We have perhaps said enough to indicate the variety of the work shown at the Galliera Museum, its high attainment in the field of design, and its still higher achievement in the matter of craftsmanship. One impression remains very clearly, that there were two distinct classes of exhibitors, the professional binder, so to speak, and the artist intent on producing decorative material for bindings. The first looks at a book as a thing to bind and handle, and is restrained in his methods by the use and purpose to which it is to be put. The second considers it as a surface to decorate, by means of painting or the aid of any other of the arts. The modelled work of Lepère, above alluded to, is an instance of this; so also is that of Mdme. Vallgren, which likewise consist of panels that are let into bindings prepared for that purpose by Marius and others. Admirable in their way, they would be equally effective as decorative objects framed upon a wall, and can but be considered a fantasy in connexion with books. Bibliomania in France is responsible for much that is disastrously eccentric and decadent. It is a form of vanity in which collectors vie with each other, and involves an expenditure not only on books but on bindings that would now seem to have reached the limit of extravagance. But such eccentricity is less than it was, and need no longer fill the eye to the exclusion of what is really finely conceived as well as exquisitely executed. If Paris still produces too many bindings of the bizarre and overdecorated kind, we can still go to her for the masterpieces of simplicity and for flawlessness of material faultlessly treated. Some day even the best binders may cease to support l’art nouveau by the force of their skill and energy, but will rather confine themselves, as in the past, to the simple dignity that distinguished bindings in the best periods, and to the accomplishment of that fine restraint which must always be the high-water mark of bookbinding as a fine art.
EDITION BINDING[[6]]
Of late years, with that revival of craftsmanship, according to the gospel of Ruskin and William Morris, already dwelt upon, there has been a rush into all the departments of manual dexterity needing for successful achievement the guidance of artistic feeling. The result of this has been that there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of the ornamental and the decorated, to the exclusion of not only simplicity but, let us say frankly, of plainness and the undecorated surface of flawless material. The over-elaboration of the decorative arts must inevitably produce a reaction sooner or later, very quickly for those who prefer restraint, more slowly for the majority of the public, to whom ornament is always synonymous with art. For such as these fashion counts for much; and it is in the hope that those who lead taste in the matter of edition bindings may find a scope for their enterprise on somewhat new lines that I ask consideration for this chapter.
49. Bound by Chambolle.
50. Bound by Chambolle.
After all, the costly bindings achieved for wealthy amateurs must always constitute but a small portion of the output of bound work. There will remain the cloth or leather-covered book in greater or smaller editions, for which covers are made in quantities by machinery, separately from the book, and for decorating which metal dies are cut and stamped by means of an embossing press, either with or without the addition of colours or gold leaf. It is of this class of work that I propose to treat, giving first a brief account of the stages through which it has passed in modern times, then showing how it was dealt with, though on a much smaller scale, in the early days of printing, and finally offering some suggestions for its more varied and, as I think, more artistic treatment in the future. This treatment would necessitate the employment of leather; but there is no reason why the less expensive kinds of skins should not be used, not perhaps for books issued in large numbers, but for small editions where a little extra outlay could be easily recovered on the published price of the work. Roans made from the best sheepskins, which are the hides of Scotch sheep, would not be a costly material, and would give good results in the embossing press. Pigskin is a very suitable material for the better class of bindings on which stamps are to be used, and is both strong and comparatively inexpensive, considering the size of the skins. Vellum, again, might be occasionally used for small editions; it blocks well, and is most effective with but little ornament. At one time much in demand for bindings, it ceased for many years to be used at all in England, except in account-book manufacture, when it was generally stained green. It has lately come into fashion again, chiefly for limp work, through the initiative of William Morris, who introduced it on most of the works issued by him from the Kelmscott Press; and both the Doves Press and the Ashendene Press have continued to employ it. To observe its suitability for blocking, either when used limp or on boards, we have only to turn to the coats-of-arms which frequently decorated it on the books of the great collectors of past times. There was a very fine specimen of vellum, ornamented in black, shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Exhibition in 1891. But before considering in detail how edition bindings were treated in the days when, comparatively speaking, books were few in number, we will get some idea of their treatment in more recent times, starting with the last century.
51. Bound by Canape.