DOI Heft:
Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0270
Studio-Talk
BOOK BINDING BY G. SUTCLIFFE
nothing democratic in bookbinding as an art; and
by democratic we do not mean, of course, any-
thing to do with social questions. Artistically, the
art of the poster, of the magazine cover, may be
said to be democratic; the art of a man who binds
a classic, who binds it for connoisseurs of his art,
as the art of a man who paints a painting for the
appreciation of the cultivated of his craft, is per-
force aristocratic in its limited appeal, in the fact
that its virtues put it out of court where every-day
and popular uses are essentially to be considered.
And in remembering this we have to judge the
highest kinds of bookbinding by the highest tests
—the test of asking of what claims to be a high
art the very highest. Applying this test, and con-
sidering the examples of the art we have before us,
we are led to believe that not in any period has
the binder's art been more healthy. The day has
passed when the few books made were carefully
bound, as wisdom with much care turned into
words. To-day everything escapes into writing,
from the trivialities of penny magazines upwards
to the high thought of our best thinkers; and by a
kind of natural law each finds its suitable binding,
so that there is no need for pessimism because there
are some indifferent bindings in the world. Surely
some of the trashy things printed to-day, by every
law of fitness, should, if bound at all, be badly
bound ; and as long as those to whom we entrust
the binding of our best books exercise their art
with such high purpose and with such a right
understanding of its ideals as recent work proves
them to be doing, we should be happy.
At John Baillie's Gallery during November
exhibitions were held of the works of W. Westley
Manning, J. Hodgson Lobley, and Dorothy H.
Grover. Mr. Manning's paintings show us a
serious landscape - painter much concerned to
benefit by the best traditions, but who has followed
no one influence too far. This exhibition makes
apparent that this impressionableness to so many
influences is due to his ability to follow sympatheti-
cally the impulses of different schools ; yet he
keeps very genuinely in touch with nature, in some
paintings more than in others making her his
own. In his pictures of The Cob, Lyme Regis;
Glanford Mill, Cley, Norfolk ; Blue and Rose, Loch
BOOKBINDING BV F. SANGORSKI
253
BOOK BINDING BY G. SUTCLIFFE
nothing democratic in bookbinding as an art; and
by democratic we do not mean, of course, any-
thing to do with social questions. Artistically, the
art of the poster, of the magazine cover, may be
said to be democratic; the art of a man who binds
a classic, who binds it for connoisseurs of his art,
as the art of a man who paints a painting for the
appreciation of the cultivated of his craft, is per-
force aristocratic in its limited appeal, in the fact
that its virtues put it out of court where every-day
and popular uses are essentially to be considered.
And in remembering this we have to judge the
highest kinds of bookbinding by the highest tests
—the test of asking of what claims to be a high
art the very highest. Applying this test, and con-
sidering the examples of the art we have before us,
we are led to believe that not in any period has
the binder's art been more healthy. The day has
passed when the few books made were carefully
bound, as wisdom with much care turned into
words. To-day everything escapes into writing,
from the trivialities of penny magazines upwards
to the high thought of our best thinkers; and by a
kind of natural law each finds its suitable binding,
so that there is no need for pessimism because there
are some indifferent bindings in the world. Surely
some of the trashy things printed to-day, by every
law of fitness, should, if bound at all, be badly
bound ; and as long as those to whom we entrust
the binding of our best books exercise their art
with such high purpose and with such a right
understanding of its ideals as recent work proves
them to be doing, we should be happy.
At John Baillie's Gallery during November
exhibitions were held of the works of W. Westley
Manning, J. Hodgson Lobley, and Dorothy H.
Grover. Mr. Manning's paintings show us a
serious landscape - painter much concerned to
benefit by the best traditions, but who has followed
no one influence too far. This exhibition makes
apparent that this impressionableness to so many
influences is due to his ability to follow sympatheti-
cally the impulses of different schools ; yet he
keeps very genuinely in touch with nature, in some
paintings more than in others making her his
own. In his pictures of The Cob, Lyme Regis;
Glanford Mill, Cley, Norfolk ; Blue and Rose, Loch
BOOKBINDING BV F. SANGORSKI
253