Editing Woodcut (section)

==Chiaroscuro woodcuts==
[[Image:5154 bassenge anon c16 italian.jpg|thumb|[[Chiaroscuro]] woodcut depicting ''Playing [[cupid]]s'' by anonymous 16th-century Italian artist]]

Chiaroscuro woodcuts are [[old master print]]s in woodcut using two or more blocks printed in different colours; they do not necessarily feature strong contrasts of light and dark. They were first produced to achieve similar effects to chiaroscuro drawings. After some early experiments in book-printing, the true chiaroscuro woodcut conceived for two blocks was probably first invented by [[Lucas Cranach the Elder]] in Germany in 1508 or 1509, though he backdated some of his first prints and added tone blocks to some prints first produced for monochrome printing, swiftly followed by [[Hans Burgkmair]].<ref>so Landau and Parshall, 179–192; but Bartrum, 179 and ''Renaissance Impressions: Chiaroscuro Woodcuts from the Collections of Georg Baselitz and the Albertina, Vienna'', [[Royal Academy]], London, March–June 2014, exhibition guide, both credit Cranach with the innovation in 1507.</ref> Despite [[Giorgio Vasari]]'s claim for Italian precedence in [[Ugo da Carpi]], it is clear that his, the first Italian examples, date to around 1516.<ref>Landau and Parshall, 150</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wdct/ho_17.50.1.htm |title=Ugo da Carpi after Parmigianino: Diogenes (17.50.1) &#124; Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History &#124; The Metropolitan Museum of Art |work=Metmuseum.org |date=3 February 2012 |access-date=18 February 2012}}</ref>

Other [[printmaking|printmakers]] to use the technique include [[Hans Baldung]] and [[Parmigianino]]. In the German states the technique was in use largely during the first decades of the sixteenth century, but Italians continued to use it throughout the century, and later artists like [[Hendrik Goltzius]] sometimes made use of it. In the German style, one block usually had only lines and is called the "line block", whilst the other block or blocks had flat areas of colour and are called "tone blocks". The Italians usually used only tone blocks, for a very different effect, much closer to the chiaroscuro drawings the term was originally used for, or to [[watercolour painting]]s.<ref>Landau and Parshall, ''The Renaissance Print'', pp. 179–202; 273–81 & passim; Yale, 1996, {{ISBN|0-300-06883-2}}</ref>

The Swedish printmaker [[Torsten Billman]] (1909–1989) developed during the 1930s and 1940s a variant chiaroscuro technique with several gray tones from ordinary printing ink. The art historian Gunnar Jungmarker (1902–1983) at Stockholm's [[Nationalmuseum]] called this technique "grisaille woodcut". It is a time-consuming printing process, exclusively for hand printing, with several grey-wood blocks aside from the black-and-white key block.<ref>Sjöberg, Leif, ''Torsten Billman and the Wood Engraver's Art'', pp. 165–171. The American Scandinavian Review, Vol. LXI, No. 2, June 1973. New York 1973.</ref>