Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES
OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS
EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY
Frontispiece.
A SCRIPTORIUM
This drawing (about two-fifths of the linear size of the original) is made from a photograph of a miniature painted in an old MS. (written in 1456 at the Hague by Jean Mielot, Secretary to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy), now in the Paris National Library (MS. Fonds français 9,198).
In issuing these volumes of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims.
In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing reasonable occupations for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art, the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen, there is every probability that nearly every one who would pass through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success.
· · ·
Of all the Arts, writing, perhaps, shows most clearly the formative force of the instruments used. In the analysis which Mr. Johnston gives us in this volume, nearly all seems to be explained by the two factors, utility and masterly use of tools. No one has ever invented a form of script, and herein lies the wonderful interest of the subject; the forms used have always formed themselves by a continuous process of development.
This volume is remarkable for the way in which its subject seems to be developed inevitably. There is here no collection of all sorts of lettering, some sensible and many eccentric, for us to choose from, but we are shown the essentials of form and spacing, and the way is opened out to all who will devote practice to it to form an individual style by imperceptible variations from a fine standard.