ENGRAVING FOR MAGAZINES

Press, Volume L, Issue 8582, 8 September 1893, Page 3

ENGRA VING FOR MAGAZINES

Thk Various Processes of RepboducIKS ILLUSTRATIONS. Detreit Free Press. The writer of this article used to imagine, as doubtless others have done, how an engraver could sit down to a block of wood and accurately copy a picture freehand with his sharp-pointed tool. Fortunately for the engraver he does noc sit down and copy his picture freehand ; he bas it photographed with a white background on the block upon which he works, and he merely cuts the lines into the wood. But, nevertheless tbia is no easy job. In former days the practice was to draw the picture on the block in the first place, and then cut it. Sometimes the artist drew the picture, sometimes the engraver or a third person copied the picture from a painting or water-colour onto the block. . Now the picture is always made originally on canvas or paper, then photographed onto the block, and cut by the engraver. The picture is not printed from the block of wood, however, but an electrotype copperplate is taken. The work of the director of the art department of a (treat magazine like the " Century " Is not merely in selecting the most suitable pictures from a number submitted, but it is infinitely varied, and the direction of the work of engraving is no small pare. W. B. Fraser, art; director of the "Century," is a small man, with a heavy head of iron-gray hair and iron-gray whiskers. As I sat down by him the other day he looked across at a dark oil painting of a street at night with the gleam of street lights and said: " I would give you $10 if you would tell mc how to engrave that picture. I'm sure I don't know." ■= " There are several ways of engraving a picture," said he, "but the two principal ones are to put it on wood or to process it, by the half-tone method. Pen and ink drawings are always transferred direct by the " photographic process, and when possible the printing is done from the original plate. This is the simplest of all methods of engraving. By it you have a reproduction of the picture exactly as the artist made it. And many artists are fond of pen and ink work, because they are sure to be Justly represented." But a magazine like the "Century" uses few such pictures aa these. There are no "tones " in pen and ink work, and it is " tones "which give a picture character. It may be remarked that process reproduction of this sort costs comparatively little, on large contracts only from eight to twelve cents a square inch, at most fifteen cents, so that a full page picture for the : "Century" would be worth less thanss, : as far as the engraving Iβ concerned. There are two ways of reproducing the ordinary black and white illustration, by the half-tone process or by wood engraving. Mr Fraser says the " Century" never inquires as to the cost, but chooses the process which will give the best result, even though the difference be small. It is a fact, nevertheless, that a wood cut costs * $200 and a process plate $30. > Some people have imagined that process reproduction is better than wood engraving under any circumstances, since it gives a faithful likeness of the original drawing. But this is not true. The naiftone process will reproduce only five or cix"tones" or shades of colour, while a good water-colour has forty or fifty, and . the greater part of these can be represented. ;In a wood cut. Besides, when a picture is 1 photographed, it comes out either blacker ■ or lighter thaa the original, and the difference is often so pronounced is entirely to change the effect. For reasons of this sort only pictures with sharp contrasts of black and white can be successfully reproduced by the half-tone process. •'The engraver interprets a picture, not following the shading photographed on his block at all, but keeping his eye on the original drawing," said Mr Fraser. In the old days when the drawing was made directly on the block and destroyed by the engraver, the interpreting business often brought anything but satisfaction to the artist. He often wished his picture had not been interpreted. As his picture was destroyed no one could tell just how much it had been changed. An artist in New York tells a good story of how one of his pictures was interpreted. He conceived the idea of a field of daisies seen through a picturesque knothole in a country fence. The engraver was one of the famous ones of twenty years ago, riiough he was then getting old, and his eyesight was not of the best. He interpreted the field of daisies into a rushing river, and the picturesque country fence into the roughest barrier one could imagine. Naturally the artist made a row, bat Mr X insisted that he thought the field of daisies was a river. His friends tried to persuade the artist that the eld man was hard of teeing. Bat the artist still refers to itaa an excellent example of " interpretation." Wood engraring can only be made on boxwood, and this is so scarce now that the blccks are often made by dovetailing together innumerable little pieces. An ordinary block costs $2 or $3_for the wood algpcn