Even during his own lifetime Thomas Bewick was considered to be the finest of all English practitioners of wood carving as well as a noted scholar of ornithology and natural history. Bewick’s two landmark works, A General History of Quadrupeds and the two volume History of British Birds, as well as being fine examples of natural history scholarship were beautiful books that marked a turning point in the quality that was expected of illustrations made by way of engravings.
However, it was not just on the scientific world that Thomas Bewick made his mark, his illustrations had a huge influence on literature as well. In The Water Babies Charles Kingsley instructs the reader to imagine a river of the kind that “dear old Bewick” would have drawn while in Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte has her eponymous heroine taking refuge in a book and commenting that “with Bewick on my knee, I was then happy”. Further, it could accurately be claimed that, with his Select Fables and the New Lottery Book of Birds and Beasts, Bewick was the first to make the work of the illustrator as important as that of the writer in books for children.
Nature’s Engraver is a fascinating biography in which Jenny Uglow has expertly recorded the life and works of Thomas Bewick and accounted for his enduring popularity as an artist.
A Life in Pictures
Thomas Bewick was born in 1753 in the village of Mickley in Northumberland and, aside from a miserable year that he spent in London, he lived his entire life in the North East. Bewick was a poor student although he did excel in art from an early age despite never receiving any formal training. At the age of 14 Bewick was apprenticed to Ralph Beilby, an engraver in Newcastle, and it was on commissions at Beilby’s workshop that Bewick honed his engraving skills.
The greatest achievement of Bewick’s career was undoubtedly his History of British Birds (published in two volumes, Lane Birds and Water Birds, between 1797 and 1804). Bewick had always been a great lover of the outdoors and his writing was invaluably aided by his detailed knowledge of the habits of birds obtained during his regular expeditions into the countryside. He also relied on information told to him by friends and acquaintances as well as on that contained within the important natural history works of the time. Many of Bewick’s illustrations from the History of British Birds are still reproduced today, including those that were just vignettes or tailpieces in his original volume.
Bewick’s art is still considered the pinnacle of its medium and Bewick’s method (his practice of carving on hard woods with sharp tools more commonly used in metal work) has become the dominant method used by wood engravers.
Nature’s Engraver
Once again Jenny Uglow has produced an enthralling biography that, while clearly based on painstaking historical research, is hugely readable and sympathetic to the life and times of the central figure.
Although Bewick’s own life was rather straightforward, he lived in interesting times. Indeed, Bewick’s life overlapped with those of Birmingham’s famous Lunar Men, the subject of a previous book by Jenny Uglow, and Uglow has once again demonstrated an expert grasp of period detail. As well as illuminating the life of Bewick himself, she manages to highlight the times behind the life. Uglow brings the reality of the calm and serene 18th century Tyne Valley as well as the bustling and competitive professional life of Newcastle to life.
As well as being a pleasure to read, Nature’s Engraver is also a pleasure to behold with the finest works of Bewick, works of minute delicacy and precision, being produced in glorious detail.
Nature’s Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick by Jenny Uglow
ISBN 978-0571223756, Faber and Faber, 2007, £9.99, pp 480
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