That is white surfaces were cut away from the wood, leaving these black lines standing in relief ready to be inked and printed with type.
Before the practice of wood-cutting had gone very far shading was employed and cross-hatching was used. Cross-hatching, of black lines crossing each other, is an easy thing in metal engraving, as such lines can readily be cut by the graver, whereas the wood engraver does not cut the lines out of his block but has to cut with great care the little white interstices.
A great impetus was given to wood engraving by the genius of Albert Dürer (1471-1578) and by Hans Holbein (1497-1543). It should be mentioned that it is doubtful if Dürer ever cut his own blocks or even drew on the wood. It is possible to arrive at this conclusion by inference. He was too great a genius to have missed the essential qualities of the technique of wood-cutting. But in Dürer woodcuts we find lozenge-work and cross-hatching and a departure from mere outline which he would hardly have employed if he had used the knife himself. In the illustration we give of Albert Dürer's Samson Slaying the Lion the number of lines must have been a sore trial to the wood-cutter. An enlargement of a portion of this is given in Chapter I. (opposite p. 38).
It is hardly necessary to prove this point by calling attention to the fact that some of the Dürer woodcuts were subsequently engraved by him on copper, as, for instance, the series of woodcuts, The Great Passion, afterwards rendered in copper. The Great Passion, consisting of twelve folio cuts, and
