Printed Pictures
The Temptation of St. Anthony (1480-90, Engraving, Martin Schongauer) |
Our earliest printed books in the modern sense were produced in the Rhineland soon after 1450 (we are not certain whether Gutenberg deserves the priority long claimed for him). The new technique quickly spread all over Europe and developed into an industry that had a profound effect on Western civilization, ushering in the era of general literacy. Printed pictures [e.g., woodcuts and engravings], however, had hardly less importance, for without them, the printed book could not have replaced the work of the medieval scribe and illuminator so quickly and completely. The pictorial and the literary aspects of printing were, indeed, closely linked from the start…
Martin Schongauer might be called the Rogier van der Weyden of engraving… His prints are replete with Rogierian motifs and expressive devices, and reveal a deep temperamental affinity to the great Fleming. Yet Schongauer had his own impressive powers of invention; his finest engravings have a complexity of design, spatial depth, and richness of texture that make them fully equivalent to panel paintings, and lesser artists often found inspiration in them for large-scale pictures. The Temptation of St. Anthony, one of Schongauer's most famous works, masterfully combines savage expressiveness and formal precision, violent movement and ornamental stability. The longer we look at it, the more we marvel at its range of tonal values, the rhythmic beauty of the engraved line, and the artist's ability to render every conceivable surface—spiky, scaly, leathery, furry—merely by varying the burin's attack upon the plate. He was not to be surpassed by any later engraver in this respect.
H.W. Janson
“Late Gothic Painting, Sculpture, and the Graphic Arts”
in History of Art
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