WOODCUT

Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the
surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the
surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink,
while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is
cut along the wood grain (unlike wood engraving, where the block is cut in the end-grain).
The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller
(brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Hand-coloured woodcut by
Erhard Reuwich of the entrance
to the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher, Jerusalem
Erhard Reuwich
Erhard Reuwich was a Dutch artist, as a designer of
woodcuts, and a printer, who came from Utrecht but then
worked in Mainz.
He came from a family of painters in Utrecht, and his
father may have been Hildebrand Reuwich, who was Dean
of the painters' guild there in 1470. He traveled on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which gave rise to his most
famous work. It has been suggested that he was the Master
of the Housebook, but this has not been generally
accepted. Perhaps more likely is his identification as an
engraver known as the Master of the Book of Reason.
 • Jost Amman (June 13, 1539 – March 17, 1591) was a Swiss-
German artist, celebrated chiefly for his woodcuts, done
mainly for book illustrations.

• He worked initially with Virgil Solis, then a leading producer

of book illustrations. His productivity was very remarkable,
as may be gathered from the statement of one of his pupils,
who said that the drawings he made during a period of four
years would have filled a hay wagon. A large number of his
original drawings are in the Berlin print room. About 1,500
prints are attributed to him. He was one of the last major
producers of woodcuts for books, as during his career
engravings were gradually taking over that role

Jost Amman