木刻插图外文文献.doc

文献出处：Cummins J. Dead Wood? The Forgotten Art of Woodcut Illustrations[J]. Children and Libraries, 2015, 13(1): 29-31.Dead Wood? The Forgotten Art ot Woodcut IllustrationsCummins J.AbstractWoodcutting is a type of relief painting in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood and printed on paper. The design is drawn on a smooth block of wood and the parts that are to be white are cut away with kn ives or chisels, leavi ng the design standi ng up in relief. There are two forms of the process, woodcuts and wood engraving. Though they are similar, they are not intercha ngeable. The only differe nee betwee n them is the di recti on of the wood grain. Woodcuts use blocks of wood with the grain running length-wise, while wood engraving is the opposite, using wood blocks sawn across the grain. Woodcuts have a long history. As early as the sixth century, desig ns were cut into wood and printed on textiles in the Near East. They were the forerunners of the technique, but it was English printer William Caxton who established woodcuts as an art form in 1400 when he illustrated his books with finely chiseled line drawings.Is the art of woodcut illustrations in childrens books really dead? Have they been relegated to the trash bin by computer capabilities for creating images? Has digitization usurped the creativity and skill of this hands-on medium? The answer is simple-yes and no.So what is woodcutting? Essentially, it*s a type of relief painting in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood and printed on paper. To apply the technique, the design is drawn on a smooth block of wood and the parts that are to be white are cut away with kn ives or chisels, leavi ng the design standi ng up in relief. It is the n in ked and pressed against a sheet of paper. 1There are two forms of the process, woodcuts and wood engraving.Though they are similar, they are no tintercha ngeable. The only d iff ere nee betwee n them is the di recti on of the wood grain. Woodcuts use blocks of wood with the grain running length-wise, while wood engraving is the opposite, using wood blocks sawn across the grain.Woodcuts have a long history. As early as the sixth century, desig ns were cut into wood and printed on textiles in the Near East. They were the forerunners of the technique, but it was English printer William Caxton who established woodcuts as an art form in the 1400s when he illustrated his books with finely chiseled line drawings (though they were not intended for children).It wasnt until the late 1700s that Thomas Bewick (pronounced Buick) chiseled woodcuts in books for children. He was a country farm boy who was apprenticed to an engraver and put to work making woodcuts, which were at that time considered to be unimportant and cheap, but nevertheless popular. His portraits of farm animals and birds were impeccably produced, making him a natural to illustrate Aesops Fables in 1784.2When Bewick died in 1828, George Cruikshank, at the young age of 24, became the master of line and the craft of the wood block. He was among the early illustrators of Charles Dicke ns books, but his foremost work for childre n was the first En glish tran slati on of Grimms Germa n Popular Tales (1823 and 1826). His flair for caricature and strong use of li ne in fused his work with amusing detail that established the whole tone of the book.Twenty years or so later, Edward Lear was another skilled artist whose sharp line drawings cleverly captured the absurdity in his chi Id re ns Nonse nse Book (1846).3Probably the most famous engraved images are John Tenniels from Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871). Tenniel himself didnt print his own art, he depended on the skilled engraver Dalziel to transfer his delicate and intricate creations to the printing surface.4Then came photography. It revolutionized the technique of reproducing pictures and almost eradicated woodcutting and wood-crafted illustrations save for the gifted printer, Edmund Eva ns. He developed improved methods in color printi ng with which he could print up to eleven different colors. A trio of famous illustrators was captivated by this newly developed method and applied it to their signature styles. Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway led the way of a con flue nee of artists whose expertise made them major players in setting the bar for this new challenging process.Fritz Eichenberg was a German-American artist who worked primarily in wood engraving. Politically outspoken and a critic of the Nazis, he moved his family from Berlin to the United States. In his prolific career he was drawn to novels of emotional conflict and social satire. In particular, he was inspired by the haunting, tragic stories of the Bronte sisters. His images in Wuthering Heights (1943) not only portrayed the events in the story but also captured the books spirit.Antonio Frasconi。