DOI Artikel:
Sullivan, Edward: Design in gold-tooled bookbinding
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0052
Design in Gold-Tooled Bookbinding
and the restraint of the
artist is no longer there
to hold in hand the erring
tendencies of capricious
workers, degeneracy sets
in, and beauty luxuriates
into rankness, running riot
even to the verge of
gaudiness and offence.
Design and artistic repose
perish, and the degrada-
tion of confusion and
eccentricity takes their
place; until at last, wearied
of unsatisfying glare, men
of taste cry out for some-
thing of a nobler sort;
and then, if only the
artist be at hand to give
them what they seek for,
some simpler form suc-
ceeds that fills the eye
with pleasure and satisfies
at the same time the re-
quirements of true art.
Book lovers are not
agreed as to the object
fulfilled by the richer
forms of decoration on a
bound volume. An emi-
nent authority * on all
that has to do with books bookbinding by sir edward sullivan
has told us, entertaining
a somewhat fanciful be-
lief, that the external ornamentation represents, tive something to vary the monotonous uniformity
in a sense, a portal or gate, on the opening of of a set of leather-coated books. In fact, the
which the contents of the volume are disclosed; desire to decorate a book-cover is one and the
and, speaking generally, that no scheme of same with what has led to the ornamentation of
design which failed to fulfil—at least, in ap- all other plain surfaces capable of such treatment,
proximate form — this quaint idea could be whether of stone, wood, metal, or glass,
reckoned amongst the number of the correct. A The leathers available for the binding of a book
more intelligible theory would, however, seem to are, of course, many in number; but not so for
be that book-covers were adorned simply at first, the binding of a book which is to carry some rich
and afterwards with increasing elaboration, for the design upon its sides and back ; for nowadays the
same reason that, at the dawn of civilisation, battle- artist who decorates a cover in gold-tooling, and
axes, tomahawks, spear-heads, and other weapons means his work to live, is practically limited to one
of war or the chase were scored and zigzagged material—the best morocco. Labour and artistic
with crude attempts at decoration. As with them, effort are wasted if calf or Russia leather be made
portions of such objects presented a plain surface use of; for after some years, as these leathers are
capable of being rendered more pleasing to the now tanned and prepared for market, the joints of
eye, so with the volume bound in a jacket of the volume are sure to become cracked; and later
simple leather, there was a field on which the on it is possible that the upper and lower covers
craftsman had an opportunity of adding a decora- will drop from the book which they were intended
~ • The late Mr. Bernard Quaritch. to protect and adom.
35
and the restraint of the
artist is no longer there
to hold in hand the erring
tendencies of capricious
workers, degeneracy sets
in, and beauty luxuriates
into rankness, running riot
even to the verge of
gaudiness and offence.
Design and artistic repose
perish, and the degrada-
tion of confusion and
eccentricity takes their
place; until at last, wearied
of unsatisfying glare, men
of taste cry out for some-
thing of a nobler sort;
and then, if only the
artist be at hand to give
them what they seek for,
some simpler form suc-
ceeds that fills the eye
with pleasure and satisfies
at the same time the re-
quirements of true art.
Book lovers are not
agreed as to the object
fulfilled by the richer
forms of decoration on a
bound volume. An emi-
nent authority * on all
that has to do with books bookbinding by sir edward sullivan
has told us, entertaining
a somewhat fanciful be-
lief, that the external ornamentation represents, tive something to vary the monotonous uniformity
in a sense, a portal or gate, on the opening of of a set of leather-coated books. In fact, the
which the contents of the volume are disclosed; desire to decorate a book-cover is one and the
and, speaking generally, that no scheme of same with what has led to the ornamentation of
design which failed to fulfil—at least, in ap- all other plain surfaces capable of such treatment,
proximate form — this quaint idea could be whether of stone, wood, metal, or glass,
reckoned amongst the number of the correct. A The leathers available for the binding of a book
more intelligible theory would, however, seem to are, of course, many in number; but not so for
be that book-covers were adorned simply at first, the binding of a book which is to carry some rich
and afterwards with increasing elaboration, for the design upon its sides and back ; for nowadays the
same reason that, at the dawn of civilisation, battle- artist who decorates a cover in gold-tooling, and
axes, tomahawks, spear-heads, and other weapons means his work to live, is practically limited to one
of war or the chase were scored and zigzagged material—the best morocco. Labour and artistic
with crude attempts at decoration. As with them, effort are wasted if calf or Russia leather be made
portions of such objects presented a plain surface use of; for after some years, as these leathers are
capable of being rendered more pleasing to the now tanned and prepared for market, the joints of
eye, so with the volume bound in a jacket of the volume are sure to become cracked; and later
simple leather, there was a field on which the on it is possible that the upper and lower covers
craftsman had an opportunity of adding a decora- will drop from the book which they were intended
~ • The late Mr. Bernard Quaritch. to protect and adom.
35