Xylography

Xylography (from Greek xylon – ‘wood’ and grapho – ‘to draw’) is a variety of printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood. The process involves cutting a design on a wood block, covering it with ink and making impressions on a paper or similar material. The varieties of xylographic engraving include woodcuts and tonal (reproduction) engravings. The method of xylography was introduced in Western Europe in the late 14^th century, and tonal xylography, where a print is produced using several blocks, – in the 15^th century.

Xylography is the oldest printmaking method. The idea to cut a design or an ornament on the simplest, easily available material such as a piece of wood, then to cover the piece with ink and to print from it on a fabric or paper was conceived a very long time ago. Perhaps in fact xylography is older than is shown in the official record, according to which the method originated in the 6^th-7^th centuries in the Orient (the oldest extant xylograph dates to 868 and is kept at the British Library), and in the late 14^th century in Europe.

Over six centuries, the technical methods of xylography have become more sophisticated but the basics remain the same. The making of a xylograph requires a block of wood – pear or beech wood (for a woodcut – a block cut along the grain). A design is carved into the surface of the wood block, in the reverse position, because the print will come out with a mirror image. All the printing parts remain level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges, in other words – cut away: hence the appellation “woodcut”.  The process of cutting requires a variety of tools – chisels, knives, gouges of different width and depth of the cut. When the relief is accomplished, a printing ink is applied to the block with a roller: the raised areas would be covered with the ink, the hollowed-out sections would remain white, and the block with a paper secured on it would be passed through a heavy press (unless the print is hand-made) to pull an impression. Prints can be made in nearly infinite numbers, but the more the block is used, the poorer the print, because the edges become frayed over time.

Wood is the main material used in xylography. It has a certain density, structure of the grain and resistance to cutting, which limits the artistic potential for drawing – conveying swift lightsome strokes and fluid lineaments, scratching fine sharp lines with a needle are nearly impossible in xylography because the grain of wood resists the progress of the tool.

However, all these difficulties were resolved in the 1780s, when the English artist and engraver Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) decided it was good to use blocks cut against the grain (in most cases, buxus), which have harder texture, and thus invented wood engraving. The process of creating wood engravings, as the process of creating metal engravings, requires different varieties of burin (a steel shaft with a very sharp cutting face). As in woodcuts, all non-printing areas of the surface are removed. But thanks to the hardness of the material and more sophisticated tools this can be achieved by a wide array of techniques – punching dots, applying invisible strokes, scratching. This kind of engraving is also known as tonal engraving, because the method enables to relatively easily create areas of different tonal intensity by varying the density of the fine and diverse hatches, to convey a texture, to paint with spots. This method allows for more faithful reproductions of paintings and drawings, which explains why it also has another name – reproduction engraving.

The desire to picture the world in colour and to copy paintings preserving their original colour scheme brought about such technique as colour xylography. The method involved application of several blocks, with every new colour applied to an area reserved for it on a separate block and blended colours produced by imposing one paint over another. Perhaps in Europe such experiments were first undertaken in the Venetian artist Ugo da Carpi’s workshop. He called the technique he invented chiaroscuro (from Italian chiaroscuro – ‘light and shade’). Ugo da Carpi made prints using two, three or more blocks at a time, utilizing one block to print contours and wide black lines, and another one, to print spots of a particular colour tone to achieve the chiaroscuro effect. This method enabled engravers to achieve subtle tonal gradations and, accordingly, a more painterly quality. The revival of colour woodcuts in the 19^th century was helped along by a “discovery” of Ugo da Carpi’s works and the enthusiasm for Japanese engraving.

In Russia xylography has had quite a long history. First noteworthy xylographs were produced in the middle and the second half of the 19^th century by engravers such as Valentin Bernadsky, Lavrenty Seryakov, Vasily Math?.  Math?, in his turn, taught Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Ivan Fomin, Ivan Pavlov, Pavel Shillingovsky, Vadim Falileev. Other artists involved with engraving who started their careers in the 1910s include David Shterenberg, Vladimir Favorsky, Pavel Pavlinov, Alexey Kravchenko, Nikolay Kupreyanov, Vasily Masiutin. All these masters contributed a lot to the formation of Soviet school of xylography, relying on the time-honoured genres of illustration – portraits, landscapes, cityscapes and architectural views, book illustrations. The Soviet school was distinguished by its attention both to the old Realist style and folk art and to the avant-garde trends, as well as by close ties with printing industry.

Vladimir Favorsky, who re-introduced woodcut into book printing, was a key figure in the history of Soviet xylography after the 1920s. He was a teacher to a whole constellation of fine masters and promoted innovations in graphic art. He influenced such artists as Andrei Goncharov, Georgy Echeistov, Mikhail Pikov. Book illustration was the niche reserved for xylography in Soviet art, and the xylographers included such artists as Vladimir Favorsky, Pavel Pavlinov, Nikolai Piskarev, Pyotr Staronosov, Andrei Goncharov and others.