The xylography is a process of Gravure on wood using a wood shelf like matrix.

The wood engravers who can be also dominotiers, cartiers, printers of history, use the size of saving on wood, Europe beech, pear tree, walnut tree, in Japan mainly the cherry tree like matrix and the impression on sheet of paper rag like support.

To exert his trade, the dominotier must have a granted patent by the corporation. With this patent the engraver has the right to hold shop and to print only (not to compete with the printer-booksellers) his production in his workshop.

The ancestor of the incunables

Wood engraved will be also used to print books.
The European books where the text and the images are engraved in the same block of wood are called incunable xylographic . The dominotier cuts the letters of the page to be printed in wood. This very tiresome work prevents all modifications thereafter and the characters are irregular in form.

Finished engraving, the dominotier:

• coats the wood plate of ink using a frotton,
• press strongly the sheet on the matrix with a screw press, kind presses with grape.
• the dry sheet, extended on a clothes line.

The successive impressions destroy the matrix, the invention of the mobile characters by Gutenberg completes this technique of impression definitively.

The ancestor of the typography

To engrave a whole page of characters on a wood plate resembles a challenge. To simplify their work certain engravers work with the line. The text is not engraved any more in only one block but in several blocks of one or more lines.

This technique also allows the modifications of the text. It is enough to withdraw the blocks of the text to modify and replace them by the new ones.

The popular imagery

The popular imagery makes its appearance in France in the last quarter of the XIV éme century.
Le dominotier cuts his image in the Fil of wood. The image is very suggestive it has little text, captions or titrates, " small the gens" cannot read.

To make his image even more attractive and consequently to increase his customers, the engraver will raise his image with colors very sharp red, blue, yellow, green emerald, brown. The colors are applied to the sheet using a stencil key set.

Patron saint

Patron saint of the paper makers, dominotiers is holy Antoine .

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