Thomas Bewick

       Thomas Bewick is credited with the revival, some would say rescue, of the wood block as a means of producing illustrations and prints. The son of a farmer and the eldest of eight children, he was born in 1753 in the parish of Ovingham, Northumberland, England. He was a good, but undistinguished, student who early displayed a love of drawing. This interest eventually led him into apprenticeship with an engraver in Newcastle. After his training and a short time working in London, he became a partner in the engraving business with his former master. To this point in his life, there was little to indicate the revolution in illustration he would instigate.

       During the 18th century, the art of wood cut illustration had fallen into virtual disuse, surviving only as a means of printing simple and relatively crude ornaments - coats of arms, heads of bills, stamps and seals. The copperplate, due to its superior line, had become the chief medium for the printing of fine illustrations. There were, however, serious drawbacks to printing from copper. Because copperplate printing is not a relief process, the plates cannot be printed with the text, and thus require a separate printing. Copperplates also begin to wear and the lines smudge after relatively few impressions. But the detail that could be achieved from copper was enough to compensate for these drawbacks until a better way was shown. Bewick would show that way.

       Bewick's innovations were brilliant for their simplicity. Wood cutters traditionally had worked on the side or "plank" of a board, producing the lines of their illustrations by cutting away the background with a knife. Bewick was among the first, if not the first, to cut on the end of the wood instead of on the plank. He also was the first to use a graver instead of a knife. Credit for developing the "white line" technique, which involves removing the line instead of the background, also goes to him. In concert, these innovations - cutting on the end of the board, using a graver and cutting "white" lines - resulted in a fineness of detail and line that rivaled copperplate printing.

       Wood engraving also held several economic advantages over copper plates. First, because a wood engraving, like type, works in relief, the wood block could be set up in the press and printed with the text. This eliminated the cost and labor of operating one press for text and another for illustrations. Second, a woodblock wears better than copper and thus allows a great many more impressions. The overall result was a reduction in cost, an increase in quality and no loss - and in some cases an improvement - in quality.

       Ironically, however, Bewick's chief contribution was not to last. With Bewick, the designer and engraver were united. Thus, the care he gave to his original drawing was carried through the entire reproduction and printing process. Bewick represented the perfect blending of craftsman and artist, but this marriage was unique. Few artists had the time or will to learn engraving.

       Bewick's reputation was established in the last decade of the 18th century with the publication of the History of Quadrupeds and the History of British Birds. Both of these works drew on Bewick's love of nature, acquired as a child in the northern English countryside. His earliest works, in fact, were paintings of the land produced ("at very cheap rates") in his boyhood to ornament the walls of the homes of his "rustic neighbors."

       Bewick had been producing wood engravings for some years before the publication of Quadrupeds and British Birds. It was not until the appearance of these works, and particularly the latter, however, that his engravings caught the eye of the public and began the wood cut revival that was to last throughout the 19th century and completely supplant copperplate engraving as the chief medium of book illustration.