Of The Decorative Illustration Of Books Old And New Part 13

Some years before, however, Mr. Howard Pyle distinguished himself as a decorative artist in book designs, which showed, among other more modern influences, a considerable study of the method of Albert Durer. I give a reproduction which suggests somewhat the effect of the famous copperplate of Erasmus. He sometimes uses a lighter method, such as is shown in the drawings to "The One Horse Shay."

Of late in his drawings in the magazines, Mr. Pyle has adopted the modern wash method, or painting in black and white, in which, however able in its own way, it is distinctly at a considerable loss of individuality and decorative interest.[9]

[9] I am informed that the adoption of the wash method is not recent with Mr. Pyle, but that he adapts his method to his matter.

This does not, however, affect the opinion expressed as to the relative artistic value of wash and line work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILL. H. BRADLEY.

A COVER DESIGN. (CHICAGO, 1894.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILL. H. BRADLEY.

PROSPECTUS OF "BRADLEY HIS BOOK."

(SPRINGFIELD, Ma.s.s., 1896.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILL. H. BRADLEY.

DESIGN FOR "THE CHAP-BOOK." (CHICAGO, 1895.)]

[Sidenote: "THE INLAND PRINTER."]

[Sidenote: AMERICAN ARTISTS.]

Another artist of considerable invention and decorative ability has recently appeared in America, Mr. Will. H. Bradley, whose designs for "The Inland Printer" of Chicago are remarkable for careful and delicate line-work, and effective treatment of black and white, and showing the influence of the newer English school with a j.a.panese blend.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER V. OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES IN DESIGNING BOOK ORNAMENTS AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS: CONSIDERATIONS OF ARRANGEMENT, s.p.a.cING, AND TREATMENT.

It may not be amiss to add a few words as a kind of summary of general principles to which we seem to be naturally led by the line of thought I have been pursuing on this subject of book decoration.

As I have said, there is nothing final or absolute in Design. It is a matter of continual re-arrangement, re-adjustment, and modification or even transformation of certain elements. A kind of imaginative chemistry of forms, ma.s.ses, lines, and quant.i.ties, continually evolving new combinations. But each artistic problem must be solved on its merits, and as each one varies and presents fresh questions, it follows that no absolute rules or principles can be laid down to fit particular cases, although as the result of, and evolved out of, practice, certain general guiding principles are valuable, as charts and compa.s.ses by which the designer can to a certain extent direct his course.

To begin with, the enormous variety in style, aim, and size of books, makes the application of definite principles difficult. One must narrow the problem down to a particular book, of a given character and size.

Apart from the necessarily entirely personal and individual questions of selection of subject, motive, feeling or sentiment, consider the conditions of the book-page. Take an octavo page--such as one of those of this volume.

Although we may take the open book with the double-columns as the page proper, in treating a book for ill.u.s.tration, we shall be called upon sometimes to treat them as single pages. But whether single or double, each has its limits in the ma.s.s of type forming the full page or column which gives the dimensions of the designer's panel. The whole or any part of this panel may be occupied by design, and one principle of procedure in the ornamental treatment of a book is to consider any of the territory not occupied by the type as a fair field for accompanying or terminating design--as, for instance, at the ends of chapters, where more or less of the type page is left blank.

Unless we are designing our own type, or drawing our lettering as a part of the design, the character and form of the type will give us a sort of gauge of degree, or key, to start with, as to the force of the black and white effect of our accompanying designs and ornaments. For instance, one would generally avoid using heavy blacks and thick lines with a light open kind of type, or light open work with very heavy type. (Even here one must qualify, however, since light open pen-work has a fine and rich effect with black letters sometimes.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALTER CRANE.

FROM SPENSER'S "FAERIE QUEENE." (GEORGE ALLEN, 1896.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALTER CRANE.

FROM SPENSER'S "FAERIE QUEENE." (GEORGE ALLEN, 1896.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALTER CRANE.

FROM SPENSER'S "FAERIE QUEENE." (GEORGE ALLEN, 1896.)]

My own feeling--and designing must always finally be a question of individual feeling--is rather to acknowledge the rectangular character of the type page in the shape of the design; even in a vignette, by making certain lines extend to the limits, so as to convey a feeling of rectangular control and compactness, as in the tail-piece given here from "The Faerie Queene."

[Sidenote: OF END PAPERS.]

But first, if one may, paradoxically, begin with "end paper" as it is curiously called, there is the lining of the book. Here the problem is to cover two leaves entirely in a suggestive and agreeable, but not obtrusive way. One way is to design a repeating pattern much on the principle of a small printed textile, or miniature wall-paper, in one or more colours. Something delicately suggestive of the character and contents of the book is in place here, but nothing that competes with the ill.u.s.trations proper. It may be considered as a kind of quadrangle, forecourt, or even a garden or gra.s.s plot before the door.

We are not intended to linger long here, but ought to get some hint or encouragement to go on into the book. The arms of the owner (if he is fond of heraldry, and wants to remind the potential book borrower to piously return) may appear hereon--the book-plate.

If we are to be playful and lavish, if the book is for Christmastide or for children, we may catch a sort of fleeting b.u.t.terfly idea on the fly-leaves before we are brought with becoming, though dignified curiosity, to a short pause at the half-t.i.tle. Having read this, we are supposed to pa.s.s on with somewhat bated breath until we come to the double doors, and the front and full t.i.tle are disclosed in all their splendour.

[Sidenote: OF FRONTISPIECES AND t.i.tLE PAGES.]

Even here, though, the whole secret of the book should not be let out, but rather played with or suggested in a symbolic way, especially in any ornament on the t.i.tle-page, in which the lettering should be the chief ornamental feature. A frontispiece may be more pictorial in treatment if desired, and it is reasonable to occupy the whole of the type page both for the lettering of t.i.tle and the picture in the front; then, if richness of effect is desired, the margin may be covered also almost to the edge of the paper by inclosing borders, the width of these borders varying according to the varying width of the paper margin, and in the same proportions, _recto_ and _verso_ as the case may be, the broad side turning outwards to the edge of the book each way.

This is a plan adopted in the opening of the Kelmscott books, of which that of "The Glittering Plain," given here, may be taken as a type.

Though Mr. Morris places his t.i.tle page on the left to face the opening of first chapter, and does not use a frontispiece, he obtains a remarkably rich and varied effect of black and white in his larger t.i.tle pages by placing in his centre panel strong black Gothic letters; or, as in the case of the Kelmscott Chaucer, letters in white relief upon a floral arabesque adapted to the s.p.a.ce, and filling the field with a lighter floral network in open line, and enclosing this again with the rich black and white marginal border.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM "THE STORY OF THE GLITTERING PLAIN."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM MORRIS AND WALTER CRANE.

(KELMSCOTT PRESS, 1894.)]

If I may refer again to my own work, in the designs to "The Faerie Queene" the full-page designs are all treated as panels of figure design, or pictures, and are enclosed in fanciful borders, in which subsidiary incidents of characters of the poem are introduced or suggested, somewhat on the plan of mediaeval tapestries. A reduction of one of these is given above.

[Sidenote: OF OUTLINE AND BORDERS.]

A full-page design may, thus inclosed and separated from the type pages, bear carrying considerably further, and be more realized and stronger in effect than the ornaments of the type page, just as in the illuminated MSS. highly wrought miniatures were worked into inclosing borders on the centres of large initial letters, which formed a broad framework, branching into light floral scroll or leaves upon the margin and uniting with the lettering.

Much depends upon the decorative scheme. With appropriate type, a charming, simple, and broad effect can be obtained by using outline alone, both for the figure designs or pictures, and the ornament proper.

The famous designs of the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili," 1499, may be taken as an instance of this treatment; also the "Fasciculus Medicinae," 1495, "aesop's Fables," 1493, and other books of the Venetian printers of about this date or earlier, which are generally remarkable for fine quality of their outline and the refinement and grace of their ornaments.

One of the most effective black and white page borders of a purely ornamental kind is one dated 1478, inclosing a page of Roman type, (_see_ ill.u.s.tration, Venice, 1478, Pomponius Mela). A meandering arabesque of a rose-stem leaf and flower, white on a black ground, springing from a circle in the broad margin at the bottom, in which are two shields of arms. A tolerably well known but most valuable example.

[Sidenote: OF DESIGNING TYPE.]

The opening chapter of a book affords an opportunity to the designer of producing a decorative effect by uniting ornament with type. He can place figure design in a frieze-shaped panel (say of about a fourth of the page) for the heading, and weight it by a bold initial letter designed in a square, from which may spring the stem and leaves of an arabesque throwing the letter into relief, and perhaps climbing up and down the margin, and connecting the heading with the initial. The initialed page from "The Faerie Queene" is given as an example of such treatment. The t.i.tle, or any chapter inscription, if embodied in the design of the heading, has a good effect.

Harmony between type and ill.u.s.tration and ornament can never, of course, be quite so complete as when the lettering is designed and drawn as a part of the whole, unless the type is designed by the artist. It entails an amount of careful and patient labour (unless the inscriptions are very brief) few would be prepared to face, and would mean, practically, a return to the principle of the block book.