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

) 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 {183}

Page from a Minnesingers’ song-book in the University library at Heidelberg. Example of Gothic letter. The initial letters were in black and terra cotta. The letter W was half black and half terra cotta; the U, H, and I were terracotta; the ornamentation was black. In all probability the letters were half an inch or an inch high. If you examine them under a magnifying glass you can understand their construction better than as they now appear. The first verse reads as follows:

“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.”

[see larger]

{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 {185} Reduced page from “Nimphidia,” by Michael Drayton; design and lettering by Charles Ricketts. Lettering to be compared with the Italian “Lucidario.” {186} Facsimile of the title-page of the “Lucidario” (A. Mischomini: Florence, 1494). Original size of rule, giving proportion of page, 4 ⁷/₈ by 7 ⁷/₈ inches. Showing early Italian type letter and wood-cut design in harmony with same. {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 {189}

Examples of seventeenth century alphabets. From “Bücher Ornamentik,” by A. Niedling, Weimar, 1895. B. F. Voigt. The first alphabet, after Michael Bauernfeind, is a monumental letter based upon the square, the margins of the letters being obtained by segments of circles. With such a diagram a letter ten feet high could be made as easily as one an inch high, and by an ordinary workman. The printer would not advisedly map out his letter with such exactitude, but it would be well to copy several of the letters, if not the whole alphabet, that he may study the character of the monumental letter. The second alphabet is after Chr. Stimmer; the third after type, the dies of which were cut by Hans Rogel. [see larger]

{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.