Wood Engraving and the Future of Word-Image Narratives: The Dalziel Family, 1839-1893

达尔齐尔兄弟是英国19世纪最大的木雕公司，他们在49张专辑中收藏了54,000幅版画，是维多利亚时代文化中备受喜爱的方面的非凡资源。它包括版画家对刘易斯·卡罗尔的《爱丽丝梦游仙境》(1865年，图)插图的校样。1)，以及前拉斐尔插图丁尼生的《玛丽安娜》和《夏洛特夫人》(1857年，图。2)，对视觉和文学文化具有极其重要的意义的对象。尽管他们取得了巨大的成就，但从来没有人对达尔齐尔夫妇进行过全面的研究。相反，学者们倾向于关注图像的设计者，即在雕版之前制作铅笔画准备工作的艺术家：上面提到的插图有约翰·坦尼尔、但丁·加布里埃尔·罗塞蒂和约翰·埃弗雷特·米莱。这个项目调查达尔齐尔夫妇及其激进的委托和雕刻艺术作品的合作方法。它询问达尔齐尔夫妇是谁，调查了女性家庭成员和匿名员工几乎没有得到承认的贡献。在历史的关键时刻，达尔齐尔夫妇拥有巨大的文化影响力，因为他们是英国最大的印刷图像出版商--从狄更斯和特罗洛普的插图到软体动物和小牛胎儿的科学图像。7)，以及肥皂或可可的广告。这是一个木刻是无处不在的技术的时代。木刻发明于19世纪初，与早期的木刻不同；刻在黄杨木(一种非常坚硬的木材)上，使用内纹而不是木板，能够制作出更精细的细节，因此在技术上可以与铜和钢雕刻相抗衡。它的印刷成本也低得多。与当时已知的任何其他视觉媒介不同，木刻能够将非凡的细节与廉价的大规模生产结合在一起(在本世纪的大部分时间里，摄影过于昂贵，无法广泛使用)。我的项目调查达尔齐尔家族在这个行业的领导者所扮演的角色，以及他们文化影响的性质。我的主要研究材料是达尔齐尔档案馆。保存在大英博物馆，这一重要但很少使用的资源拥有所有达尔齐尔图像的证据印象，收集在1839年至1893年的专辑中。作为雕刻者的校样，他们印刷得很仔细，往往比出版的印象更精细。这些专辑的视觉质量令人震惊，不仅是上面提到的著名亮点，还有许多从未展出过的令人惊叹的印刷品。例如，档案包括一幅引人注目的插图《Rizpah》(1857年，图3)。3)，达尔齐尔家族在坦尼尔之后雕刻的。它展示了一位从《旧约》中失去亲人的母亲，她憔悴的脸闪耀着光芒，从哥特式风景中冷冷地凝视着观众。自制作以来，我第一次展示和解读这样的图像，我将提供一个亟需的木刻描述，探索它的技术和美学。我还将在我们对文本和插图相互关联的理论理解中进行新的干预。这个为期两年的项目投资于我的职业发展，以及这个重要的新研究领域。这将使我能够培养作为研究领导者的重要技能，第一次与多个合作者一起管理一个跨学科项目。我将出版一本专著，探讨达尔齐尔家族，以及19世纪及以后人们阅读和使用书籍插图的方式。我将在大英博物馆策划一个展览，探索同样的主题。会议将允许共享研究，将不同的智力观点聚集在一起。一份图文并茂的在线目录将发布在大英博物馆的网站上，这将使达尔齐尔夫妇的作品首次可供访问。最后，我将领导一系列开放的、批判性的和创造性的研讨会，向新的观众介绍达尔齐尔夫妇，并促进对他们的艺术做出回应的新方式。

The Dalziel Brothers were the largest 19th-century wood engraving firm in Britain, and their archive of 54,000 prints in 49 albums is a phenomenal resource for a well loved aspect of Victorian culture. It includes the printmakers' proofs of the illustrations to Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1865, fig. 1), as well as the Pre-Raphaelite illustrations to Tennyson's 'Mariana' and 'The Lady of Shalott' (1857, fig. 2), objects of immense importance to visual and literary culture. Despite their huge achievements, there has never been a full-length study of the Dalziels. Instead, scholars tend to focus on the designers of the images, artists who made the preparatory pencil drawings before the blocks were engraved: for the illustrations mentioned above, John Tenniel, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. This project investigates the Dalziels and their radically collaborative methods of commissioning and engraving works of art. It asks who the Dalziels were, examining the little acknowledged contributions of women family-members and anonymous employees. The Dalziels had great cultural power at a key moment in history, as Britain's largest publishers of printed images - everything from Dickens and Trollope illustrations to scientific images of molluscs and calf foetuses (fig. 7), and adverts for soap or cocoa. This was a time when wood engraving was the ubiquitous technique. Invented in the early 19th century, wood engraving was different from the earlier woodcut; cut on boxwood (an extremely hard wood), and using the endgrain rather than plank, it was capable of much finer detail, so that it could compete technically with copper and steel engravings. It was also far cheaper to print. Like no other visual medium then known, wood engraving was capable of extraordinary detail combined with cheap mass production (for most of the century photography was too expensive for widespread use). My project investigates the role of the Dalziels at the head of this industry, and the nature of their cultural influence.My primary research material is the Dalziel Archive. Held in the British Museum, this vital but scarcely used resource has proof impressions of all Dalziel images, collected in albums from 1839 to 1893. As engravers' proofs, they were printed with care, often finer than published impressions. The albums are astonishing for the visual qualities, not only of the famous highlights mentioned above, but of many stunning prints never before exhibited. For example, the archive includes an arresting illustration, 'Rizpah' (1857, fig. 3), engraved by the Dalziels after Tenniel. It shows a bereaved mother from the Old Testament, her haggard face brilliantly lit, who stares bleakly at at the viewer from a gothic landscape. Exhibiting and interpreting images like this for the first time since they were produced, I will offer a much-needed account of wood engraving that explores its techniques and aesthetic. I will also make a new intervention in our theoretical understanding of how text and illustrations relate to one another.This two-year project invests in my career development, as well as in this important new research area. It will enable me to develop vital skills as a research leader, managing an interdisciplinary project with multiple collaborators for the first time. I will publish a monograph exploring the Dalziel family, and the way book illustrations were read and used in the 19th century and beyond. I will curate a display in the British Museum which explores the same themes. A conference will allow for shared research, bringing together different intellectual perspectives. An illustrated, online catalogue, to be published on the British Museum's website, will make the Dalziels' work accessible for this first time. Finally, I will lead a series of open critical and creative workshops that will introduce the Dalziels to new audiences and promote new ways of responding to their art.