Buonarotti is an awesome name to call up, but this great painter, sculptor, architect and builder touched nothing that he did not adorn, and in many of the hundreds of crayon sketches and cartoons that he left behind him, the feeling of the book-plate artist is clear. Had Lorenzo the Magnificent wanted a book-plate for use in his library, the great Michael Angelo could have filled the want from his own notes, with very little of either suppression or expansion. It may seem strange to think of this Titan of art, the creator of the sweeping “Last Judgment” turning his pencil to the delicate lines, the imperceptible nuances demanded by a book-plate, yet it may be repeated, in his work may be found a myriad of suggestions for these gem-like products.
By Thomas Tryon
Buonarotti was not, however, first and last an architect. Painter and sculptor also, these sides of his artist soul would have been drawn on for the book-plate. Therefore the statement that not every architect can design so fanciful and dainty a work as a book-plate becomes a truism patent to everybody. The architect’s profession calls for a two-fold nature, the one side tending toward that of the engineer with its eminently practical and very necessary tables of stress and strain, its mathematical calculations for loads and disposition of carrying walls, while the other side leans to a nice discernment of color and proportion. The laying out of vistas and the arrangement of surfaces and lines, so that the eye is aided in receiving the best impression from all points of view. Of this turn of mind is the one who can and does design book-plates. The very practical architect, if he wishes the glory, which is doubtful, has one of his draftsmen make the design and then signs the drawing and gets the glory. It would be amusing if such an one through some luck charm received constant application for such work. His draftsmen would change and his drawings be as dissimilar as the men who drew them. Possibly the signature would lead the long-suffering public to think him very versatile.
It is not of this class of architect that we write. It is of him who is half painter or sculptor, and who loves his pen and pencil and delights in the personal expression of his ideals. He finds that his way of seeing things is more to his liking than any way of any other man. He sees the infinite beauty of nature and loves her shifting pictures in the clouds. Then too, he must have the ability to clearly comprehend the half-formed ideas of him whose plate he undertakes to draw. This is not always an easy matter. There are but few in the world who can formulate their ideas, much less invent a picture without first seeing it. Here the architect has, perhaps, an advantage over the purely imaginative artist, since the average man does not know the difference between the Classic period and the Gothic, the Napoleon era and the modern German renaissance.
Of the architects who have obtained unquestioned recognition in this exquisite art, Thomas Tryon is among those whose work is especially prized. His adaptation of architectural forms to the confined space of the book-plate shows the work of a man who has command of his tools and knowledge, and despite the narrow confines of the field his work is not at all “cabined or cribbed.” The illustrations accompanying this essay are taken rather at random from among Mr. Tryon’s designs, but they will convey to those unfamiliar with his work, a fair idea of its scope and treatment. His first design was a plate for his father, an ornate armorial design, the name being set up in type at the base. The plate for Miss Annah M. Fellowes is quite elaborate. A long-haired and bewhiskered knight stands before us in a suit of rich armor, his right hand bearing his sword and helmet, and his left resting upon his shield. His helmet is surmounted by a pair of spreading wings. The design is backed by a rambling rose bush on which is hung the motto ribbon.
By Thomas Tryon
By Thomas Tryon