Émile Mercier has the reputation of being the finest gilder in Paris—l’artiste impeccable, as his fellows call him—and he is perhaps the one man in whom they and the public recognize the chief exponent of the best traditions without being in any sense a servile imitator of the past. His individuality is a sympathetic one to all, and even in that little world of keen opposition and personal jealousy he cannot count a single enemy. He took over the atelier of Cuzin in 1890, at the age of thirty-six, on the death of his chief, with whom his relations had long been of the happiest kind, and for whose clients he had executed all the fine designs associated with the name of Cuzin. There is an immense difference in the mere technique of ‘tooling,’ or gilding as it is always called abroad—a difference almost impossible to put into words, but which is none the less visible to the eye for such distinctions. No French gilding could possibly be mistaken for English, and the reverse is also true. But even among French gilders, where the method prevails of laborious and patient but absolutely certain reworking of the tools in impressions previously made, Mercier stands out as pre-eminent. His work has a vigour and sureness of handling, his gilding a brilliancy and solidity as well as elegance of appearance that are beyond criticism. Though he himself works as hard as ever, he has already brought up in his workshop several young finishers of great merit, among whom Mayloender is mentioned as already of fine performance as well as of future promise. Content to quietly excel, Mercier has raised no opposition by any manifesto, and his position of first rank is accepted by all without hesitation as to its justice.
Pétrus Ruban, born at Villefranche in 1851, seemed for some time undecided as to whether he should join the ranks of the traditional or the revolutionary binders. He was at first obviously inspired by the newer decorative attempts of Henri Marius Michel, but has recently left the circle of innovators for the more restricted ranks of the relieurs-doreurs, of whom Mercier is the head. Nevertheless M. Ruban’s power of invention has enabled him to produce some remarkably fine ‘blind-tooled’ mosaics, in which striking effects of colour have been managed without a sacrifice of taste. The finish of his craftsmanship is undoubted: no one has finer mastery over tools and leather, and a faultless treatment of exquisite material distinguishes everything he turns out. It may seem as if too much stress is laid upon this perfection of execution which characterises French work in a way that is unknown to our craftsmen. And it is true that it too often proves a snare, giving an occasion for making difficulties merely to show how they can be triumphed over. But, on the other hand, it is a matter in which we in England are all too negligent. The insistence of late on the comparative unimportance of technique in relation to originality of invention has been disastrous, and the Arts and Crafts Society has, if we may venture to say so, given far too much encouragement to that point of view. There have been bindings shown there which were defective in the very elements of sound ‘forwarding’—in the finish that comes of an effective corps d’ouvrage, and that should never have been admitted into an exhibition supposed to be especially selective. It may be truly said that nothing is a work of art unless it attains to a fairly perfect technique, even though the decorative conception may be of considerable value.
43. Bound by Ruban.
44. Bound by Ruban.
Charles Meunier, born in 1866, served a short but energetic apprenticeship to Marius Michel, and then at the age of twenty decided to start for himself. Keen to succeed and make a place among the foremost binders of Paris, he worked with a restless and unceasing effort that might well have proved disastrous to his career. The increasing costliness of whole-binding due to the demands for originality made by amateurs had given an impetus to half-binding which Meunier was not slow to avail himself of. He at once set about supplying the demand, executing some five or six hundred, each with a different emblematic design upon the back. It was the moment when, as has been shown, the symbolist movement was at its height, and the young binder naturally echoed the note of the day. It was the same with the cuir ciselé, in which he quickly attained great skill, doing forty copies alone, with as many different designs of L’histoire des quatre fils d’Aymon, a book illustrated by Eugène Grasset, which proved a failure commercially until Marius floated it by means of his fine bindings with motives taken from the illustrations themselves. Meunier has now almost attained the position he coveted. His style has become chastened in accordance with the increasing distaste of eccentricity, and he gives greater care to the details of execution, which, according to French standards, left something to be desired in the early days of his rather too exuberant fancy. Last year he held a special exhibition in New York, showing some seventy specimens in which his decorative skill was extensively represented. His taste in colour may seem somewhat crude and his motives bizarre, but of the mastery over his materials there is no doubt. His snare is that he is a decorator before anything else, and not always sufficiently restrained, or mindful of the best traditions of decoration in its particular application to binding.
45. Bound by Carayon.
The reputation of M. Carayon is based upon le cartonnage, or ‘casing’ as we call it, and which is with us an inferior form of binding mainly confined to publishers’ editions. In this work the cases or covers, whether of cloth or leather, are made separately and the book held to them by the very slight attachment of pasting down the endpapers, instead of the slips on which the book is sewn being laced into the boards and then being subsequently covered with the material selected. But in France cartonnage à la Bradel has become a fine art mainly through the instrumentality of M. Carayon. Supposed to be of German origin, it takes its name from the binder who first used it in France, where for some time it was considered as a temporary binding for books of value which in this way were left uncut at the edges and handled as little as possible. M. Carayon, born in 1840, started life as a soldier, soon giving up that career to become a decorative painter; but his love of books and all that concerns them finally decided his occupation. Type of the true art worker, he is to be found all day long in his atelier, though sadly crippled with rheumatism, devising some new application of le genre Bradel. All materials come alike to him; morocco, calf, vellum, brocade, velvet, even simple paper, produce in his hands the most exquisite results. Amateurs confide to his charge their most costly possessions, and the first artists of the day, such as Robaudi, Henriot and Louis Morin, decorate his vellum work with pen-and-ink and water-colour drawings. If one wants, indeed, to realize that the beauty of a binding does not lie in tooling, or indeed in any kind of ornament, one need only handle the little paper-covered books turned out by Carayon for a few francs. At the same time neither inlaying nor gilding has any secrets from him, and he devises the modelled, leather work executed for him by Rudeaux with the delicacy and sureness of taste that distinguish all he undertakes.