Wood engraving is a relief process involving the carving of lines on the end of a woodblock.
What remains of the original surface is inked and then pressed onto paper to create the primed image. In England, Thomas Bewick and other artists developed it as an artistic technique in the 1790's. It quickly became the most common method of illustration because of its fast and inexpensive production. In the 1800's it was replaced by photography. After the 1920's it once again regained stature as a dynamic method of artistic expression.