CHAPTER VI.
THE DECORATIVE PAGE.
To turn next to the more decorative side of modern illustration, where design and the ensemble of a printed page are more considered, it is pleasant to be able to draw attention to the work of an art school, where an educated and intelligent mind seems to have been the presiding genius; where the illustrators, whilst they are fully imbued with the spirit of the past, have taken pains to adapt their methods to modern requirements. I refer to the Birmingham Municipal School of Art.
No. XXXVII.
Decorative Page, by A. J. Gaskin.
(From Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales. London: George Allen.)
This is a good example of the appropriate decoration of a page without any illustration in the ordinary sense of the word. The treatment of ornament harmonises well with old-faced type letter.
The original was drawn in pen and ink, about the same size as the reproduction. The ground is excellent in colour, almost equal to a wood engraving.
This is another example of the possibilities of process, rightly handled, and also of effect produced without reduction of the drawing.
Whilst using wood engraving freely, the illustrators of Birmingham (notably Mr. Gaskin), are showing what can be done in line drawing by the relief processes, to produce colour and ornament which harmonise well with the letterpress of a book. This seems an important step in the right direction, and if the work emanating from this school were less, apparently, confined to an archaic style, to heavy outline and mediæval ornament (I speak from what I see, not knowing the school personally), there are possibilities for an extended popularity for those who have worked under its influence.[22]
The examples of decorative pages by experienced illustrators like Mr. Walter Crane and others, will serve to remind us of what some artists are doing. But the band of illustrators who consider design is much smaller than it should be, and than it will be in the near future. A study of the past, if it be only in the pages of mediæval books, will greatly aid the student of design. In the Appendix I have mentioned a few fine examples of decorative pages, with and without illustrations, which may be usefully studied at the British Museum.
No. XXXVIII.
In all these pages, it will be observed, what is called “colour” in black and white is preserved throughout; showing that a page can be thoroughly decorative without illustrations to the text. Closely criticised, some of the old block designs may appear crude and capable of more skilful treatment, but the pages, as a rule, show the artistic sense—unmistakably, mysteriously, wonderfully.
In these and similar pages, such, for instance, as Le Mer des Histoires, produced in Paris by Pierre le Rouge in 1488 (also in the British Museum), the harmony of line drawing with the printed letters is interesting and instructive. (See Appendix.)
It is in the production of the decorative page that wood engraving asserts its supremacy still in some quarters, as may be seen in the beautiful books produced in England during the past few years by Mr. William Morris, where artist, wood engraver, typefounder, papermaker, printer, and bookbinder work under the guiding spirit (when not the actual handwork) of the author. They are interesting to us rather as exotics; an attempt to reproduce the exact work of the past under modern conditions, conditions which render the price within reach only of a few, but they are at least a protest against the modern shams with which we are all familiar.
The nineteenth-century author’s love for the literature of his past has led him to imitate not only the style, but the outward aspect of old books; and by a series of frauds (to which his publisher has lent himself only too readily) to produce something which appears to be what it is not.
The genuine outcome of mediæval thought and style—of patience and leisure—seems to be treated at the end of the nineteenth century as a fashion to be imitated in books, such as are to be seen under glass cases in the British Museum. It is to be feared that the twentieth-century reader, looking back, will see few traces worth preserving, either of originality or of individuality in the work of the present.
What are the facts? The typefounder of to-day takes down a Venetian writing-master’s copybook of the fifteenth century, and, imitating exactly the thick downward strokes of the reed pen, forms a set of movable type, called in printer’s language “old face”; a style of letter much in vogue in 1894, but the style and character of which belongs altogether to the past. Thus, with such aids, the man of letters of to-day—living in a whirl of movement and discovery—clothes himself in the handwriting of the Venetian scholar as deliberately as the Norwegian dons a bear-skin.
No. XXXIX.
DESIGN FOR THE TITLE PAGE OF THE “HOBBY-HORSE.” (SELWYN IMAGE.)
(This is a reduction by process from a large quarto wood engraving.)
The next step is to present in his book a series of so-called “engravings,” which are not engravings but reproductions by process of old prints. The “advance of science” in producing photo-relief blocks from steel and other intaglio plates for the type printing press, at a small cost per square inch, is not only taking from the artistic value of the modern édition de luxe, but also from its interest and genuineness.
The next step is to manufacture rough-edged, coarse-textured paper, purporting to be carefully “hand-made.” The rough edge, which was a necessity when every sheet of paper was finished by hand labour, is now imitated successfully by machinery, and is handled lovingly by the bookworm of to-day, regardless of the fact that these roughened sheets can be bought by the pound in Drury-lane. The worst, and last fraud (I can call it no less) that can be referred to here is, that the clothing—the “skin of vellum”—that appropriately encloses our modern édition de luxe is made from pulp, rags, and other débris. That the gold illuminations on the cover are no longer real gold, and that the handsomely bound book, with its fair margins, cracks in half with a “bang,” when first opened, are other matters connected with the discoveries of science, and the substitution of machinery for hand labour, which we owe to modern enterprise and invention.[23]
Looking at the “decorative pages” in most books, and remembering the achievements of the past, one is inclined to ask—Is the “setting-out of a page” one of the lost arts, like the designing of a coin? What harmony of style do we see in an ordinary book? How many authors or illustrators of books show that they care for the “look” of a printed page? The fact is, that the modern author shirks his responsibilities, following the practice of the greatest writers of our day. There are so many “facilities”—as they are called—for producing books that the author takes little interest in the matter. Mr. Ruskin, delicate draughtsman as he is known to be, has contributed little to the ensemble or appearance of the pages that flow from the printing press of Mr. Allen, at Orpington. His books are well printed in the modern manner, but judged by examples of the past, a deadly monotony pervades the page; the master’s noblest thoughts are printed exactly like his weakest, and are all drawn out in lines together as in the making of macaroni! Mr. Hamerton, artist as well as author, is content to describe the beauty of forest trees, ferns and flowers, the variety of underwood and the like (nearly every word, in an article in the Portfolio, referring to some picturesque form or graceful line), without indicating the varieties pictorially on the printed page. The late Lord Tennyson and other poets have been content for years to sell their song by the line, little heeding, apparently, in what guise it was given to the world.
In these days the monotony of uniformity seems to pervade the pages, alike of great and small, and a letter from a friend is now often printed by a machine!
No. XL.
“SCARLET POPPIES.” (W. J. MUCKLEY.)
This beautiful piece of pen work by Mr. Muckley (from his picture in the Royal Academy, 1885) was too delicate in the finer passages to reproduce well by any relief process (the pale lines having come out black); but as an example of breadth, and indication of surfaces in pen and ink, it could hardly be surpassed.
[22] I mention this school as a representative one; there are many others where design and wood engraving are studied under the same roof with success in 1894.
[23] Mr. Cobden Sanderson’s lecture on Bookbinding, read before the “Arts and Crafts Society,” is well worth the attention of book lovers.