French artists in decoration of all kinds have been so largely influenced or affected by the Japanese, and have so generally approached design from the impressionistic, dramatic, or accidental-individualist point of view, that the somewhat severe limits imposed by a careful taste in all art with an ornamental purpose, does not appear to have greatly attracted them. At all times it would seem that the dramatic element is the dominant one in French art, and this, though of course quite reconcilable with the ornament instinct, is seldom found perfectly united with it, and, where present, generally gets the upper hand. The older classical or Renaissance ornamental feeling of designers like Galland and Puvis de Chavannes seems to be dying out, and the modern chic and daring of a Cheret seems to be more characteristic of the moment.
Yet, on the other hand, among the newer French School, we find an artist of such careful methods and of such strong decorative instinct as Grasset, on what I should call the architectural side in contradistinction to the impressionistic. His work, though quite characteristically French in spirit and sentiment, is much more akin in method to our English decorative school. In fact, many of Grasset's designs suggest that he has done what our men have done, studied the art of the middle ages from the remains in his own country, and grafted upon this stock the equipment and sentiment of a modern.
In his book illustrations he seems, however, so far as I know, to lean rather towards illustrations pure and simple, rather than decoration, and exhibits great archæological resource as well as romantic feeling in such designs as those to "Les Cinq Fils d'Aymon." The absence of book decoration in the English sense, in France, however, may be due to the want of beauty or artistic feeling in the typographer's part of the work. Modern French type has generally assumed elongated and meagre forms which are not suggestive of rich decorative effect, and do not combine with design: nor, so far as I have been able to observe, does there seem to be any feeling amongst the designers for the artistic value of lettering, or any serious attempt to cultivate better forms. The poster-artist, to whom one would think, being essential to his work, the value of lettering in good forms would appeal, generally tears the roman alphabet to tatters, or uses extremely debased and ugly varieties.
More recently, however, French designers and printers appear to be giving attention to the subject, and newly designed types are appearing; one firm at Paris having issued a fount designed by Eugene Grasset.
The charming designs of Boutet de Monvel should be named as among the most distinctive of modern French book illustrations, for their careful drawing and decorative effect, although, being in colours, they hardly belong to the same category as the works we have been considering, and the relation of type to pictures leaves something to be desired.
A respect for form and style in lettering, is, I take it, one of the most unmistakable indications of a good decorative sense. A true ornamental instinct can produce a fine ornamental effect by means of a mass of good type or MS. lettering alone: and considered as accompaniments or accessories to design they are invaluable, as presenting opportunities of contrast or recurrence in mass or line to other elements in the composition. To the decorative illustrator of books they are the unit or primal element from which he starts.
The publication at Venice of "L'Arte della stampa nel Renascimento Italiano Venezia," by Ferd. Ongania—a series of reproductions of woodcuts, ornaments, initials, title-pages, etc., from some of the choicest of the books of the early Venetian and Florentine printers, may perhaps be taken as a sign of the growth of a similar interest in book decoration in that country, unless, like other works, it is intended chiefly for the foreign visitor.
A sumptuously printed quarterly on Art, which has of late made its appearance at Rome, "Il Convito," seems to show an interest in the decorative side, and does not confine its note on illustrations to Italian work, but gives reproductions from the works of D. G. Rossetti, and from Elihu Vedder's designs to "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam."
Certainly if the possession of untold treasures of endlessly beautiful invention in decorative art, and the tradition of ancient schools tend to foster and to stimulate original effort, one would think that it should be easier for Italian artists than those of other countries to revive something of the former decorative beauty of the work of her printers and designers in the days of Aldus and Ratdolt, of the Bellini and Botticelli.
It does not appear to be enough, however, to possess the seed merely; or else one might say that where a museum is, there will the creative art spring also; it is necessary to have the soil also; to plough and sow, and then to possess our souls in patience a long while ere the new crop appears, and ere it ripens and falls to our sickle. It is only another way of saying, that art is the outcome of life, not of death.
Artists may take motives or inspiration from the past, or from the present, it matters not, so long as their work has life and beauty—so long as it is organic, in short.
I have already alluded to the movement in Boston among a group of cultured young men—Mr. Lee the printer and his colleagues—more or less inspired by "The Hobby Horse" and the Kelmscott Press, which resulted in the printing of "The Knight Errant."
Some years before, however, Mr. Howard Pyle distinguished himself as a decorative artist in book designs, which showed, among other more modern influences, a considerable study of the method of Albert Dürer. I give a reproduction which suggests somewhat the effect of the famous copperplate of Erasmus. He sometimes uses a lighter method, such as is shown in the drawings to "The One Horse Shay."
Of late in his drawings in the magazines, Mr. Pyle has adopted the modern wash method, or painting in black and white, in which, however able in its own way, it is distinctly at a considerable loss of individuality and decorative interest.[9]
Another artist of considerable invention and decorative ability has recently appeared in America, Mr. Will.AMERICAN ARTISTS. H. Bradley, whose designs for "The Inland Printer" of Chicago are remarkable for careful and delicate line-work, and effective treatment of black and white, and showing the influence of the newer English school with a Japanese blend.
[7] And they elicited a response from across the water in the shape of "The Knight Errant," the work of a band of young enthusiasts at Boston, Mass., of which Mr. Lee and Mr. Goodhue may be named as leading spirits—the latter being the designer of the cover of "The Knight Errant," and the former the printer.
[8] Completed, indeed, it might almost be said, with the life of the craftsman. It is sad to have to record, while these pages were passing through the press, our master printer—one of the greatest Englishmen of our time—is no more.
[9] I am informed that the adoption of the wash method is not recent with Mr. Pyle, but that he adapts his method to his matter. This does not, however, affect the opinion expressed as to the relative artistic value of wash and line work.
t may not be amiss to add a few words as a kind of summary of general principles to which we seem to be naturally led by the line of thought I have been pursuing on this subject of book decoration.
As I have said, there is nothing final or absolute in Design. It is a matter of continual re-arrangement, re-adjustment, and modification or even transformation of certain elements. A kind of imaginative chemistry of forms, masses, lines, and quantities, continually evolving new combinations. But each artistic problem must be solved on its merits, and as each one varies and presents fresh questions, it follows that no absolute rules or principles can be laid down to fit particular cases, although as the result of, and evolved out of, practice, certain general guiding principles are valuable, as charts and compasses by which the designer can to a certain extent direct his course.
To begin with, the enormous variety in style, aim, and size of books, makes the application of definite principles difficult. One must narrow the problem down to a particular book, of a given character and size.
Apart from the necessarily entirely personal and individual questions of selection of subject, motive, feeling or sentiment, consider the conditions of the book-page. Take an octavo page—such as one of those of this volume.
Although we may take the open book with the double-columns as the page proper, in treating a book for illustration, we shall be called upon sometimes to treat them as single pages. But whether single or double, each has its limits in the mass of type forming the full page or column which gives the dimensions of the designer's panel. The whole or any part of this panel may be occupied by design, and one principle of procedure in the ornamental treatment of a book is to consider any of the territory not occupied by the type as a fair field for accompanying or terminating design—as, for instance, at the ends of chapters, where more or less of the type page is left blank.
Unless we are designing our own type, or drawing our lettering as a part of the design, the character and form of the type will give us a sort of gauge of degree, or key, to start with, as to the force of the black and white effect of our accompanying designs and ornaments. For instance, one would generally avoid using heavy blacks and thick lines with a light open kind of type, or light open work with very heavy type. (Even here one must qualify, however, since light open pen-work has a fine and rich effect with black letters sometimes.)
My own feeling—and designing must always finally be a question of individual feeling—is rather to acknowledge the rectangular character of the type page in the shape of the design; even in a vignette, by making certain lines extend to the limits, so as to convey a feeling of rectangular control and compactness, as in the tail-piece given here from "The Faerie Queene."
But first, if one may, paradoxically, begin with "end paper" as it is curiously called, there is the lining of the book. Here the problem is to cover two leaves entirely in a suggestive and agreeable, but not obtrusive way. One way is to design a repeating pattern much on the principle of a small printed textile, or miniature wall-paper, in one or more colours. Something delicately suggestive of the character and contents of the book is in place here, but nothing that competes with the illustrations proper. It may be considered as a kind of quadrangle, forecourt, or even a garden or grass plot before the door.
We are not intended to linger long here, but ought to get some hint or encouragement to go on into the book. The arms of the owner (if he is fond of heraldry, and wants to remind the potential book borrower to piously return) may appear hereon—the book-plate.
If we are to be playful and lavish, if the book is for Christmastide or for children, we may catch a sort of fleeting butterfly idea on the fly-leaves before we are brought with becoming, though dignified curiosity, to a short pause at the half-title. Having read this, we are supposed to pass on with somewhat bated breath until we come to the double doors, and the front and full title are disclosed in all their splendour.
Even here, though, the whole secret of the book should not be let out, but rather played with or suggested in a symbolic way, especially in any ornament on the title-page, in which the lettering should be the chief ornamental feature. A frontispiece may be more pictorial in treatment if desired, and it is reasonable to occupy the whole of the type page both for the lettering of title and the picture in the front; then, if richness of effect is desired, the margin may be covered also almost to the edge of the paper by inclosing borders, the width of these borders varying according to the varying width of the paper margin, and in the same proportions, recto and verso as the case may be, the broad side turning outwards to the edge of the book each way.
This is a plan adopted in the opening of the Kelmscott books, of which that of "The Glittering Plain," given here, may be taken as a type. Though Mr. Morris places his title page on the left to face the opening of first chapter, and does not use a frontispiece, he obtains a remarkably rich and varied effect of black and white in his larger title pages by placing in his centre panel strong black Gothic letters; or, as in the case of the Kelmscott Chaucer, letters in white relief upon a floral arabesque adapted to the space, and filling the field with a lighter floral network in open line, and enclosing this again with the rich black and white marginal border.
If I may refer again to my own work, in the designs to "The Faerie Queene" the full-page designs are all treated as panels of figure design, or pictures, and are enclosed in fanciful borders, in which subsidiary incidents of characters of the poem are introduced or suggested, somewhat on the plan of mediæval tapestries. A reduction of one of these is given above.
A full-page design may, thus inclosed and separated from the type pages, bear carrying considerably further, and be more realized and stronger in effect than the ornaments of the type page, just as in the illuminated MSS. highly wrought miniatures were worked into inclosing borders on the centres of large initial letters, which formed a broad framework, branching into light floral scroll or leaves upon the margin and uniting with the lettering.
Much depends upon the decorative scheme. With appropriate type, a charming, simple, and broad effect can be obtained by using outline alone, both for the figure designs or pictures, and the ornament proper.
The famous designs of the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili," 1499, may be taken as an instance of this treatment; also the "Fasciculus Medicinæ," 1495, "Æsop's Fables," 1493, and other books of the Venetian printers of about this date or earlier, which are generally remarkable for fine quality of their outline and the refinement and grace of their ornaments.
One of the most effective black and white page borders of a purely ornamental kind is one dated 1478, inclosing a page of Roman type, (see illustration, Venice, 1478, Pomponius Mela). A meandering arabesque of a rose-stem leaf and flower, white on a black ground, springing from a circle in the broad margin at the bottom, in which are two shields of arms. A tolerably well known but most valuable example.
The opening chapter of a book affords an opportunity to the designer of producing a decorative effect by uniting ornament with type. He can place figure design in a frieze-shaped panel (say of about a fourth of the page) for the heading, and weight it by a bold initial letter designed in a square, from which may spring the stem and leaves of an arabesque throwing the letter into relief, and perhaps climbing up and down the margin, and connecting the heading with the initial. The initialed page from "The Faerie Queene" is given as an example of such treatment. The title, or any chapter inscription, if embodied in the design of the heading, has a good effect.
Harmony between type and illustration and ornament can never, of course, be quite so complete as when the lettering is designed and drawn as a part of the whole, unless the type is designed by the artist. It entails an amount of careful and patient labour (unless the inscriptions are very brief) few would be prepared to face, and would mean, practically, a return to the principle of the block book.
Even in these days, however, books have been entirely produced by hand, and, for that matter, if beauty were the sole object, we could not do better than follow the methods of the scribe, illuminator, and miniaturist of the Middle Ages. But the world clamours for many copies (at least in some cases), and the artist must make terms with the printing press if he desires to live. It would be a delightful thing if every book were different—a millennium for collectors! Perhaps, too, it might be a wholesome regulation at this stage if authors were to qualify as scribes (in the old sense) and write out their own works in beautiful letters! How it would purify literary style!
There is no doubt that great attention has been given to the formation of letters by designers in the past.
Albrecht Dürer, in his "Geometrica," for instance, gives an elaborate system for drawing the Roman capitals, and certainly produces by its means a fine alphabet in that type of letter, apparently copied from ancient Roman inscriptions. He does the same for the black letters also.[10]
For the Roman capitals he takes a square, and divides it into four equal parts for the A. The horizontal line across the centre gives the crossbar. The sides of the square are divided into eighths, and one eighth is measured at the top of vertical dividing line, one eighth again from each bottom corner of the square to these points, the limbs of the A, are drawn; the up stroke and cross-bar being one-sixteenth, the down stroke being one-eighth of the square in thickness. Circles of one-fourth of the square in diameter are struck at the top of the A where the limbs meet, and at lower corners, to form the outside serifs of the feet, the inside serifs being formed by circles of one-sixteenth diameter; and so the A is complete. Various sub-divisions of the square are given as guides in the formation of the other letters less symmetrical, and two or three forms are given of some, such as the O, and the R, Q, and S; but the same proportions of thick and thin strokes are adhered to, and the same method of forming the serifs.
For the black letter (lower case German) text the proportions are five squares for the short letters i, n, m, u, the space between the strokes of a letter like u being one-third the thickness of the stroke, the top and bottom one being covered with one square, set diamond-wise. Eight squares for the long letters l, h, b; the tops cut off diagonally, the feet turned diamond-wise.
This is interesting as showing the care and sense of proportion which may be expended upon the formation of lettering. It also gives a definite standard. The division of eighths and fourths in the Roman capital is noteworthy, too, in connection with the eight-heads standard of proportion for the human body; and the square basis reminds one of Vitruvius, and demonstration of the inclosure of the human figure with limbs in extension by the square and the circle.
Those interested in the history of the form of lettering cannot do better than consult Mr. Strange's book on "Alphabets" in this series.
It might be possible to construct an actual theory of the geometric relation of figure design, ornamental forms, and the forms of lettering, text, or type upon them, but we are more concerned with the free artistic invention for the absence of which no geometric rules can compensate. The invention, the design, comes first in order, the rules and principles are discovered afterwards, to confirm and establish their truth—would that they did not also sometimes crystallize their vitality!
I have spoken of the treatment of headings and initials at the opening of a chapter. In deciding upon such an arrangement the designer is more or less committed to carrying it out throughout the book, and would do well to make his ornamental spaces, and the character, treatment, and size of his initials agree in the corresponding places. This would still leave plenty of room for variety of invention in the details.
The next variety of shape in which he might indulge would be the half-page, generally an attractive proportion for a figure design, and if repeated on the opposite page or column, the effect of a continuous frieze can be given, which is very useful where a procession of figures is concerned, and the slight break made by the centre margin is not objectionable.
The same plan may be adopted when it is desired to carry a full-page design across, or meet it by a corresponding design opposite.
Then we come to the space at the end of the chapter. For my part, I can never resist the opportunity for a tailpiece if it is to be a fully illustrated work, though some would let it severely alone, or be glad of the blank space to rest a bit. I think this lets one down at the end of the chapter too suddenly. The blank, the silence, seems too dead; one would be glad of some lingering echo, some recurring thought suggested by the text; and here is the designer's opportunity. It is a tight place, like the person who is expected to say the exactly fit thing at the right moment. Neither too much, or too little. A quick wit and a light hand will serve the artist in good stead here.
Page-terminations or tailpieces may of course be very various in plan, and their style correspond with or be a variant of the style of the rest of the decorations of the book. Certain types are apt to recur, but while the bases may be similar, the superstructure of fancy may vary as much as we like. There is what I should call the mouse-tail termination, formed on a gradually diminishing line, starting the width of the type, and ending in a point. Printers have done it with dwindling lines of type, finishing with a single word or an aldine leaf.
Then there is the plan of boldly shutting the gate, so to speak, by carrying a panel of design right across, or filling the whole of the remaining page. This is more in the nature of additional illustration to carry on the story, and might either be a narrow frieze-like strip, or a half, or three-quarter page design as the space would suggest.
There is the inverted triangular plan, and the shield or hatchment form. The garland or the spray, sprig, leaf, or spot, or the pen flourish glorified into an arabesque.
The medallion form, or seal shape, too, often lends itself appropriately to end a chapter with, where an inclosed figure or symbol is wanted. One principle in designing isolated ornaments is useful: to arrange the subject so that its edges shall touch a graceful boundary, or inclosing shape, whether the boundary is actually defined by inclosing lines or frame-work or not. Floral, leaf, and escutcheon shapes are generally the best, but free, not rigidly geometrical. The value of a certain economy of line can hardly be too much appreciated, and the perception of the necessity of recurrence of line, and a re-echoing in the details of leading motives in line and mass. It is largely upon such small threads that decorative success and harmonious effect depend, and they are particularly closely connected with the harmonious disposition of type and ornamental illustration which we have been considering.
It would be easy to fill volumes with elaborate analysis of existing designs from this point of view, but designs, to those who feel them, ought to speak in their own tongue for themselves more forcibly than any written explanation or commentary; and, though of making of many books there is no end, every book must have its end, even though that end to the writer, at least, may seem to leave one but at the beginning.
Chap. IV. Of the Recent Development, etc., p. 189. In addition to the names of the modern printers and presses mentioned in this chapter must now be added those of several workers in the field of artistic printing who have distinguished themselves since the Kelmscott Press.
Mr. Cobden Sanderson has turned from the outside adornment of the book to the inside, and, in association with Mr. Emery Walker, whose technical knowledge and taste was so valuable on the Kelmscott Press, has founded "The Doves Press" at Hammersmith, and has issued books remarkable for the pure severity of their typography, founded mainly upon Jenson.
Mr. St. John Hornby also must be named, more particularly for his revival of a very beautiful Italian type founded upon the type of Sweynheim and Pannartz, the first printers in Italy. The Greek type designed by the late Robert Proctor, based on the Alcala fount used in the New Testament of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1514, should be mentioned as the only modern attempt to improve the printing of Greek, with the exception of Mr. Selwyn Image's, which perhaps suffered by being cut very small to suit commercial exigences.
Mr. C. R. Ashbee, too, has established a very extensive printery, "The Essex House Press," which he has since transplanted to Chipping Camden. He had the assistance of several of the workers from the Kelmscott Press, and has produced many excellently printed books of late years, such as the Benvenuto Cellini, and including such elaborate productions as Edward VI.'s Prayer Book, with wood-engravings and initials and ornaments as well as the type of his own design.
An interesting series of the English poets, also, with frontispieces by various artists, has been issued from this press.
P. 218. The death of Aubrey Beardsley since the notice of his work was written must be recorded, and it would seem as if the loss of this extraordinary artist marked the decadence of our modern decadents.
A perhaps equally remarkable designer, however, whose work has a certain kinship in some features with Beardsley's, is Mr. James Syme, whose work has not before been noticed in this book. He has a powerful and weird imagination associated with grotesque and satirical design, and considerable skill in the use of line and black and white effect.
P. 267. In writing of book illustrators in France, a leading place should be given to M. Boutet de Monvel, whose delicate drawing, tasteful colouring, and sense of decorative effect, combined with abundant resource in variety of costume, and skilful treatment of crowds, mediæval battle scenes, and ceremonial groups are seen to full advantage in his recent "Ste. Jean d'Arc," although no particular relationship between illustration and type is attempted.
P. 268. A recent proof of the revival of taste in book-decoration and artistic printing in Italy may be referred to here as showing the influence of the English movement. I mean the edition of Gabriele d'Annunzio's "Francesca da Rimini" with illustrations or rather decorations by Adolphus de Karolis, printed by the Fratelli Treves in 1902. This book shows unmistakable signs of study of recent English work, as well as of the early printers of Venice, and it is strange to think how sometimes artists of one country may come back to an appreciation of a particular period of their own historic art by the aid of foreign spectacles. Among the original designers of modern Italy may be mentioned G. M. Mataloni, who shows remarkable powers of draughtsmanship and invention, largely spent upon posters and ex-libris.
Italy, too, has an able critic and chronicler of the work of book-designers of all countries in Sig. Vittorio Pica of Naples, whose "Attraverso gli Albi e le Cartelle" (Istituto Italiano d'arti grafiche editore Bergamo) is very comprehensive.
In Vienna Prof. Larisch recently published a book of Alphabets designed by various artists of Europe; Germany, France, Italy, and England being represented. The group of Viennese artists known as the "Secession" have issued "Ver Sacrum," a monthly journal, or magazine, giving original designs of various artists more or less in the direction of book-decoration. Latterly the designs offered seemed to lose themselves either in an affectation of primitiveness and almost infantine simplicity, or the wildest grotesqueness and eccentricity.
[10] Reproduced in "Alphabets," by E. F. Strange (pp. 244-250), Ex-Libris Series. Bell.
APPENDIX. |