Single-leaf woodcut
As popular print is defined as the earliest works of printing an image in Central Europe that were produced independently of books and Text Printing 1400 to 1550 as single sheets. The prerequisite for their creation was the presence of paper . Single-leaf woodcuts are among the highlights of the art of linear expression.
Preserved single-leaf woodcuts
Around 3400 copies have been preserved. a. are in the collections of Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, Vienna and Zurich . The Wickiana leaf collection in Zurich, for example, has 439 prints from the 16th century. Scientists have divergent views as to which of the leaves found are the oldest. One of the oldest surviving single-sheet prints is a woodcut from around 1410 depicting " Christ in the wine press " ( Nuremberg , Germanisches Nationalmuseum ). However, a fragment of a depiction of the crucifixion found in Mâcon , France , which probably dates from between 1370 and 1380, has also been preserved.
History of the single-leaf woodcut
Before the emergence of single-leaf woodcuts in the 15th century, religious images were only accessible in churches to most sections of the population. The private acquisition of oil paintings was limited to the nobility and high clergy, who were the only ones who had the necessary financial means. This changed with the development of the woodcut, the creation of which goes hand in hand with the growing need for private devotional images and can be understood as a reaction to this (according to some authors it must even be understood). With the new medium of single-leaf woodcuts, it was possible for a large number of people to acquire religious images. The increase in private ownership of pictures is therefore closely interrelated to a religious behavior that tends to withdraw into the private sphere, in which the private "dialogue" with God increased in importance compared to the common liturgical celebration in the church. The so-called plague leaves are a specialty ; In the first quarter of the 15th century they first showed the saints venerated as helpers of the plague (such as John the Baptist or St. Sebastian ), after the invention of the printing press the sheets then also carried prayer texts and finally even medical advice on the prevention and control of the Plague.
Buyers did not see the sheets as works of art - they were consumer goods. Due to this fact, only a few sheets have survived to this day. Most of the few that are kept in museums today were preserved by chance. In thrifty monasteries, they were pasted into books as end papers and only rediscovered along with their art-historical significance in the 19th and 20th centuries.
In their further development, single-leaf woodcuts were combined into so-called block books .
Features of the single-leaf woodcut
Single-leaf woodcuts are characterized by the fact that they only have a face print (front) and no reverse print (back) (hence the name single-leaf woodcut). They were often produced as so-called rubbing prints . The “one-sidedness” of the single-sheet woodcuts was due to the printing process. The rubbing pressure used did not allow printing on the back without damaging the front.
The figures of the single-leaf woodcut are usually drawn clearly and clearly, without taking into account any spatial or physical effect. Often they were intended for subsequent manual coloring and were therefore limited to outlines in their representation.
See also
literature
- Paul Heitz (Ed.): Einblattdrucke des Fifteenth Century . 100 volumes, Heitz, Strasbourg 1899–1942.
- Werner Cohn : Studies on the history of the German single-leaf woodcut in the 2nd third of the 15th century . Strasbourg: JH Ed. Heitz, 1934
- Wilhelm Molsdorf: Contributions to the history and technology of the older picture printing. Heitz, Strasbourg 1921 ( digitized version ).
