St. Thomas from Christ and the Apostles 1519

Hans Baldung created this print of St. Thomas in the 1500s, using the demanding process of woodcut. A design is painstakingly carved into a block of wood, leaving raised areas to receive ink. When pressed onto paper, the image emerges, line by line. Look closely, and you can see how Baldung used the technique to its fullest potential. The dense hatching of lines define the voluminous folds of St. Thomas’s robes, while more open marks create lighter tones on his face and beard. Notice also the halo behind the saint's head, with radiating lines cut to give a sense of divine light. The physicality of woodcut, its reliance on the sharp knife and the resistant grain, lends the image a powerful graphic quality. In its time, the relative ease and low cost of printing allowed for images like this to be widely disseminated, a truly democratic art form. Woodcut allowed artists like Baldung to reach a broad audience with their vision. So, while this may be a devotional image, it’s also a testament to the power of the printmaking process.