DOI Heft:
No. 47 (February, 1897)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: Some recent bookbindings by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Miss E. M. MacColl
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18388#0057
Recent Bookbindings
Like that from a silver-point,
the line is indelible, and
has become part and parcel
of the design—unalterable
and evident.
In the Viol of Love cover
(page 44) this tooling is used
in combination with a sort of
mosaic of leather—applique
work as it were—which has
never before been possible
in so unrestrained a manner.
The Cupid, for instance,
would have required a set of
tools cut specially to make
a single impression possible ;
with her tiny cycle Miss
MacColl could accomplish a
frieze of a hundred figures
all entirely different, were
she disposed.
It would be foolish to
attempt to appraise the value
of Mr. D. S. MacColl's de-
signs, in comparison with
those upon all previous book-
covers. There is no point
in common ; or rather there
is one, and that not an un-
important detail, which it is
quite possible has never been
reduced to a clear principle
before. Older bindings show
obedience to it occasionally,
but far more often disregard
it entirely. If we consider
the scale of a pattern for
any work, we must needs
BOOKBINDING DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON . , r , .1
take some feature as the
unit. Mr. D. S. MacColl,
thing to wonder at. All his skill, which is often recognising that the structure of a bound volume
raised to the nth degree of excellence, would be of is based upon the strings which cross the back,
little help in this case. It is not the expert work- and that the relative sizes of the spaces between
man who is needed, but the draughtsman who has these strings are governed not only by the height
brains at his finger tips, and feels almost uncoil- but by the thickness of the book, has observed
sciously the subtlety of the line ; even as the fingers shrewdly that these said spaces (call them panels
of a virtuoso " stop " the string of his violin exactly if you will) suggest the true scale for the design
at the right spot to produce the note in perfect of the side. In other words, he thinks that the
tune. On a piano the spot is there unmistakably, scale of the pattern should never be too coarse
on the violin you have to find it anew every time; or too heavy to be used in these circumscribed
and so with this wheel it is the trained skill that spaces. It is obvious that the lettering must
lias become a second nature, which can alone always be controlled by them. Every notable
attempt feats of this sort. For in " tooling" there binder has obeyed that principle consciously
is no possibility of erasure, and little of retouching, or unconsciously ; but, oddly enough, pat-
46
mm
Like that from a silver-point,
the line is indelible, and
has become part and parcel
of the design—unalterable
and evident.
In the Viol of Love cover
(page 44) this tooling is used
in combination with a sort of
mosaic of leather—applique
work as it were—which has
never before been possible
in so unrestrained a manner.
The Cupid, for instance,
would have required a set of
tools cut specially to make
a single impression possible ;
with her tiny cycle Miss
MacColl could accomplish a
frieze of a hundred figures
all entirely different, were
she disposed.
It would be foolish to
attempt to appraise the value
of Mr. D. S. MacColl's de-
signs, in comparison with
those upon all previous book-
covers. There is no point
in common ; or rather there
is one, and that not an un-
important detail, which it is
quite possible has never been
reduced to a clear principle
before. Older bindings show
obedience to it occasionally,
but far more often disregard
it entirely. If we consider
the scale of a pattern for
any work, we must needs
BOOKBINDING DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON . , r , .1
take some feature as the
unit. Mr. D. S. MacColl,
thing to wonder at. All his skill, which is often recognising that the structure of a bound volume
raised to the nth degree of excellence, would be of is based upon the strings which cross the back,
little help in this case. It is not the expert work- and that the relative sizes of the spaces between
man who is needed, but the draughtsman who has these strings are governed not only by the height
brains at his finger tips, and feels almost uncoil- but by the thickness of the book, has observed
sciously the subtlety of the line ; even as the fingers shrewdly that these said spaces (call them panels
of a virtuoso " stop " the string of his violin exactly if you will) suggest the true scale for the design
at the right spot to produce the note in perfect of the side. In other words, he thinks that the
tune. On a piano the spot is there unmistakably, scale of the pattern should never be too coarse
on the violin you have to find it anew every time; or too heavy to be used in these circumscribed
and so with this wheel it is the trained skill that spaces. It is obvious that the lettering must
lias become a second nature, which can alone always be controlled by them. Every notable
attempt feats of this sort. For in " tooling" there binder has obeyed that principle consciously
is no possibility of erasure, and little of retouching, or unconsciously ; but, oddly enough, pat-
46
mm