Woodcut (дереворіз; derevoriz). A pictorial design from a block of wood incised with the grain. With the introduction of the printing press woodcuts were used widely for book illustration. In the late 18th and early 19th century, wood engraving, in which the design is incised in the end grain, became the chief method of illustration, but soon it was displaced by other techniques. From then the woodcut was used mostly in printmaking. Today it is one of the main forms of graphic art.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]