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CHAPTER V
MODERN WOOD ENGRAVING
The exigencies of illustrated journalism—The advance of photography—Haste and cheapness help to kill good work—Collaborative engraving—The rise of the great American school—William Morris and the Kelmscott Press—Foreign wood engravers—The aspects of wood engraving to-day.
The same qualities that in the masterly hand of Sir John Gilbert, the doyen of designers for the wood block, helped to place the art of wood engraving on its feet helped to destroy it. The Illustrated London News revolutionised modern journalism. It was founded in 1842 by Mr. Herbert Ingram, and outlived a series of rivals until 1869, when the Graphic was founded by Mr. W. L. Thomas. Our fathers lived in stormy times. When the Revolution in Paris broke out in 1848, Gilbert achieved journalistic renown by drawing for the wood engravers in two or three days, from newspaper descriptions, ten pages of designs to appear in a special double number. Nous avons changé tout cela and such feats of imaginative
