Frank Weitenkampf:

9) American Graphic Art.

New York 1912

The chapter about American Wood Engraving is mainly based on Linton’s survey, whereas the sections on The New School of Wood Engraving and on Painter - Wood- Engraving predominantly reproduce the analyses of Sylvester Rosa Koehler, the curator of prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Weitenkampf characterises Linton’s technique as ”firm and honest”, exemplifyng “to a certain degree his theory that the engraver should draw with the graver. It illustrates also his devotion to the expressiveness of the line.” In terms of the New School dispute, Weitenkampf accords with Koehler’s opinion that ”wood-engraving must adjust itself to the character of contemporary art,” meaning to the current “reign of technique and color,” but in the “one-sided striving for tonality (...) the textures of the materials represented are but too often entirely overlooked. Koehler’s conclusion is that all these efforts eventually bore good fruit. The final impression that he gives is that in the belief in certain underlying eternal laws of fitness and beauty, and of the necessary integrity of the line, he and Linton are, after all, on common ground, Linton ends his History by saying of the men of the new school: `Notwithstanding all my censures, the revival of wood-engraving is in their hands. They will outgrow their mistakes.´ The fact remains that the ‘new school’ did its work and did it well.”

Henry Wolf - Timothy Cole