Part 5 (2/2)
Lastly, and chiefly, by the ry The hs at hinant with hi to be preacher now; here is your own hour-glass, ready for s which you have spoken, _this_ is the suned and sealed There's your text for to-day
89 Of this other picture, theis more plain, and far aunt, and has passed his days, not in speaking, but pressing the iron into the ground And the pays, and his feet are bare on the clods; and he has no hat--but the brih But all the air is full of ware church, there is, at last, light indeed His horses lag in the furrow, and his own li field,' says Death; 'but we'll get to the end of it to-day,--you and I'
90 And now that we know the , we are able to discuss the technical qualities farther
Both of these engravings, you will find, are executed with blunt lines; but more than that, they are executed with quiet lines, entirely steady
Now, here I have in e type of the nize[R]
The shade in this is drawn on the wood, (not _cut_, but drawn, observe,) at the rate of at least ten lines in a second: Holbein's, at the rate of about one line in three seconds[S]
91 Now there are two different matters to be considered with respect to these two opposed h easy to the artist, is very difficult to the wood-cutter; so that it implies instantly a separation between the two crafts, and that your wood-cutter has ceased to be a draughtsman I shall return to this point I wish to insist on the other first; na itself
92 When the hand moves at the rate of ten lines in a second, it is indeed under the government of the muscles of the wrist and shoulder; but it cannot possibly be under the co line evenly, because I have got the use of the hand from practice; and the faster it is done, the evener it will be
But I have no ulates them Whereas, when I draw at the rate of two or three seconds to each line, my hand disobeys the reat; nay, there ceases to be any _appearance_ of dexterity at all But there is, in reality, more manual skill required in the sloork than in the swift,--and all the while the hand is thoroughly under the orders of the brains Holbein deliberately resolves, for every line, as it goes along, that it shall be so thick, so far froin here, and stop there And he is deliberately assigning the ut to it, that a line will carry
93 It is not fair, however, to coe with the best of another Here is a woodcut of Tenniel's, which I think contains as high qualities as it is possible to find in modern art[T] I hold it as beyond others fine, because there is not the slightest caricature in it No face, no attitude, is pushed beyond the degree of natural humor they would have possessed in life; and in precision ofis equal to the art of any tiulated, be quite adequate to producing an immortal work
94 Why, then, is it _not_ immortal? You yourselves, in coot it the next week It will becoe and feeling will ever keep this in his cabinet of treasure, as he does these woodcuts of Holbein's
The reason is that this is base coin,--alloyed gold There _is_ gold in it, but also a quantity of brass and lead--willfully added--to old, seven times tried in the fire Of which co here is, first, that to catch the vulgar eye a quantity of,--so-called,--light and shade is added by Tenniel It is effective to an ignorant eye, and is ingeniously disposed; but it is entirely conventional and false, unendurable by any person who knohat chiaroscuro is
Secondly, for one line that Holbein lays, Tenniel has a dozen There are, for instance, a hundred and fifty-seven lines in Sir Peter Teazle's ithout counting dots and slight cross-hatching;--but the entire face and flowing hair of Holbein's preacher are done with forty-five lines, all told
95 Now observe what a different state of mind the two artists must be in on such conditions;--one, never in a hurry, never doing anything that he knows is wrong; never doing a line badly that he can do better; and appealing only to the feelings of sensitive persons, and the judgment of attentive ones That is Holbein's habit of soul What is the habit of soul of every s which he knows to be wrong--(Tenniel knows his light and shade to be wrong as well as I do)--continually doing things badly which he was able to do better; and appealing exclusively to the feelings of the dull, and the judgment of the inattentive
Do you suppose that is not enough to inal genius being supposed alike in both?[U]
96 Thus far of the state of the artist himself I pass, next to the relation between him and his subordinate, the wood-cutter
The modern artist requires hi only,--the old artist requires hiether The actual proportion is roughly, and on the average, about one to twenty of cost in manual labor, ancient to modern,--the twentieth part of the mechanical labor, to produce an immortal instead of a perishable work,--the twentieth part of the labor; and--which is the greatest difference of all--that twentieth part, at once less mechanically difficult, and eneral History of Engraving, says, ”The greatest difficulty in wood engraving occurs in clearing out the hts;”
and in any modern woodcut you will see that where the lines of the drawing cross each other to produce shade, the white interstices are cut out so neatly that there is no appearance of any jag or break in the lines; they look exactly as if they had been draith a pen It is chiefly difficult to cut the pieces clearly out when the lines cross at right angles; easier when they form oblique or diamond-shaped interstices; but in any case sos as many as twenty, are required to clear one interstice
Therefore if I carelessly draw six strokes with my pen across other six, I produce twenty-five interstices, each of which will need at least six, perhaps twenty, careful touches of the burin to clear out--Say ten for an average; and I demand two hundred and fifty exquisitely precise touches froraver, to render ten careless ones of mine
97 Now I take up Punch, at his best The whole of the left side of John Bull's waistcoat--the shadow on his knee-breeches and great-coat--the whole of the Lord Chancellor's gown, and of John Bull's and Sir Peter Teazle's complexions, are worked with finished precision of cross-hatching These have indeed soratuitous way, the wall below theis cross-hatched too, and that not with a double, but a treble line (Fig
4)
There are about thirty of these columns, with thirty-five interstices each: approximately, 1,050--certainly not fewer--interstices to be deliberately cut clear, to get that two inches square of shado calculate--or think enough to feel the i--the number of woodcuts used daily for our popular prints, and how1,050 square holes to the square inch, as the occupation of their manly life And Mrs Beecher Stowe and the North Americans fancy they have abolished slavery!
[Illustration: FIG 4]
98 The workman cannot have even the consolation of pride; for his task, even in its finest accomplishment, is not really difficult,--only tedious When you have once got into the practice, it is as easy as lying To cut regular holes WITHOUT a purpose is easy enough; but to cut _ir_regular holes WITH a purpose, that is difficult, forever;--no tricks of tool or trade will give you power to do that