A Small History of the Woodcut, Part II

Much like the printed matter before, the ability to reproduce en masse went from images to words. The woodcut allowed illustrations to sit alongside text, and so was born the modern world of mass communication. Post-Reformation Germany saw the destruction of many Catholic imagery, but the printmakers sought a new Protestant market. Luther saw the value of the prints imagery, "Children and simple folk.... are more easily moved by pictures and images to recall divine history than through mere words or doctrines." He and others utilised this for the building protestant zeal arising. England followed suite after, beginning production in around 1500. Russia caught up with Europe within the 17th century, producing popular prints called Luboks, this started in the monasteries and iconographic prints were being produced and later more popular, cultural prints.

A Russian Lubok from the Korean Picture Bible, 1692-1696

In post reformation England (I'm sure many prints were used as kindling for fires), the most common category of popular print before the 19th century was the ballad illustrated with simple woodcuts. Their popularity is known due to literary references to prints in taverns and on cottage walls. One example being Isaak Walton's Piscator takes his chum to an 'honest ale-house, where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall.' These ballads often recount bawdy exploits and traditional tales of adventure, stories and fables. I suppose this was in a time where the ballad was a backbone, where learning and meaning was found through songs, poetry and imagery. Which of course we still have today, but it is an altogether different mode, and in the dominating culture perhaps not as moral.

The Ballad, James Hardy, 1861

Amongst this, as innovations in paper making and printing were being made, other prints were becoming more available, almanacs, broadsides, advertising, children’s books, high art prints, the printed image was finding its way into every house.

It is hard to generalise when it comes to these prints, as there is scant remains. But there are enough which give an insight into the themes and subjects of them. These are:

Religion and Morality: A flourishing market for religious texts in the form of books and broadsides and decorative prints to tack to your wall to read and remind you to keep on the straight and narrow.

Patriotism and the status quo: Aimed at a politically naïve public, images of the nations heroes and their famous victories, Kings and Queens, a not so subtle expression of national fervour and pride in ones country. Rather than a poster of whatever popular musician is in the limelight you would have instead Sir Thomas Fairfax or the famous naval ship Victory.

Crime and execution: The earliest descriptions of printed executions were of Christian Martyrs. John Foxe's Book of Martys starting in 1559 was still being printed for just over a hundred years. Then the tabloids picked up on stories of criminals and their ill-doings, with tales of their evil. Even in the 16th century there was a market for portraits for notorious criminals. Like Mary Blandy of 1751, who poisoned her father so she could run off with an army officer who was already married to a wife in Scotland. The scandal!

Phenomena and freaks of nature: German reformation prints of strange animals, and acts such as earthquakes, comets and eclipses usually portray them as warnings from God. Though some cases of this happen in England, it was often just a news item to marvel at. For instance, a broadside about conjoined twins born in Oxfordshire 1552.

Marriage and cuckoldry: Single sided prints showing the happy and unhappy marriage, complacent husbands or unhappy husbands wedlocked to a drunken woman and vice versa.

Drinking, good fellowship and temperance: Prints showing the warnings of drunkenness, and messages of good moral character to ones peers.

These categories are loosely based on those which Samuel Peppys organised in his collection of 1775 ballads. What is fascinating in this period of the growth of print is seeing the birth of modern media develop, and other than style and production methods, at the core it is still the same. The printed matter was a means of getting ideas across fast, there was an industry for print and thus were able to be produced cheap enough to be spread across towns and cities.

Now we are reaching the modern woodcut. I suppose this a rather complex era, and it facilitates lots of shifting themes, and where does modern even begin? The Chinese were wiping their posterior with toilet paper and eating ice cream a thousand years ago and that seems modern to me! You could make the case that the modern period of art began in the Renaissance, the invention of perspective endangered the lucid arrangement of medieval style and the individual Artist with a capital A was also born then. But even then the artist had their role in a tradition and most importantly a craft.

The most important impact on the craft was of course the industrial revolution. As this was the decline of craftsmanship and the rise of machine. This is quite hard to articulate briefly, but at the core it began the breakaway from tradition. A spiritual crisis, the artisan and craftsman started to lose their place and secureness in their role. This was when some artists started growing their hair and having beards, dressing in velvet and corduroys with loose ties, moving away from traditional conventions. Thinking of art as a means of expressing individuality, only if the artist had an individuality to express, the hipsters of the day. This period opened the continual search for a new standard. It was an uprooting and the desperate clawing to be rooted again, but seeking new means of doing so. I think we are at the zenith of this sentiment today, where we have the choice of an insular, hedonistic individualism, or the recognition of the importance of tradition, community and holiness. Expression of individuality is not so radical anymore, if anything the opposite is now the wilder, more punk path.

One artistic movement that pursued a new standard found it in the past, particularly the middle ages, was the Arts & Crafts movement. This was a nostalgic picturing of the Middle Ages as a sort of utopia where the Christian virtues of faith and charity prevailed, and the craftsman was happy in his work, knowing his place. It favoured simplicity and saw the machine as deeply problematic. But rather than destroying the machines, they set out to prove a higher standard through the quality of the handmade. The well known William Morris was a key component to the Arts & Crafts movement, his practice encompassed many crafts, one was indeed the woodcut. For his practice, it was used in the production of wallpapers and for books at the Kelmscott Press. The techniques remained the same in the ever changing age of industry. This work is revered today still. Though I’m sure he would be appalled to find his designs now mass produced on an industrial scale, sold on the cover of diaries and on pens in nearly every National Trust property across Britain.

The Arts & Crafts medieval charm fell out of style but it’s legacy and teachings have lived on, continually being revived through this past century. It’s failing as a long standing enterprise is that it was a pastiche of the Medieval, harkening back to a time that was no more and couldn’t fit into the machine world. The key element being that the labour intensiveness of the handmade isn’t a viable option for cheap products for a mass audience, the handmade is now more of a luxury and only accessible for those wanting to pay. Machine production would always win the commercial aspect of this and despite the fervour of the likes of William Morris, the machine trampled it. I think there is a lot to learn from this period, as of course we are still facing the same problems. New machines taking over the humanity of things. Small bodies pitted against giants. It’s worth remembering David vs Goliath!

A Side Note: I do think we are going to see this most drastically with the growth of AI and machine learning. Previously new technologies have reduced production times, maximising cost efficiency. Yet more often than not employment hasn’t been affected. The plough and field was replaced by the computer and desk. Machines are going to take over many jobs, without offering new opportunities for people, other than servicing the machines and making sure they are freshly oiled. It is hard to tell how far this will stretch across certain jobs, but in time it will get more efficient and specified. We won’t wake up one day and suddenly over night there are robots everywhere, it will be incremental, small steps leading to bigger change, and it will be difficult to know which snowflake causes the avalanche. Companies will gradually latch onto this as machinery doesn’t sleep, can be replaced and won’t be capable of caring if it receives a pay check at the end of the month. People will be shuffled out of the workforce, and the argument around Universal Basic income will be pushed more and more, the message will make it sound most appealing, and we will think it is a moral good. But it gives me the heebie-jeebies, I think it will put many into a form of digital slavery, and humans will go crazy without having some form of work to do, solely relying on the machine. At first it will be offered as a beneficial help to those struggling financially, then some crisis will happen and it will be enforced further. We will be patted on the head in the form of a Government handout for not working and to simply follow the rules and exist to consume, continually pushing the corrupted system. It will enforce more reliance on the State, and thus lead to their control growing ever tighter. Lets paint a morbid picture, you’re driving your electric car, that’s collecting all your data of where you go about, you overtake a car and go above the speed limit, there needn’t be a camera to catch you as the car will send the data instantly to the governing body, you get a ping on your phone saying you have been fined. You also drive 40 minutes away from your town to visit your aged mother to give her support, ping! You have left your city, thus violating the 15 minute city policy, you have been fined. Now this is the 3rd time you’ve done this, and your car has been remotely shut off for your miscreant behaviour. You go online, with all your spare time, you visit some sites which preach ‘misinformation’ and naughty opinions, ping! Another message appears on your phone, tut tut, you have been a naughty boy, for the crime of thinking differently. Your internet access has now been shut off. You have a large family, and they use a lot of energy within the house, ping! You have reached your monthly allowance of carbon emissions, your energy supply has been withheld. Then you get another ping, we have noticed that you are continually breaking the rules, we have now stopped payment for your Universal Income. You have stepped out of line, your livelihood is gone. Now this is a rather bleak portrayal of the future, and I pray that it doesn’t happen, but I think it’s in the realm of possibility, we saw the growth of Government control during the dreaded pandemic, with mandates made without consent or questioning. So many people sat and watched it happen idly passing by, I know I certainly did to my own shame! This growing digital era will allow the enforcement to be far more fluid and easier with data tracking. Maybe we should learn a thing or two from the Amish…..

Alongside this, other aspects of revolt and reaction steered the direction of woodcut. As print can be a fairly low-cost art, alluring and expressive propagandistic images could shake the bones of the downtrodden. A lot of the woodcuts created in this time were created in modern crisis. The machines cogs were freshly oiled and in flow, war was devastating and this was a time of permanent revolution. A lot of these examples of print are very reactionary. Cries against war and the ruling classes. In China and Russia, the woodblock was a tool for control and ideological subversion. Mexican revolutionaries utilised printmaking and woodcuts. But most famously is German Expressionism and their use of the woodcut. This was a response to a destructive and industrialised society, often with a tinge of Socialism.

Kathe Kollwitz

Outside the reactionary, it became a means for high art. Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Eric Gill to name a few utilised printmaking to produce works. It is a way to create multiple pieces with the vibrancy of a hand made work. There have been many examples of this work which still continue today. I think this is the area where the woodblock sits most prominently today, technical processes have developed immeasurably since the simple woodblock, it has moved away from a mass operation, and founds it's place in fine art. It is still the more affordable, handmade piece of art for people to have in their homes. It’s merit lies in beauty.

The history of printed media has completely shaped how we live today. Now we don't even need printed matter, just a screen. We are effectively dealing with the same patterns that printmaking was raised in. Information, the image and the icon. Aesthetics, are triumphant in the story of humanity, as the story is told in the way things look. Ultimately it is the portrayal of the spiritual state of a culture. This is a function and the utility of art.

Though the technology has shifted, the content is the same. It started with spiritual pursuit, then grew into mass communication, an incredibly effective way to get ideas across and to have a role in shaping public opinion and pushing agendas. A propaganda of sorts, or an enlightening. Either way, we are constantly interacting with ideas and images. The images we see impact our minds, they creep into our imagination whether we like it or not. If we are not cautious and watchful, we will simply absorb. Whatever message is pushed, whatever path is laid in front of us, we can easily follow. The dangers are there. The means of enforcing change will alter but the forces behind it remain the same, sin has it's hold and is at the core of the corruption we see. It appears that the machines engine is running on fumes, it's parts are failing. It will require a full service or a complete overhaul. I think we ought to remember in this time what the world is, and from a Christian perspective how we are to act in it. It is not always our friend, and it will deceive. We are to be sheep among wolves. Which sounds a bit submissive, yet there is strength in the flock, and a Good Shepherd to watch over us.