The practice of artists signing their works with their name appears to be as old as art itself. The odium excited against Phidias for his alleged impiety in inscribing his name upon the shield of his celebrated statue of Minerva, is a familiar example, which will occur to every reader; and there can be no doubt that the usage was also known to the painters of the classic times. But if we may judge from the Grecian and Roman remains, whether of sculpture, of fresco, of cameo, or of mosaic, which have come down to our times, the precaution of affixing the name was by no means universally, or even commonly adopted; and the monogram, properly so called, appears to have been entirely unknown among them.
It was so also at the first revival of art in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The practice of using a single letter, or a single combination of letters or arbitrary characters, seems to have originated with the mediæval architects and other artists in stone. Neither the painters, nor the engravers, nor the metal-founders, nor the medalists of those ages, availed themselves of this device, nor do we find it at all general among such artists, till the very close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. But, once introduced, it became universal. Every artist of the sixteenth, and of the greater part of the seventeenth century, has his monogram, more or less simple according to the taste or caprice of the designer; and to such a length was the practice carried, that the very excess produced a reaction, and led, for a time, to the abandonment of monograms altogether. With the painters of the eighteenth century, they fell into complete disfavour; and although, in the present century, the revival of ancient forms has led to their re-adoption in the German school, and among the cultivators of Christian art generally, yet many of the first painters of the present day seem to eschew the use of monograms, as savouring of transcendentalism, or of some other of the various affectations, by which modern art is accused of having been disfigured.
Independently altogether of its bearing upon art, the study of monograms has a certain amount of interest. There is a class of adventurers at the present day who make a livelihood from the curiosity or credulity of the public, by professing to decipher the peculiarities of an individual's character, and to read his probable destiny, in any specimen of his handwriting which may be submitted for their inspection. Without carrying the theory to these absurd lengths, it is impossible not to feel some interest about the autograph of any celebrated individual, and some tendency to compare its leading characteristics with our preconceived notions regarding him. A still wider field for speculation than that which grows out of the handwriting, is afforded by a device like the monogram, which, being in a great measure arbitrary, may naturally be expected to exhibit more decidedly the workings of the judgment, the fancy, or perhaps the caprice, of the artist.
The monogram, as we have seen, is a substitute for the full-length signature of the artist—the mode of marking their works originally adopted by the ancients. It is found in an almost infinite number of varieties.
The earliest, as well as the most natural and easy substitute, was a simple contraction of the name—as, 'augs ca.,' for Augustinus Caraccius; or JVL. ROM., for Julius Romanus. This contraction, however, cannot properly be called a monogram at all; and the same is to be said of the form of signature adopted by many of the most eminent painters—the simple, unconnected initials of the name. The idea of a monogram supposes that the characters, whatever may be their number considered separately, shall be all connected so as to form one single device.
The first such form which will occur to one's mind is the mere combination of the initial letters of the name—as, for example, AB, or AK, which are the actual monograms of Andrew Both, the celebrated Flemish landscape painter, and of Antony Kölbel, a distinguished Austrian artist of more modern times. In some instances, the monogram is found appended to the full signature of the artist, as in Albert Dürer's beautiful engraving of Adam and Eve, and in other less celebrated works, especially those of the early engravers. It is to be observed, however, that some artists were by no means uniform in the style of monogram which they employed. The device of the same artist often varies, not only in the size and figure of the letters which form it, but sometimes even in the letters themselves. Many artists have employed two, three, four, and even a greater number of devices; and of the celebrated engraver just named, Albert Dürer, we ourselves have seen not less than thirty different modifications of the letters A D, the initials of his name.
[Transcriber's Note: In the first sentence of the previous paragraph, the letters AB and AK are joined together, with the letter A tilted slightly to the right.]
These combinations are seldom so simple and intelligible as in the signature of Andrew Both, referred to above. In most of the earlier monograms, the initial of the family name is smaller than that of the Christian name. It is so in that of Albert Dürer; and it is remarkable that, through all the modifications of his signature which we have been able to discover, this characteristic is maintained—the D being invariably the smaller, and, as it were, the subordinate letter. Very often, one of the letters—generally the initial of the surname—is enclosed within the lines of the other. This peculiarity is also observable in Albert Dürer's signature; and we only know one single instance, among the numberless ones that occur, in which he has not maintained it.
In progress of time, it became fashionable to combine, not the initials merely of the name, but sometimes the most important letters, sometimes even all the letters, of the full name. Many of the monograms thus constructed would prove a puzzle even to the most accomplished decipherer, especially those in which the whole of the letters are not given, but only the most striking of them, and these, as very frequently occurs, not in their natural order. Sometimes the artist combined with the initials of his name that also of his place of birth or residence. It need scarcely be said that, especially in the earlier period, when the place of birth formed almost an invariable adjunct of the name, this practice also existed, even when the signature was given at full length.
A difficulty is sometimes created by the discovery of the letter V—very frequently smaller than the other letters of the monogram—between the initials of the artist's name. It occurs in the signatures of Flemish or German artists, and represents the van or von, which, in the usage of these countries, was the characteristic of nobility. It is seen in the monogram of Esaias van de Velde, and is introduced rather curiously in that of Adrian van der Venne, who lived through the greater part of the seventeenth century. In this interesting monogram, the small v is inserted in the head of the large one, so as to form a figure not unlike one of the masonic emblems.