Chapter III

SOME MISCELLANEOUS ILLUSTRATIONS APPROPRIATE FOR DIFFERENT PURPOSES — THE RIVOIRE APPROPRIATE WHERE EXPENDITURE IS UNLIMITED — HALF-TONES USED FOR NEWS-GIVING OR INFORMATION-GIVING PURPOSES — THE HASSALL OUTLINE APPROPRIATE FOR POSTERS AND DECORATIVE PRINTING.

Let us resume the consideration of some miscellaneous illustrations for the sake of investigating the different styles of design and the principles which underlie them. As we said in Chapter II, the French, who are the most ready to use simple designs printed on rough paper, also are experts in preparing with most exquisite workmanship most delicate designs. Let us cite the cover of the _Paris Illustré_—you will see that here a half-tone and a wood engraving have been used, and that each is virtually a picture. The type of the title is very fine French Old Style (by fine we mean thin), and while, of course, the hair lines in the a and e are due to our great reduction of the cut, yet in the original these lines were very fine, and therefore by no■

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■{177} means as well adapted to ordinary printing as the Grasset, Caspari (_Jugend_), and Stuck designs given in Chapter II. Yet I consider the present design an admirable one. But what are the facts in the case? The art editor, in getting up this design, had plenty of money at his disposal. The cover was of heavy calendered paper, the flowers were printed in half-tone in color, and the woman’s portrait, printed in black, was beautifully engraved on wood, a very costly process. This single cover may have cost as much as the entire sixteen pages of the body of the weekly.

The Auriol heading of this chapter is French also, and is no less artistic than the realistic flowers on the _Paris Illustré_ cover; but on account of its simplicity it is far superior to the _Paris Illustré_ as a floral design for ordinary printing, simply because it can be printed on cheap stock and can be cheaply and quickly reproduced. There ought to be no mistake, then, about my attitude in recommending one style of designing above another. I do so from a practical point of view.

A third example is found in the two Burns cuts. Surely, when I found the half-tone among the news columns of an English art periodical I did not object to its realism; on the contrary, it gave me a very good idea of what the original statue was like. But think of the expense of having a half-tone made large enough for a poster! Also, how vague it would appear from across the street if the poster were in half-tone.

But, turning to the Hassall, see how admirably the artist has given us the impression of Burns, how■

{178}

By F. W. Pomeroy. Recently unveiled at Paisley. Half-tone from a half-tone from a photograph, published in the _Magazine of Art_.]

{179}

By J. Hassall.]

■{180} well his design would appear from across the street, and how cheaply it could be reproduced. Therefore, what an excellent style his is as a guide for my printer readers.

Hence, if the printer readers wish to make a cover design containing a portrait and flowers, I advise them not to follow the Rivoire—not for the reason that it is inartistic, but because it is too expensive for ordinary printing, and for cheap printing a poor imitation is abominable; while a design like the Caspari (_Jugend_, see page 169), where the portrait would be an outline and the lettering broad so it could be quickly read like the word “Jugend,” and in which the floral form should be decoratively treated like the dandelion design in the Grasset “Larousse,” or like the Auriol, page 175, would be just as pleasing to the eye, would print on the cheapest kind of stock, and would, therefore, appear to the critical as an artistic design.

{181} CHAPTER IV.

AN IMPORTANT CHAPTER ON LETTERING — LETTERING CAN NEVER BE WHOLLY ORIGINAL, IT MUST FOLLOW HISTORICAL MODELS; MUST BE BLACKLETTER OR ITALIAN — THE STUDENT ADVISED TO MASTER THREE OR FOUR STANDARD ALPHABETS — STRANGE’S BOOK ON ALPHABETS RECOMMENDED — MONUMENTAL LETTERS CONSTRUCTED UPON A GEOMETRICAL BASIS — MR. GLEASON WHITE ON CHARLES RICKETTS AND THE VALE PRESS QUOTED — IT IS RECOMMENDED TO COPY A MONUMENTAL ALPHABET, AND TO GIVE SOME STUDY TO THE COMPLEX GOTHIC ALPHABETS, THAT THE STUDENT MAY UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE THICKENING OF DIFFERENT PARTS OF A LETTER BY PEN PRESSURE — IT IS RECOMMENDED TO PRACTICE THE CAROLINE HAND FIRST, AND THEN THE GOTHIC.

This and the following chapters devoted to lettering give much practical information to the printer which may be enhanced in value if, before reading them, he will proceed as follows: Let him turn to the advertising pages of some printers’ magazine and copy, _as best he can_, three or four lines of ornamental lettering of three or four different fonts. After he has done this, then read this chapter and the next, and _follow the suggestions therein_. We think he will then get a fuller benefit from them than if he reads our suggestions first and then proceeds to letter according to our directions.

A great deal of time is wasted by the beginner who attempts to letter because of his impression that he can originate new styles of letters. Now, a critic sometimes speaks of “original lettering,” meaning that the lettering shows individuality in treatment, and is not the mere slavish copying of some conventional form. {182} But in comparison to the other branches of art there is no such thing as originality in lettering. Your letter must be, broadly speaking, either Gothic (or blackletter, thus «A») or Italian (or roman letter, thus A); that is, it must be built upon Gothic or Italian principles. The best thing for the beginner to do is to obtain some examples of good lettering and master two or three alphabets of Gothic or Italian style. After he has done this, he will see how all other alphabets he may come across in printed books will conform to the same general principles of the alphabets he has mastered. He will see how certain minor changes may be made, and if, in the end, he is anxious to be original he will, by broadening a letter where it may be broadened, or bringing its cross-bar down a little lower than usual, give a suggestion of originality to his work. (The chances are, however, that he will prefer to prove himself a good workman, and be content to combine, place and execute traditional letters.)

Strange’s “Alphabets,” published a few years ago, is an excellent book to study, and we shall give several alphabets from it. The old books on the subject are apt to be too ornamental for the printer, and the example we give from Niedling’s “Book Ornaments” is of far less practical use than the Strange examples we shall give. But the Bauernfeind alphabet is valuable for study. It shows the construction of the capitals on a geometrical basis, giving an idea of how monumental letters are made. It is easy to see that with such a guide as this, made by an architect, the commonest workman, with the aid of the■

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“Winter, dine trüben stunde und din kelte magnivalt, ob ich das erwenden kunde, daz siu wurden has gestalt, das liesse ich dur die lange naht, und durh die vil minneklichen diu mir froeiden vil hat braht.”

]

■{184} square and compass, could cut in marble an immense dedication of a building or archway, though the letters might be two or three feet high. A little study of this alphabet will give you the ability to understand anything written upon the subject of roman letters, so that the following quotation from an article by Gleason White, taken from the _Magazine of Art_, will immediately become intelligible to you. Mr. White was writing of Charles Ricketts and the productions of the Vale Press. He said the Vale Press had its own type, its own paper with its own watermark, but the printing was done by Messrs. Ballantyne. The type designed by Mr. Ricketts was “based on the precedents of the best Italian alphabets.”

Mr. Ricketts believes that the plan on which all letters should be based is that of the perfect circle or the perfect square; it matters not which geometrical form you choose, since a certain number of letters—M, L, H, and the like—demand a parallelogram, and others—C, G, Q, O—an ovate or circular plan. If to draw this distinction between types based on the oval or the circle appear a mere quibble, we must remember that the difference between the Byzantine and the Pointed styles, which divide architecture into two great sections, is one of similar limit. There is all the difference in the world, to a specialist in types, between a small “b,” “g” or “o” that follows the circle (○), and one that is planned upon an oval (⬯)—I wish to emphasize this point, because I know that the designer regards it as vital; and I, for one, agree entirely with his estimate of its importance. The question of “ceriphs” and the angles of certain strokes; whether a W consists of interlaced V’s, or of two connected only by the ceriph; whether the ceriphs of a capital T are vertical, or slant divers■

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{186}

■{187} ways, or parallel—all these are secondary matters, but the plan of the letter is not secondary.

In the beautiful Kelmscott type, as in the famous Foulis fonts and other notable instances, the O is ovate, and all other letters agree with it. In Mr. Ricketts’ “Vale” type, the square and the circle dominate every letter. If this distinction be passed over as unimportant, further contention is useless. But on this point no compromise can be entertained. If it be unimportant whether the arch is a semicircle, or planned, like Euclid’s first problem, upon the intersection of circles, then it matters little. But so long as architecture is separated by such structural difference, it follows that an O based on a circle, or an H based on a perfect square, must be entirely unrelated to the ovate O or the oblong H. When taste is in question, one allows the adversary equal vantage; but when geometry comes in, axioms must be observed. Therefore, the ill-founded assertion that Mr. Rickett’s type copies any modern font cannot be allowed. You may dislike his symbol for the ordinary “&,” or dispute over the beauty of his ceriphs and the oblique strokes of certain letters; but if you maintain that a circle and an oval are practically alike, the question of these nicer points need not be raised.

We give a reproduction of a page from the Vale Press, and for comparison the Lucidario printed in Florence in 1494. The similarity in the style of lettering is evident.

An evening or two spent in copying the Bauernfeind alphabet, and then making up one upon the principle that most of the letters should be contained in a square will lead you to understand the monumental letter, or what you recognize as upper-case Roman. You might then begin to collect pictures of mediæval and classical monuments, and you would at a glance be able to see {188} the principles upon which their inscriptions are constructed, and you would see that though the letters of certain monuments differed in proportion from others, yet the letters themselves of all the classical monuments would be virtually the same, and most of the Italian mediæval inscriptions the same in character. An Albrecht Durer alphabet given by Strange (on page 174) is particularly interesting, being constructed in the same manner as the Bauernfeind.

The Stimmer and Rogel Gothic alphabets are almost worthless for printers’ designing, but it will not be without profit for you to realize that they are built upon the principle of the swell made with a quill pen, and this will lead you to the study of what you recognize as Gothic letters which grew out of the pen hand of the middle ages. Whether in solid black or white, any Gothic letter must have more or less the principles of the Stimmer and Rogel alphabets. Space will not permit of a full analyzation of the matter, so let us take the letter L only. In its simplest form it consists of two lines (or “limbs”) at right angles—one perpendicular, the other horizontal. Both lines may be the same length; but conventionality has ordered that if either be the shorter, the horizontal should be. The irregularity of the ends of the letter, as in the monumental letters, is not a necessary characteristic of an L (which may consist of two simple lines); but it is the most frequent form in the monuments and is associated with our idea of a capital letter. When made with a pen in the middle ages it was sometimes customary to give the two lines■

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■{190} an undulatory character, and there is hardly any kind of twist or curve that has not been given to them. In making initial letters, in order to fill up the space it became the practice to make two lines of the upright shaft, and sometimes three lines were used. Cross-bars were also introduced, so that in Caxton’s initial letters the L looks like the monogram P. E. L. Almost nothing restrained the caligrapher; and if he chose to make a dozen or two upright shafts, each getting smaller than the other on either side of the letter, the whole ending in some such Celtic interlacing as the base of the Niedling plate, he could do so. But none of this is an organic form of the letter L; and additional curve is pure ornament. The distinction between the superficial ornament and the organic lines of a letter is easily understood by first practicing the Caroline hand and then the Gothic. In the next chapter we shall be more explicit as regards details.

{191} CHAPTER V.

THE DISTINCTION IN LETTERING BETWEEN SUPERFLUOUS ORNAMENTS AND ORGANIC LINES — A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF LETTERING — STUDIES, WITH THE QUILL PEN, OF THE CAROLINE ALPHABET AND ITS MODERN REVIVAL IN FRANCE BY GRASSET AND AURIOL — THE MINNESINGER LETTER NOT VERY ORNATE BUT MORE COMPLEX THAN THE CAROLINE — THE MINNESINGER CORRESPONDS TO THE STIMMEL AND ROGEL ALPHABETS — THE BERGOMENSIS LETTER MORE COMPLICATED AND MORE REGULAR THAN THE MINNESINGER — THE ITALIC LETTER MORE SIMPLE AND ROUNDER THAN THE MINNESINGER.

In the last chapter we said, “The distinction between the superficial ornament and the organic lines of a letter is easily understood by first practicing the Caroline letter and then the Gothic.” Let us explain the benefit of this practicing; the keynote to the matter is found in our Caroline example. Draw the second I and you will find that it is virtually a simple shaft with a little spreading at the top and bottom. If you draw with a quill or reed pen it is very easy to get this swell by a little extra pressure as you begin to draw and as you finish; and in almost all Caroline writing the I is made freehand and the shape depends upon pen pressure and varies a little each time the letter is made. It is not mapped out beforehand. The thin curved line on top of the first I is superfluous ornament; that line is made by a second stroke. We find several such ornaments in the first two lines which form the head of a chapter, just as we find much ornamentation of the initial letter; but we {192} do not find any ornamentation of the I’s in the eight lines of text. There the I’s are all made with a single stroke of the pen, so that the top and bottom of each one is a trifle different from that of the others. In the first line of text there is superfluous ornamenting of the T’s, and of the H. Otherwise this is a true pen hand; the I made with one stroke, the C, D, L, O, P, Q, U, X, etc., with two strokes, the A, B, E, M, N, R, S, with three. The reader is advised to copy this alphabet with as large a quill pen as procurable, making the letters from half an inch to an inch high, and then, turning to the Grasset “Nouveau Larousse Illustré,” it will dawn upon him that he knows exactly how the letters there were made; and he will have little trouble in imitating almost to perfection the three words, “En Six Volumes.” When he tries the words, “Nouveau Larousse Illustré,” he may have some trouble with the A, the S and with the O, which does not show its separate halves as in the Caroline: the horizontal line of the L also is more difficult to make than if it were the same width throughout. The I, R, N and V he will find quite simple. As he familiarizes himself with the Caroline M, D, V and I; with the H in the second line of the text under the ornamental H; and with the P, S, C, he will begin to realize that upper and lower case letters were originally the same. He will also be surprised, if he next falls to studying the Minnesinger letters (last chapter) under a magnifying glass, to find how like they are to the Caroline. Is not the capital I somewhat clumsier than the first I in the Caroline top line? Are not the c, d, h, i, o, p, s, u, v and y clumsier, more angular drawings of the same letters as in the■

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(Ferrara, 1497.)

A splendid example of Gothic lettering. It is to be remembered that this was originally designed with a reed or quill pen, and the ornamentations are such as may be easily made with that instrument. But its regularity is also due, in a small measure perhaps, to its having been engraved on white metal. In an entire book written in this style the letters would be less regular—a little more like the Minnesinger letters.]

■{194} Caroline alphabet? You find the s more decidedly four strokes, while in the Caroline it may be considered three. You find the m slightly different: turn to our last chapter and note the Hans Rogel m, which is upper case, and see how it corresponds to the Minnesinger lower-case m.

The Caroline e you think, differs from the Minnesinger e, but if you will look at the e in _erat_, third line of text, you will see how decidedly the e there is a lower-case e.

Now turn to the Bergomensis letters and recognize that they have certain characteristics. One characteristic is that the final letters and several others are ornamented with the same kind of curved lines as in the first Caroline I. Then that the letters are made with a pen stroke, but that three strokes are frequently used where one is satisfactory in the Caroline. This is plainly seen in the letter I. And of these three strokes, one is the shaft of the letter, which is long, the other two are the top of the shaft, which extends a little to the left, and the bottom which extends to the right. And these three strokes become the basis of the letter i, of u which is a double-i, of n which is a double-i, and of m which is a triple-i. The o is made of the main shaft and the right-hand base, and the left-hand top and the main shaft. So you will then see that the Bergomensis is nothing less than a more complicated and more regular letter than the Minnesinger, which in turn is nothing less than a more irregular letter than the Caroline! In order to make the Bergomensis letter you must have your pen cut to a comparatively blunt point the exact width of the letter—a letterer uses such a pen almost always. {195} When you study the Italic specimen (see last chapter, “Lucidario” page), however, you find that the lower-case letter is very much like the Minnesinger, except that it is more simple and a trifle more rounded, but note that it is evidently written with a comparatively sharp-pointed quill pen. But it is not to be overlooked■

■that the variety in the letters is still due to the pressure of the pen. The Italic letter is best practiced with a new quill; and then when it gets a little out of order it may be cut a trifle and be used for a Gothic letter, like the Minnesinger; and then when it spreads again it may be cut a second time and then used for a broader Gothic letter like the Bergomensis. {196}

Now, I do not claim that this chapter will be intelligible to a mere reader—I feel sure that it will not be—but to anyone who will put in practice all the exercises I have suggested, I feel sure that it will be intelligible, and that it will give him the foundation for the whole study of lettering so that he may pick up any alphabet and master its principles after a few days’ practice.

{197} CHAPTER VI.

USE OF QUILL FEN NECESSARY IN THE STUDY OF LETTERING — THE ORNAMENTATION IN LETTERING OF NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN SCRIBES COMPARED: THE ITALIAN, GOTHIC, VISIGOTHIC, LOMBARDIC, ROMAN, VENETIAN, ARABIC — THE FIRST PRINTED LETTERS: TYPE OF CAXTON, GUTENBERG, ALDUS — THE ITALIC (LUCIDARIO PAGE), MODERNIZED, BECOMES THE JENSON AND MORRIS TYPE, THE FRENCH OLD STYLE, ENGLISH OLD STYLE, AND OUR MODERN ROMAN LOWER CASE: THE ALDUS TYPE BECOMES OUR ITALIC — THE PRINTER MUST HAVE EDUCATED TASTE IF HE WOULD DESIGN CORRECTLY — APPROPRIATENESS OF CERTAIN LETTERS BECAUSE OF THEIR HISTORIC ASSOCIATIONS — THE BAD TASTE OF ORNAMENT AT THE EXPENSE OF CLEARNESS — AIMLESS, UNBALANCED ORNAMENTATION — OVERORNAMENTATION — GRASSET’S LETTERING STUDIED — IN AURIOL’S LETTERING THE SPIRIT OF PLANT FORM IS EXTENDED BY LETTERING, AS IN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE PLANT FORM IS BUILT UPON.

It is to be hoped that upon our advice the printer, after reading