Appendix 2

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH BOOKBINDING DECORATION FROM THE 17^th CENTURY

Until this century very little had been written on the construction of bindings, but much on their decoration. It is probable that bibliophiles had no knowledge of how a book was made but could write learnedly on its appearance, while the craftsman had not the ability to write. Therefore we are indebted to the literature on the decoration of books of earlier periods and to the museums and collections which have preserved the bindings. These tooled and coloured bindings have unique charm and beauty; the work was done by professional finishers with a natural flair for originality in the placing of the decoration.

At the start of the seventeenth century it has been the common practice to treat the leather cover as a vehicle for gold and blind tooling by first framing it with a border of a floriated roll. Although some of these rolls, designed and cut by the engraver, added distinction, the general effect became monotonous. The smooth, even surface of calf took gold tooling beautifully and most of the hand tools and rolls were very finely engraved. Designs may have been suggested by the patron or his bookbinder, but mostly they were purchased from the tool-cutter's catalogue and used indiscriminately on a variety of books.

Other materials were used for covering books, no doubt as a relief from brown calf and gold tooling. Some were in velvet and damask; embroidered covers, which began as early as the twelfth century, reached excellent standard in the sixteenth but then deteriorated in craftsmanship and design. These embroidered covers had simple charm and were brilliant in colour. Coloured silks, gold thread, silver wire, seed pearls and metallic spangles were worked on silk, linen and canvas. Embroidery in the best period was flat, raised or applique and the designs fresh and original, usually depicting natural forms of plant life, monograms, ciphers and portraits.

England can claim little originality in book decoration apart from the twelfth-century blind stamping and approaches to decoration in two later periods. At the end of the seventeenth century a style that originated in France was adopted and perfected by Samuel Mearne,

stationer to Charles II, who is credited with supplying (not himself binding) three distinct styles to the royal library. The first, the rectangular, had decorations of single or double gold lines as a border, the comers filled with flower ornaments. In the centre there was a crest or his patron's monogram, formed by two letters C, one reversed. The second, the "all-over", consisted of coloured inlays elaborately tooled with delicate floral impressions. The third and most notable was the "cottage roof " style. Boards were framed with the usual decorated roll containing a geometric arrangement of onlays outlined in gold resembling the eaves of a roof. Scrolls and formal flowers surrounded the lines and within the roof shape were massed similar gold impressions radiating from a centre square.

About 1750 changes were made in book construction. Many books were sewn on cords let into the backs of sections, to give a smooth back, instead of the usual practice of sewing on raised cords. In consequence a change in book design begins at this period. One unfortunate result was that spines began to be lined with many layers of paper, which gave a firm rigid surface for tooling but made the book difficult to open.

A fundamental contribution to bookbinding was made in the eighteenth century by an extraordinary craftsman Roger Payne, who changed the course of English bookbinding. An eccentric, he quarrelled with all his associates and, it is recorded, spent more on drink than on food. His bindings were original as he designed and cut his own tools. A typical binding would be straight-grained red, olive or blue morocco with a decorated roll border and massed floral tooling in each comer. An ivory cameo would grace the centre. Doublures were leather or richly toned paper; often his colours were chosen indiscriminately. His bindings were forwarded conscientiously with raised bands; few were sewn on sunk cords. He is credited with the introduction of paper templates to impress his tooled designs accurately on the cover. This practice continues today instead of the earlier method of tooling direct from guide lines made by a folder. The stimulus given to English binding by Payne was notable, for before his time, decoration had become unimaginative, and with few exceptions the only work of merit was by foreigners.

The Industrial Revolution stimulated demands for books and bindings; many families were proud to possess a small collection of

leather-bound books and every large house had a library. Binding workshops proliferated in every major city as books were still bound by hand, but much of the labour was unskilled and the materials were poor. The construction of bindings deteriorated; deficiencies were disguised by a profusion of gold ornament, lavished on the covers and particularly on the spines of books. Although the standard of finishing was high and old decorative tools were used, there was little opportunity for original work. In a few decades methods were developed for mass-producing books. Machinery for cutting, blocking, case-making and pressing was invented, with an inevitable decline in hand trade work. Machine binding had nothing to add to the decoration of books until late in the century when thick, cloth-covered boards were embossed, textured and printed by machine in black and coloured enamels, silver and gold inks. The designs were factual illustrations of the contents of the book.

A turning point in English binding came at the end of the nineteenth century with the arts and crafts movement led by William Morris. This versatile man inspired many craftsmen, and new ideas flourished under his direction. In book production his achievement was to interest a lawyer, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, in the craft of bookbinding. Binding and fine printing became Cobden-Sanderson's obsession and both crafts have been enriched by his work. He gave up an established legal practice and set up the Doves Bindery in 1893 and the Doves Press in 1900. On his ideas for the decoration of the books he admitted that the subject of the book should suggest decoration but should not aim at illustration. This was a new concept for binding design; Cobden-Sanderson was ahead of his time.

After the war of 1914-1918 there came new forms of expression in literature and music and more freedom in art and craft ideas. For a time designs were disciplined, with geometric line work in gold and blind tooling. Soon, however, designers and artists made contributions to book decoration. In 1929 Paul Nash was commissioned to design a cover for a book on a serious subject. No gold was used on this work; the cover of light-red morocco was inlaid with black and ivory leather in rectangular shapes placed asymmetrically and tooled in blind. The effect was curiously elegant and calm and marked a decided change in binding decoration — the spirit of the book had been captured in its decoration.

In the twentieth century Paris became the leading city for bookbinding, with patrons all over the world. Fine modern printed books illustrated by leading artists are given exciting and experimental covers. A team of craftsmen, each expert in a particular operation in binding, combine their skills in producing superb work. Some books in an exhibition of French fine binding in the middle of the century were decorated with eggshells, emery cloth and an artist's palette let into the cover, but mainly the work is of free design and unrestrained colour. Radiating gold lines in geometric progressions and sweeping rhythmic curves make the covers alive with light and movement.

In 1950 the formation of a society later to be called Designer Bookbinders was an important contribution to English work. Its endeavours to raise standards among professionals, amateurs and teachers and to make fine binding an art form have changed the aspect of binding in the twentieth century. At first the work of this society was considerably affected by French designs but their standard of craftsmanship could not be compared with their Parisian contemporaries. In England the fine binders, with more than an economic interest in the craft, did the complete work from the designs to the protective box instead of working as a team. As a result there was an inevitable drop in standards.

However, in the last two decades a high level of construction and design has been reached and now their work is of an individual style, unaffected by outside influences and representative of the creative ability and personality of each craftsman. No member is singled out for mention for each contributes his or her style in the interpretation of the book. Sculptured boards, embroidery, free gold lines, blind tooling, onlays, inlays, underlays, textured leathers and transparent vellum are methods used to good effect. It is inevitable that, in the future, bookbinding will change in construction, materials and decoration and will progress with imagination and independence.

The World Printmaker: "Where We're Coming From Albrecht Durer

The Printmaker Who Invented "The Artist"

Albrecht Durer was born in 1471, the son of a Hungarian goldsmith in Nuremburg, Germany. It was a time of ferment in painting and printmaking circles all over Europe. The new industrial middle class was on the rise and the demand for paintings, prints and illustrated books was growing apace. Artists, however, were still very much a part of the artisan class, anonymous workshop craftsmen along with ceramicists, blacksmiths, silver smiths, gunsmiths, goldsmiths and a host of other master craftsmen. In the eyes of their contemporaries there was no reason to distinguish the craftsmen of the visual arts from the rest of the artisans. It was this foppish and self-consciencious young painter and printmaker who was destined to change virtually single handedly the status of "the artist as mere skilled worker," and to elevate the world of art and artists to a new, near-celestial plane. For Durer went on to become not only the greatest printmaker of all time and one of the greatest painters, but he is also remembered as a seminal writer and theorist, as well as the crucial apostle of the Italian Renaissance in the North, having grasped like no other northern artist the great Italians' concept of the relationship between art and science.

He painted the first self portraits in the history of art (starting with a pencil sketch when he was 13 years old), and the first landscapes from life and for their own sake.

The importance of this one-man Renaissance in the history of art in general and of printmaking in particular cannot be overemphasized. He embraced the media of woodcut and engraving early on and, over a 40-year career, took them to heights unsurpassed in the subsequent half a millennium.

Plenitude as Printmaker

By 1513 Durer was entering into his plenitude as a printmaker with his great copperplate engravings, "Knight, Death and the Devil," "St. Jerome in His Study" and "Melancolia I". All of these prints were about the same size, roughly 19x24 Centimeters. Scholars agree that this series of engravings was conceived as a single set in which the

artist established his mastery of the medium for all time. Today, 500 years later, no recognized authority contests his pre-eminence.

His achievements in painting, woodcut and engraving, although prodigious and unsurpassed to this day, are perhaps overshadowed by his philosophical contribution to the history of Western art and culture. Without Albrecht Durer's invention of himself as "the artist prince" the great painters and printmakers who followed in his footsteps, artists like Rembrandt, Goya, Velazquez, Monet, and Picasso might well have been considered little more than extraordinarily able craftsmen.

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