Woodcut: ancient engraving. End woodcut

Many people know what a drawing is, and what an engraving is, not everyone knows. But both drawing and engraving belong to graphics, the expression of which is a line and a stroke. However, the difference still exists. The engraver marks the image on a hard wooden surface, creating a woodcut. The meaning of the word, by the way, comes from the Greek lexemes: "xylon" - "wooden board" - and grapho - "I draw". Then an impression is made on paper or other material. Our article is about this ancient art form.

ancient engraving technique

So By definition, this is a type of letterpress printing, which is carried out with the help of printed boards, on which a design is applied by carving. Woodcut printing is a type of applied art that has a variety of applications. Compared to frescoes and mosaics, it is considered a young art form.

The work of an engraver and the process of creating a woodcut began with a drawing. The artist either created woodcuts himself - woodcuts, or turned to a professional. Basically, the division of labor prevailed for almost four centuries: the artist created the drawing, the engraver reproduced it.

Woodcut forerunners

Some researchers of the history of graphic art believe that the indirect predecessor of woodcuts is stamping, which is a direct impression of a relief image. It first appeared in the cradle of human civilization in Mesopotamia, in 3000 BC. e. Round seals for pressing into clay were evidence of the creation of prints. This was followed by the stencil period in ancient Egypt.

This practice of printing images dates back to the time of the appearance of paper in China, approximately from the 2nd century AD. e. As a rule, these were flat reliefs imprinted on a dampened sheet of writing material. By rubbing it with special brushes or by tapping, this relief was reproduced on paper. Next was the processing of this imprinted relief. The printmaking method was also used after the advent of woodcuts.

Woodcut in the countries of the East

By its origin, the earliest printing technique is woodcut. She appeared in the East. Historical sources in China provide information that printing with wooden boards has been produced in the country since the 6th century. However, the earliest archaeological find - an engraving that has survived to this day - dates back to 868. It depicts the Buddha surrounded by saints. In Korea, imprints of the text, imprinted in the 8th century, were found.

Buddhism has acquired a comprehensive significance in the cultural life of Japan. So, in 741, the ruler of the state ordered the construction of a Buddhist temple in each province. By that time, temple ensembles had been created in the city of Nara. In one of them, in the temple of Horyuji, the oldest examples of woodcuts have survived to this day (including printed text). The first, fairly reliable date in the history of Japanese printing is the year 770. This year, a million small pagodas 13.5 cm high were made in order to put printed Buddhist spells into each of them and welcome them to their temples. These are unstitched separate pages in the form of two boards with strings.

Woodcut in Arab countries and Western Europe

Engravings from wooden tablets appeared in the Arab countries as a result of their penetration from the countries of the Far East. With the help of woodcuts in Egypt, books in Arabic were published dating back to the period between the 10th and 14th centuries. Also in Egypt, the so-called prints were used to print patterns on fabrics, and this is also woodcut.

The rapid spread of woodcuts in Western Europe dates back to the 15th century. It was similar to the technique by which heel boards were made. Samples of such boards have been preserved in the form of works with ornaments and plot compositions of Italian work. A fragment of a printing plate carved in France depicting a crucifix, the work is dated 1397.

The era of the Early Renaissance gives woodcuts a slightly different meaning. Engraving has no decorative and applied value, but develops as an independent art form. The circle of engravings expands from individual sheets to maps and calendars of mass consumption. In 1461, the first book in Germany with woodcuts was published.

Ancient prints from Japan

The question of whether book printing in Japan is a borrowed or independent phenomenon has been solved in different ways up to the present time. A number of scholars believe that the art of woodcutting in Japan developed from the production of printed fabrics, while others argue that it came to Japan from China. However, the oldest woodcut monument (Darani) was found in Japan, and not in China.

Japanese engravers in their works depicted various scenes of everyday life and dynamic poses from the repertoire of actors. Such prints have been featured in exhibitions and Kabuki prints. By the beginning of the 19th century, color woodcuts gained wide popularity in Japan. It was made from several boards, painted in different colors. When Japan opened its trade routes to Europe in 1868, famous artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Whistler, and Van Gogh became noted collectors of these prints and often brought aspects of the woodcut style into their own artwork.

Stages of the engraver

Techniques for performing woodcuts have become more complicated since its inception, but the basis for its implementation has remained the same. The stages of work on woodcuts are as follows. The engraver's main tools are a knife, chisels of various widths and a chisel, with which he creates a pattern on the board. The wooden board on which the drawing is “knocked out” is a saw cut of a tree with soft wood (pear or beech). The board is primed before work. On the board prepared for work, a drawing in a mirror image is knocked out with the above tools.

The next stage of work will be rolling a special printing ink onto the drawing with a roller. A sheet of paper or material is superimposed on the surface of the board, on which the drawing should be printed. The impression can be made either manually using a lever press or using an electric press machine. The drawing goes to the material. The engraving is done.

The same technique was used to print texts and illustrations before the invention of printing. The masters were able to convey a variety of emotional shades in the contrasting black and white lines of their engravings. This is clearly seen in the "Dance of Death" by G. Holbein and the powerful "Apocalypse" by A. Dürer.

Why engraving and not drawing?

Understanding how difficult the method of making woodcuts is, you ask yourself the question: why does an artist need to do complex and laborious work, and not draw on paper? The drawing is unique. No matter how many copies of this drawing, they remain reproductions. And this is not art. There is no elusive presence of the author in the reproduction. There is another author in it, who transmits his energy, his colors in copies. That is, this is just a reminder of the original.

The main quality of woodcuts is the ability to replicate the drawing. Using a prepared stencil on one board, made by the author, you can get prints in the required quantity. All this will be the author's work, under which its creator can put his signature.

Woodcut in Russia

The first representatives of this type of graphics include the engravers of the mid-19th century E. Bernadsky and V. Mate. The latter was a great master and an outstanding teacher. Great masters emerged from his engraving class at the Stieglitz School: A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, I. Fomin, V. Masyutin, P. Shilingovsky. These masters formed the school of Soviet woodcuts, continuing to work with the old themes of graphics: landscape, portrait, book illustration. A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva stood at the origins of the author's woodcuts.

V. Favorsky became the central figure of woodcuts after 1920. This is a wide range artist. In one person, an engraver, a muralist, a designer were combined. But, according to Favorsky himself, he revealed himself more in such an area as book woodcuts. His school occupied a leading position in Soviet woodcuts, and many of his students became major artists (D. Konstantinov, A. Goncharov, M. Pikov).

Exhibition of engraving in Moscow

In November 2015, the State Tretyakov Gallery hosted the exhibition Materials and Techniques of Engraving. Woodcuts. It featured engravings kept in storerooms. Among them are about 200 original works and engravings, as well as more than a dozen graphic albums. The timeframe display covers the period from the beginning of the 17th to the 1930s. When creating the exposition, the chronological principle and the desire, as far as possible, to maintain the integrity of the resulting collections were taken into account. Visitors could get acquainted with the materials that tell about the xylography technique. The exhibits of the exhibition were samples of all types and forms of woodcuts, from popular prints to linocuts.

One of the exhibits was a pear-shaped frame, which withstood 87,000 prints. It was from her that the sheets of the altar Gospel of the beginning of the 17th century were printed. Before the introduction of photographic technologies, woodcuts were in demand as imitating pencil drawing and painting. Engravers performed picturesque paintings in a mirror, so that the authenticity of the canvas was preserved.

The exhibition showcased various eras in the art of woodcuts. These are Japanese, European and Russian graphics. Boards and prints were presented. The exhibition introduced the works of contemporary authors, their engravings, as well as various genres of woodcuts.

Woodcut

woodcut woodcut is called (Greek “ksyulon” – wood, “grafo” – I write, I draw). There are two types of woodcuts:edged (longitudinal) and end (transverse) . Woodcuts are divided into original (author's) and reproduction.

Longitudinal engraving

Woodcut engraving originated in ancient times, long before the invention of printing in Europe. It first appeared in China. Its appearance was preceded by a method of obtaining impressions from flat stone reliefs, in our time calledstamping . He was famous in China II century AD, when paper was invented there. Slightly moistened soft paper was applied to the relief and pressed into its recesses, beating with a brush. Then, water-based paint was applied to the surface of the dried paper, repeating the relief forms, with a wide brush or swab; a direct image of the relief was obtained, consisting of black (or colored) silhouettes cut by white lines.

The method of stamping continued to be widely used later, when woodcut appeared. It is possible that he influenced the emergence and development of engraving: in old Chinese engraving, one can often find imitations of stampings with their characteristic white stroke on a black (or colored) background or black (colored) silhouettes.

It is known from Chinese literary sources that images from wooden boards were printed in China already in VI century. The earliest extant Chinese engraving dates from 868. It is placed as a frontispiece in the Buddhist scroll "Diamond Sutra", found in the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas in the Dunhuang oasis. It depicts the Buddha on the throne, surrounded by saints and monks. The artistic and technical perfection with which this strictly linear canonical image was engraved speaks of the engraving skill highly developed in China in this era.

In China, secular book engraving developed especially intensively: illustrations for historical novels and plays, treatises on painting, descriptions of collections of paintings and drawings. Back to top XVII century are the first experiments in color engraving: art paper, book illustrations.

In Japan, the first illustrated book of secular content is the famous cycle of poems in prose. IX century "Ise Monogatari" - published in 1608; before that, only religious images and texts were printed.

Following the countries of the Far East, woodcut appears in the Arab countries. Fragments of woodcut books in Arabic relating to the period between X and XIV centuries, have been found in Egypt. The technique of engraving on wood has long been well known there; it was used for printing patterns on fabric (heel-prints) and was especially common among the Coptic (Christian) population of Egypt.

In Western Europe, wood engraving appeared, apparently, at the end of XIV century; from the beginning of XV century, it is becoming more and more widespread and rapid distribution. Historians attribute the appearance of engraving to the beginning of paper production in European countries (the first paper mills appeared in Germany around 1400). The first dated woodcut is from 1418.

Initially, the technique of engraving in Western Europe, as well as in the East, was close to the technique of making boards for heel boards. Samples of heels of European work have been preserved from XII century; among them there are ornamental and plot compositions. From XIV century came a heel of Italian work depicting episodes of the life of King Oedipus. A fragment of a printing plate for a heel cut in France and dated 1397 has also come down to us - a board from the collection of the French printer Prot, depicting part of the Crucifixion composition. On the reverse side of this walnut board, a part of the Annunciation scene (the figure of an angel) is engraved, work on which has not been completed.

Prota printed board. France. Centurion. 1379.

Wood engraving was also used for other purposes. Beginning with XIII centuries, scribes of handwritten books often used wooden stamps to pre-print initials. On such a colorless print, the initials were then drawn by hand.

A. Durer. Four riders. Edged woodcut, 1498.

A. Kravchenko. Portrait of a daughter. Edged woodcut, 1926.

But all this was not yet an engraving in the proper sense. There comes a time when a wooden board gets a new use. They begin to engrave it specifically for imprinting on paper drawings intended for reproduction and having an independent, and not decorative, applied or any auxiliary purpose. From that moment on, engraving developed as a special independent art form and as a means of mass printing, namely in the early Renaissance.

The range of topics and the purpose of engravings were constantly expanding: from individual sheets depicting saints and religious scenes to playing cards, calendars, alphabets, etc.

From the second half XV century, longitudinal engraving becomes an integral part of printed books. The first book of typographic printing with woodcuts was published in 1461 in Germany.

By the end of XV century, a system of artistic and technical methods of longitudinal woodcuts developed, which lasted without significant changes until the end XVIII century. The practice of the newest artists since the end XIX century introduced significant changes in the technique of longitudinal engraving.

E. Munch. Scenery. Edged woodcut, 1903.

In X In the tenth century, edged woodcuts did not have such a wide application, however, the geography of representatives who worked in this graphic technique is wide. We know such names as P. Gauguin, F. Valloton, E. Munch, A. Mayol, K. Kollwitz, A. Kravchenko, I. Golitsyn and others.

Speaking of longitudinal woodcuts, the method of color printing by the Italian engraver Ugo da Carpi should be noted. In 1516, he received in the Venetian Senate a privilege for the method he invented, which was called "chiaroscuro ", that is, chiaroscuro. Hugo da Carpi printed his engravings from three boards of different colors. He did not use outline or sharply contrasting colors, but his sheets gave the impression of really chiaroscuro. The artist had followers, however, with its high pictorial and decorative qualities, the “chiaroscuro” technique was not widely used in the future, being pushed aside by the active development of engraving and etching.

F. Vallotton. Before the visit. Edged woodcut, 1898.

In edging or longitudinal engraving, the printing plate is created on longitudinally cut wooden boards. With the help of special cutting tools, the strokes, lines and spots that form the drawing on the board are cut off on all sides, and the gaps, that is, everything that should not be printed, are deepened. Then paint is rolled onto the board with a roller, soft paper is placed on top and an imprint is made on a special machine or manually.

Pear wood has long been considered the best material for longitudinal engraving in European countries. It cuts superbly, engraves the finest strokes and is very stable when printed.

Ways to cut wood for the preparation of longitudinal boards.

Linden wood, small-layered, but very soft, is suitable only for engravings with large forms: thin black strokes on it quickly wrinkle when printed.

A well-dried section of the trunk is sawn into boards. After sawing, the boards are placed on edge in a dry room, protected from drafts, heat and moisture. A well-aged board in this way will not warp and crack in the future.

For large engravings, boards are glued (along the grain) from several carefully fitted pieces. Fish glue is considered the best, but boards can also be glued with carpentry, casein or synthetic (polyvinyl acetate, epoxy, etc.) glue. The board is carefully planed on both sides, and then its working surface is leveled and polished with sandpaper.

A drawing is applied or transferred to the polished surface of the board. Sometimes the board is pre-primed with a thin layer of zinc white. On a primed board, the strokes of the drawing look clearer.

In order for the image on the print to be straight, it must be mirrored on the board in relation to nature, the original or the sketch. The mirror image is difficult to draw on the board right away; there are different ways to translate it from a preliminary drawing on paper. You can translate the drawing into cells using a mirror. This method, although slow, has the advantage that during translation the drawing is once again checked and refined. An easier, but also more mechanical method is squeezing along the contour from tracing paper through paper rubbed with graphite, or through ordinary carbon paper.

Types of knives for longitudinal woodcuts.

After the drawing on the board is drawn with ink, the board is covered with an even dark gray tone so that the drawing shines through. To do this, printing ink is diluted with gasoline and applied to the board with a piece of cotton wool. If the board is primed, the tone is applied over the white primer. Do not wet the board too much so that it does not warp. Against the dark background of the board, each stroke cut by the tool will be clearly visible - just as it will look on the print. This will allow you to visually control the progress of work and, if necessary, supplement or change the drawing during engraving. It is most convenient to use special tools with Messerstichels, in which the straight side of the blade is sharpened. The knife blade is sharpened and guided on flat bars, first on the coarser ones, then on the smallest ones. The cutting edge of a well-sharpened knife, if you look at it directly, is not visible - it is so thin that it does not have a shine. The tip of the knife, if it is applied to the nail, does not slip, but, as it were, “sticks”. This also applies to other engraving tools. All of them should easily, without effort, cut the board.

Black and white stroke in engraving.

In the process of engraving with a knife, each black stroke of the pattern is cut off on both sides, while the stroke itself remains intact. This is where the name “edged engraving” comes from, precisely expressing the peculiarity of this technique. To get a raised, printing black stroke, it is necessary to limit it on both sides with an in-depth white stroke. But to get a white stroke, you need to make an incision, and then cut it on the other side at an angle so that the chips come out and a notch forms on the board. One black stroke requires four strokes of the knife.

The knife is held freely with three fingers, like a pen with a feather. When making an incision, the knife moves from left to right, then the board is turned to the right by 90 degrees and by moving the knife from top to bottom (toward itself), it is cut and the chips are removed.

The carving technique is laborious and painstaking. But this is rewarded by the clarity and expressiveness of each exactly found stroke. The "edged" engraving is characterized by the purity of the trimming of black strokes and the depth of the white spaces between them, as well as the dominance of the black stroke (rather than white). In general, a black and white stroke is not so much a technical concept as an artistic one. The same strokes, depending on the environment and the quantitative ratio of black to white, can be perceived either as black lying on white, or as white on black.

M. Escher. Reptiles. Linocut, 1937.

If parallel black and white strokes of equal thickness are surrounded by black, they will read as white; if white - as black. This is the simplest case.

If the white strokes are thinner than the black ones, they can be read as white even if they appear on a white field. Conversely, thin black strokes with wide white spaces will read black even in a black environment.

Types of chisels for longitudinal engraving (angular, semicircular and straight).

White crosshatching, depending on the width of the strokes, can be perceived as either a white grid or a black dot.

In the old "edged" engraving, the color qualities of a black-and-white image (contrast of spots, silhouette, texture-color stroke, etc.), which introduce a concrete-sensual element, are relatively little used. Solving sometimes very complex tonal problems with the help of the smallest grid of black strokes, this engraving, as a rule, does not become “picturesque”. Chiaroscuro in it rather serves as a means of conveying, as it were, a sculptural volume or relief, as, for example, in Dürer's late engravings. However, here the decisive role is played not so much by the technique as by the nature of the image. After all, technically it would be incomparably easier instead of a black grid to leave a black spot somewhere or to cut through a cross white one with the same knife.hatch. But this would be contrary to the artistic task, the whole structure of the image.

Modern masters of longitudinal woodcuts also use tools that are used for linocuts. These are angular and semicircular chisels, short (8-10 cm), straight or slightly curved so that their tip is slightly raised. In their form and purpose, they resemble gravers for end engraving, only their blade is not solid, but with a notch. They are often called, of course incorrectly, shtichels. Like engravers, these tools immediately, in one motion, take out a white stroke. Well sharpened, they easily and cleanly cut the longitudinal board in all directions, taking into account the fibers of the wood.

The corner chisel, like the grabiyechel in the end engraving, cuts a stroke whose width varies depending on how deep the tool cuts into the wood. It turns out a flexible, varied and fairly accurate stroke, which is convenient to model the shape and you can freely “draw” on the board. Like a knife, the “corner” is a universal tool; with it alone you can cut the entire engraving. To work, you must have at least two or three of these cutters with different angle widths.

K. Kollwitz. Memory sheet of Karl Liebknecht. Edged woodcut, 1919.

The width of the stroke cut by a semicircular chisel is the same throughout (since the edges of the chisel do not diverge at an angle, but are parallel) and depends only on the width of the cutting end of the chisel.

N. Kostevich. Educational work. Edged woodcut, 1996.

Angled and semicircular chisels are sharpened on the same bars as knives, and only from the outside, where there is a bevel to the point - a “sting”. The tip of the chisel, both angular and semicircular, should be straight, without notches, and perpendicular to its axis.

As for printing, it must be said that first, a test print is made from a still not quite finished engraving in order to clearly imagine how to finish the work and what corrections need to be made to it. When engraving, black color should be protected. This rule applies to all types of high engraving. It is easy to remove an extra black stroke or reduce a black spot, but it is very difficult to increase the amount of black.

The principle of “preserving black” has not only a utilitarian-technical but also an artistic meaning: black in high engraving serves as the material from which the image is built. Black should always be felt under white, holding it back.

In order to make an impression, printing ink is applied to the convex elements of the board. Wood engravings are printed with illustrative or lithographic inks. Colored paints are diluted with drying oil of medium strength or transparent lithographic white, black paint should not be diluted.

The paint is rolled onto the board with a roller. It is best to use a roller with a wooden base covered with a layer of roller mass (a special elastic mass of gelatin, glue and glycerin). Manual rollers with one and two handles are used in zincography when printing a sample. You can use a leather roller made from a piece of soft leather sewn into a tube and stretched over a wooden base. Rubber rollers used for color inks in lithography are also quite suitable. For printing small engravings, rubber photographic rollers can be adapted by smoothing their surface with sandpaper.

The paint is applied to the roller with a spatula in an even strip and rolled out on the smooth surface of the “slab” (lithographic stone, which can be replaced with glass or a piece of linoleum). They roll the roller several times on the board, without pressing hard, so as not to clog the paint into small gaps between strokes, put a sheet of paper on the board, pressing it evenly with your hand, and begin to rub it with a bone. It is better to use a special bone for this, which is used in printing houses for manual folding, but you can also use a bone handle from a toothbrush, a sculptural stack, a large handle from a cutter or an ordinary spoon.

Wood engraving should be printed on soft, unglued or lightly glued paper. It is convenient to make test prints on ordinary newsprint or filter paper, even better - on smooth (not embossed) paper tablecloths. Sometimes it is useful to make impressions for proofreading on coated paper:the strokes are imprinted very sharply on it, so that errors clearly appear. Printing on hard and uneven, heavily glued drawing paper is poor. In order to adapt such paper for printing engravings, you need to pre-moisten the cut sheets of paper and put them in a pile under the press (set aside).

O. Soans. Cypress Love Song. Edged woodcut, 1964.

E. Munch. Lovers. Edged woodcut, 1902.

Test prints, as well as small runs from longitudinal boards, can be printed on manual presses - zincographic and gilding. This greatly speeds up printing and allows you to print on thicker paper. But you need to be very careful when printing on them from longitudinal boards: with strong pressure, thin strokes can merge. You can also print by hand.

After the proof prints, while the engraving is not yet finished, the board is usually not washed. Its surface is cleaned with a piece of rubber (you can use an ordinary soft rubber band), after transferring the rest of the paint onto paper and wiping the board with paper. At the same time, the paint almost does not pollute the gaps between the strokes - they remain light. Nevertheless, during further work on the board, in order to better see the strokes, these gaps are covered with talcum powder.

When the proofreading is completed and the final impression is obtained, the paint is washed off the board with gasoline or acetone.

It is often believed that longitudinal engraving is not a circulation-resistant form. Indeed, it is inferior to end engraving, which can withstand hundreds of thousands of copies. But with good quality pear wood, correct engraving of thin black strokes, careful handling of the board, frequent washing of the board with gasoline during printing, a longitudinal engraving can give an average of twenty to twenty-five thousand prints. There are cases when circulations of up to one hundred thousand were printed from longitudinal boards.

Longitudinal engraving is a printing form, technically quite applicable in modern publishing practice. It can be used in the book for external design elements (cover, dust jacket, flyleaf). It can be used as an illustration, strip or text, especially in large format publications, such as a children's book. Great opportunities for the use of longitudinal engraving are given by the field of easel graphics.

Of course, today longitudinal woodcut, like any other graphic technique, is fraught with a lot of technical and plastic discoveries.

End engraving

Appearance in the first half XVIII centuries of a new type of woodcut - end woodcuts - are always associated with the name of the English engraver Thomas Buick (1753 - 1828). This is quite natural, since Bewick was not only the first to master the new technique as an artist, but also created works in this technique, not only significant, but in many respects unsurpassed.

During his long creative life, Buick brought up many students. A modest provincial artist, the owner of an engraving workshop in Newcastle, he became the head of the English school of wood engraving, which spread in the first decades XIX century, its influence first on France, and then on the whole of Europe and America.

End engraving revolutionized book graphics. Woodcuts again dominated the book. Solid and homogeneousthe surface of the end board made it incomparably easier than on a longitudinal tree to obtain the finest lines and to convey complex tonal and color relationships by shading of any frequency. The richness and flexibility of the new technique, the printability of the end board allowed woodcut printing to displace gravure engraving on metal from mass printing and subsequently successfully compete with lithography that appeared almost at the same time.

T. Buick. Illustration for "History of British Birds". End woodcut, 1797.

I.Pavlov. On Mahovaya. End woodcut, 1920.

It is possible that end engraving did not accidentally begin its development in England - technically and economically the most advanced country of that time, the country of the industrial revolution.and the first bourgeois revolution. At the end XVIII century in England, an improved Stanhope all-metal printing press was created, which made it possible to improve the quality of prints; here, in 1814, the rapid printing press, invented in Germany by F. König, was first used. Thanks to a more advanced printing technology, the use of smooth paper grades made it possible to print the thinnest stroke of an end engraving. The artistic revolution in book illustration went hand in hand with the technical revolution in printing.

However, it would be wrong to imagine the path of development of end woodcuts as completely smooth: longitudinal engraving did not willingly give up its place in the book everywhere. In different countries, the struggle between new technology and the old proceeded differently.

V. Favorsky. M. Kutuzov. From the series "Great Russian commanders" (fragment). End woodcut, 1945.

France in the first two decades XIX centuries, longitudinal engraving in the book was used simultaneously with the end engraving and competed with it; only the direct participation of the masters of the English school decided the matter in favor of the end. In Germany, in later years, the use of the creative experience of French masters had the same significance.

By the 30s of XIX century, the end technique of wood engraving became dominant in most countries of Western Europe and in America.

XIX century was the era of reproduction woodcuts. This is historically justified and understandable: there were no other, more convenient and perfect ways to reproduce book, and then newspaper and magazine illustrations; the need for reproduction of drawings was ever increasing. The economy and aesthetic needs of the era brought to the fore the technical, service side of the woodcut. Rejecting their "own language", woodcuts for the most part moved further and further away from art to technical performance.

Notable masters of end woodcuts in XIX century were W. Blake, A. Porre, O. Smith, A. Vogel, A. Menzel, R. Bong, M. Genemann and others.

In Russia, the first end woodcut appeared in 1833 in the book by V.F. Odoevsky “Colorful Tales”. It was made by a French engraver, who then lived in St. Petersburg.

But the first major master and figure in the field of end engraving in Russia was K. Klodt. In 1838 he was sent by the Academy of Arts to study woodcuts in Paris, where he worked in the studio of A. Porre. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1840, he became the head of the class created at the Academy for teaching woodcuts. Klodt brought up and united many talented engravers around him.

It should be noted that from the middle XIX centuries, first in easel, and then in book engraving, next to the line style, the reproduction tone manner of engraving is increasingly spreading. Its prominent representative was L. Seryakov. His engravings are complex and subtle combinations of black and white stroke and dot.

V. Favorsky. Sheet from the series "Years of Revolution". End woodcut, 1928.

Late XIX century in end engraving is associated primarily with the name of the famous artist V.V. Mate. Mate's woodcut technique is in many respects the opposite of Seryakov's tone technique, which comes from imitation of copper engraving. Instead of the “sculptural” modeling of the form with a parallel white stroke, which we see in Seryakov, Mate has an extremely diverse, mostly black stroke, “colored” and textured.

A.I. Kravchenko. Illustration for "Lord of the Fleas" by Hoffmann. End woodcut, 1922.

VV Mate was an outstanding teacher (he led the engraving class at the Stieglitz School and later at the Academy of Arts). From his school came such great masters of engraving as I.N. Pavlov, V.V. Korenev, A.P. Troitsky, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, V.D. Falileev.

At the end of XIX centuries in European countries, the search for new ways in woodcuts begins; and since the beginning of the twentieth century, everywhere, both in the West and in Russia, the rise of creative end engraving, now freed from the service tasks of reproduction, begins.

In addition to Ostroumova-Lebedeva, V.D. Falileev and I.N. Pavlov did a lot to form the Soviet easel engraving.

Today, Vladimir Andreevich Favorsky (1886-1964) is deservedly considered a classic of Soviet woodcuts. His work not only determined the main direction in the development of woodcuts: his influence affected the development of various areas of Soviet fine art.

An artist of a very wide range - an engraver and a book artist, a muralist, a theater decorator, an art theorist - V.A. Favorsky, as he himself believed, most fully revealed himself in book woodcuts. The desire to deeply comprehend the laws of artistic form, the desire for classical art, cleansed of everything accidental and fleeting, the craving for monumentality and synthesis - all these features are characteristic of the main direction of world art of the end XIX - early XX century, which replaced impressionism, were highly characteristic of Favorsky. Woodcut, with its special properties of the material, and the book as a complex architectonic whole, expressing the style of a literary work, were close to his creative interests and quests; in them he solved common, most important artistic tasks for his time. Book xylography - a rather modest area before - was put forward by him to the forefront of art, acquired extraordinary significance and influence. In understanding the material of wood engraving, Favorsky is close to Buick. But Buick's direct "feeling for the material" he incorporated into a coherent, logically clear system.

In the Soviet woodcutFavorsky's school has always occupied a leading position. Many of its participants are major artists with a bright personality: P. Pavlinov, N. Favorsky (the artist's son), G. Yacheistov, M. Pikov, A. Goncharov and others.

The largest master of woodenengravings, not adjacent to the Favorsky school, to some extent its antipode, was A.I. Kravchenko. He studied the technique of end engraving under the guidance of I.N. Pavlov. Kravchenko was called a romantic in engraving. He always sought to create an impression of emotional elation, dynamics and expressiveness of images.

Easel and book engravings by D. Shterenberg stand completely apart. In color richness and complexity, they are similar to his planar and textured painting. Engraving acquires a completely different meaning in the works of B. Kustodiev. D. Mitrokhin, S. Mochalov, V. Kasian and others had an exceptionally fruitful encounter with woodcuts.

P.Upitis. After the catch. End woodcut, 1947.

In the then fraternal republics, end engraving also had its representatives: in Armenia, these were A. Kojoyan, R. Bedrosyan; in Georgia - N. Chernyshkov; in Latvia - A. Junker, P. Upitis, Z. Zuse, M. Ozolin, O. Abelite; in Estonia - H. Mugasto, A. Laigo, Jan Järv, R. Kaljo, P. Luhtein; in Lithuania - S. Krasaў Skas, J.Kuzminskis, A.Makunaite, R.Gibavičius; in Belarus - A. Zaitsev, P. Gutkovsky, S. Yudovin, E. Minin, Z. Gorbovets.

This overview of end engraving does not claim to be complete. Names and events are named in it, mainly for a long time and well-known.

In end woodcuts, more sharply than in any other type of engraving, there is a difference between its two varieties -reproductive And original (author's). Longitudinal engraving by its nature could not be purely reproduction, it always retains the nature of the material - wood. Even with the smallest carving, which conveys gradations of tone, the stroke did not lose its isolation and remained an independent graphic element. If the pen drawing could be reproduced accurately enough, then when transferring the tone original, only a more or less free interpretation was obtained, and not an exact copy. The butt, on the contrary, makes it possible to imitate any other technique - a pencil stroke, the texture of oil painting. Technical flexibility, the ability to get strokes so small that they are no longer perceived separately, made end engraving an exceptionally convenient means for reproducing the most heterogeneous originals. At the same time, engraving became depersonalized, lost its own artistic qualities, turning into a technical way of reproduction.

It would be wrong to consider a reproduction end engraving as a whole uncreative. Engravers - artists of the past were able to show in it, in addition to technical skill, artistic taste, subtlety and depth in interpreting the original, understanding the peculiarities of the language of engraving. But, without touching here on issues of artistic quality, it is important to point out the fundamental difference, even the opposite of the tasks and methods of the original and reproduction engravings.

The method of reproduction woodcuts can hardly serve as a basis for the work of a modern engraver. But this method should be known in order to be able to apply it in your own way when solving various artistic problems. It is even more important to study the individual style of the great masters of engraving, regardless of whether they worked on their own or on someone else's original.

The material for end engraving is solid wood with a uniform fine-grained wood. The most convenient wood for engraving is boxwood, the so-called "Caucasian palm". Due to the hardness and uniformity of boxwood wood, the finest strokes are clean and durable in printing. Boxwood is easily cut with tools, does not crumble, and is less susceptible to attack than other types of wood.atmospheric changes. Of all the varieties of boxwood, the Caucasian one is considered the best, with yellow wood.

Z. Gorbovets. I.Furman. End woodcut, 1927.

Along with boxwood, beech and pear end boards are used - for less delicate and responsible work; pear gives a soft velvety line. As for end boards made of softer wood, such as birch, for example, they occupy, as it were, an intermediate position between a hard end and a longitudinal tree. End boards made of softer woods - maple, birch - also gained popularity.

A well-dried trunk of boxwood (as well as beech, pear) is sawn into circles about 30 mm thick. The mugs, placed on edge, are again dried in air, in a special dryer or in a Russian oven.

For small engravings with sides of 6-7 cm, boards can be made from a whole piece: only the edges are sawn off to give the board a rectangular shape. Small easel engravings are also made on unsawn boards - “round boards”. But, as a rule, end boards are glued together from several small pieces. Gluing makes the board more durable and uniform in hardness. In a whole piece, the core is softer than the edges; a solid board cracks more often. Before gluing, the circles of wood are sawn through the middle, the halves are given a rectangular shape, and they are dried again.

Gluing is the most critical part of board preparation. It is necessary to accurately select the pieces according to the size and density of the wood. It is recommended to select separately for different boards pieces from the southern and northern sides of the trunk, as they are different in the width of the layers and, consequently, in density. The core must be glued to the outer edge. The pieces are arranged in several rows; First, each row is glued separately, then all the rows are interconnected. The surfaces to be glued are carefully adjusted to each other; for this it is convenient to use a special carpentry device - a miter box, with which the sides of the board are planed exactly at right angles to its surface.

It is best to use fish glue for gluing; in the absence of it, you can use the best grades of carpentry, casein, as well as new types of synthetic adhesives (polyvinyl acetate, epoxy). When gluing boards, they are clamped in a clamp or wedged in a special block or frame. On the surface of the board in the places of gluing there should not be the slightest gap or recess.

After gluing, both surfaces of the board are treated. They must be strictly parallel. Manual processing is carried out with a jointer or a double planer. This work requires great precision and is laborious because of the hardness of the tree. A more advanced way - turning boards on a lathe - not only speeds up and facilitates work, but also automatically ensures that both surfaces are parallel. So process both surfaces of the board. Then the back surface is passed with a cynubel (ribbed planer) so that the board does not slip during engraving. The front working surface is leveled to complete smoothness and then polished with fine sandpaper. It should be mirror-smooth.

If there are knots or whiteness (small layers) on the working surface, these places are drilled with a drill to a depth of 5-6 mm, and round pieces of strong wood smeared with glue, the so-called “corks”, are driven into the holes. The protruding part of the "cork" is cut off with a chisel and leveled with sandpaper.

Sawing, selection and gluing of end boards.

Types of gravers for end engraving.

The thickness of the board after final processing should be equal to the height of the typeface - about 25 mm. Often the board is used more than once; the old image is then cut off. Then, before printing in a machine, cardboard is glued to the back of the board or the board is stuffed to the desired thickness in the same way as it is done in longitudinal engraving.

When the board is ready, the drawing of the future work is translated. In the practice of reproduction end woodcuts, it is customary to cover the board with white primer. This rule is included in most of the existing engraving manuals.

The soil is prepared as follows: powdered zinc white is triturated on egg white (about 25 g per protein). A little saturated solution of alum is added to the resulting thick mass and mixed thoroughly. The soil is applied to the board with a brush, then leveling it with the palm of your hand. The layer should be so thin that the layering of the tree is visible, then the soil will not affect the depth of the cut stroke.

Drawing with a soft pencil is easily transferred from paper to such a primer: the board is lightly rubbed with wax, the paper is placed on it with a pattern down and rubbed with a bone. You can make an outline on tracing paper with bold lithographic ink and also translate it by lapping. Both of these methods mechanically give a mirror image on the board. They also use the usual squeezing of the contour through carbon paper or paper rubbed with graphite. In the old engraving, the author of the drawing (it could also be the engraver himself) often drew directly on the primed board with a pencil or ink with white, and then the engraver cut directly on such a tone pattern.

The position of the engraver in the hand.

Modern artists use dark ground. White primer is now used mainly to strengthen the surface of the board when working on soft woods. In this case, a dark tone should be applied over the white primer after transferring the pattern with printing ink diluted with gasoline. The drawing is applied directly to the polished surface of the board. It can be translated in any of the ways mentioned above, or drawn in a mirror image across the cells. The last method, although the slowest, is preferable to all others, since the artist, drawing on the board, finally refines and finalizes the drawing.

When transferring a drawing, it is necessary to use a mirror all the time: when drawing on the board, look in the mirror at the sketch and immediately check the correctness of the drawing on the board, placing it in front of the mirror.

The drawing on the board must be worked out with ink, usually with a pen or a thin brush. Then this board is covered with an even dark gray tone, through which the pattern shines through. Against a dark background, each stroke cut by the engraver will be clearly visible. The artist is alreadyThe board in the process of engraving can see the ratio of black and white almost as they appear on the print. This will help him to take an active approach to engraving: not just to repeat the applied drawing, but to build a form, as if sculpting it from black with white.

In end engraving, tools are engravers, similar to those used in deep engraving on metal, but of a more diverse form.

Stichel is a narrow steel rod of various sections, 10-11 cm long with a cutting end sharpened at an angle of 45 degrees. The other end is inserted into a mushroom-shaped chiseled wooden handle. The lower part of the handle facing the board is cut off flat. If you put a chisel with a handle on the board, its cutting end may be slightly raised.

When working, the engraver is taken so that the little finger grabs the handle, the thumb lies motionless on the board and fixes the cutting end, and the remaining fingers squeeze the tool.

Magnifier and flask on a tripod.

The uniform structure of the board allows it to be cut equally easily in all directions. A sharply honed engraver moves freely, without effort, smoothly outlining any bend in the line, giving the finest white and black strokes. Hatching can be either light and transparent, or very thick; this allows you to transmit a variety of tonal gradations. Hence - another name for this type of wood engraving - « tone » .

The character of the stroke depends on the section and shape of the engraver. In the practice of end woodcuts, stable forms of engravers for various purposes with certain names have developed. The engraver's main tool isgraver (from German graben - dig). It represents a rhombus in cross section, less often a triangle. The burr is usually slightly curved upwards. The set must contain at least two burrs - with an acute and more obtuse angle.

The width of the stroke of the burr depends on how deeply its tip cuts into the board, that is, on the pressure force. The stroke is very diverse, easily bends and changes direction. It can be long and smooth with soft transitions from thin to thick or short and jerky.

The contour is cut with a graver, the shape is modeled, all small details are engraved. This tool is the most versatile, which is best for "drawing". The engraving can be cut with one burr.

There are also such tools for end woodcuts as a thinner, bolter, flachstigel, spitzstichel, repstichel, etc. All of them are designed for certainoperations in the work on the engraving.

D. Shterenberg. Illustration. End woodcut. 1931.

Before work, the engraver must be well sharpened. It is sharpened, as well as tools for longitudinal engraving.

When choosing white places under the engraver, it is necessary to place a small wooden or bone plate, thinning towards the edges. This lining serves as a support for the engraver, reduces the required force and does not allow the engraver to crush adjacent strokes when pressed.

In end woodcuts, mostly book prints, it is often necessary to engrave very small details. Usually, when working, they use a magnifying glass mounted on a tripod.

To work in artificial light, it is necessary to have a flask with a solution of copper sulphate, which concentrates the rays of light on the board and protects the eyes. The flask is installed between the lamp and the board on a special stand or on a laboratory stand together with a magnifying glass.

The material and technique of end engraving provide wide, almost unlimited possibilities for solving any artistic problem and for applying a wide variety of engraving techniques. On the board, you can get a clear drawing stroke, black and white, and a spot with the most diverse color and texture characteristics, and the finest tone transitions.

In the original, author's woodcuts, individual manners of engraving are infinitely varied. It suffices to compare the graphic-poster laconicism of Maserel, the silvery touch of the early Favorsky and the textured sophistication of Shterenberg's engravings to understand how each artist's system of techniques depends on his method of depiction and individual approach to the material.

Edge engraving is technically quite difficult, and therefore one usually moves on to edge engraving after becoming familiar with engraving on linoleum and on a longitudinal board.

The ability to make a very thin stroke often leads to excessive form refinement, to uniformly frequent and inexpressive shading. Such an insufficiently active approach to the stroke has to be overcome in order to achieve a varied manner of engraving, the correct scale of the stroke, and its plastic expressiveness.

The purely technical side is also significant. The thinnest white strokes in the engraving must be cut deep enough, otherwise the result is not strokes, but scratches that will be clogged with paint when printed. This is a very common mistake; like a jagged, unclean black stroke, it indicates a lack of technical literacy.

Do not be afraid to choose white places where it is required by the artistic design, but at the same time, you need to protect the black color. It would seem that enough has been said about this in the chapter on longitudinal engraving. However, color issues, the requirement to preserve the integrity of black, despite the removed white spaces and strokes, are even more important for end engraving, which by its nature is much more tonal and color than for longitudinal, which can be purely linear. White may even predominate quantitatively, but black must "hold" white, which only then can acquire plastic and color qualities.

Manual printing by lapping.

The best quality prints are obtained when printing end engravings by hand - rubbing with a bone - on special grades of paper. Use gilding or other presses only with great care, since with strong pressure it is easy to crush fine strokes. You can get good prints without harm on an etching machine.

The circulation stability of an end engraving on boxwood is on average not less than one hundred thousand copies. The good quality of the printing ink, the careful selection of the type of paper - all this, along with a good seasoning, gave that purity and clarity of printing engravings, which delights us in many books. XIX century.

Etching machine.

Today, woodcuts are adapting to modern conditions. Many artists engrave on plexiglass. This material is much more affordable and cheaper than boxwood and almost does not need pre-treatment. When engraved, it gives a clean, even and fairly strong stroke, but it is more difficult to work on it, since it is viscous and therefore resists the movement of the engraver more and less evenly. It is also inconvenient for drawing translation. When engraving plexiglass, they often use a drill, milling machine, etc. Sometimes plastic is used to replace the end wood, which also has its positive and negative sides.

Using new materials, modern masters use various technologies in the processing of the printed form, thereby blurring the lines between known graphic techniques.

Linocut

Linocut is a type of raised engraving.

Compared with other types of engraving, linocut is young - it apparently appeared at the end of the 19th or at the very beginning of the 20th century, after linoleum, one of the first plastic materials, entered into wide economic use. Linoleum was first made from young cork mixed with linoxin (oxidized linseed oil) and resinous substances. This mixture was applied to a rare but very durable jute fabric and then heat treated. The result was a material of high strength, with a thickness of at least 5 mm. Its surface was made either smooth, usually dark brown, like the whole mass,or a pattern imitating parquet, carpet, etc. was applied to it with oil paint.

Due to the high cost of cork and linseed oil, substitutes began to be introduced into the composition of linoleum. Now the ground cork is completely or mostly replaced by wood flour. But even this type of linoleum is quite suitable for engraving not only educational, but also serious creative work.

Linoleum was first introduced into artistic practice in Western Europe. In the literature on linocut, which is generally extremely poor, there is no indication of when, in what country and which of the artists was the first to pay attention to the new material and appreciate its artistic possibilities. It is known that in 1907 the Russian engraver N.A. Sheverdyaev learned about engraving on linoleum in Paris, where at that time it had already become widespread among engravers. Sheverdyaev brought new material to Moscow, where I.N. Pavlov became interested in it. For the sake of engraving on linoleum, in the future, he completely departed from the end woodcut, in which he had long been a recognized master of the reproduction plan.

Soon after Pavlov, one of the largest masters of color engraving in Russia, V.D. Falileev, who had previously engraved on longitudinal boards, switched to linoleum.

In subsequent years, especially post-revolutionary, linoleum becomes one of the most popular graphic materials. The linocut technique was used in 1926-1927 in a number of interesting easel works by B.M. Kustodiev. From prominent chartsIn the 20s and 30s, N.A. Sheverdyaev, K.E. Kostenko, V.D. Zamirailo, A.I. Kravchenko, N.I. Piskarev, S.M. Kolesnikov, P. N. Staronosov, S. B. Yudovin, Falileev’s student I. A. Sokolov (mainly in color engraving, like Pavlov’s student M. V. Matorin) and many others.

I.Pavlov. The village of Pavlovo on the Oka. Linocut.

In the Soviet graphics of the 40s and 50s, linocut, first predominantly in color, and later in black, took first place in easel printmaking in terms of the number of works at exhibitions, and only in the second half of the 60s began to decline sharply, giving way to etching. .

The history of Belarusian engraving has not yet been written. The purpose and size of this manual allow us to dwell on only a few typical examples.

The priority of a serious study of linocut belongs to Gomel. There, at the end of 1919, an art school was organized - the studio. M. Vrubel, where there was a graphic workshop, and classes were heldfor the study of graphic techniques. The workshop was led by a well-known Gomel graphic artist - A. Bykhovsky - a graduate of the Petrograd School of Encouragement of Artists.

B. Kustodiev. Fair in the village. Linocut, 1927.

It is also known that linoleum was widely used by Vitebsk artists. In the first years of Soviet power, printed forms were made from it for replicating campaign posters and leaflets.

The first Belarusian graphic artist who remained devoted to this technique throughout his life was A. Tychina (1897–1986). His first linocuts date back to 1920. He created a series of engravings dedicated to Minsk and the nature of Belarus.

A. Tychina. Over the river Svisloch. Linocut, 1954.

S.Yudovin (1892–1954), a student of the famous Vitebsk artist and teacher, can also be named among the first who started working on linoleum in our republic. Y. Pan. In the early 1920s, on the basis of the collected ethnographic material, he made several series of ornaments in the technique of woodcuts and linocuts, in which, with the help of symbols, the graphic artist tried to show the legends and myths of his people. S.Yudovin's ornaments were made up of stylized animals and plants. A versatile graphic interpretation was based on the combination of contour lines, silhouettes, shading and black and white spots. Later he created a cycle of urban landscapes of Vitebsk, but mainly in the technique of woodcuts.

E. Elk. Forest bouquet. From the series "Children of Belovezhye". Linocut, 1966.

From the catalog of the first All-Belarusian Art Exhibition, which was opened in Minsk in 1925, it is clear that linocut occupied a rather significant place there. A.Tychina and A.Valo presented their works in this technique. Somewhat later, graphic artists I. Gembitsky, N. Tarasikov, G. Zmudinsky, V. Sokolov, well-known in pre-war times, began to work in the linocut technique, although episodically.

D For the development of Belarusian graphics and, in particular, linocut, the organization in 1953 of the graphic department at the Belarusian State Theater and Art Institute and the creation in 1956 of a printmaking department were of great importance.workshop at the Art FundBSSR. All this contributed to a noticeable rise in Belarusian graphics in the early 60s. At this time, a huge number of artists try their hand at linocut. Exhibitions of those years presented works made in this relatively young technique by such authors as I. Gembitsky, S. Gerus, I. Romanovsky, N. Gutiev, Yu. Tyshkevich, E. Los, V. Tkachuk, E. Pokatashkin, A. Zakharov, K. Petrov and many others.

E.Los' linocuts, which, in search of their own style, come from popular prints, are attracted by their warmth, immediacy and some special inner charm; Y. Tyshkevich's sheets, deeply feeling the landscape, draw attention to themselves with a subtle lyric-intimate feeling of Belarusian nature; The linocuts of L. Assetsky with their rigid contours impress with the activity of the composition, the aggravated emotional form.

Y. Tyshkevich. Spring. Linocut, 1970.

In the 70-90s, a number of interesting, highly artistic works in the technique of linocut appeared by such graphic artists as V. Sharangovich, the brothers M. and V. Basalygi, N. Kupava, A. Ilyinov, Yu. Kukharev, E. Kulik. In the work of most of them, in contrast to the graphic artists of the older generation, in whose works there were plot and narrative motifs, there is an obvious desire for allegory or symbolism, for the constant search for an individual creative manner, national style and new techniques.

A.Emelyanova. Portrait. Educational work. Linocut, 2001.

Modern Belarusian linocut is a complex and contradictory phenomenon.

The practical study of woodcut engraving is usually started after a fairly good acquaintance with engraving on linoleum. Linoleum is not only the most common and affordable material, but also the most convenient and easy to work with. It does not need a complex board preparation process. Linoleum is easily cut with a well-ground tool; the cutter effortlessly draws a stroke of any width and shape. The very nature of the material, its consistency, which is not too hard and somewhat grainy, does not allow making very thin and frequent strokes, but makes engraving concise and generalized, without grinding the form. All these qualities make linoleum an indispensable material for the first acquaintance with high (convex) engraving, for understanding the basic patterns common to all its types.

And at the same time, linoleum is an excellent material for a very special independent engraving area. On it you can make engravings of very large size. Although the main area of ​​linoleum is easel prints, it can be used in many ways in printing - from book and newspaper illustrations to posters. An important quality of linocut is efficiency. On linoleum, you can engrave much faster than on wood, do not save the material and, in case of an unsuccessful start, switch to another board. This gives the engraving a freshness of execution, lightness and immediacy of the graphic language. Finally,on linoleum it is easier than on wood to engrave directly from nature, without a preliminary drawing, freely “drawing” with a tool on a blackened surface. This method requires special thoughtfulness, economy and accuracy of each stroke and best of all develops a sense of material, that is, a direct connection between the movement of the cutter and the birth of a plastic form. In general, the tactile moment, the feeling of the smooth movement of the hand and the soft resistance of the pliable material are present and artistically comprehended when working on linoleum, perhaps more than in other types of engraving.

For engraving, it is best to use linoleum 5 mm thick, with a smooth surface, not dry (so that it does not break or crumble during carving), but not too soft (in this case it is viscous and the strokes do not come out clear). Linoleum thinner than 3-2.5 mm is not very suitable for work. Not at all suitable is a thin, bending material with a shiny surface on a fabric basis, as well as the so-called "relin" - a soft and viscous material on which the chips taken out by the cutter do not separate at the end of the stroke. Polyvinyl chloride plastic for the floor, produced both in rolls and in squares of 30x30 cm, is easily cut with the same tools as linoleum. In addition, it is possible to obtain a very small stroke on it, especially on its harder varieties, where even gravers for end engraving can be used.

Before starting work, linoleum is always polished. It is most convenient to do this with a pumice stone, natural or artificial. A piece of natural pumice stone is sawn in half and one half is rubbed against the other to smooth the surface. If there is no pumice, you can grind with sandpaper. Sand until a smooth matte surface is obtained. After grinding, wipe the linoleum with turpentine, it strengthens the surface. Then the linoleum is glued onto hard cardboard or plywood.

Enough is said about the translation of the drawing in the description of the woodcut. All the methods described there are applicable to linoleum. One can only add one more quick and convenient way: drawing on paper or on tracing paper is outlined along the contour with a lithographic pencil or lithographic ink, "glass-graph" or even a very soft graphite pencil, then placed on linoleum, just rubbed with turpentine, and rubbed with a bone, you can transfer it on a gilding press or etching machine.

The translated drawing must be drawn in ink, then the linoleum is tinted with printing ink slightly diluted with gasoline or diluted ink. Engraving on a blackened board in linocut is the same fundamentally important condition as in woodcut. This should be firmly learned from the very beginning and become a habit.

Tools for engraving on linoleum are the same angular and semicircular chisels that are used for longitudinal woodcuts and are described in the same place. Linocut is cut mainly with these tools. A knife is also used - for precise cutting of small details, font, etc. Previously, small school sets of incisors were produced, stamped like feathers, to which a pen was attached. It is quite possible to work with these cutters if a separate pen is adapted for each of them, at least an ordinary writing pen.

In terms of carving technique, linocut is closer to end engraving than to longitudinal engraving. As on the end, a white stroke is removed on linoleum with one movement of the cutter; the cutter moves equally freely and easily in all directions. But if the butt is characterized by a fine tonal nuance, then on linoleum the relationship is much more contrasting, the stroke is more massive, loaded with color.

Technical capabilities of chisels.

The main thing that was said about engraving on wood applies to linocut. But there are also significant features: linocut is distinguished from longitudinal engraving by a large tonal-color saturation, “picturesqueness”; from the end - that instead of tone shading in linocut, they mainly use the contrasting ratios of black and white, even if a purely tonal task is being solved, for example, setting against the light. The visual means here are laconic: a black and white spot, a very limited hatching, also perceived as a color, a black and white contour line. At the same time, one must always think about the spatial sound of black and white: what is in front, what is behind. It is necessary that black, like white, look different everywhere.

You should work on the entire engraving at once: highlighting light places with white, gradually go into the depth of the blackened board (linoleum), using the ratio of black and white, refine the shape and build a general spatial relief. When engraving details, one must always imagine the whole. In the description of the longitudinal engraving, enough was said about the need to "preserve the black." You should not, as beginners often do, immediately outline everything with a white outline of the same thickness. This confuses color relationships and destroys the integrity of the engraving from the very beginning. The white contour, just like the black one, should sound everywhere - in different ways, depending on the task.

As a general rule, it should be firmly understood that the engraving should never literally repeat the sketch, in other words, one should never make a sketch “under the engraving”. The final decision is always prompted by the material itself during the engraving process.

O. Oleinikova. Winter landscape. Educational work. Linocut, 1997.

Linocuts can be printed by hand by lapping, just like woodcuts. But more often (especially for large works) it is printed on a gilding press or on a special machine for linocut. Both on that and on another it is possible to receive good prints even of very big engravings. When printing on a press or machine, you should use a “folder” made of two sheets of plywood or thick cardboard. Linoleum in a folder can be reinforced with corners, just like paper. Cardboard and waste paper are used as a deckle. The folder allows you to adjust the pressure on the form (make seasoning), and when printing in color, it ensures that the colors match. Sometimes they print linocut on an etching machine; for this, a thin metal sheet or hard cardboard is placed over the form with paper and waste paper.

Linocuts are printed with the same inks as woodcuts. Black ink (lithographic or printing) may be slightly weaker (more fluid), especially when printed on a machine. Colored paints are used both lithographic and conventional oil after appropriate preparation. Color engravings can be printed with watercolors by adding glycerin and starch paste. This method was developed and applied in the Izogiz print shop on the basis of the aquatype invented by I.N. Pavlov.

Before printing on a machine, it is better to remove linoleum from cardboard or plywood if they are not even enough. It is better to adjust the pressure and ink ink so that thin strokes are not crushed and black dies are printed. An unevenly removed background leaves marks when printed on the machine. If this is not part of the artist's intention, the background must be leveled with a flat chisel. If traces still remain, as is usually the case with thin linoleum, then in such places the linoleum is cut through. Paint from linoleum can be washed off with any thinner.

After a test print, the linocut is corrected in the same way as the woodcut. The damaged place is cut out entirely, preferably along a white contour, so that there is no noticeable seam, and a new piece is glued.

The circulation stability of a linocut depends on the quality of the linoleum and how the work is engraved (whether there is a thin black stroke). In the most favorable cases, linocut can withstand print runs close to those of end engraving (up to one hundred thousand) when printed on flatbed printing machines.

Engraving on cardboard

Engraving on cardboard is a special graphic technique. According to the method of printing, it is often referred to as a convex engraving. Invented engraving on cardboard in 1924 by the Soviet artist K.V. Kuznetsov. The use of cheap material, the production of completely different prints from one printing plate, the richness and variety of pictorial means contributed to the spread of this graphic technique. Cardboard of various density is used as a material for the printing form, but it is best to use a hard, with a smooth surface, for example, hardboard. Engraved on cardboard with a knife or etching needle, other tools tear more than cut through the surface. The peculiarity of the work is that the cardboard can be cut obliquely or its top layer can be torn off to different depths; destroy it with a needle, knife, sandpaper; scrape and burn; make through cuts; stick on other materials, etc. In the print, spots of different texture and saturation are obtained.

According to the technique of execution, engraving on cardboard is similar to woodcuts, but has special properties inherent only to it. If woodcut allows the artist to obtain a large number of identical prints from one printing plate, then in cardboard engraving each print is different and unique. In addition, this technique allows you to achieve extraordinary texture richness. Engraving on cardboard according to the technique of execution is available to a wide range of graphic lovers, allowing the artist to obtain transitions from white to deep black. With a successful choice of engraving techniques, a soft, picturesque impression is obtained.

N. Lysenko. Educational work. Engraving on cardboard, 1997.

In engraving on cardboard, a lot depends on the inking during printing. The prints usually come out uneven. There are very few high-quality prints that meet the artist's intention, the printing plate is quickly clogged with ink. This can be avoided if after each print, wash off the remaining paint with gasoline.

To make the form more resistant, it is covered with glue or varnish. But all the same, this type of high engraving remains least of all in circulation and most of all depends on the skill of the graphics. In this respect, engraving on cardboard approaches monotype.

O. Grits. Sheet from the series "Uspamin". Graduate work. Engraving on cardboard, 1997.

O. Zenovka. Educational work. Engraving on cardboard, 1997.

Cardboard engraving can be interestingly applied to color printing.

With specific properties and the possibility of using cheap material and an unlimited rangevisual means, engraving on cardboard is distributed in educational practice. It can be mastered at the most minimal cost of funds and time for organizing and conducting classes.

Big wave off Kanagawa.
(Katsushika Hokusai). Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
(A. Durer).

The history of wood engraving - xylography originates in ancient times. It is logical to assume that the need for reproduction of images is expediently realized only if there is a relatively cheap material on which it can be printed. marked the beginning of the spread of wood engraving. This is how xylography originated in China during the Han Dynasty (6th century). In Europe, the appearance of woodcuts dates back to the 13th century. Woodcut flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries.

With the advent of wood engraving, it gradually lost its importance in reproduction and is used only in publications that require a high definition of the stroke.

The word "woodcut" comes from two Greek words: xylon - tree and grapho - I write, draw. In other languages: German. holzschnitt, eng. woodcut. Boards for engraving were cut along the layer of wood (hence one of the names of such engraving - "longitudinal"). A drawing was applied to the polished surface of the board, after which the lines of this drawing were cut off on both sides with a sharp knife, while the stroke itself remained intact (hence the second name for the longitudinal engraving is "edged"), and the background was selected with wide chisels to a depth of 2 - 5 mm. After that, the board was rolled up with special paint and an impression was made on paper. Thus, woodcuts are classified as letterpress printing because they are printed in relief. The material for the boards was pear, linden, apple, and in Japan, local species were also used, the layering of the wood of which gave a natural additional texture to the surface of the engraving.

From the 6th century woodcut was used for book printing. To do this, paper with hieroglyphs written on it was applied to a board covered with rice paste, which absorbs ink well. As a result, the text was printed in a mirror image. After that, a layer of wood not covered with ink was cut from the board. Thus, a three-dimensional drawing of the text was created - a matrix. After that, the matrix was rolled up with paint and the text was imprinted on paper.

Interestingly, in the early period of the development of woodcuts, the carver and the author of the drawing were different people. Sometimes the final print could be very different from the author's drawing, so later the artists began to draw directly on the boards.

In Japan, color engraving was greatly developed. It reached its peak in the 18th and first half of the 19th century in the work of the artists Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai.

In Europe, easel engraving first appeared, and then book engraving. It achieved remarkable results in Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries. Abrecht Dürer's series of engravings "Apocalypse", "Life of Mary", "Great Passions" - this is the pinnacle of edged longitudinal engraving, which is the greatest work of world graphic art. No less remarkable are the works of the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 - 1543). His "ABC of Death", "Dance of Death" are also striking in the subtlety of the carving.

A special place in the art of woodcuts in Europe is occupied by chiaroscuro - color woodcut. This technique consisted in cutting several boards for each color separately. Then all of them were printed in a certain sequence (usually light colors first, and then darker ones) on one sheet of paper, with all parts of the image combined.

Edged "longitudinal" woodcut appeared in Russia in the middle of the 16th century. Under Ivan the Terrible, the first printing house was set up in Moscow to print books under the leadership of I. Fedorov. To decorate books, engravings of high artistic and technical merit were cut.

In 1615, the Printing House was established in Moscow. Close ties are being established between Moscow printers and Ukrainian and Belarusian colleagues, whose type of publications was more secular and close to Western traditions. The influence of Moscow printers contributed to the emergence of a new field in engraving - folk pictures - the art of the common people. The forerunner of the Russian popular print was Vasily Koren, a native of Belarus. The master created in 1695 - 1696 "The Book of Genesis and the Apocalypse". A direct path from these engravings leads to the lubok - a striking phenomenon of the 17th - early 19th centuries. Lubok was sharply opposed to official academic art and was guided by the tastes of the common people: he was entertaining and bright in terms of plot.

At the beginning of the 19th century, longitudinal woodcut in Russia, as well as in the West, fell into decay. The revival of this technique occurred in the 90s of the XIX century in England. The initiator was William Morris. In addition to him, Nicholson, Craig and Brangvin worked in longitudinal engraving. In France, Gauguin, Bernard, Vallaton, Vlaminck were fond of this technique. In Germany in the 20s of the twentieth century worked - Kollwitz, Kirchner, Haeckel, Nolde, Barlach.

At the same time, Istomin, Lebedev, Usachev, Masyutkin, Kupriyanov, Kravchenko, Golitsin engraved on longitudinal boards in Russia.

But there was another kind of woodcut - face (tone, reproduction).

In end woodcuts, cross-cut boards were used. Opened by the Englishman Thomas Bewick in the 19th century, end woodcuts again won a dominant position as the main method of artistic reproduction, having previously been supplanted by etching and engraving on metal, and made a revolution in book graphics. Despite the fact that it is easier to cut along the fibers, and more difficult across, the hard and uniform surface of the end board made it much easier than on a longitudinal tree to get the thinnest lines. It became possible to convey complex tonal and color relationships by shading of any frequency (hence the second name for end engraving - "tone"). The third name of the end engraving - "reproductive", follows from the rich plastic expressiveness, which is so necessary for reproduction.

In 1790, in Newcastle, Buick published a General History of the Quadrupeds, written by him (together with Baleby) and illustrated with woodcuts, which was a great success and survived until 1820 7! publications.

The tools in end engraving are engravers. A steel rod of various sections, 10-11 cm long, with a cutting end sharpened at an angle of 45 °, is inserted into a mushroom-shaped handle. The lower part of the handle facing the board is cut off flat.

The durability of the printing plate allows the use of end boards even for standard printing replication, while in the longitudinal boards the strokes are crushed, the ink flows, which makes it impossible to obtain high-quality prints. With a small change in quality, the circulation printed from the end boards can reach several tens of thousands.

An obvious disadvantage of end woodcuts is the limitation of the size of the works, due to the thickness of the trunk from which the form is made. Boxwood, an ideal material for end engraving, grows extremely slowly to an acceptable size. Logging, for example, in the Caucasus has practically ceased.
Gluing the boards together makes it possible to make works of a large format, as exemplified by the works of V. Favorsky, comparable in size to longitudinal engravings of medium size. Various plastics are used as a material for the printing form, engraving these boards with the same engraving tools as in the end engraving.

Today, in its classical form, woodcuts are almost not used at all.

Finishing the story about woodcuts, it is impossible not to mention another important invention of the Chinese. In 1107, the world's first paper money was printed in Sichuan. They had three colors - green, red and indigo - and were printed from wooden boards, and then large red seals were placed on them. The Europeans, however, did not then adopt paper money from the Chinese and continued to use metal money for a long time, which merchants had to carry with them in whole bags.

Woodcut is a woodcut used to print images and texts. A drawing is applied to the polished surface, after which the lines of the drawing are cut off on both sides with a sharp knife, and the background is selected with wide chisels to a depth of 2-5 mm. After that, the board can be rolled with paint and printed on paper.

Woodcut originates in China, and is closely related to Buddhism, which encourages the dissemination of the sutras. The oldest Chinese printed work that has come down to us dates from 684~705.

Woodblock images are made in Central Asia and the Byzantine Empire, and in Islamic Egypt, examples of printing on paper dating back to 1000 appear.

In Europe, textile printing predates paper printing and is commonplace by 1300. Woodblock prints on paper were made almost as soon as paper became widely available around 1400.

The woodcut technique was the same as in Asia: a mirror-relief image or text was cut out on a wooden board, then paint was applied to the relief, and the printer pressed a sheet of paper to this board, easily smoothing it with a brush.

The poor man's bible

In Europe, images of saints, texts of prayers, secular works, such as calendars, playing cards, were printed using woodcuts.

Woodcut books became mass literature for the poor, often semi-literate city dwellers. Therefore, they were supplied with a large number of illustrations, and by modern standards were not books, but comics.

A typical example is the Poor Man's Bible, a popular retelling of the Old and New Testaments with numerous illustrations. The only example of a book of that time that does not contain images is a Latin grammar book.

To print books with images, the so-called "block books", they used one board, on which both text and pictures were located. Engravings were applied to paper sheets, filling them. To prevent the pages of the book from getting mixed up and confused, they were glued together.

Most woodcut books around 1480 were printed on only one side of the sheet - it was difficult to print on both sides without soiling the first side. Sometimes printed sheets were glued with blank sides, but this was inconvenient. The specifications for printing on both sides of a sheet were created only by the invention of the printing press.

Woodcut books by the middle of the 15th century. spread throughout Western Europe. The centers of their manufacture were Northern Germany and Holland. In 1417, the Antwerp woodcutters united in one workshop with illuminators and carvers. This is how the printer's shop was born.

Woodcut "books for the poor" were not recognized by educated people and the clergy. They did not end up in monastic libraries and private collections, but passed from hand to hand until they wore out. "Serious" books continued to be written on parchment.

In fact, in the late Middle Ages there were two types of book production - parchment manuscripts for religious and university literature, and paper woodcuts for the poorly educated common people.

However, the invention and improvement of typesetting and the printing press soon forced both manuscripts and woodcuts out of book production in Europe.

However, the school of woodcut printing of artistic engravings persisted and developed, and for a long time it was the main way to create illustrations for early printed books in Europe.

Woodcut (Greek xylon tree + grapho I write) is a woodcut and a print from such an engraving.

Woodcut is a type of letterpress reproduction form. When making an engraving, the engraver with sharp tools cuts off every line, every stroke of the image from all sides, i.e. cuts out gaps - areas that should not be printed on the print.

Distinguish woodcut face and longitudinal.

The figure on the left shows a reproduction from an old (1497) edging engraving of a book decoration; on the right, as an example of an end engraving, there is a fragment of an engraving-illustration for Pushkin's "Boris Godunov", made by V. A. Favorsky; bottom image of Scottish soldiers from 1631

Longitudinal woodcut

Also called edged, or sketch, is the oldest type of woodcut. It is performed on a board sawn off along the layers (trunk) of wood pulp.

For longitudinal woodcuts, soft tree species are used: linden, pear. Since the wood pulp is not homogeneous, then when engraving the tools "easily go" along and "jump" across the layers of wood, which does not allow engraving the image with thin lines and making it with shades.

As an industrial printing form, woodcuts have not been used for a long time.

End woodcut

End woodcut, also called tone print, is an engraving made on a board sawn off across the (trunk) of a tree, i.e. at the butt. The tree is used solid and small-layered: boxwood or palm. The lines in the end engraving are very clear, which makes it possible to imitate the change in tone strength with the lines.

End engraving can withstand a circulation of up to 15,000 prints. If it is necessary to print a larger circulation, an electrotype is made. An engraving intended for printing together with a printing set must be equal to the height of the letters.

artistic process

The creation of traditional woodcuts is based on a delicate division of labor between three masters - an artist, a woodcarver and a printer. All three masters should be, if not equal, then close in terms of skill. If one of the masters overshadows the skill of the other, or, on the contrary, his skills are lower than required, a high quality print cannot be obtained. When the skills of the three participants in the process are harmonized, the seal woodcut is far superior to that which could be produced by a single universal master.

Woodcut production starts with a sketch. In addition to the original painting, the artist creates a mirror image of the template, a drawing that will serve as a kind of guide for making the print. The sketch is usually a linear sketch in black ink. If the engraving is supposed to be colored, then the artist creates a separate sketch for each color separately. In Japanese terminology, this process is called hanshita-e.

A sketch made on paper is handed over to the woodcarver. The carver attaches the sketch to a wooden block, transfers the image to the surface of the wood board and cuts out the cliche. The artist and carver must work closely together throughout the entire process.

Finished clichés for each color are delivered to the printer, and the engraving is nearing its climax. Depending on the intent of the artist and the complexity of the drawing, the printer follows one or another method of printing. The printer creates complex combinations of pigments and manipulates them to reproduce the full gamut of hues just like the original painting.

The division of labor in creating a woodcut image is typical of the Middle Ages, when woodcut was the only way to create a graphic image suitable for replication. Now that woodcut is no longer an industrial discipline, but an easel art form, artists usually do it alone, reproducing the entire process (from sketch to print) on their own.

Finishing the woodblock

Thinking up and cutting out a drawing is not the most important thing in the technology of making woodcut forms. Much more time is spent on their finishing, consisting of a series of operations.

The stroke of the cliché consists in drawing lines by the engraver, outlining each individual image. Cutting is carried out along these lines.

Milling consists in deepening large areas of gaps; produced on a machine with a vertical cutter.

Bevelling - cutting facet on raster clichés, as well as on rectangular type clichés with a solid small stroke, is carried out on planing machines and aims to allocate space for driving nails in such cliché plates.

In order to equalize the growth of the finished cliche with the growth of the characters of the printing set, the cliché plate is attached to a wooden, metal or plastic stand (or block). The cliché is adjusted for a precise height adjustment.