George Edward Woodberry:

New York 1883

George Edward Woodberry, an influential American literary scholar and art critic, supported Linton’s views in his conflict with the New School. He agrees with him in considering the white-line technique being superior and in diagnosing a decline of the craft in the early thirties. He calls the works of the New School “the product of ignorance or carelessness or caprice. In it wood-engraving ceases to be an art of expression.” In terms of future prospects, Woodberry is quite optimistic. He regards wood engraving as a “democratic art,” that “has shared in the great social movements, which transformed medieval into modern civilisation. (...) It may yet crown its career by making this country an art-loving as well as a book-reading Republic.”