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Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum by Elizabeth Savage

2022; University of California; Volume: 53; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cjm.2022.0025

1557-0290

Rachel M. Carlisle,

Historical and Religious Studies of Rome

Reviewed by: Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum by Elizabeth Savage Rachel M. Carlisle Elizabeth Savage, Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum ( London: Paul Holberton, 2021), 240 pp., 155 ills. Derived from the 2015–16 exhibition German Renaissance Colour Woodcuts curated by Elizabeth Savage at the British Museum, the richly illustrated Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum traces the history of color printmaking in early modern German-speaking lands using the institution's extensive collection. The digestible, exhibition-style publication reproduces in brilliant color and describes every fifteenth- and sixteenth-century single-sheet color impression held in the Department of Prints and Drawings. Notably, Savage presents a variety of printed media, including book illustrations, scientific diagrams, music, and ephemera alongside autonomous compositions, offering a corrective to the long-standing distinction between fine art prints and book illustrations, art history and history of the book. Savage likewise surveys the contributions of celebrated designers Hans Burgkmair, Lucas Cranach, and Hans Baldung Grien; printers Erhard Ratdolt and Johann Schott; block-cutter Jost de Negker; and lesser-known artists such as Erasmus Loy with indiscriminate attention to provide a more inclusive narrative of German color printmaking during the early modern period. Each entry features a full-page reproduction of the color print held in the British Museum collection, often with details or comparative material. The accompanying text generally comprises three elements: the significance of the image to the history of color printing, analysis of its production, and identification of content or iconography. The volume begins with a useful introduction to color woodcuts in German-speaking lands. Particularly helpful are Savage's concise history of color printing and definition of terms—an invaluable resource for nonspecialist readers. The volume's eighty-two entries are divided into nine chapters. The chapters are organized chronologically and thematically, and each begins with a brief discussion of historical context for the entries that follow. Savage's first chapter introduces printed images manually decorated with color, texture, and metallic elements as well as printing techniques, such as [End Page 269] woodcuts printed on prepared paper and "white-line woodcut" that achieve dramatic tonal effects despite the use of a single color of ink. Chapter 2 surveys the earliest examples of color prints dating from 1482 to 1509, including two-color book illustrations and single-sheet woodcuts with highlights cut away from a tone block. Savage describes the inventive color printing techniques of Lucas Cranach and Hans Burgkmair—born of a competition between their patrons Friedrich III "The Wise," Elector of Saxony, and Konrad Peutinger—within the broader historical context of printing. Already in 1482, Erhard Ratdolt printed two-color astrological diagrams in books he issued from Venice. Savage rightly notes, "When Lucas Cranach and Hans Burgkmair's patrons brought them into a competition to create single-sheet colour prints in 1507–08, they were building on widespread and well-established expertise in colour printing" (50). The third and fourth chapters focus on early sixteenth-century developments in color printing at two German centers: Augsburg and Strasbourg. The peripatetic court of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I was often based in Augsburg, and growing demand for elaborate printed images within courtly circles led to a period of great experimentation in the city. Humanist Konrad Peutinger organized imperial print projects and engaged leading artists and printers, including Hans Burgkmair, a former apprentice to printer Erhard Ratdolt, and Burgkmair's frequent collaborator Jost de Negker, a Formschneider, or block-cutter, from Antwerp. An innovation of note, Burgkmair published in 1510 the first fine art woodcut printed from interdependent blocks, a color woodcut pulled from three blocks known as Lovers Surprised by Death. Historically, the artists Hans Baldung Grien and Hans Wechtlin are credited with introducing color printing to the city of Strasbourg. Savage revises this conventional narrative by crediting printer Johann Schott with the organization and printing of the two artists' luxury color prints—an argument first presented by the author in her award-winning 2019 essay published in Burlington Magazine (Elizabeth Savage, "Identifying Hans Baldung Grien's Colour Printer, c. 1511–12," Burlington Magazine 161 [October 2019]: 830–39). Chapters 5...