Page:A History of Wood-Engraving.djvu/142

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
140
A HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING


(c. 1550), who made some excellent cuts for a Vitruvius of 1547, and is believed by some authorities to have designed the reproduction of the Dream of Poliphilo; Pierre Woeiriot (b. 1532), whose biblical cuts inserted in a Josephus of 1566 have much merit; Jean Tortorel (b. 1540?) and Jacques Perissin (b. 1530?), who designed some interesting illustrations of the Huguenot wars; and Philibert de Lorme (c. 1570) and Jean Le Clerc (1580-1620), whose productions are of comparatively little interest. The works of all these artists lacked that intimate relation with the life of the people which made the engravings of the lesser German designers valuable, and have importance only as illustrations of the development of French art in the Renaissance.

The only artist who can contest Cousin’s foremost place in French wood-engraving is Bernard Salomon (c. 1550), usually called the Little Bernard, from the small size of his cuts, who was the leading designer of Lyons. That city had retained its importance as a centre of popular literature illustrated by woodcuts, and is said to have sent forth more books of this kind in the latter part of the sixteenth century than any other city in Europe. The works of Holbein were the pride of the Lyonese art, and exerted great influence upon the style of the designers who were constantly employed in the service of the Lyonese press. Bernard worked in the small manner which Holbein had made popular, and he learned from him how to compress much in a little space; but he multiplied details, and carried the lines to an extreme of fineness which his engravers were unable to do justice to in cutting the block. As is the case with Cousin, a vast number of designs are attributed to Bernard, simply because they are sufficiently ex-