and a final effort for recognition as a means of illustration to art magazines, and not least among the upholders of a moribund art were the proprietors of the Graphic, who continued to reproduce in their pages a fine series of wood engravings by men who did good work in face of strenuous competition by photographic methods. By this time wood engraving had thrown up the sponge in its efforts to contend with photography in illustrating current events. It attempted to free itself from the shackles of commercialism, and to rank again as one of the fine arts. A great school arose of men who worked as interpretative engravers of pictures by the old masters. Of these the boldest exponent was Stéphane Pannemaker, the Belgian wood-engraver, who had a studio in Paris, and reproduced in flowing line some of the best known works of old and of modern masters, including Gustave Doré's illustrations to Dante. As early as 1876 he exhibited a woodcut, La Baigneuse, at the Salon, "which astonished the art world by the amazing perfection of its method, all the delicate modelling of the nude figure being rendered by simple modulations of unbroken line."
The best living exponent of this school is Mr. Timothy Cole, of which we shall speak later. Bold, strong, flowing line cut with freedom, and depending on the quality of the line to express local colour, is the chief quality of this school, of which in England Charles Roberts (who had a studio or shop with a dozen assistants in Chancery Lane), Babbage and Frohment, and H. Uhlrich, who worked for the Graphic, were the best known engravers.
