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93-454: Thomas Bewick (c. 11 August 1753 – 8 November 1828) was an English wood-engraver and natural history author. Early in his career he took on all kinds of work such as engraving cutlery , making the wood blocks for advertisements, and illustrating children's books. He gradually turned to illustrating, writing and publishing his own books, gaining an adult audience for the fine illustrations in A History of Quadrupeds . His career began when he

186-473: A Bewick speciality, are small engravings chosen to fill gaps such as those at the ends of the species articles in British Birds , each bird's description beginning on a new page. The images are full of life and movement, often with a moral, sometimes with humour, always with sympathy and precise observation, so the images tell a tale as well as being at the tail ends of articles. For example, the runaway cart, at

279-605: A British-born engraver who had headed the engraving department of the Illustrated London News , immigrated to the United States in 1848, where he developed a means to divide the labour for making wood engravings. A single design was divided into a grid, and each engraver worked on a square. The blocks were then assembled into a single image. This process formed the basis for his Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper , which competed with Harper's in illustrating scenes from

372-608: A anthology on the study of character in the Kings and Queens of England . Given the success of the 1797 publication of his bird illustrations, Bewick started work at once on the second volume, Water Birds , but the disagreement over authorship led to a final split with Beilby. Bewick was unable to control his feelings and resolve issues quietly, so the partnership ended, turbulently and expensively, leaving Bewick with his own workshop. Bewick had to pay £20, equivalent to about £20,000 in 2011, in lawyer's fees, and more than £21 for Beilby's share of

465-434: A dark-to-light technique in which the lines to remain white are cut out of the woodblock. A General History of Quadrupeds appeared in 1790. It deals with 260 mammals from across the world, including animals from " Adive " to " Zorilla ". It is particularly thorough on some of the domestic animals: the first entry describes the horse. Beilby and Bewick had difficulty deciding what to include, and especially on how to organise

558-501: A direct result of the sources that Bewick consulted: his own knowledge of British animals, the available scholarly sources, combined with George Culley 's 1786 Observations on Livestock and the antique John Caius's 1576 On English Dogs . Bewick had to hand the Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman's account of his visit to the Cape of Good Hope on Cook's expedition of 1772 to 1776, and animals from

651-458: A dispute over authorship; Bewick refused to have Beilby named as the author, and in the end only Bewick's name appeared on the title-page, along with a paragraph of explanation at the end of the preface. It may be proper to observe, that while one of the editors of this work was engaged in preparing the Engravings, the compilation of the descriptions was undertaken by the other, subject, however, to

744-592: A farthing less than double that sum. … I am glad to find you have begun on your own bottom, and I would earnestly recommend you to establish your character by taking uncommon pains with what you do.' The quotation seems to indicate that John Bewick had set up on his own account in November 1787, the date of the letter to which the above is an answer. It gives some idea besides of the prices paid for wood-engraving both in London and Newcastle, which, as may be seen, were on anything but

837-460: A few days' illness on 8 November 1828, at his home. He was buried in Ovingham churchyard, beside his wife Isabella, who had died two years earlier, and not far from his parents and his brother John. Bewick's art is considered the pinnacle of his medium, now called wood engraving . This is due both to his skill and to the method, which unlike the woodcut technique of his predecessors, carves against

930-462: A high-quality specialist technique of book illustration, and is promoted, for example, by the Society of Wood Engravers , who hold an annual exhibition in London and other British venues. The terms "woodcut" and "wood engraving" were used interchangeably in the early and middle part of the 19th century, until the modern distinction emerged towards the end of the century, with confusion often extending into

1023-413: A liberal scale. Even in the days of Amand-Durand facsimiles the 'Emblems of Mortality' was a praiseworthy memento of those marvellous woodcuts which, as we are now taught to believe, the obscure Hans Lutzelburger engraved after Holbein's designs. In details, John Bewick's copies vary considerably from the originals; and in one instance, that of the 'Creation,' where the earlier illustrator has represented

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1116-418: A more serious work of natural history . In preparation for this Bewick spent several years engraving the wood blocks for Land Birds , the first volume of A History of British Birds . Given his detailed knowledge of the birds of Northumberland, Bewick prepared the illustrations, so Beilby was given the task of assembling the text, which he struggled to do. Bewick ended up writing most of the text, which led to

1209-475: A partner in Beilby's workshop. The joint business prospered, becoming Newcastle's leading engraving service with an enviable reputation for high-quality work and good service. In September 1776 he went to London for eight months, finding the city rude, deceitful and cruel, and much disliking the unfairness of extreme wealth and poverty side by side. He returned to his beloved Newcastle as soon as he could, but his time in

1302-595: A series of diagrams on wood for Charles Hutton , illustrating a treatise on measurement . He seems thereafter to have devoted himself entirely to engraving on wood, and in 1775 he received a prize from the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce for a wood engraving of the "Huntsman and the Old Hound" from Select Fables by the late Mr Gay , which he was illustrating. In 1776 Bewick became

1395-483: A slightly different character. The block is manipulated on a "sandbag" (a sand-filled circular leather cushion). This helps the engraver produce curved or undulating lines with minimal manipulation of the cutting tool. Wood engravers use a range of specialized tools. The lozenge graver is similar to the burin used by copper engravers of Bewick's day, and comes in different sizes. Various sizes of V-shaped graver are used for hatching. Other, more flexible, tools include

1488-546: A small colliery at Mickley Bank, which employed perhaps six men. Bewick attended school in the nearby village of Ovingham . Bewick did not flourish at schoolwork, but at a very early age showed a talent for drawing. He had no lessons in art. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to Ralph Beilby , an engraver in Newcastle, where he learnt how to engrave on wood and metal, for example marking jewellery and cutlery with family names and coats of arms. In Beilby's workshop Bewick engraved

1581-437: A supplement in 1821. The Birds is specifically British, but is the forerunner of all modern field guides. Bewick was helped by his intimate knowledge of the habits of animals acquired during his frequent excursions into the country. He also recounts information passed to him by acquaintances and local gentry, and that obtained in natural history works of his time, including those by Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White , as well as

1674-447: Is almost all about woodcut and its much longer history, with Thomas Bewick only appearing from page 558. Chatto is ready to call individual woodcuts "cuts", but seems never to use "woodcut". Most of his illustrations are in fact wood engravings, by John Jackson , mostly reproducing woodcuts. Wood-engraving: A Manual of Instruction by William James Linton in 1884 and A History of Wood-engraving by George Edward Woodberry in 1883 are

1767-455: Is followed by a prose and a verse moral and then a lengthy prose reflection; the third, "Fables in Verse", includes fables from other sources in poems by several unnamed authors. Engravings were initially designed on the wood by Bewick and then cut by his apprentices under close supervision, refined where necessary by himself. This edition used a method that Bewick had pioneered, "white-line" engraving,

1860-525: Is given in the 'Preface' to the 'Proverbs.' Besides these there are the 'Looking Glass for the Mind,' 1792, the charming 'Tales for Youth,' 1794, and the 'Blossoms of Morality,' 1796. The appearance of the 'Blossoms of Morality' was for some time delayed in consequence of the illness of the artist, and long (before it was published John Bewick was sleeping in Oyingham churchyard. His health had been seriously impaired by

1953-517: Is impossible to give any detailed or exhaustive account, nor is it needful, as they have all a strong family resemblance. The first two, 'Proverbs Exemplified,' 1790, and the 'Progress of Man and Society;' 1791, were by Hogarth's commentator, Dr. Trusler. The former is sufficiently explained by its title; the latter is a kind of modern version of the old Latin and High Dutch 'Orbis Pictos' of Comenius published at Amsterdam in 1667. Both of these books are undoubtedly illustrated by John Bewick alone whose name

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2046-560: Is memorialised around Newcastle and Gateshead with streets named after him, and plaques mark his former homes and workshops. Wood engraving Thomas Bewick developed the wood engraving technique in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century. His work differed from earlier woodcuts in two key ways. First, rather than using woodcarving tools such as knives, Bewick used an engraver's burin (graver). With this, he could create thin delicate lines, often creating large dark areas in

2139-427: Is of minor importance, for at least two years previous to its appearance John Bewick had been resident in London. According to the 'Memoir of Thomas Bewick,' John continued in his apprenticeship for about five years, when his brother gave him his liberty, and he left Newcastle for London. Here he found immediate and active, though not lucrative employment, chiefly on blocks for children's books. Hugo's Catalogue gives us

2232-411: Is required, and images must be printed separately from the text, at far greater expense. Bewick made use of his close observation of nature, his remarkable visual memory, and his sharp eyesight to create accurate and extremely small details in his wood engravings, which proved to be both a strength and a weakness. If properly printed and closely examined, his prints could be seen to convey subtle clues to

2325-455: Is somewhat difficult to speak of John Bewick's merits as an artist and engraver. Much of his work bears evident signs of haste, as well as of an invention which was far in advance of his powers of execution. He had evidently a keen eye for character, and considerable skill in catching strongly marked expression. Many of the little groups in the 'Proverbs exemplified' might be elaborated into striking studies. His animals, too, are admirable — witness

2418-706: Is the wealth and rarity of the historical information they have to offer. Thomas Bewick Primary School, in West Denton in Newcastle upon Tyne , is named after him. Bewick's works are held in collections including the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum . Newcastle's City Library has a collection of works and associated items based on the Pease Bequest which was made to the city by John William Pease in 1901. Bewick

2511-590: The Beggarstaff Brothers . Timothy Cole was a traditional wood engraver, executing copies from museum paintings on commission from magazines such as The Century Magazine . Wood engraving blocks are typically made of boxwood or other hardwoods such as lemonwood or cherry. They are expensive to purchase because end-grain wood must be a section through the trunk or large bough of a tree. Some modern wood engravers use substitutes made of PVC or resin, mounted on MDF , which produce similarly detailed results of

2604-453: The letterpress type of the text. The Oxford University Press used boxwood engraved on the end-grain for these by this time. At the end of the 18th century, the English artist and author Thomas Bewick is "usually considered the founder of wood-engraving" as "the first to realize its full potentialities" for larger illustrations. Bewick generally engraved harder woods, such as, rather than

2697-408: The spitsticker , for fine undulating lines; the round scorper for curved textures; and the flat scorper for clearing larger areas. Wood engraving is generally a black-and-white technique. However, a handful of wood engravers also work in colour, using three or four blocks of primary colours—in a way parallel to the four-colour process in modern printing. To do this, the printmaker must register

2790-407: The 'Gay's Fables,' seeing that he was only in the second year of his apprenticeship when it was first published. To the 'Select Fables' of 1784 the argument of inexperience does not equally apply; but it may be noted that John Bewick's work, for many years subsequent to 1784, will not either in draughtsmanship or engraving sustain a comparison with the illustrations in that volume. Moreover, though this

2883-454: The 1776 edition. Bewick went on to produce a third edition of the fables. While convalescing from a dangerous illness in 1812, he turned his attention to a long-cherished venture, a large three-volume edition of The Fables of Aesop and Others , eventually published in 1818. The work is divided into three sections: the first has some of Dodsley's fables prefaced by a short prose moral; the second has "Fables with Reflections", in which each story

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2976-405: The 1890s. With the new century, improvements in the half-tone process rendered this kind of reproductive engraving obsolete. In a less sophisticated form, it survived in advertisements and trade catalogues until about 1930. With this change, wood engraving was left free to develop as a creative form in its own right, a movement prefigured in the late 1800s by such artists as Joseph Crawhall II and

3069-471: The 20th century among non-specialists. At the start of the 19th, both "wood engraving" and "woodcut" were often used for both types, so that the title page of A History of British Fishes (1835), by William Yarrell boasts "illustrated by nearly 400 woodcuts", which in fact are all wood-engravings, from one of the classic works using the technique. On the other hand, A Treatise on Wood Engraving, Historical and Practical (1839), by William Andrew Chatto ,

3162-469: The Aldi and Elsevirs of old, and the preface proudly sets forth the luxuries of its type, its printing, its Whatman paper, and its embellishments. To this book John Bewick contributed one cut, drawn and engraved by him in illustration of the well-known passage in the 'Deserted Village' respecting the old watercress gatherer. He is also understood to have designed two of the vignettes and one of the tail-pieces. During

3255-476: The American Civil War. By the mid-19th century, electrotyping was developed, which could reproduce a wood engraving on metal. By this method, a single wood-engraving could be mass-produced for sale to printshops, and the original retained without wear. Until 1860, artists working for engraving had to paint or draw directly on the surface of the woodblock and the original artwork was actually destroyed by

3348-490: The British Museum. In 15th- and 16th-century Europe, woodcuts were a common technique in printmaking and printing, yet their use as an artistic medium began to decline in the 17th century. They were still made for basic printing press work such as newspapers or almanacs. These required simple blocks that printed in relief with the text—rather than the elaborate intaglio forms in book illustrations and artistic printmaking at

3441-413: The Newcastle artist Thomas Sword Good as "a man of athletic make, nearly 6 feet high and proportionally stout. He possessed great personal courage and in his younger years was not slow to repay an insult with personal chastisement. On one occasion, being assaulted by two pitmen on returning from a visit to Cherryburn, he resolutely turned upon the aggressors, and as he said, 'paid them both well'." Bewick

3534-454: The Society itself. According to Uglow, when Bewick came to sit for the sculptor, he "stoutly refused to be portrayed in a toga. Instead he wore his ordinary coat and waistcoat with neckcloth and ruffled shirt, and even asked for some of his smallpox scars to be shown." Baily was so taken with him that he presented Bewick with a plaster model of the finished bust. A bronze copy now rests in a niche of

3627-637: The Southern Cape figure largely in the book. It was an energetic muddle, but it was at once greeted with enthusiasm by the British public. They liked the combination of vigorous woodcuts, simple and accurate descriptions, and all kinds of exotic animals alongside things they knew. A History of British Birds , Bewick's great achievement and with which his name is inseparably associated, was published in two volumes: History and Description of Land Birds in 1797 and History and Description of Water Birds in 1804, with

3720-408: The United States. Bewick's innovations also relied on the improved smoother papers developed in the 18th century. Without these the detail of his images would not have appeared reliably. Alexander Anderson introduced the technique to the United States. Bewick's work impressed him, so he reverse engineered and imitated Bewick's technique—using metal until he learned that Bewick used wood. There it

3813-600: The bird for later editions of British Birds . The critic John Ruskin compared the subtlety of his drawing to that of Holbein , J. M. W. Turner , and Paolo Veronese writing that the way Bewick had engraved the feathers of his birds was "the most masterly thing ever done in woodcutting". His fame faded as illustration became more widespread and more mechanical, but twentieth-century artists such as Gwen Raverat continued to admire his skill, and work by artists such as Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious has been described as reminiscent of Bewick. Hugh Dixon, reflecting on Bewick and

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3906-480: The black ink stayed 'type high.' A workman rolled or daubed a layer of ink over the incised surface, laid a sheet of paper on it, pressed it down with a roller, pulled the paper away from the sticky substance," and the result was a printed image. Besides interpreting details of light and shade, from the 1820s onwards, engravers used the method to reproduce freehand line drawings . This was, in many ways an unnatural application, since engravers had to cut away almost all

3999-475: The blocks (make sure they print in exactly the same place on the page). Recently, engravers have begun to use lasers to engrave wood. John Bewick (engraver) John Bewick (March 1760 – 5 December 1795) was an English wood engraver . Bewick was the younger brother of Thomas Bewick . He was born at Cherryburn in March 1760. In 1777 he was apprenticed to Bewick and Beilby. It has been asserted that, during

4092-457: The blocks last for many thousands of prints, and importantly can be assembled into the same forme as the letterpress or metal type for the text, allowing both on the same page, and all the printing to be done in a single run. In contrast, copper plate engravings are an intaglio printing technique, inked in the engraved grooves, the face being wiped clean of ink before printing, so a special type of printing press applying much higher pressure

4185-519: The books illustrated by him. Later still, the poet Alfred Tennyson left his own tribute on the flyleaf of a copy of Bewick's History of British Birds found in Lord Ravenscroft's library: There are numerous portraits of Bewick. In 1825, the Literary and Philosophical Society commissioned Edward Hodges Baily to sculpt a marble portrait bust of Bewick; there are several copies beside the one still at

4278-487: The building that replaced his workshop in the churchyard of Saint Nicholas (see above) and still another is at the British Museum . There is also a full-length statue of him at the top left of the former chemist's shop designed by M.V.Treleaven at 45 Northumberland Street in the city. Bewick's fame, already nationwide across Britain for his Birds , grew during the nineteenth century. In 1830, William Yarrell named Bewick's swan in his honour and Bewick's son Robert engraved

4371-409: The capital gave him a wider reputation, business experience, and an awareness of new movements in art. In 1786, when he was financially secure, he married Isabella Elliott from Ovingham; she had been a friend when they were children. They had four children, Robert, Jane, Isabella, and Elizabeth; the daughters worked on their father's memoir after his death. At that period in his life he was described by

4464-426: The character of his natural subjects, with humour and feeling. This was achieved by carefully varying the depth of the engraved grooves to provide actual greys, not only black and white, as well as the pattern of the marks to provide texture. But this subtlety of engraving created a serious technical difficulty for his printers; they needed to ink his blocks with just the right amount of ink, mixed so as to be of exactly

4557-454: The close confinement of the metropolis; and though a visit to Cherryburn seems to have partially restored him, be was finally obliged to return to his native air in the summer of 1796, and shortly afterwards died of consumption. In the year of his death was published a sumptuous edition of the 'Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell' due to the enterprise of that William Bulmer, of the ' Shakepeare Printing Office,' whom his contemporaries fondly likened to

4650-412: The composition. Second, wood engraving traditionally uses the wood's end grain —while the older technique used the softer side grain. The resulting increased hardness and durability facilitated more detailed images. Wood-engraved blocks could be used on conventional printing presses , which were going through rapid mechanical improvements during the first quarter of the 19th century. The blocks were made

4743-423: The corrections of his friend, whose habits led him to a more intimate acquaintance with this branch of Natural History. – Land Birds, Preface. The book was an immediate success when published—by Beilby and Bewick themselves—in 1797. Before its publication, Bewick illustrated Arnaud Berquin's Looking-Glass for the Mind in 1792 and J. H. Wynne's Tales for Youth in 1794 for the printer Elizabeth Newbery and in 1795

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4836-569: The darkest areas. This technique appears in wood-engravings after Gustave Doré . Towards the end of the 19th century, a combination of Bolton's 'photo on wood' process and the increased technical virtuosity initiated by the French school gave wood engraving a new application as a means of reproducing drawings in water-colour wash (as opposed to line drawings) and actual photographs. This is exemplified in illustrations in The Strand Magazine during

4929-630: The earlier designs of Thomas Bewick are followed. This book affords an opportunity of comparing the brothers on similar grounds, and the superiority of the elder is incontestable. Next to Gay comes a book which has usually been placed first, the 'Emblems of Mortality,' published by T. Hodgson in 1789. This is a copy of the famous 'Icones,' or 'Imagines Mortis,' of Holbein, from the Latin edition issued at Lyons in 1647 by Jean Frellon 'Soubz l'escu de Cologne.' Hugo associates Thomas Bewick with John in this work; and we have certainly seen an edition which has both names on

5022-576: The end of "The Sparrow-Hawk", fills what would otherwise be a 5 cm (2 in) high gap. Hugh Dixon explains: The runaway cart is a wonderful mixture of action and danger. The boys have been playing in the cart and the horse has bolted; perhaps the dog's barking was the cause. The drawing of the wheel—an extraordinary depiction for its time—shows that the cart has gathered speed. One boy has already fallen and probably hurt himself. The others hang on shouting with fear. And why has it all happened? The carter with his tankard in his hand runs too late from

5115-463: The engraver. In 1860, however, the engraver Thomas Bolton invented a process for transferring a photograph onto the block. At about the same time, French engravers developed a modified technique (partly a return to that of Bewick) in which cross-hatching (one set of parallel lines crossing another at an angle) was almost eliminated. Instead, all tonal gradations were rendered by white lines of varying thickness and closeness, sometimes broken into dots for

5208-502: The engravings for Oliver Goldsmith 's Traveller and The Deserted Village , for Thomas Parnell 's Hermit , and for William Somervile 's Chase . But "the best known of all Bewick's prints" is said by The Bewick Society to be The Chillingham Bull , executed by Bewick on an exceptionally large woodblock for Marmaduke Tunstall , a gentleman who owned an estate at Wycliffe in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The tail- or tale-pieces,

5301-450: The entries. They had hoped to arrange the animals systematically, but they found that the rival systems of Linnaeus , Buffon and John Ray conflicted, and in Linnaeus's case at least changed with every edition of his work. They decided to put useful animals first "which so materially contribute to the strength, the wealth, and the happiness of this kingdom". The book's coverage is erratic,

5394-448: The eyes of his graver brother, not without its perils. At the time of his death (5 December 1795) he was curving the view of Cherryburn afterwards issued as a frontispiece to the 'Memoir' of 1862. He left it uncompleted, and it was eventually finished by Thomas Bewick. The original sketch, probably made much earlier, is carefully preserved, with, some water-colours and other relics, by his grand-nieces, who still (1884) speak affectionately of

5487-451: The first person of the Trinity in a papal tiara, his imitator, by editorial desire, has substituted a design of his own. But the spirit of the old cuts is almost always preserved; and considering the hasty and ill-paid character of the work, its general fidelity to Holbein is remarkable. After 'Death's Dance' came a little group of books, chiefly intended for the education of children. Of these it

5580-409: The grain , in hard box wood , using fine tools normally favoured by metal engravers. Boxwood cut across the end-grain is hard enough for fine engraving, allowing greater detail than in normal woodcuts; this has largely replaced the basic woodcut since Bewick's time. In addition, since wood engraving is a relief printing technique, inked on the face, it requires only low pressure to print an image, so

5673-428: The inn. Has he been distracted by the shapely girl? And is it an accident that the inn sign looks a little like a gallows? The workshop of Beilby, Bewick, and son produced many ephemeral materials such as letterhead stationery, shop advertisement cards, and other business materials. Of these ephemeral productions, "bookplates have survived the best". Bewick's bookplates were illustrations made from engravings, containing

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5766-521: The inventor of wood-engraving, he was the first to recognise that, as the incisions made by the graver on the wood block printed white, the right use of the medium was to base his designs as much as possible on white lines and areas, and so he became the first to use his graver as a drawing instrument and to employ the medium as an original art. From the beginning of the nineteenth century Bewick's techniques gradually came into wider use, especially in Britain and

5859-490: The je-ne-sais-quoi of "genius". But it also came from the constant habit of drawing as a child, the painstaking learning of technique as an apprentice ... Bewick sometimes used his fingerprint as a form of signature, (accompanied by the words "Thomas Bewick his mark"), as well as engraving it in one of his tail-pieces as if it had clouded the tiny image of a rustic scene with a cottage by mistake. Uglow notes one critic's suggestion that Bewick may have meant we are looking at

5952-473: The landscape of North-East England, wrote that Bewick's illustrated books, admired since they first appeared, gave him some celebrity in his own lifetime. His Memoir , published a generation after his death, brought about a new interest and a widening respect which has continued to grow ever since. The attraction to his contemporaries of Bewick's observations lay in their accuracy and amusement. Two centuries later these qualities are still recognised; but so, too,

6045-466: The last months of his life he was also engaged in making sketches on the block for the Fabliaux of Le Grand, translated by Way, 1790; and for an edition of Somervile's 'Chase' issued by Bulmer in the same year. These were chiefly engraved by Thomas Bewick, who also, he says (Memoir, p. 108), completed the drawings for the 'Chase' after his brother's death. As is generally the case with those who die young, it

6138-482: The line "O now that the genius of Bewick were mine", in which case he would give up writing, he declared. In 1823, Bewick's friend the Reverend J. F. M. Dovaston dedicated a sonnet to him with the lines Four years after his death, his sixteen-year-old admirer Charlotte Brontë wrote a poem of 20 quatrains titled "Lines on the celebrated Bewick" which describe the various scenes she comes across while leafing through

6231-496: The main method of illustrating books for a century. The quality of Bewick's engravings attracted a far wider readership to his books than he had expected: his Fables and Quadrupeds were at the outset intended for children. Bewick ran his workshop collaboratively, developing the skills of his apprentices, so while he did not complete every task for every illustration himself, he was always closely involved, as John Rayner explains: some blocks would be drawn by one brother and cut by

6324-407: The mid-19th century, many wood engravings rivaled copperplate engravings. Wood engraving was used to great effect by 19th-century artists such as Edward Calvert , and its heyday lasted until the early and mid-20th century when remarkable achievements were made by Eric Gill , Eric Ravilious , Tirzah Garwood and others. Though less used now, the technique is still prized in the early 21st century as

6417-433: The name or initials of the book's owner. The various editions of Aesop's Fables illustrated by Bewick span almost his entire creative life. The first was created for the Newcastle bookseller Thomas Saint during his apprentice years, an edition of Robert Dodsley 's Select Fables published in 1776. With his brother John he later contributed to a three-volume edition for the same publisher in 1784, reusing some pictures from

6510-482: The other, the rough work would be done by pupils, who would also, if they showed aptitude, draw and finish designs—on the same principle as the schools of Renaissance painters; and we cannot ... be sure in all cases that the engravings ... are the work of Thomas Bewick from first to last, but he had a hand to a great extent in nearly all, and certainly had the last word in all of them. Works using his wood engraving technique, for which he became well known, include

6603-579: The period is matter for speculation; but examples of it might easily be pointed out in the 'Looking Glass,' the 'Progress of Man,' and elsewhere. As an engraver he falls far below his brother. His style is flatter, more conventional, less happy in black and white. But he improved greatly in his latest work. Only one portrait of John Bewick is known to exist— a crayon by George Gray in the Newcastle Museum. Personally he seems to have been witty, vivacious, and very popular with his associates, an advantage, in

6696-404: The popular prowling cat in 'Tales for Youth,' the hunting scenes in the 'Chase,' and many of the vignettes in the children's books, though a large portion of these last are obvious adaptations of his brother's work. But he seems to have had one quality not possessed by Thomas Bewick, a certain gift of grace, especially in his pictures of children. Whether he caught this from the novel illustration of

6789-401: The right thickness, and to press the block to the paper slowly and carefully, to obtain a result that would satisfy Bewick. This made printing slow and expensive. It also created a problem for Bewick's readers; if they lacked his excellent eyesight, they needed a magnifying glass to study his prints, especially the miniature tail-pieces. But the effect was transformative, and wood engraving became

6882-450: The same height as, and composited alongside, movable type in page layouts —so printers could produce thousands of copies of illustrated pages with almost no deterioration. The combination of this new wood engraving method and mechanized printing drove a rapid expansion of illustrations in the 19th century. Further, advances in stereotype let wood-engravings be reproduced onto metal, where they could be mass-produced for sale to printers. By

6975-494: The same in their use of terms. By the end of the century the modern distinction between the two terms for the two techniques was clear among specialists, with authoritative works like Campbell Dodgson 's Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts (in the British Museum , London, 1903) and eventually Arthur Mayger Hind 's An Introduction to the History of Woodcut (1935). Both authors served as Keeper of prints and drawings at

7068-574: The scene through a playfully smudged window, as well as drawing our attention to Bewick, the maker. Adrian Searle, writing in The Guardian , describes the tiny work as "A visual equivalent to the sorts of authorial gags Laurence Sterne played in Tristram Shandy , it is a marvellous, timeless, magical joke." Poetical tributes came to Bewick even during his lifetime. William Wordsworth began his anecdotal poem "The Two Thieves", composed in 1798, with

7161-534: The small, sharply observed, and often humorous vignettes known as tail-pieces. The book was the forerunner of all modern field guides. He notably illustrated editions of Aesop's Fables throughout his life. He is "usually considered the founder of wood-engraving" as "the first to realize its full potentialities", using metal-engraving tools to cut hard boxwood across the grain, producing printing blocks that could be integrated with metal type, but were much more detailed and durable than traditional woodcuts . The result

7254-550: The surface of the block to produce the printable lines of the artist's drawing. Nonetheless, it became the most common use of wood engraving. Examples include the cartoons of Punch magazine, the pictures in the Illustrated London News and Sir John Tenniel 's illustrations to Lewis Carroll 's works, the latter engraved by the firm of Dalziel Brothers. In the United States, wood-engraved publications also began to take hold, such as Harper's Weekly . Frank Leslie ,

7347-404: The time of his apprenticeship, he assisted his brother in the illustrations to 'Gay's Fables,' 1779, and the 'Select Fables,' 1784. In Bewick's 'Memoir,' however, where some acknowledgment to this effect might reasonably have been expected, there is not a word upon the subject. As a matter of fact, it is difficult to understand what material aid the younger brother could have rendered to the elder in

7440-412: The time, in which type and illustrations were printed with separate plates and techniques. The beginnings of modern wood engraving techniques developed in the late 17th century, by which time publishers of quality books only used the relief printing of wood blocks for small images in the text such as initials, taking advantage of relief printing blocks to be fitted into the same forme or set-up page as

7533-630: The title-page. The early writers, however, assign it to John Bewick alone; and this view is confirmed by the following extract from a letter of Thomas to John, printed in the 'Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland,' &c., for 1877. 'I am much pleased, says Thomas Bewick,' with the Cuts for Death's Dance. … I am surprised that you would undertake to do them for 6s. each. You have been spending your time and grinding out your eyes to little purpose indeed. I would not have done them for

7626-535: The titles of some of these: The 'Children's Miscellany,' by Day of Sandford and Merton fame; the 'Honours of the Table, or Rules for Behaviour during Meals;' the 'History of a School-Boy;' and the 'New Robinson Crusoe.' The date of the last named is 1788, and many of its cuts are signed. But the first work of real importance attributed to Bewick is an edition of 'Gay's Fables,' printed in the same year for J. Buckland and others, in which, with minor variations and some exceptions,

7719-496: The translation of Buffon 's Histoire naturelle . Many of the illustrations that have most frequently been reproduced in other books and as decorations are the small tailpieces that Bewick had placed at the bottoms of the pages of the original. The worlds depicted are so small that a magnifying glass is necessary to examine their detail; each scene, as Adrian Searle writes, "is a small and often comic revelation", each tiny image giving "enormous pleasure"; Bewick "was as inventive as he

7812-542: The wars, and animals with a gallows in the background. Bewick had at least 30 pupils who worked for him and Beilby as apprentices, the first of which was his younger brother John . Several gained distinction as engravers, including John Anderson , Luke Clennell , Charlton Nesbit , William Harvey , Robert Johnson , and his son and later partner Robert Elliot Bewick . The partners published their History of Quadrupeds in 1790, intended for children but reaching an adult readership, and its success encouraged them to consider

7905-581: The woodcut he was working on, a dog afraid of tree stumps that seem in the dark to be devilish figures, and gave Audubon a copy of his Quadrupeds for his children. Bewick was fond of the music of Northumberland, and of the Northumbrian smallpipes in particular. He especially wanted to promote the Northumbrian smallpipes, and to support the piper John Peacock , so he encouraged Peacock to teach pupils to become masters of this kind of music. One of these pupils

7998-426: The woods used in woodcuts, and he engraved the ends of blocks instead of the side. Finding a woodcutting knife not suitable for working against the grain in harder woods, Bewick used a burin (or graver), an engraving tool with a V-shaped cutting tip. As Thomas Balston explains, Bewick abandoned the attempts of previous wood-engravers 'to imitate the black lines of copper engravings. Though not, as frequently asserted,

8091-528: The workshop equipment. With the assistance of his apprentices Bewick brought out the second volume, Water Birds , in 1804, as the sole author. He found the task of managing the printers continually troublesome, but the book met with as much success as the first volume. In April 1827, the American naturalist and bird painter John James Audubon came to Britain to find a suitable printer for his enormous Birds of America . Bewick, still lively at age 74, showed him

8184-408: Was Thomas's son, Robert , whose surviving manuscript tunebooks give a picture of a piper's repertoire in the 1820s. Bewick's last wood engraving, Waiting for Death , was of an old bony workhorse, standing forlorn by a tree stump, which he had seen and sketched as an apprentice; the work echoes William Hogarth 's last work, The Bathos , which shows the fallen artist by a broken column. He died after

8277-426: Was also noted as having a strong moral sense and was an early campaigner for fair treatment of animals. He objected to the docking of horses' tails, the mistreatment of performing animals such as bears, and cruelty to dogs. Above all, he thought war utterly pointless. All these themes recur in his engravings, which echo Hogarth's attention to moral themes. For example, he shows wounded soldiers with wooden legs, back from

8370-421: Was apprenticed to engraver Ralph Beilby in Newcastle upon Tyne . He became a partner in the business and eventually took it over. Apprentices whom Bewick trained include John Anderson , Luke Clennell , and William Harvey , who in their turn became well known as painters and engravers. Bewick is best known for his A History of British Birds , which is admired today mainly for its wood engravings, especially

8463-405: Was further expanded upon by his students, Joseph Alexander Adams . Before the advent of photolithography , newspapers used wood engravings to make photographic reproductions. An artist "meticulously traced the photograph upon the surface of a block of boxwood or other suitable tree, then used a sharp tool to cut out the troughs (the white part of the photo) from the wood. The remaining lines for

8556-415: Was high-quality illustration at a low price. Bewick was born at Cherryburn , a house in the village of Mickley, Northumberland , near Newcastle upon Tyne on 10 or 11 August 1753, although his birthday was always celebrated on the 12th. His parents were tenant farmers: his father John had been married before his union with Jane, and was in his forties when Thomas, the eldest of eight, was born. John rented

8649-479: Was observant, as funny and bleak as he was exacting and faithful to the things he saw around him." Bewick's biographer, Jenny Uglow , writes that Bewick appears to have had a faultless sense of exactly what line was needed, and above all where to stop, as if there were no pause for analysis or reflection between the image in the mind and the hand on the wood. This skill, which has made later generations of engravers pause in awe, could be explained as an innate talent,

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