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1. 1 2017-06-20T20:34:42+00:00 Wood Cuts 16 In the early modern period (1500-1750) images in texts were created by using woodcuts. An artist would create the image by carving it into a block of wood. The surfaces left after carving then appeared black when rolled with ink and pressed to the page. Monsters-- and wonders of all sorts-- were popular subjects of these texts, especially early medical texts. plain 2017-09-12T14:14:34+00:00 In the early modern period (1500-1750) images in texts were created by using woodcuts. An artist would create the image by carving it into a block of wood. The surfaces left after carving then appeared black when rolled with ink and pressed to the page. Monsters-- and wonders of all sorts-- were popular subjects of these texts, especially early medical texts. These books, like On Monsters and Marvels by Ambroise Paré (1510?-1590), told background stories about the “monster” and provided an image to go with the story. Oftentimes, the physician had not actually seen the monster himself but only heard about it through others. This is why many of these woodcuts look so fantastical. Toad heads on human bodies, a baby with angel wings and a single eye, or people who appear as patchworks of various animal parts; these images indeed look strange and wondrous. Perhaps these strange images are a result of people’s descriptions when recounting stories of travel, or perhaps they are meant to be metaphorical.