Lettering and the adaptability or application of {215} Initial letter, with character portrait. Drawn by Mantelet, enlarged from a cut in a French periodical. A drawing might be made this size if intended to be reduced to the size of the cut opposite. {216} the pictorial to printing are matters which we have allowed to force their way into almost every page, so a Design by Georg Auriol. summary of our method of teaching in this series would not be complete without a further word about the decoration of a page.
Let us next, therefore, consider the matter of periods or styles in illustrating. The initial letter designed by Auriol represents a modern style of design. THE BATTLE OF THE SPHINX. Illustration from a French periodical. Crayon and silhouette effect. {217} Twenty years ago the half-tone, as in this portrait, was unknown, and while the white and black goes back to the fifteenth century, the free distribution of the leaves is due to the French artists having studied Japanese designing.
The “Théatre du Chat Noir,” designed by the same
artist, is also Japanesque in treatment. It may be profitably
compared with the Grasset page. Auriol’s
initial
“L” you will at once recognize as Gothic, and that
also, you see, goes back farther than the fifteenth
century. Now, does not that suggest to you that
in modern designing there may be much recourse to
antique styles? Recognizing this, you will grasp our
idea in publishing these different Ls. We do not
say any special one, like our initial “L,” could be
of immediate use to you; but we do say that, in the
hands of a clever designer, every one could serve
as a basis on which to build a style of design.
L ooking at these initials from this point of view, they offer various suggestions. Here, for example, are more natural forms, but not in the Japanese styles. A close observer of nature might be able to engrave a somewhat clumsier, {218} but none the less interesting, initial of this kind, while he could not draw a Japanese-like design with the grace of Auriol.