Amman may often be found at a reasonable price. His Marriage at Cana may be bought for fifteen shillings.
Thomas Bewick (1758-1828).—The seventeenth century saw the decline of wood-cutting, and in England the eighteenth-century examples are little other than chap-books and roughly-hewn illustrations to broadsides till the advent of Thomas Bewick.
The student will by this time have noticed that the term wood-cutting has been continuously employed in speaking of the art up to this time.
Later it will be shown how modern wood engraving is quite distinct, being based on different principles. Bewick stands at once as the great exponent of the possibilities of the art. He led all who followed him to realise the capabilities of the wood block. He himself rigidly adhered to the limitations of wood. He never crossed black lines. He was not the inventor of the white line, but he used it freely and adapted his designs accordingly. He was more rigid in his adherence to the qualities of the wood block than were some of the primitive wood-cutters. Bewick was at once a pioneer and a masterly adapter. He stands between the old masters and the modern school who grasped his technique, and in so doing diverted the art into new channels.
In the illustrations here given the first is a photograph of the actual wood-block itself, showing its appearance and actual size. It is of hard boxwood and is engraved across the grain. The block is square, and the sky showing the lumpy appearance
