.... The higher department of engraving, such as landscapes or historical plates, I dare say, was hardly thought of by my master....

A little engraving on wood was also done, but Bewick tells us that his master was uncomfortable in this field and almost always turned it over to him. His training, obviously, was of a rough and ready sort, based upon serviceable but routine engraving on metal. There was no study of drawing, composition, or any of the refinements that could be learned from a master who had a knowledge of art. Whatever Bewick had of the finer points of drawing and design he must have picked up by himself.

[6] William Chatto, and John Jackson, _A treatise on wood engraving_, London, 1861 (1st ed. 1839), pp. 496-498.

[7] Thomas Bewick, _Memoir of Thomas Bewick_, New York, 1925 (1st ed.

London, 1862), pp. 50, 51.

When he completed his apprenticeship in 1774 at the age of twenty-one, the art of engraving and cutting on wood was just beginning to show signs of life after more than a century and a half of occupying the lowest position in the graphic arts. Since it could not produce a full gamut of tones in the gray register, which could be managed brilliantly by the copper plate media--line engraving, etching, mezzotint and aquatint--it was confined to ruder and less exacting uses, such as ornamental headbands and tailpieces for printers and as ill.u.s.trations for cheap popular broadsides. When good ill.u.s.trations were needed in books and periodicals, copper plate work was almost invariably used, despite the fact that it was more costly, was much slower in execution and printing, and had to be bound in with text in a separate operation.

But while the Society of Arts had begun to offer prizes for engraving or cutting on wood (Bewick received such a prize in 1775) the medium was still moribund. Dobson[8] described its status as follows:

During the earlier part of the eighteenth century engraving on wood can scarcely be said to have flourished in England. It existed--so much may be admitted--but it existed without recognition or importance. In the useful little _etat des Arts en Angleterre_, published in 1755 by Roquet the enameller,--a treatise so catholic in its scope that it included both cookery and medicine,--there is no reference to the art of wood-engraving. In the _Artist's a.s.sistant_, to take another book which might be expected to afford some information, even in the fifth edition of 1788, the subject finds no record, even though engraving on metal, etching, mezzotinto-sc.r.a.ping--to say nothing of "painting on silks, sattins, etc." are treated with sufficient detail. Turning from these authorities to the actual woodcuts of the period, it must be admitted that the survey is not encouraging.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 2.--Wood Engraving Procedure, showing manipulation of the burin, from Chatto and Jackson, _A treatise on wood engraving_, 1861. (See footnote 6.)]

Earlier, among other critics of the deficiencies of the woodcut, Horace Walpole[9] had remarked:

I have said, and for two reasons, shall say little of wooden cuts; that art never was executed with any perfection in England; engraving on metal was a final improvement of the art, and supplied the defects of cuttings in wood. The ancient wooden cuts were certainly carried to a great heighth, but that was the merit of the masters, not of the method.

[8] Austin Dobson, _Thomas Bewick and his pupils_, Boston, 1884, pp. 1, 2.

[9] Horace Walpole, _Anecdotes of painting in England. A catalogue of engravers who have been born, or resided in England. Digested from the ma.n.u.script of Mr. George Vertue_ ... London, 1782 (1st ed. 1762), p. 4.