Harper’s Illustrated and *Frank Leslie’s * had some of the best precursors to photojournalism of all time. Some of the drawings done by their staff artists of battlefields and cities are just amazingly detailed, and of course these were but two of similar illustrated news magazines that appeared all over the industrialized world.
So a question- an artist makes a pencil and paper drawing of a news event ca. 1860. What happens next to get that picture into print? Were they all hand engraved from the original or was there a less labor intensive process?
the artist in the field would make sketches, often very detailed ones, with enlarged parts which were particularly important or portraits of recognisable individuals. The drawing was traced onto a block of boxwood, grain end on, so that the lines could be carved into the end grain like the lines on a copper plate. Frequently the block was split up into sections so that different engravers could work on sections of the picture at the same time. Engravers often specialised in trees, clouds, buildings or human figures. Some artists, knowing this, just left blank sections and instructed ‘add clouds here’ or ‘fill in trees’. Some engravers took it upon themselves to add their own creative input so that the finished picture might be quite different to the artist’s conception.
When the parts of the block were reassembled a wax-mold electrotype plate was cast from it and up to 5000 sheets an hour could be printed from it.
Lithographs were hand copied onto specially treated stone slabs. The amount of detail the slabs could take was greater, resulting in better picture quality but the printing rate was slower and the image quality deteriorated quickly. Copper plate printing was even slower.
Correct. Many engravings from the period that I’ve seen have initials of both the illustrator and the engraver.
Engravers took great pride in their work and some acheived very good reputations in their own right. One groups of brothers that I’ve come across from mid-1800s England is the Dalziel Brothers. Many engravers had painting and drawing backgrounds.
Wood engraving was quicker, and war artist like Winslow Homer could have their drawings sent by courier (to Currier & Ives? no - they didn’t do wood) for swift engraving for the soonest printing.
Steel engraving allowed more detail, and the plate withstood larger press runs. Lithography was the best method for multicolor printing, because instead of gouging, the image is drawn with a greasy crayon, then chemically etched.
Many artists were themselves skilled engravers as well. When these two talents were combined with a third genius for journalism, we get masterpieces like Gustave Doré’s London