Page 27 - Gothic

building elements and natural fea-

tures such as trees and clouds also
denote the French Gothic style of

illumination.

From the middle of the 14th cen-

tury, blockbooks with both text
and images cut as woodcut seem

to have been affordable by par-

ish priests in the Low Countries,
where they were most popular.

By the end of the century, print-

ed books with illustrations, still

mostly on religious subjects, were
rapidly becoming accessible to the

prosperous middle class, as were

engravings of fairly high-quality by
printmakers like Israhel van Meck-

enem and Master E. S.. In the 15th

century, the introduction of cheap
prints, mostly in woodcut, made it

possible even for peasants to have

devotional images at home. These
images, tiny at the bottom of the

market, often crudely coloured,

were sold in thousands but are now

extremely rare, most having been
pasted to walls.