Page:A History of Wood-Engraving.djvu/155

Rh it more easy to practise, but also involved a change in the mode of drawing. Formerly the effects were given by the designers’ lines, now they were given by the engravers’ lines; in other words, the old workman followed the designer’s drawing, the modern workman draws himself with his graver. By the old method the design was reproduced by keeping the same line-arrangement that the artist employed; by the new method the design is not thus reproduced, but is interpreted by a line-arrangement first conceived by the engraver. In the earlier period the design had to be a drawing in line for the engraver to cut out and reproduce by leaving the original lines in relief; now the design may be a washed sketch, the tints of which the engraver reproduces by cutting lines of his own in intaglio. The change required the modern engraver to understand how to arrange white lines so as to obtain artistic effects; he thus becomes an artist in proportion to his knowledge and skill in such arrangement. It is clear that, no matter how much mechanical skill, firmness, justness and delicacy of touch were requisite in the older manner of following carefully and precisely the lines already drawn upon the block, still the engraver was precluded from exercising any original artistic power he might have; he could appreciate the artistic value of the design before him, and, like Hans Lützelburger, show his appreciation by his fidelity in rendering it, but the lines were not his own. The new method of reproducing artists’ work by means of lines first conceived and arranged by the engraver requires, besides skill of hand, qualities of mind—perception and origination, and the judgment that results from cultivated taste. This is what is meant when it is said that the true art of wood-engraving is not a hundred years old,