Scribners monthly 1, May 1880
The early decline of engraving on wood must be attributed to the imperfect methods and materials of hand-press printing. If the art did not come before its time, it did wait nearly four centuries for the cuts which have most plainly shown the beauty and usefulness of the art — for cuts that had to be printed on printing machines of iron, and on machine-made paper. It should be noted that the iron press and iron printing machine which gave this demonstration could not have been made at a much earlier period. The invention of the machine waited for the invention of the steam-engine, and of swiftly following mechanisms which shaped and planed the metal of which it was made as it never could have been done by hand labor. When made, the machine itself could not have been used to profit without steam.
There is no accessible wood-cut of the first printing machine made for the London "Times," but it must have been a marvel of complexity, for, although it printed by one operation only one side of the sheet, it had more than one hundred pinion-wheels. The engraving shown on next page is a representation of a competing machine made in 1819, which printed both sides. The manufacturer plumed himself on its simplicity, and said it was "susceptible of little improvement," — a statement which will draw a smile from pressmen of our time, who note the slenderness of its framework and cylinder-shafts, and the inconvenient method of delivery. It had, however, enough of merit to persuade Charles Knight that it was possible to print wood-cuts by machinery; who, encouraged by the support of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, begun, in 1832, the "Penny Magazine," the pioneer of modern illustrated journalism. It was a bold undertaking. Publishers and printers had decided that wood-cuts could. not be printed on machines. Artists sneered at an illustrated penny magazine as a degradation of art and literature. Most of them refused help. Critics in reviews hooted at it in this fashion: "As there is no royal road to mathematics, so we say, once for all, there is no Penny Magazine road to the fine arts. The cultivation of the fine arts must be carried on by a comparatively small and gifted few, under the patronage of men of wealth and leisure." Engravers who could cut blocks for machine work were engaged with difficulty. To prevent delays in printing, unusual precautions had to be taken in the preparation of the wood. The blocks so prepared often broke in press, compelling the use of the inferior stereotype. The printing machine and its inking attachments often got out of order, and made great disappointments. Under discouragements which would have broken down most publishers, Knight persevered and pushed up the circulation of the magazine until, at one period, it reached 200,000 copies. He had a right to claim, as he did, that the "Penny Magazine" had made a revolution in popular art; that it had given to the ordinary British reader a knowledge of art treasures of painting and sculpture which could not have been imparted by any other agency; that it had given a worldwide reputation to the works of rising artists like Harvey, Doyle, Cruikshank, Leech, Tenniel, and Gilbert, which never could have been secured so thoroughly through the patronage of a few men of wealth.
The quality of the earliest wood-cut printing of the "Penny Magazine" was not of the best, but it was as good as that of ordinary books. As the printers got experience the quality improved. One of the fruits of this experience was the discovery that the most unsatisfactory prints were those that contained the most "work," which means that they were overfull of elaborately laid-in copper-plate lines, — a style of cutting from which many engravers never could free themselves. Fine as these cuts seemed in the engraver's proof, they were either gray or muddy in the print, for the three inking-rollers of the best machines were not enough to distribute smoothly over them a sufficient quantity of ink. Some machines had but one inking-roller. No press-maker seemed to realize the gravity of this defect, — certainly not enough to compel him to make new machines with more rollers. Printers and publishers found it easier to alter the style of engraving. The most satisfactory prints were those in closest imitation of the open, free-hand sketch of the designer; prints that did not require as much ink and pressure as those in the copper-plate style. As the sketchy style was most pleasing to the artist, as well as easiest to the printer, it grew in favor, and became one of the most taking features of "Punch," when it appeared, for the first time, in 1841. For even the inartistic reader could see more freshness and real merit in the easy, simple lines of Cruikshank and Doyle than in the exact, insipidly fine, and monotonously gray wood-cuts of more pretentious publications.
The open, sketchy style of engraving had its disadvantages. Stereotypes of cuts in this style wore down too soon under the rapid beatings of the cylinder. On a long edition, of which the early impressions were sharp, clean and pure, the last were too often thick, muddy, disgraceful. This check to the development of wood-cut press-work was removed by the invention of the art of electrotyping, which substituted a thin shell of copper on a typemetal base for the stereotype of soft metal. For this invention there are four claimants, — Jacobi of St. Petersburg, Jordan and Spencer of England, and Joseph A. Adams, an engraver of New York, — all of whom were experimenting in 1839. Adams seems to have been the first who did practical work, as he fairly showed in an electrotyped wood-cut printed in "Mapes's Magazine " in 1841, as well as in the illustrations (the press-work of which he superintended) of Harper's " Illustrated Bible," which soon followed.
Electrotyping was soon tested to its utmost limits. As soon as it was demonstrated that the electrotype could receive, unharmed, an unusually large number of impressions, there followed a revival of the fondness for close and fine work, for middle tint and dark color. Engravers thought they were fully justified in cutting closer, finer, shallower than they would have dared on a block destined for stereotyping. This reversion to the older style of engraving put back the old impediment in the way of successful machine press-work, for the cuts in this revived style were too fine and too shallow to be properly inked with the machinery then in common use.
Nearly all the printing machines made in this country before 1850 were provided with but two inking-rollers, — not half enough for the inking of black or blackish-gray cuts. If the flow of ink were adjusted to give just enough for light lines, the dark grays and blacks would be but half inked; if the flow of ink were increased until the darker portions of the cut were fairly colored, then the lighter lines would be overColored, thick and muddy. To give a proper measure to the light and dark parts of the cuts, it was necessary to increase the number of rollers, but most American machine makers were not entirely convinced, even as late as 1856, of the value of four and six-roller machines.
This hesitation seems surprising, for many of the most important improvements in printing machinery are American inventions. The Columbian hand-press of 1817, which was preferred to the Stanhope, was the forerunner of a great many. Of most importance was the Adams power-press, a huge machine which printed sheets twice as large and at four times the speed of the hand-press, by the same old method of platen pressure. It supplanted all rivals, almost without opposition. For nearly thirty years it was regarded by publishers as the only machine fit for printing books. This preference was warranted by its success with type work and with the small wood-cuts which were sparsely scattered over the pages of American books thirty-five years ago. It was not so successful with large and black wood-cuts. Engravers complained that the Adams press did not "bring out" the strength of large work, but it was then supposed that the fault was due to deficient inking.
It was on this press that the experiment of four and six inking-rollers was first made, but only to the improved printing of cuts of small size and light color; on full-page or double-page cuts the failure of the press to face the cuts was as decided as ever. The unavoidable inference that the Adams press was too weak for heavy wood-cut work was formed very slowly. Printers who had no other form of press, and publishers who wished to save the extra charges for hand-press work on half sheets, were not yet ready to be convinced. Its occasional failures were set down as faults of paper, of ink, of pressman, — of anything but the weakness of the press.
I recall the astonishment of a deceased New England printer, who told me, concerning his typographical investigations abroad, that he had seen with his own eyes, in a printinghouse at Tours, a cylinder press printing the wood-cuts of the Dore Bible in faultless style. He would not have believed it if he had not seen it. This in 1866!The stubborn refusal of American book-printers to use for fine book-work any other form of press than the Adams was a great hindrance to the development of engraving on wood. The large cuts published between 1850 and 1865 were not, as a rule, as well printed as they would have been in 1840 on the hand-press. This declension was the result of the gratuitous assumption that cuts could be fairly printed only under platen pressure. Our newspaper critics sneered at American wood-cut printing. The old question, "Who reads an American book?" was varied for new offenders. "Where is the American printer or publisher who can fairly or decently print wood-cuts?" It was a proper taunt, for transatlantic printers were then printing cuts of the highest merit on machines, while American printers were spoiling many of their best blocks through their prejudice in favor of platen pressure.*
Prejudice in favor of platen pressure died hard. It was asserted that, although the Adams press might be too weak for large cuts, the theory of platen pressure was correct. Old-fashioned book-printers contended so stoutly for the hand-press and for handrolling that several publishers were induced, between 1860 and 1868, to have all their choice wood-cut work printed by hand. One New York printer put up ten hand-presses, with intent to revive this neglected method of press-work. It was a disappointing experiment. About one-half of the work was done as well, but no better, than it could have been done on a machine; at least one-half was much worse. For it was found that the old race of skilled hand-pressmen had disappeared. They had slipped out of the ranks when the Adams power-press came in. In the hands of the inexperts who followed them, cuts were treated worse than they would have been by cylinder pressmen. To the few connoisseurs in fine printing, who still retain an admiration for hand press-work, it may be proper here to say that the skill of the wood-cut hand-pressman of forty years ago is not to be bought. In every large city there may be left one or two of the pupils of the old experts, but, as a trade or art, wood-cut printing by hand-press is as extinct an art as that of making paper by hand.
After repeated failures„ publishers began to look into the matter. They found that for some years the large wood-cuts in manufacturers' catalogues, which had been printed by jobprinters on cylinder presses, showed a sharpness of line, a fulness of color and a clearness of tint rarely seen in good library work. It was plain to the most prejudiced that the despised cylinder did work which the platen press could not do.
The easy victory won by the cylinders was largely due to improvements in their construction made after 1860. With some machinemakers these improvements were so many and so radical that they compelled an abandonment of old models and a thorough reconstruction. Machines were made with four and six inking-rollers, rotating incessantly, and rolling twice or thrice over the cuts or types in imitation of hand-press methods; with bed-plates and cylinders strong enough to print wood-cuts as large as 30 by 50 inches, yet so nicely adjusted that they could give almost a copper-plate clearness to the thinnest lines; with such accurate fittings and movement that a register of pages or of meeting colors could be made with the greatest precision.
Old-fashioned book printers were obliged to respect, not only the superior advantages of the cylinder, but the method, new to them, of printing on dry paper. It had been the usage in all book offices to dampen paper intended for printing; to dry the sheets after printing, and to smooth out the indentations of pressure by putting the dried sheets between the pressboards of a hydrostatic press — tedious, expensive and difficult processes. If the paper had been over wet, or not wet enough, the quality of the press-work was damaged, and the performance of the press was diminished. Printers on cylinder machines had already proved that the wetting of paper was often a positive injury to press-work, and that sharp lines and uniform color could be had with greatest certainty on dry paper. They could be had, however, only when this dry paper was faultlessly smooth. This smoothness was common enough on writing and rare on printing papers, but the machinery that served for one grade was made to serve for the other. Instead of imitating the expensive European process of putting the sheets through heated plates, the American manufacturer put the newly-made sheets between cylinders of iron and hardened paper pulp. Under this carendering, as cold-rolling is called, paper was made almost as smooth as by hot pressing, and at much less cost. Calendered book papers are now as common as uncalendered, and the dry method of printing is supplanting the wet even on ordinary typework.
The value of dry and smooth paper for fine wood-cut printing cannot be overestimated. A fine wood-cut is necessarily shallow. Even with the smoothest paper, it is difficult to keep the shallow channels made by the graver free from the ink that is pressed on the surface of the cut by the inking-roller and the printing-cylinder. If impression be made on the swelled and spongy surface of damp paper, the fibres of the paper will be forced more or less around the surface lines of the cut, over lapping them a little, closing up gradually the white channels, and making what engravers call inky press-work.
Book-printers gave up damp paper reluctantly. For the new method of printing dry compelled them to give up the woollen blanket which had been used between the paper and the pressing surface as the equalizer of impression ever since the invention of printing. That such an elastic medium was needed when types were old or of unequal height, or when the pressed and pressing surface of the press could not be kept in true parallel, needs no explanation; but the use of an elastic printing-surface was continued long after these faults had been corrected. The soft blanket, or the india-rubber cloth, often used in place of it, made an uncertain impression, which either thickened the fine lines of a cut, or made them ragged and spotty. It would have been useless to get smooth paper if the pressing:surface behind the paper could be made uneven. To get a pure impression it was necessary to resort not only to the engravers' method of proving on dry paper, but to his method of proving with a hard, inelastic pressing surface. A substance was needed which could be pressed with great force, without making indentation, on the surface of the cut, and on the surface only. This substance was found in millglazed "pressboard," a thin, tough card, harder than wood, and smooth as glass, which enabled the pressman to produce prints with the pure, clean lines of the engraver's proof. 0ld-fashioned pressmen prophesied that the hard printing surface would soon crush type and cuts; but experience has proved that, when skillfully done, this hard impression wears types and cuts less than the elastic blanket.
It is not yet ten years since SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY made its first appearance, with ots illustrations printed on a cylinder, on dry paper, and with hard impression — not ten years since its publishers were warned by experts that it was ridiculous to attempt fine printing under these conditions; but the publishers have seen the propriety of the methods (which they were the first of magazine men to adopt) vindicated not only by results but by the general approval of the best American printers. In the method of hardsurface impression, the printers of SCRIBNER have pushed experiments to the extreme. On two machines they have rejected the pressboard impressionsurface as not hard enough, and have substituted sheets of brass and solid iron with superior results. The finest wood-cuts have been most fairly printed when their surfaces have been brought nearest to unyielding metal, which gives a clearness and sharpness of line that could be had in no other way. The wear has been so slight that not one expert in a dozen could detect any difference between the first and the last thousand in an edition of 100,000 copies.
The sustained quality of the press-work is not entirely due to the hard impression. Plates and cuts would be worn out very soon were it not for the preliminary "overlaying" of the cuts and "making ready" of the plates. Before answering the questions, what are making-ready and overlaying? something must be said about the conditions which make these processes necessary.
All printing machines are made to give an even impression on every part of the printing surface, but this desired evenness of impression, by the direct or unaided action of the machine, can be had only when there is evenness in resistance. Different kinds of printing surfaces oppose different degrees of resistance: on a newspaper form the resistance is uniform; on a book form, containing black wood-cuts, open spaces and blank pages, the resistance is unequal. The black cuts resist more and the outline cuts less than the types; the blanks do not resist at all. Cuts with strong contrasts of light and shade need much impression in some parts and little in others. It follows that the even or flat impression of the best machine cannot make a good print. If the impression be made weak, to suit outlines or skytints, it will not transfer the dark grays or full blacks to the paper; if it be made strong enough for the blacks it will crush the outlines and thicken the tints. To fairly print the cut on next page, the pressure on every part of it must be in ratio with the resistance. It must be uneven, — very hard on the blacks, firm on the middle tints, and weak on all exposed light lines. This unevenness of impression, which must be made on every wood-cut every time it is put to press, is produced by pasting bits of paper, carefully cut, of different thicknesses, upon the impression surface, in every place where increased impression is needed. Every thickness of paper added to the impression surface adds to the force exerted. These pieces of cut paper are known as "overlays." How they are cut and affixed will be more clearly shown by this description of the process of making an overlay for the following wood-cut.
The pressman begins the work by printing a dozen flat proofs of the cut on different thicknesses of fine paper. These proofs are called flat because the impression that prints them is perfectly flat, — as firm on the skytint as on the darkest shadows. The object is to show the engraver's work on the block more clearly than it appears in the artist's proof — to show it without attempt to make any part blacker or grayer than it is in the wood. The overlaycutter compares these flat proofs with the artist's proof. He notes the superior blackness and greater delicacy of the latter, and then determines how many of its best effects can be imitated, and how many thicknesses of paper will be needed for the overlay. He decides that this cut will need five overlays to brine out the five distinct tints of pale gray, dark gray, middle tint; dull black, deep black, which are clearly shown in the proof.
Selecting one of the proofs, he carefully cuts out of it all of the palest gray tints, and all thin exposed lines, pencil scrabble and the ends of thin lines near the high lights. The proof treated in this way is put aside as the first overlay.
For the second overlay he takes another proof out of which be cuts everything but the deep blacks. He then half cuts or picks up the prints of deep black in a manner which cannot be shown in the illustration, so that the impression will give increased blackness. This second overlay is fastened upon the first with great precision.
The third overlay is cut out of another proof with intent to bring out or intensify the dull blacks of the cut. It is a skeleton of all the blacks and of some of the middle tint. This third overlay is, in like manner, fastened on the second.
The fourth overlay is made up of the darker grays in combination with the blacks and middle tint. It should be noticed that in this, as in all previous overlays, except the first, the paler grays are carefully cut out.
The fifth and last overlay shows the dark gray in combination with middle tint and blacks.
When the fourth and fifth overlays have been placed in order over the others, there will be in the combined piece five thicknesses over the deep blacks, four over the dull blacks, three over the middle tint, two over the dark gray, and one thickness over the pale gray. Properly combined, these overlays make in one piece a low relief in paper of the engraving on the wood. The hollows made by cutting out the tints near the high lights and the projection made by the deep blacks are clearly noticeable. Each thickness of paper in the combined overlay makes, or is intended to make, a difference in impression. Under the pressure of the five thicknesses the deep black of the cut will be forced not only on, but in the paper, while the single thickness over the lines that represent pale gray will merely touch the surface of the sheet.
This is a simple cut, in which the tints are clearly marked; but interior views, cut in facsimile of brushwork, and all work of like nature in which high lights, pale grays and deep blacks are avoided, and the subject is developed by nice graduations of middle tints, are not so easily overlaid. Some cuts need but three, and some call for more than six overlays; some want little ink and much impression, and others much ink and little impression. In every form containing discordant cuts, the method of cutting and combining overlays has to be varied to suit its peculiarities. Every overlay-cutter and every pressman has his own way of getting results. Some would make but three overlays of this cut, and some six; some would arrange them in the order here stated, and others would transpose them. The object sought in overlaying is to do mechanically what the engraver does intelligently in proving, and to do it by a similar method — by graduating or making uneven the impression on different parts of the cut. The most skillful pressmen try to do their work with the least overlays. Too many defeat the purpose. If more than six thicknesses of paper are used, the overlay so made will increase the circumference of the cylinder so much that it will not strike exactly in the right place on the cut at the point of the impression. Nor is the overlay of any value if the machine be shackly or inaccurate in movement. Bed and cylinder must travel together, at any rate of speed, and under other difficult conditions, so exactly that every line in the overlay shall fairly meet its corresponding line in the electrotype plate.
Overlay-cutting is tedious work. Many of the pieces are small; each must be exact, and all must be fitted together with precision. If one be cut too large or small, or if it bag or wrinkle in any part, all the work will be lost and must be begun anew.
When all the overlays for the wood-cuts of a form of sixteen pages have been prepared, and the electrotyped plates for these pages are ready, the form is sent to press, and the work of making-ready begins. The electrotype plates are firmly fastened on blocks, and the blocks are secured on the bed of the printing machine. A sheet of fine paper is then stretched on the impression cylinder, to receive the first impression of the plates; the plates are lightly inked and passed under the cylinder, which has been so adjusted that it will but lightly press upon them. This light pressure makes a pale print upon the sheet on the cylinder. The first impression from electrotype plates is never even, for the plates are seldom evenly thick, and are always uneven on the surface. In one spot, the impression will be hard; in another, so light as to be unreadable. To correct the latter fault, the pressman underlays the plate, by pasting on its under side bits of paper of suitable size, in one or more thicknesses. This addition to the plate springs it up in every part underlaid, so that the surface fairly meets the inking-rollers and the impression. With the same intent, he puts a proper underlay under every cut, or part of a cut, that contains much black surface, and fairly braces it to resist hard impression. When the impression is reasonably even, the pressman firmly pastes the overlays on the cylinder sheet, — each overlay being so exactly placed that at the moment of impression its lines will truly cover corresponding lines in the electrotype. When the pasted overlays are dry and fast, the pressman takes another impression, on a clean sheet, which fully exposes the merit or demerit of the work. If he has correctly discerned the relative value of every tint, and has cut the overlays carefully, the print should show graduations of shade and receding in perspective not much inferior to those in the engraver's proof. If he has blundered, if he has in any important part disturbed the relation of the tints, he will get a harsh print, which destroys the effects intended by the engraver. Minor errors in overlaycutting may be corrected, but with some difficulty, after the overlay has been put on. Serious mistakes are irreparable.
The value of overlays will be seen by comparing the flat proof with the print from overlays. What is dull and harsh in the flat proof is bright and delicate in the print. It is the overlay which brings out the effects intended by the engraver. Every thickness of paper in it increases the impression and deepens the tint. On the single thickness the pressure is probably not more than ten pounds to the square inch, and the tint is pale gray; on two sheets the pressure will be more than double, with a corresponding darkening of the gray; and it keeps increasing with every thickness in increasing ratio. On the fifth sheet, where the intense black is wanted, the pressure is probably one thousand pounds to the square inch. The hard cardboard, or harder metal of the impression cylinder, effectually prevents any sinking or yielding of pressure. There can be no flinching or giving way of the impression, as was too often the case in the hand-press.
But the great improvement made in the appearance of the wood-cut has been effected by sacrificing the appearance of the types. The thick overlays bear off the impression from the surrounding types, making the reading matter more or less illegible. To restore this impression, it is necessary that the pressman shall overlay the type work, by cutting out bits of paper of the shapes of the illegible portions, which bits he pastes down on the impression cylinder. When one thickness has been pasted down, he takes a new proof of the plates, which he carefully examines for defects of impression that have not been corrected by this overlay. Out of this proof he cuts a new overlay, which he pastes down in like manner. And he keeps repeating the work of proving and overlaying until he gets the impression even on every part of the sheet — so even that the sheet shows on its back only faint marks of indentation.
This is a tedious method of preparing cuts and types for printing, but there is no shorter way to a satisfactory result. On a long edition no dependence can be placed on the permanence of an elastic impression, which soon packs and requires renewal, with consequent loss of time. The only workman-like way of making-ready a form is to make the impression even and solid from the beginning. If properly done then, it will need no afterpatching, and there should be no difference in the appearance of the first and last impression. To insure this result, a careful printer does not grudge the time given to making-ready. It may, however, be a surprise to many to learn that, even after the overlays have been cut, the proper making-ready of a wood-cut form of sixteen pages of this magazine occupies the time of an expert and a helper for at least thirty hours — and sometimes for fifty hours.
Much of the wood-cut printing condemned as bad is the sequel of shallow engraving. For this grave fault the engraver is not always blamable. Shallowness often comes from the engraver's efforts to reproduce a picture nearly fine enough on the drawing-paper, through its photograph on the wood, onefourth the size of the original. To facsimile marks of brush or crayon, and to keep the color of the drawing in this reduced copy, the engraver must cut fine and shallow. By methods of his own, not to be used by a printer on machine, the engraver can get an admirable proof from a shallow block, but this proof is a true non sequitur. It does not prove that the block can be printed. The conditions differ. If it takes, as it usually does, one hour's skillful work to get one fair proof, it should be plain that the finer effects of this proof cannot be reproduced on a machine which must print seven hundred large sheets in one hour. It should be plain, but artists seem to have a confidence in the ability of the pressman to print a shallow block which is not justified by experience. If the block is shallow, the print will be gloomy; if lines are thick in the wood, although "grayed down" in the proof, they will be black and harsh in the print. A skillful pressman can do no more than lighten up the harshness. He cannot make a thick line thin. He can put on the paper only what he finds in the block.
To make a good wood-cut, the work should be mechanically right from the beginning. The design should be put on the paper with intent to make a print, and with consideration for the difficulties of engraving and printing. Many artists miss this, the true object, and aim only at a pleasing picture. Drawing gray leadpencil lines, they wonder why these lines are harsh when shown in black printing-ink. Tinting their copy for engravers with warm tints of buff and brown, and enlivening it here and there with dabs of solid white, they wonder why the print made after it in plain black is flat and heavy. When the sole objective point of the artist has been an artistic sketch, and that of the engraver a pleasing proof, and both think that the needs of the printer are of little consequence, the printer's chances of success with the wood-cut are doubtful.
There are good reasons why the printer's needs should be considered. The print, as usually made, is six removes from the original:
(1) the photograph on the wood;
(2) the engraving on the block;
(3) the mould in the wax;
(4) the electrotyped shell of copper;
(5) the film of ink on the copper;
(6) the transferred ink on the paper.
In every remove, however skillfully done, there is in some feature more or less of a falling off from the original. This falling off is, perhaps, most noticeable in the fastening of this film of ink on the paper by means of pressure. The tendency of the impression is to flatten; to thicken light and fill up shallow lines; to cloud transparent and blacken smoky shadows; to bring everything on the block to a dead level of dullness — in short, to defeat the purpose of the designer. Overlays may effectually prevent the mischiefs of a needless flattening out of ink, but they cannot remedy the fallingsoff which the original has already suffered in the earlier removes — from the distortion of lines or dulling of color by the camera to the thickening of lines in the electrotype. To understand the causes of these mechanical defects, to foresee and provide for them, should be as much a part of the designer's duty as it is that of a painter to prevent, as far as he can, the fadingout of color, or of a modeller to provide for the shrinking of melted metal.
The machine most liked by the printers of this magazine is the Hoe stop-cylinder, yet excellent press-work is also done by the large cylinder. These machines print, by the same operation, one side only of the sheet. The double cylinder, or perfecting machine, which is constructed to print both sides of the sheet by one operation, is highly thought of in England and France, but it is not approved by American printers, who say that a fair print on the second or reverse side of a sheet cannot be taken until the print on the first side is so dry that it will not set off or smear under pressure. The pale printing so often found fault with in modern books is usually caused by printing too fast, either on perfecting press or otherwise — by printing one side before the other is dry — and by underinking with intent to prevent the greater faults of setoff and smearing.
The SCRIBNER machines were made to print from 1,000 to 1,500 impressions of ordinary work in one hour, but these numbers are never reached in wood-cut press-work, — not, however, through the fault of the machines, but by reason of the stiffness of the ink, which tears the inking-rollers and the paper when the machine is put to high speed. Woodcut printers have to be content with about half the performance of the machine on ordinary typework. Contrasted with the Hoe webmachine, which can print and fold 30,000 perfect newspapers in one hour, the stopcylinder seems slow, yet it shows a great gain over the performance of the hand-press.
To have printed, within the time allowed, the 125,000 copies of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE for last February, would have required 200 of the best iron hand-presses made in 1815. If one can suppose this feat attempted in the days of the two-pull wood hand-press (an absurd supposition, which implies the aid of the art of electrotyping before its invention), then there would have been need for 400 presses and twice that number of pressmen. A publisher may, but the ordinary reader cannot, estimate the space that would be occupied by these presses, the losses by waste, errors, imperfect work, the difficulty of managing so many workmen. It is, perhaps, enough to say that it would be impossible by hand labor to print SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE as it is. Deprived of the aid of machines, of steam, and of electrotype, it would have been a different journal. It would have had to follow, with less than onetenth its present circulation, in the dull path laid down about two hundred years ago by the "Journal des Savans" and the "Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious."
That machines have not debased the quality of engraving is plain. The last half year's volume of SCRIBNER'S contains more meritorious illustrations — meritorious not altogether through the technical skill shown in the handling of engraving tools, but by reason of their faithfulness to the artist's design — than could be found in any book printed before the invention of the cylinder. So far from checking, machines have really given new life to the torpid art. They have brought out the skill of the designer and engraver more fully than it was ever done before. The old prejudice against engraving on wood as a low form of art has been effectually broken.
Much has been done, but more may be, probably will be, done. Every engraver laments that all the brilliant effects of his proof are not reproduced in the print. Every printer regrets that the perfect graduation of tint he secures in one cut cannot be secured in all cuts. There is a general belief that there are capabilities in the art of wood-cutting which have not been fairly developed. It is not probable that the needed improvements will be made through finer engraving, for it is even now too common to engrave too fine for printing. Printing machines are abundantly strong and accurate. Overlay cutters and pressmen were never more skillful, but they are not in advance of the increasing requisitions made upon them. The further development of engraving on wood is waiting for improvements in paper, in ink and inking-apparatus, in electrotype and other and minor mechanisms. It waits quite as much for the cooperation of artists and engravers in a study of the mechanical difficulties of printing, and of the best methods of evading or conquering them — for artists and engravers whose objective point is not a pleasing sketch or a showy proof, but a faultless print, and who will neglect nothing that aids this purpose. The waiting will not be long. There is earnestness enough among the men who contribute to the making of wood-cut prints to warrant the hope that the next ten years will witness many great improvements in wood-cut printing.
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