THOMAS BEWICK

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 101, 23 January 1935, Page 3

THOMAS BEWICK

An English Wood Engraver (Br Edward C. Simpson) It has been said of literature’s debt to Dryden that he found it brick and left it marble. The same might well be applied to Thomas Bewick and wood-engraving. During the 17th and 18th centuries the woodcut had degenerated into the crudest and most worthless form of illustration for chapbooks, popular ballads and broadsides describing atrocities and murders. The woodcut had been unable, with its coarser appearance, to compete against the copper or steel engraving that had become the vogue for finely-produced books. It was Bewick’s life-work to raise and adorn the art of the ■woodblock. Born at Cheringham, near Newcastle, in 1753, he was apprenticed as a boy to a copper plate engraver. Finishing his apprenticeship, he set out on a walking tour with three guineas in his belt. His experience for a year in London did not prove attractive, for he was a child of the English countryside all his life. Refusing a tempting offer of work he returned to the neighbourhood of Newcastle, for, as he said, “I would rather be herding sheep on Mickley Bank Top than remain in London. although for doing so I was to be made Premier of England.” The first work to show the master’s hand is his “History of Quadrupeds” which appeared in 1790. The book marks tiie beginning of an epoch in wood-engraving. Being his own designer Bewick could choose the type of line that he was to use. His method, already but scarcely exploited, was to employ a block of smooth hard boxwood, cutting his lines on the end grain. It was this method that Bewick perfected, introducing subtleties of handling that had beqn hitherto unknown. Far from being content to cut the blocks and leave them to the printers, Bewick exercised a personal supervision over the printing of his books. To this we owe the admirable impressions of consistent high quality. How He Worked. The block was cut in a series of lines, the degree of darkness being obtained by the fineness or coarseness of the lines cut. On top of this Bewick invented a method of slightly lowering certain parts of the surface to give the same definition of line but paler. Other parts he “overlapped” to give greater pressure and so darker printing. The success of the “Quadrupeds” was not owing so much to the delicate and lace-like quality of the illustrations as to their remarkable truth and vigour. A keen student of nature, he is at his best in the diagrams of British animals. His skilful graver, and unerring eye, give us the character of each animal, its shape and temper. Dogs and deer, foxes and sheep are superb; I the skilful lines show the ripple of loose skin over limbs, the fleeciness of coats, or the leatheriness of hides. But to call them diagrams is an injustice, for each animal is set in a background appropriate to it. Not only are these backgrounds exquisitely patterned, but they are brilliantly conceived as settings for the species. Perhaps the most attractive part of his work may be the Innumerable little vignettes at chapter ends, and the scenes in the background behind some bird or animal. Here we see how the countryside looked, and what manner of folk tramped or drove along the roads. In these he had full scope to show the results of his own observation as he walked the pleasant common bej'ond the mediaeval walls of Newcastle where the townsfolk grazed their cattle. Few of these vignettes are merely decorative, for Bewick loved to pack them with literary significance, making each smallest detail have its own part of the story to tell. At times he was given to mild preaching in these cuts, showing the result of dissipation or idleness. But mainly he showed himself a detailed, keen, and unsympathetic observer of life. Looking over them we feel that his keen intelligence had become somewhat soured. He was intolerant of folly. He made his pictures mischievous and even malicious, perhaps in retaliation for a life spent in a dull and workaday world. The records of his life inform us that these little story vignettes were what he delighted in most. And certainly the inexhaustibility of his fancy and ingenuity in devising them are his most remarkable achievements. A Cruel World. Things are generally going badly for the folk in this vignette world. The old and infirm woman hobbles about tormented by geese or unfeeling boys. When she looks over a stile to cross into safety a bull stands threatening on the other side. The blind beggar sits by the roadside while a cur steals the food from his satchel. The blind, especially are victims. Trusting in the guidance of a mischievous boy, the blind man is led about the dangerous banks of a river despite the warning sign nailed to a nearby tree. Or else the blind man is caught in a heavyshower while a gust of wind removes his hat afar. Indeed, Bewick knew every cruelty that a boisterous wind can inflict. For again, seated on a raw-boned country horse the old man's hat is whisked away, but he does not dare dismount, encumbered as he is with eggs and ducks and other market ware. At times as you look through these vignettes it almost seems a single one contains a whole poignant story of the English countryside. The neat country house stands amidst its trim lawns and well-kept hedges. The beggar that calls is turned away disappointed, and spitefully leaves open the garden gate. Into the neat garden stream come hen and cock and chicken, and last of all the old sow followed by her litter of squealing piglings, to disarray the neat borders and trample and befoul the linen spread upon the lawns to bleach. Thus were most of the seventy-five years of Bewick’s life spent in that trim and well-kept workshop in Newcastle. Apart from considering the great influences of his work on wood-engraving, he has left us the pleasure to be gathered from the achievement of a great artist as well as from his graphic summary of the country and its life