The Annunciation, from Vigerius 1517

Hans Schäufelein made this print, *The Annunciation*, around 1510 using the woodcut technique. This is a relief printing process, where the artist carves away the areas of a wood block that should not receive ink, leaving the design standing in relief. You can really see the mark of the tool in the crisp black lines, which describe the scene of the Angel Gabriel visiting Mary. This was not a high art at the time, but rather a commercial one. Woodcuts like this were relatively quick and cheap to produce, so they were often used for book illustrations and broadsides. What’s great about woodcut is that it lends itself to bold, graphic imagery, and it was fundamental to the spread of visual culture in the early modern period. It democratized the image. While Schäufelein might have been trained as a painter, he understood the power of the print, and the role it could play in disseminating religious imagery to a wide audience. It reminds us that art is not just about individual genius, but also about the social and economic conditions that make art possible.