The Origins of Printed Illustration

• The first form of printmaking in Europe was the process of pressing an engraved metal image, coated in ink, over a piece of paper or vellum. Because metal engraving was a popular art medium in the High Middle Ages, particularly in northern Europe, this practice was not inherently revolutionary. After the printing press was invented, many goldsmiths and master engravers simply incorporated their designs into printing templates by carving them onto wood blocks known as woodcuts.
  
  

Early Printmaking

• Applying ink to engraved images began in the late 14th century, several decades before Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. Gutenberg's most famous printed work was his 42-line Bible, which was produced around 1455. However, this edition did not include printed illustrations. Certain areas of the pages were left blank so that once a bible was sold as a collection of leaves, the buyer would commission the leaves to be bound and decorated by hand according to his budget. The Gutenberg bibles have elements of incunabula Renaissance printing and medieval manuscript illumination.
  
  

Adding Illustrations to the Printing Press

• Incunabula printers sought new methods to add artistic flourish and detail to their printed texts. They soon discovered that an alternative to leaving spaces blank was to add engraved illustrations which could be efficiently mass-produced. Martin Schongauer, an artist trained in the Flemish school of painting, was the first internationally famous print maker. The German's art was influenced by Rogier Van der Wyden, but he innovated printmaking by applying this style to woodcut engravings.
  
  

Improvements in Printmaking

• Printing illustrations with woodcuts became popular because it was easier and more cost-effective than engraving metal. For example, Schongauer's "The Temptation of St Anthony" was a masterpiece of early printmaking that mimicked the painting style of the Northern Renaissance. Albrecht Duerer, an artist inspired by his father's trade as a goldsmith, developed finer techniques of carving woodcuts beginning in the 1490s. Duerer introduced hatching and shading into printmaking, which allowed for unprecedented levels of detail.
  
  

Print Making in the Later Renaissance

• The Nurenberg Chronicle has hundreds of detailed illustrations, and many copies were given color.Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Printshops were established throughout Europe in cities such as London, Prague and Cologne in the late 1400s. One of the seminal works of incunabula art is the Nurenberg Chronicle, a history book with lavish woodcut illustrations of historic people and places. Copies of the Nurenberg Chronicle were bought unbound. Many buyers commissioned for the woodcut illustrations to be filled in with paint by hand, allowing print makers to sell colorful books that could rival the beauty of illuminated manuscripts.