A nice cheery woodcut of "The Werewolf of Dole" by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Germany c.1512
Woodcut is a super early form of printing that can be traced back to the Han Dynasty in China (220 AD). It was originally developed to print on fabrics and then later, on paper.
The process is a form of relief printmaking where the design in laid onto a block of wood and the area that is not to be printed is carved out using metal gouge tools, not dissimilar to tools like chisels and lathe gouges (if you’re up on your woodworking).
The raised areas would then be rolled with inks, dyes or paints and pressed onto the medium to make a print. Early examples were understandably simple however as the artform spread across the world the standard of print began to increase.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Hokusai. 1831
Many will recognise this print of The Great Wave. This was carved into multiple wood blocks, each one printing a different colour onto the paper.
By the time the 1400s rolled around the medium was well established and spreading across Europe. One of the most notable evolutions in the process was Albrecht Dürer, a German fine art painter and someone many consider to be the first celebrity (due to the quality of his work, how copies of it could be made cheaply so was in turn more accessible, and the fact that he painted himself posing like Jesus a couple times). The detail in his work was immense, as shown in his depiction of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse below, giving credence to a process that was seen by the art world as being more functional/industrial rather than artistic.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albrecht Durer
The ease of access to the everyday person meant that the popularity of woodcut print exploded. Suddenly everyone had a way to create multiple copies of images or text. This lead to a boom in woodblock being used to make advertising, fliers, religious information and so on. But it also gave rise to artists, like Hans Holbein.
Hans Holbein created a series of prints released as a book called the Danse Macabre, or, the Dance of Death. These were created in the 1520 and depict the character of death, the great leveller, showing up in the everyday life to enact his will. He comes for rich and poor man alike, although he seems to be particularly harsh to the rich. For example, in one print a Judge is ignoring a poor man to help a rich man and death sneaks up to snap his staff, the symbol of his power.
Nice broken staff, mate
What I love about these prints is the jovial nature such a bleak subject is approached by. How it built in social commentary, the type that paved the way for later political satire, with such an innocence to it whilst also being highly skilled in its execution. The way deaths anatomy is affected by the limited access people had to anatomical illustrations, giving Death this weirdly fused pelvis and leg situation and a bizarre number of ribs.
This take on the woodblock style, where fine art gives way to pure and accessible artistic expression. It’s a sign of what print would come to be, where it gives a voice and a platform to everybody so they can share their thoughts and ideas. Plus, pictures of skeletons are super cool.
As always, I love having a stab of recreating the style digitally with a bit of a modern spin. Here’s a few examples of my work:
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