Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.
The Four Horsemen c. 1496–98 by Albrecht Dürer, depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Block Cutter at Work woodcut by Jost Amman, 1568
The Crab that played with the sea, Woodcut by Rudyard Kipling illustrating one of his Just So Stories (1902). In mixed white-line (below) and normal woodcut (above).
Madonna del Fuoco (Madonna of the Fire, c. 1425), Cathedral of Forlì, in Italy
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine ; however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph.
Katsushika Hokusai The Underwave off Kanagawa, 1829/1833, color woodcut, Rijksmuseum Collection
Rembrandt, Self-portrait, etching, c. 1630
Francisco Goya, There is No One To Help Them, Disasters of War series, aquatint c. 1810
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Portrait of Otto Müller, 1915