Saint Bridget c. 1480

This image of Saint Bridget is a woodcut, printed from a block of wood, and then carefully hand-colored. The relatively crude carving gives the image a directness that is very appealing. The artist would have used specialized knives and gouges to cut away the areas that would remain white, leaving the lines and shapes to hold the ink. Look closely, and you can see the characteristic hatched lines, needed to create areas of tone. The whole process would have been labor-intensive. Woodcuts like this one were relatively cheap to produce, and served an important purpose in disseminating religious imagery. This was especially true during the Reformation, when the Catholic Church came under sustained attack. The printing process allowed for mass production, enabling wide circulation of such images across Europe. So, while the image has a homespun quality, it is important to remember that it was made in a context of intense ideological struggle, using a technology that was revolutionary in its time. It reminds us that even the humblest of objects can have a profound cultural significance.