This woodcut survived a fire.

It shows Mary holding the infant Jesus,

surrounded by saints and scenes from the life of Mary. Unknown 15th–
century printmaker, Madonna of the Fire, before 1428, woodcut, hand
colored with paint, dimensions unknown (Cathedral of Santa Croce,
Forlì, Italy)

For example, two woodcuts (the Pietà made in

southern Germany and the early fi!eenth-century
Italian Madonna of the Fire that allegedly survived a
fire that destroyed the building in which it was
housed) both exhibit figures and other scenic
elements that are rendered with thick outlines.
These images feature minimal shading and
pa"erning, resembling stenciled designs to which
a collector o!en applied paint by hand to enhance
the emo#onal appeal of the composi#on. This is
seen with the incorpora#on of red streaks of paint
that represent blood dripping from Christ’s
wounds in the Pietà print.

Le!: Albrecht Dürer, woodblock for Samson and the Lion, c. 1497−1498,
pear wood, 39.1 x 27.9 x 2.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art);
right: Albrecht Dürer, Samson and the Lion, c. 1497−1498, woodcut, 40.6
x 30.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

A type of relief process, a woodcut is produced by

inking the raised surface of the matrix, which will
result in a mirror impression of the composi#on
when the block is pressed onto a sheet of paper
using manual or mechanical (a prin#ng press)
pressure. The rubber stamp is a modern example
of relief prin#ng. To create the design on the block
of wood, an ar#st uses a knife or gouge to cut
away sec#ons of the wood in between the lines
and shapes that are to be printed. When cu%ng
out the areas of wood, one has to be careful not
to make the raised lines too thin or else they may
break when pressure is added to produce an
impression, which is why early woodcuts feature
designs with bold contours.

A contemporary ar#st uses a handheld gouger to cut a woodcut design

into Japanese plywood. The design has been sketched in chalk on a
painted face of the plywood (photo: Zephyris, CC BY-SA 3.0)

By the late fi!eenth century, the German ar#st

Albrecht Dürer found a way to portray impressive
textural and tonal subtle#es in his prints. By
carving a series of thin lines close together in his
Samson and the Lion, he convincingly represented
shadows on the hillside.

The white areas in this print are uninked, ac#ng as highlights in the
scene. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Saint Christopher, c. 1509, chiaroscuro
woodcut (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland)
Chiaroscuro woodcut
As indicated by the produc#on of hand-colored
woodcuts like the Pietà and Madonna of the Fire,
some collectors preferred the aesthe#c and
emo#onal intrigue of colored prints. In the
sixteenth century, printmakers in northern Europe
and Italy capitalized on that interest by making
colored woodblock prints known as chiaroscuro
woodcuts because they imitate the appearance of
chiaroscuro drawings. In this type of drawing, the
colored paper serves as the middle tone to which
an ar#st adds white pigment to produce light
(chiaro) tones and renders darker (scuro) values by
incorpora#ng hatch marks with a pen or areas of
dark wash with a brush. The same concept applies
to chiaroscuro woodcuts. Lucas Cranach’s Saint
Christopher, for example, was made with two
different woodblocks. One woodblock, referred to
as the tone block, created the orange mid-tone.
The second woodblock, called the line block,
produced the black lines, that is the base design
and hatching. The unprinted areas of the paper act
as highlights.
An example of niello plaques, with incised linear designs on a metal
surface which were inlaid with a dark paste-like substance. Devo#onal
Diptych with the Na!vity and Adora!on, c. 1500, Paris, France, silver,
niello, gilt copper alloy, 13.9 x 20.8 x 0.7 cm (The Cloisters Collec#on,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Engraving
Not long a!er the first woodcuts were made, the
intaglio process of engraving emerged in Germany
in the 1430s and was used throughout other areas
of northern and southern Europe by the second
half of the fi!eenth century (intaglio is a category
of printmaking that includes engraving, drypoint
and etching). Engraving remained a common
method for printmaking through the end of the
eighteenth century un#l the inven#on of
planographic techniques like lithography.
Engraving has its roots in the tradi#on of gold-
and silversmith workshops where niello plaques—
small plates of gold or silver—were made by
incising a linear design into the metal surface and
inlaying those carved grooves with a dark paste-
like substance to render a clear representa#on.

Burins used in the engraving process (photo: Manfred Brückels, CC BY-

SA 3.0)

Unlike the relief process of woodcut, an engraving

is produced by sculp#ng into a copper plate using
a tool with a lozenge-shaped #p called a burin,
which leaves behind a V-shaped groove. Once the
design has been fully incised, the en#re surface of
the plate is inked. Next, the plate will be wiped
clean so that only the ink deposited into the
incised lines will remain. Now the matrix is ready
to be run through the prin#ng press with a damp
sheet of paper. The pressure from the press
pushes the paper into those grooves and picks up
the ink, resul#ng in a mirror impression of the
image engraved on the copper plate.
Even though this is one of Schongauer’s earliest engravings, it was
wildly influen#al. Michelangelo even copied it. Mar#n Schongauer, Saint
Anthony Tormented by Demons, c. 1475, engraving, 30.0 x 21.8 cm (The
Metropolitan Museum of Art)

In comparison to the difficulty of carving a relief

design into a woodblock, the technique of
engraving allowed skilled ar#sts to create
magnificently detailed and stylis#cally varied
composi#ons without the fear of producing too
narrow of lines that would break under the
pressure of a mechanical press. One of the
greatest engravers in renaissance Europe was
Mar#n Schongauer. His St. Anthony Tormented by
Demons shows off his versa#le engraving
technique.

Mar#n Schongauer, details of Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons, c.

1475, engraving, 30.0 x 21.8 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

To produce different textures, Schongauer used a

variety of marks, such as long, curling lines to
render the so! fur on the demon brandishing a
club short U-shaped lines to create the scales of
the creature grabbing Anthony’s le! arm. By
incorpora#ng passages of dense cross-hatching
across Anthony’s body, Schongauer also gave his
figure a three-dimensional presence on the flat
paper surface.
Etching likely developed in the workshop of Daniel Hopfer, who created
ornamental designs in the surface of metal armor. A"ributed to Kolman
Helmschmid, etching a"ributed to Daniel Hopfer, Cuirass and Tassets
(Torso and Hip Defense), with detail of Virgin and Child on the center of
the breastplate, c. 1510–20, steel, leather, 105.4 cm high (The
Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Etching
Another intaglio process that developed in
Germany around 1500 and remained popular
throughout the early modern period was etching.
While engraving originated from the cra! of gold-
and silversmithing, etching was closely related to
the armorer’s trade. Etching likely developed in