Part 6

2. Interlaced ornament of several distinct types, some Celtic in character, on the earliest books in leather that have come down to us, executed in the north of England in the twelfth century, others recalling the designs on Roman mosaic pavement; others, again, Eastern in character. Perhaps the most beautiful interlaced patterns of all belong to the latter class, and are the cablework designs found on Italian books of the last half of the fifteenth century, no doubt copied from Arabian examples.

The Spanish bindings of the first half of the sixteenth century have interlaced ornament of as fine a kind, but often lacking in the comparative simplicity of the Italian.

3. The Gothic stamps of mythical animals, enclosed in circles or scrollwork, bordered with Gothic foliage, and frequently containing a legend. These were mostly of German origin, and were no doubt inspired by the work of Albert Dürer and his contemporaries.

4. The heraldic panels decorated with royal badges, used in England during the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.

5. The panel stamps of a purely decorative kind, such as those with the religious subjects above mentioned; others like the well-known two used by Moulin, of a miller with his sacks, in punning allusion to his name; and those in use by Norins, in which the acorn figures largely as an ornament.

6. Lastly, the panel stamps with two profile busts in medallion within a framework of Renaissance ornament, thoroughly debased in character, and marking the complete decline of the binder’s stamp.

I would sum up, in conclusion, the points I have desired to emphasize, and which are as follows:—

That the flat blocking of cloth work in gold and colours by no means exhausts the treatment possible for edition or publishers’ bindings. It has undoubtedly been largely overdone, for lavish ornament is distinctly out of place as applied to cheap material, such as cloths and linens. Indeed, as decoration for the ordinary novel of a few shillings nothing is in better taste than a single design carried out in two or three colour printings without gold, such as some of those mentioned.

That there is room for a totally distinct class of bindings for small editions of more important publications, which should be in leather and blocked with a stamp of fine design without gold, which will give a raised impression. For this purpose zincographic blocks are of no use, but brass, as a material which admits of modelling, would be imperative.

That the designing of such stamps should be put in the hands of the few artists having a genius for the work, which is quite special in character, and belongs more to the art of the medallist than to that of the maker of patterns. We in no way want their undue multiplication, but would rather, indeed, that they should be reserved for a limited number of publications, for which the subject-matter, paper and type constitute together a whole, worthy of a dignified cover that will stand the lapse of time. In these days of book lovers and collectors of every sort, it is certainly not unlikely that there are many who would welcome a new venture of this kind, in which they would associate the binding with the book, and have no desire to separate the one from the other. In the little Bibelot series, Messrs. Gay and Bird have already made a slight attempt on the lines I am suggesting.

Lastly, we have tried to show that there is no dearth of material from which the designer of such work may glean the principles on which it should be based, in order to secure satisfactory results. Apart from the bindings still extant, which may be studied for the purpose, such sources as the _Book of Kells_ and _Early Christian Art in Ireland_, by Margaret Stokes, are full of illustrations in a field strangely little explored by the pattern maker of to-day.

While only a limited number of early examples have been instanced, they are suggestive of what was done in edition binding in the past, and may be done again in the future. Such a departure needs, no doubt, the initiative of a printer-publisher who does the best kind of work, and in a field that commands the interested support of the genuine book lover. Surely, however, to find such an one ought not to be difficult with the widespread interest now shown in every detail of book production.

Footnote 1:

For the benefit of those who are interested in the technicality of what is known as ‘tooling,’ we will briefly describe in what it consists. ‘Finishing tools’ are stamps of metal that have a pattern cut on the face, and the shanks of which are held in wooden handles. Such patterns can be complete in themselves, or the single ‘tools’ may have only the elements of a pattern that needs to be built up, for the ‘tools’ must not be too large, or they cannot be worked with sureness of result. The design is composed of these ‘tools’ in combination with gouges which are curved lines. The drawing is first made accurately on paper by means of blackening the tools in a candle or lightly impressing them on an ink-pad. This paper is then placed on the book and slightly attached with paste at each corner. The tools are next gently heated and reworked on the drawing, leaving an impression in ‘blind,’ as it is called, on the leather sufficient to be seen through the gold leaf when this is applied ready for the next operation. The cover is now damped with water and the impressions left by the tools pencilled over with a preparation of white of egg known as glaire, applied with a camel-hair brush. When this is sufficiently dry, but not too dry, the gold leaf is put on, and the individual ‘tools,’ taken at just the right heat, are reworked in the impressions seen faintly beneath the gold. Fresh gold may have to be applied and the pattern reworked several times if the tools are solid or the leather for any reason presents special difficulties. These are, roughly speaking, the processes necessary to the working of a design, though many small ones have been omitted. It will be seen at once, however, from this brief account: firstly, that there are no freehand possibilities about the operation; and secondly, that to be a good finisher a workman should know something of drawing, for he cannot make a correct pattern, much less one that has any organic meaning, unless he understands how to combine small tools with taste and judgment. He must know what to leave out as well as what to put in; if there is inlaying, he must have a sense of colour-harmony and contrast, and he must understand enough of styles not to mix up those of different periods, nor to select one that is unsuitable to the special character of the book.

Footnote 2:

The technical schools, it may be noted, with the exceptions perhaps of the Borough Polytechnic, are not looked on with favour by the trade, who are ever adverse to any alteration in the traditional habits of a craft; but it is difficult to see, without some experiments of the kind, how the learner is to get the advantages of intelligent training, which he did under the old system of apprenticeship. Now that Trades Unions have a tendency to deteriorate the quality and limit the output of the adult worker, it is well that there should be some influences brought to bear upon him in the earlier stages of his career that make for appreciative insight into the meaning of his work and cultivate his taste in its more artistic possibilities.

Footnote 3:

With tooled edges the leaves of the book are gilt as usual, and while still in the press, the head, tail and foredge are worked over with ‘tools’ that are open in character, the finer ones being preferable. These tools must be slightly warmed, so that the impression may be firm. Sometimes the edge is tooled on the gold before burnishing, when the impressed pattern will naturally be of a different colour to the burnished part, as the burnisher will glide over the indentations. At others a different-coloured gold is laid on the top of the first and tooled upon, when the pattern will be left in the new gold on the original colour.

Footnote 4:

This painting can be with or without gold. In any case, it is necessary that the leaves should be fanned out and tied slightly between boards. While in this position the colour is applied, which can be either a stain or water-colour moistened with size. When dry, the leaves are released, and may be left as they are or gilt in the ordinary way, when the colour will show through the gold, gaining a lustre and richness it would not otherwise have.

Footnote 5:

The process of leather cutting and embossing is briefly as follows. The design is first drawn on paper, then transferred to tracing paper and traced through from this on to the leather, which is shoe-calf prepared for the purpose as to quality and thickness. The process is very much like beaten and chased silver work, except that the soft leather has to be reinforced at the back with a cement, and while this cement is hardening the front has to be modelled. It is a mistake to suppose that this work is of a delicate nature. If the design is fairly evenly distributed over the decorated space, handling and the slight friction a well-bound book is subject to in the course of time enhance its appearance. Again, by tracing and cutting the design without embossing it a different surface is obtained, while the application of gold tooling and that of various colour tints are additions of treatment that give considerable scope to the finisher.

Footnote 6:

The author wishes to acknowledge permission, which she has received from _The Printing Art_, to print in this country this last chapter, which first appeared in that periodical.

Printed by T. AND A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 4. Corrected the first two items in the Erratum. The last item was left unchanged. 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.