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    Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving
    Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving
    Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving
    Ebook69 pages40 minutes

    Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving

    By Jacob Kainen

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving

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      Book preview

      Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving - Jacob Kainen

      The Project Gutenberg eBook, Why Bewick Succeeded, by Jacob Kainen

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Why Bewick Succeeded

      A Note in the History of Wood Engraving

      Author: Jacob Kainen

      Release Date: September 7, 2009 [eBook #29928]

      Language: English

      Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

      ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHY BEWICK SUCCEEDED***

      E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Miranda van de Heijning, Joseph Cooper,

      and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

      (http://www.pgdp.net)

      Contributions from

      The Museum of History and Technology:

      Paper 11

      Why Bewick Succeeded: A Note in the History of Wood Engraving

      Jacob Kainen

      WHY BEWICK SUCCEEDED:

      By Jacob Kainen

      A Note in the History of Wood Engraving

      Thomas Bewick has been acclaimed as the pioneer of modern wood engraving whose genius brought this popular medium to prominence. This study shows that certain technological developments prepared a path for Bewick and helped give his work its unique character.

      The Author: Jacob Kainen is curator of graphic arts, Museum of History and Technology, in the Smithsonian Institution's United States National Museum.

      No other artist has approached Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) as the chronicler of English rustic life. The little wood engravings which he turned out in such great number were records of typical scenes and episodes, but the artist could also give them social and moral overtones. Such an approach has attracted numerous admirers who have held him in esteem as an undoubted homespun genius. The fact that he had no formal training as a wood engraver, and actually never had a lesson in drawing, made his native inspiration seem all the more authentic.

      The Contemporary View of Bewick

      After 1790, when his A general history of quadrupeds appeared with its vivid animals and its humorous and mordant tailpiece vignettes, he was hailed in terms that have hardly been matched for adulation. Certainly no mere book illustrator ever received equal acclaim. He was pronounced a great artist, a great man, an outstanding moralist and reformer, and the master of a new pictorial method. This flood of eulogy rose increasingly during his lifetime and continued throughout the remainder of the 19th century. It came from literary men and women who saw him as the artist of the common man; from the pious who recognized him as a commentator on the vanities and hardships of life (but who sometimes deplored the frankness of his subjects); from bibliophiles who welcomed him as a revolutionary illustrator; and from fellow wood engravers for whom he was the indispensable trail blazer.

      During the initial wave of Bewick appreciation, the usually sober Wordsworth wrote in the 1805 edition of Lyrical ballads:[1]

      O now that the genius of Bewick were mine,

      And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne!

      Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose,

      For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose.

      What feats would I work with my magical hand!

      Book learning and books would be banished the land.

      If

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