Baroque Engraving vs Incunabula Printing
Baroque Engraving evolved from Incunabula Printing — the engraved book and frontispiece after the incunabula.
Baroque Engraving
The grand 17th-century art of the copperplate, in which swelling engraved lines build dramatic allegorical title pages and frontispieces. Light, shadow, and rhetorical figures are rendered entirely in incised hatching.
- Burin-incised swelling-and-tapering line
- Cross-hatching modeling theatrical chiaroscuro
- Allegorical personifications and putti
- Architectural cartouche framing the title
- Dense rhetorical, emblematic composition
Incunabula Printing
The earliest printed books, from Gutenberg's press to the year 1500, that translate the look of the manuscript into movable metal type. Dense blackletter columns, woodcut initials, and rubricated touches mark a medium learning to be itself.
- Dense blackletter (textura) or early roman type
- Justified two-column page mimicking manuscripts
- Hand-added rubrication and spaces for initials
- Woodcut decorated initials and illustrations
- Heavy ink impression on handmade laid paper
At a glance
| Baroque Engraving | Incunabula Printing | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 17th century | c. 1450–1500 |
| Discipline | Graphic Design | Graphic Design |
| Region | Italy, France, Netherlands, Western Europe | Germany, Italy, Western Europe |
| Family | Pre-modern, Print | Pre-modern, Print |
| Formal traits | engraved, cross-hatched, allegorical, ornamental | blackletter, woodcut, letterpress, justified-column |
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