The Child's Prayer, from "Illustrated London News" 1862

"The Child's Prayer," published in the Illustrated London News, was created by William Luson Thomas using wood engraving, a process central to mass media in the 19th century. The dense hatching that creates the image would have been painstakingly carved into the end-grain of a block of wood, then printed in ink onto paper. It’s a tonal medium, but one that depends on a fundamentally linear process. This gives the image a characteristic graphic quality, readily legible even at a small scale and across newsprint. Wood engraving was essential for disseminating information and shaping public opinion. In choosing this method, Thomas ensured his work could reach a wide audience, reflecting the era’s burgeoning print culture and the accessibility of images to a growing literate population. The image, with its focus on piety and domesticity, catered to the values of the Victorian middle class, but its very existence owes to the industrialized process of its making.