LUDWIG RICHTER, 1803 – 1884, is probably one of the most popular and charming german artists of the 19. century. he created thousands of drawings to be published by transfering them into woodcuts. DRESDEN, where richter lived, was next to berlin and munic the center of german woodcut-art. mostly english artists, like THOMAS BEWICK and JOHN ALLANSON, living and working there in dresden, where leading in that diffficult craft. early richter delivered his drawings to a publisher who had them cut into wood by the specialized artists. later richter did his drawings directly on the wood, to make it easier for the woodcut artist. that way numerous books could be published, with fairy tales, folk songs, anthologies and reading books. richter was also a very talented painter, I showed in an earlier post some of his work.
his drawings/woodcuts are so rich in detail of the world of his time, the typical southern- and east-german landscape, the rural architecture and plants, that it was always for me some good inspiration for film-designs of stories from that time.
© ludwig richter
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 40 years I lived and worked in duesseldorf, london, paris, los angeles, manila and tokyo. now I am professor for film-design at the nanyang techn. university in singapore.
This is really wonderfull, thanks for sharing.
I just recently discovered your blog and I was surprised by the quality of the stuff that I have found here
Keep it coming.
hi
strictly speaking this is not woodcut but wood engraving which is done in top end planks
and allows greater and finer detail. for extremes of the two different procedures compare Emil Nolde woodcuts and Gustave Doree wood engravings
from hans -
thank you for the explanation. I translated from my german reference and there is only on word in german for woodcut.