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    166 THE HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING.

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    Ny» In Its Ancient And More General Sens...

    almost certain conjecture that the manufacture of cards suggested to the monks the idea of employing the art of wood-engraving for

    the indeed purpose woodcuts of circulating of sacred subjects the marvellous appear deeds to have of been the saints known ; and to

    the common people of Suabia and the adjoining districts by the name of Hela corruption of HeiUgeni . e . saints . The

    celebrated block- gen books , of the 15 th century were _, the next improvement and from this small and apparently insignificant beginning ,

    proceeded ; at last the grand and important idea of printing and moveable tfrom which time ( 1440 ) wood-engraving became

    so connected ypes with , the manufacture of books , that we may date its more general diffusion and improvement from that period ; and thus

    the art of printing , which owed its origin to xylography , * became at length its greatest support . Moreoverfrom that period the

    produc-, tions of the wood-engraver , collected in the form of volumes , became less exposed to loss or injury , and consequently many of them are

    preserved to our time . In determining the antiquity of woodcuts , it should always be

    remembered—first , that the subjects designed by the earliest woodcutters are almost exclusively devotional ; secondly , that the

    earliest prints bear no date and are simply engraved on one side of the paper ; thirdlylittle stress is to be laid on rudeness , of design

    tiquity or simpli upwards city of executi of , a on hundred , for , if engravings these were positivel the sole y tests known of an to

    have been , executed between 1470 and 1500 might be produced as affording certain evidence of having been executed at a period

    antecedent to the date of Saint Christopher , the earliest print in existencebearing a date of whose authenticity there has never

    been the , slightest doubt . This cut , which is pasted on the cover of an old book of the fifteenth century , was discovered in the

    Chartreuse at Baxheim near Menningen ( one of the most ancient convents of Germany ) , by Heineken—the book in which it was

    pasted having been bequeathed to that convent by Anna , canoness of Buchaw . _f

    This print represents the saint carrying the infant Jesus across the sea ; opposite to him is a hermit holding up a lantern to

    g ing is ive an a him inscri sack li , ption g and ht ; at climbing behin the d bottom , in the a , back ascent and the view of dat a , is e ste 1423 a ep peasant . mountain seen . carry There

    -The representation of saints , or other devotional subjects , which the first engravers produced , were rudely engraved v printed in

    outlineand then daubed over with a few gay colours , the picture of Saint , Christopher itself forming no exception to this almost

    general rule , and which practice continued in Germany and the Low Countries for a long time . At what exact period the

    wood-* From two Greek words , meaning , From wood I inscribe .

    • f This , print is now in Earl Spencer's library .

    166 The History Of Wood-Engraving.

    166 THE HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1858, page 166, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051858/page/22/