The most obvious characteristic of woodblock print is that is is hand-made. Both the cutting or carving of the block and the actual printing make up the artistic process. A machine-cut block or a machine-made print will obviously not be a true woodblock print. The poet William Blake drew and painted illustrations of his books, such as "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell." They are good examples of the timeless beauty of woodblock print.
Woodblock print looks old as well as beautiful. It looks old because it is old, or at least representative of a bygone era, when someone would take the time to carve into wood (usually from poplar or pear trees) an image that would later produce a lovely printed page or work of art. The exquisite nature of woodcut makes an ordinary page of print look like an etching or a finely wrought drawing. After the advent of metal type, woodblock print became a specialized skill learned mainly by artists and engravers.
Woodblock print is characteristically clear and easy on the eyes. Artists such as painter Mary Cassatt and illustrator W.T. Benda were inspired to turn woodblock print into woodcut art. Novelist Willa Cather asked Benda to do eight pen-and-ink drawings for her book "My Antonia" because they reminded her so much of woodcuts she had seen in books she loved as a child. He obliged, although contemporary Benda fans will be surprised to see him working in black and white, since he later became known for colorful woodcut-inspired paintings of women's faces.
Along with being clear, woodblock print is simple, not busy or cluttered. This characteristic may also be called minimalist by some art historians. German artist Kathe Kollwitz took the ancient art of the woodblock print and transferred it to her own technique of woodcut print on woven paper. Her "Woman in the Lap of Death" woodcut is one of the most simple yet intricate images of Nazi Germany.
The color woodblock prints of the American Arts and Crafts movement in the early 1900s show the Japanese influence. Clarity of image combined with rich yet subtle color is integral to the woodblock prints of Arthur Wesley Dow and Walter J. Phillips. Phillips' "The Angler" is an exquisite example.
In the hands of female artists such as Margaret Jordan and Eliza Draper Gardiner, the woodblock print resembles a watercolor painting, characteristic of the natural progression described by Ernest Fenollosa in 1895 when he noted that the woodblock artist was becoming "as free with his blocks as the painter with his palette." Patterson's "Summer Clouds" done in 1918 shows this progression.