Part 2

The painting of edges was revived in England, and reappears in thoroughly native style on books of the latter half of the eighteenth century. Charming little English landscapes are to be found on some of them, which, as the painting is done when the leaves are fanned out and held in that expanded position, are not in evidence when the book is shut, but when open appear at once. The name of William Edwards of Halifax and his son James is especially associated with this work, and their books are not very rare. Mr. Fazakerly has done a great deal of this decoration, which requires certain conditions to ensure success. The painter must be an artist, and the paper on which he works should be rather thin than thick; the modern fashion of printing on a sort of cardboard handicaps the binder not only in this, but other and far more important ways. Mr. Fazakerly has also made some innovations in ‘doublures,’ a term applied to the inside face of the boards when lined with leather or decorative material. In the matter of doublures the last word has not been said, and there is still room for experiment. The French custom of violent-coloured watered silks or equally salient inlays has never found much favour in this country; but there has been a great dearth both of invention and taste in dealing with this feature of a binding. Some of Zaehnsdorf’s doublures have silk either of the same colour as the cover, or in harmony with it, and he has tried Russia leather with considerable success. Unsuitable as it is for the outside cover from its tendency to rapid deterioration, it makes a very good board lining, and can be employed as well for the flyleaf opposite; indeed, it is better where possible that doublure and flyleaf should be the same. It is with calf that Mr. Fazakerly has made his innovation, and when delicately tinted and incised, but not embossed, the results seem pleasant and appropriate. On books relating to Japan, the number of which is largely on the increase, some of the coloured Japanese embossed papers make excellent doublures. Before dismissing this subject, we may mention the attempt of Mr. Bagguley, a binder at Newcastle-under-Lyme, to tool on vellum in colour. Some of this work, designed by Léon Solon and Miss Talbot, is very delicate and attractive; so delicate, in fact, that it is only suitable for the inside of a book. His patterns are composed chiefly of gouge and line work, as no effect of solid mass can be apparently got in the colour, and the effect is enhanced by dots and other small tools worked in gold. The excessively detailed nature of this work, which is made up of ‘tools’ small and light in character, heavier dies not being suitable for the stamping of colour, render it costly of execution, but there is no doubt that its occasional use offers a desirable variation on the ordinary inside lining. It is difficult to close this subject without a few words in condemnation of the coloured papers used by most binders for ordinary work which does not admit of anything more elaborate. It is time they gave up the German marbled patterns, the French ‘combs,’ and even the spirit marbles which produce the effect of violent colour thrown on wet blotting-paper and appear to be the latest fashion of monstrosity in such things. Good white handmade papers or vellum papers are the most suitable, while if coloured ones are deemed essential, the French and Van Gelder crayon papers toning harmoniously with the morocco are not likely to be an offence.

The business of Messrs. Birdsall at Northampton takes us to another centre of provincial activity in binding, and it has an especial interest in being one of the oldest bookbinding businesses in the country. It has been in the hands of the present proprietors’ family well over a hundred years, and has a connected history since 1757, when John Lacy, a banker of Northampton, acquired it and associated with it a bookselling business which he had also in the town. On giving up work in 1792 he sold both to William Birdsall, a Yorkshireman by birth, who had settled there, and in this family it has remained ever since. We spoke before of the varied nature of the work carried out by country binders, and on Messrs. Birdsall’s premises we find a department of manufacturing stationery, another for the wholesale paper trade, a third for commercial bindings in which are included certain special registered bindings patented for serial work, such as the ‘Stronghold’ and ‘Biblia fortis,’ suitable for free libraries where the usage is rough and constant, and lastly, one set apart for highly finished leather and vellum books. The works are always kept in the highest state of efficiency, and the workmen are encouraged to excel in skilled and conscientious work. Many of these have passed a lifetime there, and though the business is not of a co-operative character, a bonus is distributed to the older and more efficient workers at the end of the year.

Mr. Chivers, of Bath, has brought an unusual amount of originality and enthusiasm into the service of his craft. His father was a binder there before him, and the son, after working with Chatelain in London, decided to settle in his native town. For some time his specialty was a binding for public libraries patented under the name of ‘Duro-flexile,’ and this, together with other library appliances, brought him a connexion with librarians all over the country who were occupied with the problems presented by the particular nature of their work. He has brought considerable invention to bear upon these problems, and in certain cases it is not likely that a more satisfactory solution will be found than that which he has introduced. Besides these practical matters he has made certain styles of decorating book covers especially his own, and one of these he has developed with considerable success. This consists in a scheme whereby designs are painted on paper and then covered with transparent vellum, so that there is no limit to the colour effect that may be produced. We have already mentioned James Edwards, of Halifax, who settled in 1784 as a bookseller in Pall Mall, and whose love of books caused him to direct his coffin to be made from the shelves of his libraries. In 1785 he took out a patent ‘for embellishing books bound in vellum and making drawings on the vellum which are not liable to be defaced by destroying the vellum itself.’ The description further contained in the patent has never been found possible of imitation, which may or may not have been intentional on his part. The British Museum shows a Prayer-Book bound by him in this style for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III., which has likewise a foredge painting beneath the gold. His patterns were frequently Etruscan in character; but as his range of decoration was limited and the vellum he used insufficiently transparent, his books are only of moderate interest. Mr. Chivers’ plan is a much simpler one, and if the designs are given into the hands of artists, very original results can be obtained. The French have one binder—M. Carayon—who is famed for a class of book cover that gives something of the same effect. The best-known painters both in water colours and black and white are employed to decorate the white vellum that clothes so sumptuously the finely illustrated books that his countrymen admire so much. These will, however, stand no usage of any kind, and can only be kept in cases carefully made for their protection. The vellucent work of Mr. Chivers being beneath the vellum runs no risk of deterioration and can stand even more than the usual wear and tear. Sometimes it appears as if the colours chosen were too strong, producing in some cases rather the effect of the highly coloured supplements that appear at Christmas in our illustrated papers; but that, of course, is not a criticism that belongs to the method, but is rather a counsel of perfection for a more delicate application of that method. The desire for colour has appeared constantly in the history of bookbinding. We see it first in the Venetian books brilliantly painted in lacquer in the Persian and Saracenic style taken from Arabian manuscripts, then in the strapwork coloured with a varnished incrustation like enamel, the best of which, French and Italian, is found about the middle of the sixteenth century. This method has proved very perishable, and has never been revived. Later on we get the inlaying of coloured leathers, which reached its most interesting development in the eighteenth century, and has retained its hold on public taste ever since. The earlier painted strapwork was freely copied in mosaics of leather; and when we come to deal with present-day French bindings, we shall see the new style of inlaid decoration to which these have given place. The vellucent method of Mr. Chivers is full of delightful possibilities if confined to books to which it is suited, and when employed in a rather lower colour scheme as suggested. Nor is it necessary for the whole cover to be of vellum, for it is possible to introduce a panel only of the transparent material over a picture, and to incorporate this in the morocco, giving the effect of an enrichment of enamel.

Another style which Mr. Chivers has done much to popularise is calf, embossed and incised and sometimes coloured by hand. In this, as for the vellucent bindings, he draws freely upon outside talent. Mr. H. Granville-Fenn is general artistic adviser, and Miss Alice Shepherd and Mr. S. Poole have long been associated with him in the execution of this work.[5] Some of the ‘cuir ciselé’ that has come down to us from the past, and which originated in Germany, is very fine in character, as any one can see who studies some excellent examples exposed in the British Museum. There seems no reason why it should not have a satisfactory revival; in France, indeed, this has already taken place, as we shall see later on, but in England there is still too much ‘prettiness’ associated with it, and one is apt to think it more suitable for card-cases and blotting-cases than for bindings. What results it can yield when the design is severe and dignified and the treatment finely chiselled may be observed on the _Pantheologia_ by Rainesius de Pisa, a folio dated about 1475, one of the Museum books just mentioned.

The last illustrations in this chapter show work from the binding department of the Oxford University Press. The Press itself, located in special buildings in Oxford built in 1830, is divided into two parts, one devoted chiefly to the printing of Bibles and Prayer-Books, the other to classical, scientific and general printing. It is entirely self-contained, making its own paper, ink, type, stereo- and electro-plates. The University type foundry is the oldest in England, and at the paper mills at Wolvercote, near Oxford, the famous India paper is made which has brought very great changes into the book trade. The publishing and binding house, lately at Amen Corner in the City, is now at St. Dunstan’s House, Fetter Lane, and thither are sent all the books from the Press as soon as printed. In the Paris Exhibition of 1900 the Press showed a considerable number of decorated bindings in addition to the exhibits from the other departments. The Oxford Press designs are very varied in character and include some excellent inlays; they are made by the more artistic among the workmen, and speak highly for the level of taste attained in the bindery.

III

In bringing forward what may be called the younger generation of binders, it is natural to speak first of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson as the source from which they have drawn much of their inspiration. His work, however, is not represented here, as it would be discourteous to go against his wishes in the matter. Whatever may be the reasons for his change of attitude in this respect, he has in the past done a great deal to introduce his work personally to the public and to explain his method and ideals. The pages of the _British Bookmaker_, a trade journal no longer in existence, the _English Illustrated Magazine_, the _Fortnightly Review_, testify to his former willingness that his work should be known and appreciated. He has also been one of the main supporters of the Arts and Crafts Society since its inception in 1888, and his books have been the largest contribution to binding in its occasional exhibitions. There too, as well as at the Society of Arts and elsewhere in London and the provinces, he has lectured on the craft, setting forth what he conceives to be its purport both in the limited matter of its processes and achievements and in the wider aspect of its relation to the wants and progress of society. Not long ago he published a book on _Industrial Ideals_, which it is interesting to compare with the collected papers by Mr. William Morris which have appeared on that and kindred subjects. Mr. Morris always held up the ideal of the Middle Ages as the goal towards which to strive. It was a time, he considered, when the processes or means by which life is lived constituted the end of life itself, without seeking for some other end external to them and often incompatible with them. This idea of ‘art being the highest function of life’ was the gospel to which he never ceased to direct the attention of his followers, and the next step—the attempted re-organization of life into conditions that enable art to realize itself—thus followed as a matter of course. As a protest against the mechanical exploitation of the arts for the sake of commercial success in its worst sense, and with the attendant evils of excessive competition, such a creed is most valuable, and has already had an important effect on the decorative arts which we trust may be permanent. But it would seem mistaken in theory and impossible of practice to attempt a reversion to mediaeval ideals with the wholly altered conditions of production, distribution and mode of living that are now part and parcel of modern life. A crusade against the existing conditions in which works of art are produced must, one would think, if its criticism is to be operative, find some way of including in its scheme of regeneration the great movements of commercial life which is one of the features of the age, and which even the most optimistic could hardly hope to stem. Here and there an individual may achieve a career somewhat in accordance with mediaeval ways, content with the limitations imposed by this ideal; but except in such isolated instances it does not seem possible to return to the practice of the past, when, as Mr. Lethaby says, ‘the designer of a gold cup made it and sold it over the counter, and the art was thrown in like a Christmas almanack.’ Here comes in the problem mentioned in a previous chapter. If, on the one hand, there is too much tendency for the designer to be occupied only in planning ornament for others to execute with the result that a certain inevitableness is nearly always wanting in the finished product, yet it may be better for a skilled workman to carry out the views of an artist rather than try and evolve variants from a few types set before him. In the frequent advocacy of a revival of past conditions which would benefit the workman, there is one point that seems always left unnoticed—a point of great importance; and that is the stringent means taken in those days to protect the purchaser also. In the scholarly little introduction called ‘Art in the Netherlands’ which Mr. W. H. James Weale contributed to the Catalogue of the picture exhibition held at Bruges in 1902, he gives a concise account of the conditions under which alone a man could become a painter in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and what held good for painting held good also for the minor arts of life. As long as the craftsman belonged to the guild of his craft, he was bound by its rules to carry out his work honestly and conscientiously, to use good materials, and to beautify it as far as he was able. The corporation arranged for the education of its members. They were apprenticed to masters responsible both for their technical efficiency and the fulfilment of their duties of citizenship. Each was bound to the other; the apprentice was to give zeal in his service and the master to impart all he knew of his trade. Once the apprenticeship at an end, the youth could work, as what would now be known as an ‘improver,’ with any master he liked, and in any town that he chose. Later on, in order to become a master, he had to present himself before the heads of the guild and give proofs of efficiency, promise obedience to the rules of the corporation, and swear to carry on his work well and honestly. Observe, however, that, although a master, he remained all his life under the control of the governing body of the corporation, the members of which could enter his shop at any moment, seize his materials if of inferior quality, confiscate them, and inflict punishment upon him. Lastly, in disputes between himself and his clients the guild was called in to decide between them. We can imagine no condition less in touch with the schemes of modern and social democracy, which so often deal exclusively with the needs of the worker and neglect those both of the employer and the consumer.

In connexion with this topic, mention should be made of Mr. C. R. Ashbee’s experiment with the Guild and School of Handicraft. It began its existence at Essex House in East London, and, after fourteen years, in May 1902, removed to Chipping Campden, a small Cotswold village where the wool trade flourished during the Middle Ages and the silk trade in the eighteenth century. The aim of the Guild is set forth in a little pamphlet, distributed to visitors at the Dering Yard Gallery, 67A New Bond Street, where the work of the school is annually exhibited. It need only be said here that its object is to set a higher standard of craftsmanship by liberating the workman from the restrictions of the trade shop, and directing his independence away from purely individualistic efforts on to lines of art service to the community, and that it is conducted co-operatively, the men having an interest and a share in the concern and its government. While recognizing the importance of what a man does and the conditions under which he does it, both to himself as a citizen and to the community for which he labours, the Guild endeavours to strike a mean between the socialism that cares only for the worker and the commercialism that disregards him and his idealistic as well as material needs. The work carried out at Chipping Campden is very various, and includes furniture, metal work, jewellery, printing and binding. After Mr. Morris’s death, Mr. Ashbee acquired the plant hitherto in use at the Kelmscott Press, and began a series of books, first in a Caxton type and later from a fount of his own design. Binding followed almost as a matter of course on these issues from the Essex House Press; and in connexion with it, besides the ordinary plain-tooled leather bindings, excellent in restrained ornament, he has revived certain fifteenth-century styles for which he has a special predilection, and which include the use of enamels and wooden boards, the latter often carved in low relief. The bindings, though designed for the most part by Mr. Ashbee, are carried out by Miss Power, who is in the main responsible for them. These books raise again the question whether such deviations from the ordinary paths are legitimate attempts to enlarge the limitations of the binder’s art. The ultimate serviceable use of a book should ever be kept in sight, and must in the end determine the matter. Leather and vellum, tooled with a few fine stamps, disposed with taste and restraint, will always remain the best coverings for books, because they are unobtrusive and can be pleasantly handled and easily disposed. Work that is embossed, enamelled, carved, or even too decorative in colour for unlimited production, can only be desired as occasional specimens of interest in themselves, and as exceptions proving the rule.

Mr. Douglas Cockerell, a pupil of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, has written the first of a new series of technical handbooks on the artistic crafts which is a model of the kind and should prove the text-book for all future binders. It is, no doubt, the outcome of some years’ teaching at the County Council School in Regent Street, where, for many years, he did excellent work in training the younger men to an intelligent interest in the various processes of their craft. No craft can be well learned anywhere but in a practical workshop; and he considers the value of class teaching to be limited to helping those engaged in a trade, and that such help is of great value in giving higher ideals and encouraging experimental work. From the beginning Mr. Cockerell has been specially interested in the repairing of books and in the preservation of old covers, and has given his pupils some training in all that relates to the care of books. There are numbers of old bindings that after four hundred years of wear and tear are still capable of fulfilling their original purpose of protection, with a little help from modern hands. To give a new lease of life to fine old books is really of far greater importance than the continual production of new and pretty bindings. Mr. Cockerell’s original work is well known both here and in America, and there is luckily a great deal of it that is simple as well as highly decorated. It is comparatively easy to do the latter; but a plain binding that yet has the stamp of the maker’s individuality is a very exceptional achievement, and in work of that character Mr. Cockerell is unsurpassed.

Mr. F. Sangorski and Mr. G. Sutcliffe, who were formerly with Mr. Cockerell, have started a bindery of their own, and are engaged both in teaching and doing varied work of a pleasant character. Trained in the methods of Mr. Cockerell at the Technical School at 316 Regent Street, Mr. Sutcliffe now controls the teaching for the County Council at its branch establishment in Camberwell, and Mr. Sangorski that of the Northampton Institute in Clerkenwell.

Mr. de Sauty is another young binder, and his work is of considerable merit. His inlays are distinguished for the taste shown in the association of colours, and his finishing has some of the brilliant qualities of the French school, seen particularly in the finely studded tooling of which he seems particularly fond. He has now the post formerly held by Mr. Cockerell.