Part 2

The most part of these books, in fact all of them in the earlier days (the exceptions being mainly certain splendidly ornamented French books, including the sumptuous books of "Hours"), were meant for popular books: the great theological folios, the law books, the decretals, and such like of the earlier German printers, though miracles of typographical beauty, if ornamented at all, were ornamented by the illuminator, with the single exception of Gutenberg's splendid "Psalter," which gives us at once the first and best piece of ornamental colour-printing yet achieved. Again, the dainty and perfect volumes of the classics produced by the earlier Roman and Venetian printers disdained the help of wood blocks, though they were often beautifully illuminated, and it was not till after the days of Jenson, the Frenchman who brought the Roman letter to perfection, it was not till Italian typography began to decline, that illustration by reproducible methods became usual; and we know that these illustrated books were looked upon as inferior wares, and were sold far cheaper than the unadorned pages of the great printers. It must be noted in confirmation of the view that the woodcut books were cheap books, that in most cases they were vernacular editions of books already printed in Latin.

The work, then, which I am about to show you has first the disadvantage of the rudeness likely to disfigure cheap forms of art in a time that lacked the resource of slippery plausibility which helps out cheap art at the present day. And secondly, the disadvantage of belonging to the old age rather than the youth or vigorous manhood of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, it is art, and not a mere trade "article;" and though it was produced by the dying Middle Ages, they were not yet dead when it was current, so that it yet retains much of the qualities of the more hopeful period; and in addition, the necessity of adapting the current design to a new material and method gave it a special life, which is full of interest and instruction for artists of all times who are able to keep their eyes open.

All organic art, all art that is genuinely growing, opposed to rhetorical, retrospective, or academical art, art which has no real growth in it, has two qualities in common: the epical and the ornamental; its two functions are the telling of a story and the adornment of a space or tangible object. The labour and ingenuity necessary for the production of anything that claims our attention as a work of art are wasted, if they are employed on anything else than these two aims. Mediæval art, the result of a long unbroken series of tradition, is preëminent for its grasp of these two functions, which, indeed, interpenetrate then more than in any other period. Not only is all its special art obviously and simply beautiful as ornament, but its ornament also is vivified with forcible meaning, so that neither in one or the other does the life ever flag, or the sensuous pleasure of the eye ever lack. You have not got to say, Now you have your story, how are you going to embellish it? Nor, Now you have made your beauty, what are you going to do with it? For here are the two together, inseparably a part of each other. No doubt the force of tradition, which culminated in the Middle Ages, had much to do with this unity of epical design and ornament. It supplied deficiencies of individual by collective imagination (compare the constantly recurring phases and lines in genuine epical or ballad poetry); it ensured the inheritance of deft craftsmanship and instinct for beauty in the succession of the generations of workmen; and it cultivated the appreciation of good work by the general public. Now-a-days artists work essentially for artists, and look on the ignorant layman with contempt, which even the necessity of earning a livelihood cannot force them wholly to disguise. In the times of art, they had no one but artists to work for, since every one was a potential artist.

Now, in such a period, when written literature was still divine, and almost miraculous to men, it was impossible that books should fail to have a due share in the epical-ornamental art of the time. Accordingly, the opportunities offered by the pages which contained the wisdom and knowledge of past and present times were cultivated to the utmost. The early Middle Ages, beginning with the wonderful calligraphy of the Irish MSS., were, above all times, the epoch of writing. The pages of almost all books, from the 8th to the 15th century, are beautiful, even without the addition of ornament. In those that are ornamented without pictures illustrative of the text, the eye is so pleasured, and the fancy so tickled by the beauty and exhaustless cheerful invention of the illuminator, that one scarcely ventures to ask that the tale embodied in the written characters should be further illustrated. But when this is done, and the book is full of pictures, which tell the written tale again with the most conscientious directness of design, and as to execution with great purity of outline and extreme delicacy of colour, we can say little more than that the only work of art which surpasses a complete Mediæval book is a complete Mediæval building. This must be said, with the least qualification, of the books of from about 1160 to 1300. After this date, the work loses, in purity and simplicity, more than it gains in pictorial qualities, and, at last, after the middle of the 15th century, illuminated books lose much of their individuality on the ornamental side; and, though they are still beautiful, are mostly only redeemed from commonplace when the miniatures in them are excellent. But here comes in the new element, given by the invention of printing, and the gradual shoving out of the scribe by the punch-cutter, the typefounder, and the printer. The first printed characters were as exact reproductions of the written ones as the new craftsmen could compass, even to the extent of the copying of the infernal abbreviations which had gradually crept into manuscript; but, as I have already mentioned, the producers of serious books did not at first supply the work of the illuminator by that of the woodcutter, either in picture work or ornament. In fact, the art of printing pictures from wood blocks is earlier than that of printing books, and is undoubtedly the parent of book illustration. The first woodcuts were separate pictures of religious subjects, circulated for the edification of the faithful, in existing examples generally coloured by hand, and certainly always intended to be coloured. The earliest of these may be as old as 1380, and there are many which have been dated in the first half of the 15th century; though the dates are mostly rather a matter of speculation. But the development of book illustration proper by no means puts an end to their production. Many were done between 1450 and 1490, and some in the first years of the 16th century; but the earlier ones only have any special character in them. Of these, some are cut rudely and some timidly also, but some are fairly well cut, and few so ill that the expression of the design is not retained. The design of most of these early works is mostly admirable, and as far removed from the commonplace as possible; many, nay most of these cuts, are fine expressions of that pietism of the Middle Ages which has been somewhat veiled from us by the strangeness, and even grotesqueness which has mingled with it, but the reality of which is not doubtful to those who have studied the period without prejudice. Amongst these may be cited a design of Christ being pressed in the wine press, probably as early as the end of the 14th century, which may stand without disadvantage beside a fine work of the 13th century.

The next step towards book illustration brings us to the block-books, in which the picture-cuts are accompanied by a text, also cut on wood; the folios being printed by rubbing off on one side only. The subject of the origin of the most noteworthy of these books, the "Ars Moriendi," the "Lord's Prayer," the "Song of Solomon," the "Biblia Pauperum," the "Apocalypse," and the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," has been debated, along with the question of the first printer by means of movable types, with more acrimony than it would seem to need. I, not being a learned person, will not add one word to the controversy; it is enough to say that these works were done somewhere between the years 1430 and 1460, and that their style was almost entirely dominant throughout the Gothic period in Flanders and Holland, while it had little influence on the German wood-cutters. For the rest, all these books have great merit as works of art; it would be difficult to find more direct or more poetical rendering of the events given than those of the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis;" or more elegant and touching designs than those in the "Song of Solomon." The cuts of the "Biblia Pauperum" are rougher, but full of vigour and power of expression. The "Ars Moriendi" is very well drawn and executed, but the subject is not so interesting. The "Apocalypse" and "The Lord's Prayer" are both of them excellent, the former being scarcely inferior in design to the best of the Apocalypse picture MSS. of the end of the thirteenth century.

We have now come to the wood-cuts which ornament the regular books of the Gothic period, which began somewhat timidly. The two examples in Germany and Italy, not far removed from each other in date, being the "Historie von Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther," printed by Albrecht Pfister, at Bamberg, in 1462; and the "Meditations of Turrecremata (or Torquemada)," printed at Rome by Ulric Hahn, in the year 1467, which latter, though taken by the command of the Pope from the frescoes of a Roman Church (Sta. Maria Sopra Minerva) are as German as need be, and very rude in drawing and execution, though not without spirit. But, after this date, the school of wood-carving developed rapidly; and, on the whole, Germany, which had been very backward in the art of illumination, now led the new art. The main schools were those of Ulm and Augsburg, of Maintz, of Strasburg, of Basel, and of Nuremberg, the latter being the later. The examples which I shall presently have the pleasure of showing you are wholly of the first and the last, as being the most representative, Ulm and Augsburg of the earlier style, Nuremberg of the later. But I might mention, in passing, that some of the earlier Basel books, notably Bernard Richel's "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," are very noteworthy; and that, in fourteen-eighties, there was a school at Maintz that produced, amongst other books, a very beautiful "Herbal," and Breydenbach's "Peregrinatio," which, amongst other merits, such as actual representations of the cities on the road to the Holy Land, must be said to contain the best executed woodcuts of the Middle Ages. Of course, there were many other towns in Germany which produced illustrated books, but they may be referred in character to one or other of these schools. In Holland and Flanders there was a noble school of woodcutting, delicately decorative in character, and very direct and expressive, being, as I said, the direct descendant of the block-books. The name of the printer who produced most books of this school was Gerard Leeuw (or Lion), who printed first at Gouda, and afterwards at Antwerp. But Colard Mansion, of Bruges, who printed few books, and was the master of Caxton in the art of printing, turned out a few very fine specimens of illustrated books. One of the most remarkable illustrated works published in the Low Countries--which I mention for its peculiarity--is the "Chevalier Deliberé" (an allegorical poem on the death of Charles the Rash), and I regret not being able to show you a slide of it, as it could not be done satisfactorily. This book, published at Schiedam in 1500, decidedly leans towards the French in style, rather than the native manner deduced from the earlier block-books.

France began both printing and book illustration somewhat late, most of its important illustrated works belonging to a period between the years 1485 and 1520; but she grasped the art of book decoration with a firmness and completeness very characteristic of French genius; and also, she carried on the Gothic manner later than any other nation. For decorative qualities, nothing can excel the French books, and many of the picture-cuts, besides their decorative merits, have an additional interest in the romantic quality which they introduce: they all look as if they might be illustrations to the "Morte D'Arthur" or Tristram.

In Italy, from about 1480 onward, book illustrations became common, going hand-in-hand with the degradation of printing, as I said before. The two great schools in Italy are those of Florence and Venice. I think it must be said that, on the whole, the former city bore away the bell from Venice, in spite of the famous Aldine "Polyphilus," the cuts in which, by the way, are very unequal. There are a good many book illustrations published in Italy, I should mention, like those to Ulric Hahn's "Meditations of Turrecremata," which are purely German in style; which is only to be expected from the fact of the early printers in Italy being mostly Germans.

I am sorry to have to say it, but England cannot be said to have a school of Gothic book illustration; the cuts in our early printed books are, at the best, French or Flemish blocks pretty well copied. This lamentable fact is curious, considered along with what is also a fact: that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the English were, on the whole, the best book decorators.

I have a few words to say yet on the practical lessons to be derived from the study of these works of art; but before I say them, I will show you, by your leave, the slides taken from examples of these woodcuts. Only I must tell you first, what doubtless many of you know, that these old blocks were not produced by the graver on the end section of a piece of fine-grained wood (box now invariably), but by the knife on the plank section of pear-tree or similar wood--a much more difficult feat when the cuts were fine, as, e.g., in Lützelberger's marvellous cuts of the "Dance of Death."

[Mr. Morris then showed a series of lantern slides, which he described as follows:]

1. This is taken from the "Ars Moriendi," date about 1420. You may call it Flemish or Dutch, subject to raising the controversy I mentioned just now.

2. The "Song of Solomon," about the same date.

3. From the first illustrated book of the Ulm school. The Renowned and Noble Ladies of Boccaccio. It begins with Adam and Eve. The initial letter is very characteristic of the Ulm school of ornament. The trail of the serpent forms the S, and in the knots of the tail are little figures representing the seven deadly sins.

4. Another page from the same book. "Ceres and the Art of Agriculture." One of the great drawbacks to wood block printing in those times was the weakness of the presses. Their only resource was to print with the paper very wet, and with very soft packing, so that the block went well into the paper; but many books, and this amongst others, have suffered much from this cause.

5. Another page of the same book. The date is 1473.

6. This is from an Augsburg book. "Speculum Humanæ Vitæ," written by a Spanish bishop, which was a great favourite in the Middle Ages. It gives the advantages and disadvantages of all conditions of life. This block contains a genealogical tree of the Hapsburg family, and is an exceedingly beautiful piece of ornamental design, very well cut.

7. From the same book; representing not the "Five Alls," with which you are familiar, but the "Four Alls;" the gentleman, the merchant, the nobleman, and the poor man, who is the support of the whole lot, with his toes coming through his shoes. This is a fine specimen of printing of Gunther Zainer. The initial letters are very handsome in all these Augsburg books.

8. There is a picture of the Unjust Lawyer, from the same book, taking money from both sides. The date of this book is about 1475.

9. From "Æsop's Fables," a reproduction of the "Ulm Æsop," by Antony Sorg, of Augsburg (but the pictures are printed from the same blocks), the "Fly on the Wheel," and the "Jackdaw and Peacock." These designs for the Æsop pictures went all through the Middle Ages, with very little alteration.

10. "King Stork and King Log," from the same book.

11. This is from the Table-book of Bidpay, by Conrad Dinckmuth, who carried on the early glories of the Ulm school in a later generation; about 1486.

12. The Parrot in a Cage, with the ladies making a sham storm to cause the poor bird to be put to death. Dinckmuth did some very remarkable work: one of the best of which was a German translation of the "Eunuchus" of Terence; another the "Chronicle of the Swabians."

13. The "Schatzbehalter," published by Koburger, of Nuremberg, 1491. Although so late, there is no trace of any classical influence in the design. The architecture, for instance, is pure late German architecture.

14. From the same book, "Joshua Meeting the Angel," and "Moses at the Burning Bush."

15. A page, or part of a page, from the celebrated Nuremberg Chronicle, printed by Koburger in 1493. This is, in a way, an exception to the rule of illustrated books being in the vernacular, as it is in Latin; but there is also a German edition.

16. Another specimen of the same book.

17. From a curious devotional book, "Der Seusse," printed by Antony Sorg, at Augsburg, about 1485.

18. Another page, which shows the decorative skill with which they managed their diagram pictures.

19. An example of the Flemish school, and characteristic of the design of white and black, which is so often used both by the Florentine and the Flemish wood-cutters. It is from a life of Christ, published by Gerard Leeuw in 1487.

20. Another page from the same book. There are certainly two artists in this book, and the one on the left appears to be the more pictorial of the two; though his designs are graceful, he is hardly as good as the rougher book illustrator. Gerard Leeuw had a very handsome set of initial letters, a kind of ornament which did not become common until after 1480.

21. Another one from the same book.

22. From another Flemish book, showing how the style runs through them all. St. George and the Dragon; from "A Golden Legend," 1503.

23. One of French series, from a very celebrated book called "La Mer des Histoires." It begins the history of France a little before the deluge. It is a most beautiful book, and very large. One would think these borders were meant to be painted, as so many "Books of Hours" were, but I have never seen a copy which has had the borders painted, though, as a rule, when the borders are meant to be painted, it is not common to find one plain.

24. Another page from the same book; but the slide does not do justice to it. I will here mention that one failing of the French publishers was to make one picture serve for several purposes. The fact is, they were more careful of decoration than illustration.

25. Another French book by a French printer, the "Aubre des Batailles," which illustrates that curious quality of romance which you find in the French pictures. It is true that many of these cuts were not made for this book; in fact, they were done for another edition of the Chevalier Delibré, the Flemish edition of which I have mentioned before, for some have that name on them.

26. Another from the same book.

27. Another good example of the French decorative style. It is from Petrarch's "Remedy of either Fortune." This is the author presenting his book to the king, and is often used in these French books.

28. From another French book of about the same date (the beginning of the sixteenth century), "The Shepherd's Calendar," of which there were a great number of English editions, even as late as 1656, the cuts being imitated from these blocks.

29. A page from one of the beautiful "Books of Hours," which were mostly printed on vellum, every page of which is decorated more or less with this sort of picture. Here is the calendar, with the signs of the Zodiac, the work of the months, the saints that occur in it, and games and sports; on the other side is the Sangraal. This book is throughout in the same style--wholly Gothic. It was printed in 1498, and about twenty years after these service-books became very much damaged by having Renaissance features introduced from German artists of the time.

30. Another page from the same book. The Resurrection, and the raising of Lazarus are the principal subjects.

31. Nominally an Italian woodcut; the book was printed at Milan, but this cut is probably of German design, if not execution.

32. From a very beautiful book in the Florentine style. One of the peculiarities is the copious use of white out of black.

33. Another from the same--"The Quatre reggio," 1508.

34. Another, very characteristic of the Florentine style, with its beautiful landscape background.

35. This is one in which the ornament has really got into the Renaissance style. It is a sort of "Lucky Book," with all sorts of ways of finding your fortune, discovering where your money has gone, who is your enemy, and so on. One of the Peschia books, actually printed at Milan, but of the Venetian school.

36. From a book of the Venetian style, about the same date. I show it as an example of the carefulness and beauty with which the artists of the time combined the border work with the pictures. There is something very satisfactory in the proportion of black and white in the whole page.

Now you have seen my examples, I want once more to impress upon you the fact that these designs, one and all, while they perform their especial function--the office of telling a tale--never forget their other function of decorating the book of which they form a part; this is the essential difference between them and modern book illustrations, which I suppose make no pretence at decorating the pages of the book, but must be looked upon as black and white pictures which it is convenient to print and bind up along with the printed matter. The question, in fact, which I want to put to you is this, Whether we are to have books which are beautiful as books; books in which type, paper, woodcuts, and the due arrangement of all these are to be considered, and which are so treated as to produce a harmonious whole, something which will give a person with a sense of beauty real pleasure whenever and wherever the book is opened, even before he begins to look closely into the illustrations; or whether the beautiful and inventive illustrations are to be looked on as separate pictures imbedded in a piece of utilitarianism, which they cannot decorate because it cannot help them to do so. Take, as an example of the latter, Mr. Fred. Walker's illustrations to "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine," of the days when some of us were young, since I am inclined to think that they are about the best of such illustrations. Now they are part of Thackeray's story, and I don't want them to be in any way less a part of it, but they are in no respect a part of the tangible printed book, and I do want them to be that. As it is, the mass of utilitarian matter in which they are imbedded is absolutely helpless and dead. Why it is not even ugly--at least not vitally ugly.

Now the reverse is the case with the books from which I have taken the examples which you have been seeing. As things to be looked at they are beautiful, taken as a whole; they are alive all over, and not merely in a corner here and there. The illustrator has to share the success and the failure, not only of the wood-cutter, who has translated his drawing, but also of the printer and the mere ornamentalist, and the result is that you have a book which is a visible work of art.