Special to here. A proper study of the art of typography

Subjects necessitates practice with a printing press, and prob¬

ably the help of a trained assistant.

To would-be printers, printers, and all interested
in typography, the easily acquired art of writing
may be commended as a practical introduction to
a better knowledge of letter forms and their decora¬
tive possibilities.

In this connection I have quoted in the preface
(p. xi) some remarks on Calligraphy by Mr.
Cobden-Sanderson, who, again, referring to typog¬
raphy, says—1

“The passage from the Written Book to the Printed
Book was sudden and complete. Nor is it wonderful that
the earliest productions of the printing press are the most
beautiful, and that the history of its subsequent career is
but the history of its decadence. The Printer carried on
into Type the tradition of the Calligrapher and of the
Calligrapher at his best. As this tradition died out in
the distance, the craft of the Printer declined. It is the
function of the Calligrapher to revive and restore the
craft of the Printer to its original purity of intention and
accomplishment. The Printer must at the same time be
a Calligrapher, or in touch with him, and there must be
in association with the Printing Press a Scriptorium where
beautiful writing may be practised and the art of letter-
designing kept alive. And there is this further evidence
of the dependence of printing upon writing: the great
revival in printing which is taking place under our own
eyes, is the work of a Printer who before he was a Printer
was a Calligrapher and an Illuminator, WILLIAM
MORRIS.

“The whole duty of Typography, as of Calligraphy, is
to communicate to the imagination, without loss by the

1 “Ecce Mundus (The Book Beautiful),” 1902.

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way, the thought or image intended to be communicated
by the Author. And the whole duty of beautiful typog¬
raphy is not to substitute for the beauty or interest of the
thing thought and intended to be conveyed by the symbol,
a beauty or interest of its own, but, on the one hand, to
win access for that communication by the clearness and
beauty of the vehicle, and on the other hand, to take
advantage of every pause or stage in that communication
to interpose some characteristic and restful beauty in its
own art.”

Early Printing was in some points inferior in
technical excellence to the best modern typography.
But the best early printers used finer founts of type
and better proportions in the arrangement and spac¬
ing of their printed pages; and it is now generally
agreed that early printed books are the most beau¬
tiful. It would repay a modern printer to endeavour
to find out the real grounds for this opinion, the
underlying principles of the early work, and, where
possible, to put them into practice.

Freedom.—The treatment or “planning” of early
printing—and generally of all pieces of lettering
which are most pleasing—is strongly marked by
freedom. This freedom of former times is frequently
referred to now as “spontaneity”—sometimes it
would seem to be implied that there was a lawless
irresponsibility in the early craftsman, incompatible
with modern conditions. True spontaneity, however,
seems to come from working by rule, but not being
bound by it.

For example, the old Herbal from which figs.
135 to 141 are taken contains many woodcuts of
plants, &c., devoting a complete page to each. When
a long explanation of a cut is required, a smaller type
is used {comp. figs. 135 & 138) ; when the explanation

333

Special

Subjects