MODERN ENGLISH BINDING

Within the last five-and-twenty years there has been a marked revival in every department of applied art. The influence of William Morris, whose efforts in all the accessories of house decoration were for some time only recognized by the few, has now spread to all classes. No longer confined to the houses of the rich or of those who profess the cult of aesthetics, it is to be found with more or less of travesty in country rectories and suburban villas, catered for by the enterprising tradesman on the monthly hire system. To those who remember vividly the early Victorian surroundings of the home and their prevailingugliness, the complete change which has taken place has hardly yet ceased to be a source of wonder. Nothing remains the same: from wall-paper to coal-box, from bedroom to kitchen, all has ‘suffered a sea change.’ In any examination of the present condition of the artistic crafts and the promise they present of future development on a sound basis, one cannot fail to observe that the effort to promote taste has penetrated to the commonest objects of daily use. The thought that finds expression in decoration has gone to salt-cellars and buttons as well as to carpets, cabinets and books. Some industries too, that may almost be said to have died out for lack of appreciation, have been revived on new lines and taken up by the public with enthusiastic approval. The use of enamel in jewellery and in combination with wrought metal may be mentioned as an instance of this, as well as the inlaying of cabinet work not only with coloured woods, but with pewter, ivory and pearl. The spell of conventiononce broken, the imagination of the craftsman has found relief in flying to the furthest distance from models that were till recently his only guide. This freedom, when restrained by genuine artistic feeling, has given in many cases excellent results; but in the majority of cases the sole achievement has been an eccentricity that shows few signs of a realization of what is needed in applied art and of the laws that should govern it.

In no sphere has there been a more striking departure from the hitherto circumscribed lines of ornamentation than in everything that relates to books and their decorative treatment. Paper and ink, type and its massing on the page, illustration both as a part of the text and outside it, the materials and enrichment of the cover—all have alike undergone fundamental reconsideration. It is, however, with bindings and not with the other features of book production that we are now concerned; and it is proposed in these pages to drawattention to what is being done in England and France in a field of work that has an increasing number of recruits and a growing and interested public.

It is now more than twenty years since the movement spoken of began to include bookbinding. During that time there has been noted the trade opposition to Mr. Cobden-Sanderson when he started as an amateur, followed by an imitation in many quarters, which, to say the least of it, is not the most subtle form of flattery. There has been also the later influence of Mr. Douglas Cockerell—a result of his strenuous craft teaching as well as of the work of his own hands—and the tardy acknowledgment of professional binders that the interest of the amateur has been productive of good even from the narrow standpoint of their class. Nor has France escaped this wave of innovation, though there formalism had a stronger hold even than with us, inasmuch as the traditions of what in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had really been more of a fine art than a craft were rooted in the country with all the firmness that national pride could give. Finally, one may mark the growing enthusiasm of our American neighbours in the subject and their efforts to create a national taste in fine bindings. They show a ready acknowledgment of what is being done outside their own country, and a willingness to recognize that work directed by the artistic rather than the commercial spirit must be paid for according to a standard different to that of the ordinary tradesman.

2.Bound by Zaehnsdorf.

3.Bound by Zaehnsdorf.

That an increasing number of people appreciate the problem of designing book covers may be judged from the fact that of late years nearly every illustrated paper has had an occasional article on one or another binder anxious to attract the public to the originality of his work. Assuming this appreciation, we will touch briefly on the craft in England before its revitalization during the last quarter of a century, and then pass in review those who are nowoccupied with its decorative side and who are trying to remove it from the traditional grooves in which it lay for so long. Unfortunately, many binders doing excellent and conscientious work, on lines far more valuable than that of pattern making, must remain unnoticed, for it is only work that is striving after an effect of ornament that is capable of illustration. Of this, too, the amount has so much increased of late that it is impossible to give examples of much that equally deserves representation with what has been selected.

For a true understanding of modern effort it is necessary to realize that the art history of binding is an important one, especially in Italy and France; but in this very brief review of English binding before 1850, we need not start further back than the time when gilt tooling was brought from France. Before that period the heavier covers had been decorated with stamps often of a very beautiful kind and impressed upon the leather without gold. But in the reignof HenryVIII., Thomas Berthelet, the King’s printer, first executed gold-tooled bindings, the designs on which were frankly adopted from those that prevailed in Italy, the models, no doubt, being found among the large number of books imported from abroad at that time. Later on, when Italian binding as a fine art had been merged in that of France, the influence of the latter country is seen, as, for example, in the books bound for Thomas Wotton in imitation of Grolier, one of the most famous collectors of any age or country. Throughout the reigns of the Stuarts, English binding continues to show French influence, as a glance at the books exhibited to the public in the British Museum will show to the most casual observer. Nor had we a binder who can be said to have shown any tendency towards a native style till the time of the Restoration, when Samuel Mearne, bookbinder to the King, inaugurated what is known as the ‘cottage’ form of decoration. Though the elaborate filigree work on his booksreminds one that Le Gascon exercised an important influence, the form of the ornaments and their arrangement remain distinctly English. A development of this style, equally native in character, may be found a little later, during the first part of the eighteenth century, chiefly on the Bibles and Prayer-Books of the time. In these there is a certain amount of rough inlay, either in the form of a panel or in that of tulips and other conventional flowers outlined in gold, though with a dotted instead of a solid line. These ornaments, poor in themselves, which form the main part of the decoration, are often combined with great skill and sense of effect. An unusual number of such books were collected at the time of the Exhibition of Bindings at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, and were found both charming and effective notwithstanding a somewhat rough and hasty workmanship. From the reign of JamesII.to the time of Roger Payne there are no names associated with any bindingsof importance; and with the passing of the prevailing fashion of ornament on the books just described, design reached its lowest point towards the end of the century. Of Roger Payne, who effected a genuine revival of bookbinding somewhere about 1770, it is not necessary to say much. His style is well known to all book lovers, and the details of his eccentric life have been so often recorded that the reader must be more than weary of them. One point in connexion with his work is, however, I think, worth mentioning, and that is that his style has never lent itself to that modification in imitation which enables any artist to become the founder of a school. Any one of the skilled binders will do you a ‘Roger Payne’ as he will do you a ‘Grolier’ or a ‘Le Gascon’; but it will be a reproduction of the real Roger’s work, with the exact details and precise arrangement of them that are to be found on his authentic bindings. So that, notwithstanding his originality, he inspired no following, though his imitators have been perhaps more numerous than those of any other binder.

4.Bound by Rivière.

5.Bound by Rivière.

Charles Lewis and Frances Bedford, followed by Robert Rivière and Joseph Zaehnsdorf, did much good work in the early part of the last century, especially Bedford; but they can lay no claim to an originality which disappeared with Payne, and which was not seen again until Mr. Cobden-Sanderson attempted to do for the binding of books what William Morris had already done for the other decorative arts. It is the result of this revived interest in handicrafts and the attempted application to binding of the more vital principles of art which it is proposed to illustrate here. One must say attempted, because success by no means always results. In this review, however, of modern binders, definite criticism is not an object, though the difficulties attendant on their efforts naturally come up for consideration and necessarily involve some expression of opinion.

6.Bound by Morrell.

Both Zaehnsdorf and Rivière left representatives to carry on their work, the former a son, and the latter two nephews, Mr. Percy and Mr. Arthur Calkin. From the small establishments in which both houses originated there has developed in each case an important business in which an exceedingly large number of books are bound for the export as well as the retail trade. In a bindery of this nature there would not be time for the serious consideration of artistic problems unless it contained what Mr. Lethaby so aptly describes as ‘a “quality” department in a “quantity” business.’ It remains as true now as it has always been that the craftsman who is also an artist must work in his own way and at his own speed—a fact well realized in the French workshops, which are altogether outside the rush and pressure of commercial life. So in each of these houses we find a certain number of the more intelligent and skilful men employed only upon the best work, and engaged in carrying out designs which they either make up themselves from certainrecognised types or which are made for them by more practised designers. This introduces the question—which is a practical one for the large employer, though it need not exist for those having a comparatively limited output—whether it produces better results to keep a trained designer, or to give the pattern making into the hands of the more artistically disposed ‘finishers.’ Some consider that it is impossible, so long as the education of the workman is so lamentably defective on the side of taste as it is, to expect him to plan book covers above the ordinary level of presents and school prizes; others hold that his feeling for what is good and appropriate can only be cultivated by encouraging him to the interest and responsibility of planning what he is going to execute. Mr. Calkin has long kept a designer entirely occupied on the decorated work that many of his clients demand. Other houses have tried the practice of getting drawings made by the general decorative artist, and have given it up indisgust at the unpractical character of the results obtained. And it is true that it takes time and patience to train one accustomed to a free hand in invention to a realization of the limitations necessitated by the use of rigid stamps and the comparatively small number of them that can be employed on a binding.[1]Ask any professedpattern maker to make you a device for a book cover, and you will get something which, though it may be satisfactory and attractive in itself, will be either impossible of execution or give the most disappointing results. Naturally, where any firm happens to possess workmen of the required taste and ability, they should be encouraged to the utmost to give effect to their sense of drawing in its application to their own trade. Messrs. Morrell, whose large business is entirely a wholesale one, supplies all the booksellers with bindings designed by his men and remarkable for their varietyand merit. It is too early to speak of the influence of the technical schools upon the output of the large workshops, but when one knows that the three houses above mentioned employ some 200 men between them, it can easily be imagined that the training of the workman is a serious consideration.[2]It is customary now for binders to keep a record of their more special work, and in this way the extent of their range can be noted by the employer and undue repetition prevented. Another improvement on the past is that designs are not now multiplied as they used to be—that is to say, in the best class of work. A specially planned cover is not repeated or even published without the owner’s consent; and this is a wise plan, for all art, even the best, suffers by vain repetition, and a good and appropriate pattern on a book will be but a weariness to the eye when it is seen in multiplicity in booksellers’ windows.

7.Bound by Morrell.

8.Bound by Morrell.

The concluding illustrations in this chapter show work done by Mr. Roger de Coverly and Mr. Harry Wood. Mr. de Coverly served his apprenticeship to the elder Zaehnsdorf, and was afterwards employed for many years by Messrs. Leighton. In 1863 he set up for himself, and his sound taste being discovered by Mr. F. S. Ellis and Mr. William Morris, he soon got the custom of many of those who were then seeking its application to bindings. In 1883 he took one of his clients, Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, as a pupil, and has had others since. He considers his speciality to be vellum work; but unfortunately this does not show well in reproduction. Mr. Wood was also with Zaehnsdorf, working for him as a finisher for twelve years. He subsequently managed and in the end bought the business of Mr. Kaufmann in Soho, which he has greatly expanded, and which is now managed by his son. Neither he nor de Coverly have ever sought the heavy expenses and responsibilities of a large undertaking, but have been content with a personal business in which they themselves have always taken an active part.

9.Bound by de Coverly.

Although the chief place to study bookbinders and their craft is naturally London, there are several provincial centres where it flourishes, and where it has been touched by that movement for developing the artistic as well as the business side which we noticed in the previous chapter. In large country towns it is impossible for work to be as much specialized as it is in London; consequently a large bindery will do business of a most miscellaneous kind, embracing everything from pamphlets to fine-tooled morocco bindings, and including albums, ledgers, library and school books for prizes. Mr. Fazakerly in Liverpool, Mr. Birdsall in Northampton, and Mr. Chivers in Bath, all have establishments more or less of this kind.

10.Bound by Fazakerly.

11.Bound by Fazakerly.

Mr. Fazakerly was one of the first binders, certainly outside of London, who refused to support the excessive competition in cheapness, and who struck out a department in which fine work could be executed at prices that were remunerative and not prohibitive. Happily the result of his efforts shows the success of a refusal to pander to that desire for cutting prices which has done so much to ruin the crafts on their artistic side. For some time after he had educated his workmen to the responsibility of his new venture, he found that the taste of his customers lay towards a reproduction of old models, but he has of late been quite successful in directing it on to new lines. One feature may be noted in connexion with the morocco work of Mr. Fazakerly, namely, that the under cover is rarely decorated with the same design as the upper. If the lower cover is left quite plain, the effect is poor, and suggests that trouble has been spared on the book as a whole; but there is no reason for the convention,almost universally adopted, whereby the two sides are entirely alike. The same tools and elements of design should appear in each cover, only disposed in different schemes of ornament, and such variation naturally implies more thought, the thought that avoids repetition. One of Mr. Fazakerly’s innovations was the employment of embossed leather, which has since spread to many other houses; and another which he considers a specialty of his business is the decoration of the edges of books, both by means of tooling on them or gauffering, as it is more generally called, and also by painting underneath the gold. We may recall that in the sixteenth century this extension of ornament to the leaves of a book was very prevalent, and was only one of many indications that the workman spent ungrudging time and thought on the details of what was intended to be a work of art throughout.[3]Some very fine specimens ofgauffered edges may be seen on the works of Luther in seven folio volumes, dated Jena 1572–1581, now in South Kensington Museum. The volumes being very thick offer fine scope for ornament, which consists of the shield of Saxony painted in the centre of each foredge, the rest of the space being filled with arabesques and Renaissance ornaments. And there is, we believe, still in this country part of the library that once belonged to Odonico Pillone of Belluno, comprising some hundred and forty folios with foredges painted by the hand of Cesare Vecellio, a nephew of Titian.[4]

The painting of edges was revived in England, and reappears in thoroughly native style on books of the latter half of the eighteenth century. Charming little English landscapes are to be found on some of them, which, as the painting is done when the leaves are fanned out and held in that expanded position, are not in evidence when the book is shut, but when open appear at once. The name of William Edwards of Halifax and his son James is especially associated with this work, and their books are not very rare. Mr. Fazakerly has done a great deal of this decoration, which requires certain conditions to ensure success. The painter must be an artist, and the paper on which he works should be rather thin than thick; the modern fashion of printing on a sort of cardboard handicaps the binder not only in this, but other and far more important ways. Mr. Fazakerly hasalso made some innovations in ‘doublures,’ a term applied to the inside face of the boards when lined with leather or decorative material. In the matter of doublures the last word has not been said, and there is still room for experiment. The French custom of violent-coloured watered silks or equally salient inlays has never found much favour in this country; but there has been a great dearth both of invention and taste in dealing with this feature of a binding. Some of Zaehnsdorf’s doublures have silk either of the same colour as the cover, or in harmony with it, and he has tried Russia leather with considerable success. Unsuitable as it is for the outside cover from its tendency to rapid deterioration, it makes a very good board lining, and can be employed as well for the flyleaf opposite; indeed, it is better where possible that doublure and flyleaf should be the same. It is with calf that Mr. Fazakerly has made his innovation, and when delicately tinted and incised, but not embossed, the resultsseem pleasant and appropriate. On books relating to Japan, the number of which is largely on the increase, some of the coloured Japanese embossed papers make excellent doublures. Before dismissing this subject, we may mention the attempt of Mr. Bagguley, a binder at Newcastle-under-Lyme, to tool on vellum in colour. Some of this work, designed by Léon Solon and Miss Talbot, is very delicate and attractive; so delicate, in fact, that it is only suitable for the inside of a book. His patterns are composed chiefly of gouge and line work, as no effect of solid mass can be apparently got in the colour, and the effect is enhanced by dots and other small tools worked in gold. The excessively detailed nature of this work, which is made up of ‘tools’ small and light in character, heavier dies not being suitable for the stamping of colour, render it costly of execution, but there is no doubt that its occasional use offers a desirable variation on the ordinary inside lining. It is difficult to close this subject without a few words in condemnation of the coloured papers used by most binders for ordinary work which does not admit of anything more elaborate. It is time they gave up the German marbled patterns, the French ‘combs,’ and even the spirit marbles which produce the effect of violent colour thrown on wet blotting-paper and appear to be the latest fashion of monstrosity in such things. Good white handmade papers or vellum papers are the most suitable, while if coloured ones are deemed essential, the French and Van Gelder crayon papers toning harmoniously with the morocco are not likely to be an offence.

12.Bound by Chivers.

13.Bound by Chivers.

The business of Messrs. Birdsall at Northampton takes us to another centre of provincial activity in binding, and it has an especial interest in being one of the oldest bookbinding businesses in the country. It has been in the hands of the present proprietors’ family well over a hundred years, and has a connected history since 1757, when John Lacy, a banker of Northampton,acquired it and associated with it a bookselling business which he had also in the town. On giving up work in 1792 he sold both to William Birdsall, a Yorkshireman by birth, who had settled there, and in this family it has remained ever since. We spoke before of the varied nature of the work carried out by country binders, and on Messrs. Birdsall’s premises we find a department of manufacturing stationery, another for the wholesale paper trade, a third for commercial bindings in which are included certain special registered bindings patented for serial work, such as the ‘Stronghold’ and ‘Biblia fortis,’ suitable for free libraries where the usage is rough and constant, and lastly, one set apart for highly finished leather and vellum books. The works are always kept in the highest state of efficiency, and the workmen are encouraged to excel in skilled and conscientious work. Many of these have passed a lifetime there, and though the business is not of a co-operative character, a bonus is distributed to the older and more efficient workers at the end of the year.

14.Bound by the Oxford University Press.

Mr. Chivers, of Bath, has brought an unusual amount of originality and enthusiasm into the service of his craft. His father was a binder there before him, and the son, after working with Chatelain in London, decided to settle in his native town. For some time his specialty was a binding for public libraries patented under the name of ‘Duro-flexile,’ and this, together with other library appliances, brought him a connexion with librarians all over the country who were occupied with the problems presented by the particular nature of their work. He has brought considerable invention to bear upon these problems, and in certain cases it is not likely that a more satisfactory solution will be found than that which he has introduced. Besides these practical matters he has made certain styles of decorating book covers especially his own, and one of these he has developed with considerable success. This consists in a schemewhereby designs are painted on paper and then covered with transparent vellum, so that there is no limit to the colour effect that may be produced. We have already mentioned James Edwards, of Halifax, who settled in 1784 as a bookseller in Pall Mall, and whose love of books caused him to direct his coffin to be made from the shelves of his libraries. In 1785 he took out a patent ‘for embellishing books bound in vellum and making drawings on the vellum which are not liable to be defaced by destroying the vellum itself.’ The description further contained in the patent has never been found possible of imitation, which may or may not have been intentional on his part. The British Museum shows a Prayer-Book bound by him in this style for Queen Charlotte, wife of GeorgeIII., which has likewise a foredge painting beneath the gold. His patterns were frequently Etruscan in character; but as his range of decoration was limited and the vellum he used insufficiently transparent, his books are onlyof moderate interest. Mr. Chivers’ plan is a much simpler one, and if the designs are given into the hands of artists, very original results can be obtained. The French have one binder—M. Carayon—who is famed for a class of book cover that gives something of the same effect. The best-known painters both in water colours and black and white are employed to decorate the white vellum that clothes so sumptuously the finely illustrated books that his countrymen admire so much. These will, however, stand no usage of any kind, and can only be kept in cases carefully made for their protection. The vellucent work of Mr. Chivers being beneath the vellum runs no risk of deterioration and can stand even more than the usual wear and tear. Sometimes it appears as if the colours chosen were too strong, producing in some cases rather the effect of the highly coloured supplements that appear at Christmas in our illustrated papers; but that, of course, is not a criticism that belongs to the method, but is rather acounsel of perfection for a more delicate application of that method. The desire for colour has appeared constantly in the history of bookbinding. We see it first in the Venetian books brilliantly painted in lacquer in the Persian and Saracenic style taken from Arabian manuscripts, then in the strapwork coloured with a varnished incrustation like enamel, the best of which, French and Italian, is found about the middle of the sixteenth century. This method has proved very perishable, and has never been revived. Later on we get the inlaying of coloured leathers, which reached its most interesting development in the eighteenth century, and has retained its hold on public taste ever since. The earlier painted strapwork was freely copied in mosaics of leather; and when we come to deal with present-day French bindings, we shall see the new style of inlaid decoration to which these have given place. The vellucent method of Mr. Chivers is full of delightful possibilities if confined to books to which it is suited, andwhen employed in a rather lower colour scheme as suggested. Nor is it necessary for the whole cover to be of vellum, for it is possible to introduce a panel only of the transparent material over a picture, and to incorporate this in the morocco, giving the effect of an enrichment of enamel.

Another style which Mr. Chivers has done much to popularise is calf, embossed and incised and sometimes coloured by hand. In this, as for the vellucent bindings, he draws freely upon outside talent. Mr. H. Granville-Fenn is general artistic adviser, and Miss Alice Shepherd and Mr. S. Poole have long been associated with him in the execution of this work.[5]Some of the ‘cuirciselé’ that has come down to us from the past, and which originated in Germany, is very fine in character, as any one can see who studies some excellent examples exposed in the British Museum. There seems no reason why it should not have a satisfactory revival; in France, indeed, this has already taken place, as we shall see later on, but in England there is still too much ‘prettiness’ associated with it, and one is apt to think it more suitable for card-cases and blotting-cases than for bindings. What results it can yield when the design is severe and dignified and the treatment finely chiselled may be observed on thePantheologiaby Rainesius de Pisa, a folio dated about 1475, one of the Museum books just mentioned.

15.Bound by the Oxford University Press.

16.Bound by the Oxford University Press.

The last illustrations in this chapter show work from the binding department of the Oxford University Press. The Press itself, located in special buildings in Oxford built in 1830, is divided into two parts, one devoted chiefly to the printing of Bibles and Prayer-Books, the other to classical, scientific and general printing. It is entirely self-contained, making its own paper, ink, type, stereo- and electro-plates. The University type foundry is the oldest in England, and at the paper mills at Wolvercote, near Oxford, the famous India paper is made which has brought very great changes into the book trade. The publishing and binding house, lately at Amen Corner in the City, is now at St. Dunstan’s House, Fetter Lane, and thither are sent all the books from the Press as soon as printed. In the Paris Exhibition of 1900 the Press showed a considerable number of decorated bindings in addition to the exhibits from the other departments. The Oxford Press designs are very varied in character and include some excellentinlays; they are made by the more artistic among the workmen, and speak highly for the level of taste attained in the bindery.

17.Bound by the Guild of Handicraft.

III

In bringing forward what may be called the younger generation of binders, it is natural to speak first of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson as the source from which they have drawn much of their inspiration. His work, however, is not represented here, as it would be discourteous to go against his wishes in the matter. Whatever may be the reasons for his change of attitude in this respect, he has in the past done a great deal to introduce his work personally to the public and to explain his method and ideals. The pages of theBritish Bookmaker, a trade journal no longer in existence, theEnglish Illustrated Magazine, theFortnightly Review, testify to his former willingness that his work should be known and appreciated. He has also been one of the main supportersof the Arts and Crafts Society since its inception in 1888, and his books have been the largest contribution to binding in its occasional exhibitions. There too, as well as at the Society of Arts and elsewhere in London and the provinces, he has lectured on the craft, setting forth what he conceives to be its purport both in the limited matter of its processes and achievements and in the wider aspect of its relation to the wants and progress of society. Not long ago he published a book onIndustrial Ideals, which it is interesting to compare with the collected papers by Mr. William Morris which have appeared on that and kindred subjects. Mr. Morris always held up the ideal of the Middle Ages as the goal towards which to strive. It was a time, he considered, when the processes or means by which life is lived constituted the end of life itself, without seeking for some other end external to them and often incompatible with them. This idea of ‘art being the highest function of life’ was the gospel to which he neverceased to direct the attention of his followers, and the next step—the attempted re-organization of life into conditions that enable art to realize itself—thus followed as a matter of course. As a protest against the mechanical exploitation of the arts for the sake of commercial success in its worst sense, and with the attendant evils of excessive competition, such a creed is most valuable, and has already had an important effect on the decorative arts which we trust may be permanent. But it would seem mistaken in theory and impossible of practice to attempt a reversion to mediaeval ideals with the wholly altered conditions of production, distribution and mode of living that are now part and parcel of modern life. A crusade against the existing conditions in which works of art are produced must, one would think, if its criticism is to be operative, find some way of including in its scheme of regeneration the great movements of commercial life which is one of the features of the age, and which even themost optimistic could hardly hope to stem. Here and there an individual may achieve a career somewhat in accordance with mediaeval ways, content with the limitations imposed by this ideal; but except in such isolated instances it does not seem possible to return to the practice of the past, when, as Mr. Lethaby says, ‘the designer of a gold cup made it and sold it over the counter, and the art was thrown in like a Christmas almanack.’ Here comes in the problem mentioned in a previous chapter. If, on the one hand, there is too much tendency for the designer to be occupied only in planning ornament for others to execute with the result that a certain inevitableness is nearly always wanting in the finished product, yet it may be better for a skilled workman to carry out the views of an artist rather than try and evolve variants from a few types set before him. In the frequent advocacy of a revival of past conditions which would benefit the workman, there is one point that seemsalways left unnoticed—a point of great importance; and that is the stringent means taken in those days to protect the purchaser also. In the scholarly little introduction called ‘Art in the Netherlands’ which Mr. W. H. James Weale contributed to the Catalogue of the picture exhibition held at Bruges in 1902, he gives a concise account of the conditions under which alone a man could become a painter in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and what held good for painting held good also for the minor arts of life. As long as the craftsman belonged to the guild of his craft, he was bound by its rules to carry out his work honestly and conscientiously, to use good materials, and to beautify it as far as he was able. The corporation arranged for the education of its members. They were apprenticed to masters responsible both for their technical efficiency and the fulfilment of their duties of citizenship. Each was bound to the other; the apprentice was to give zeal in his service and the master toimpart all he knew of his trade. Once the apprenticeship at an end, the youth could work, as what would now be known as an ‘improver,’ with any master he liked, and in any town that he chose. Later on, in order to become a master, he had to present himself before the heads of the guild and give proofs of efficiency, promise obedience to the rules of the corporation, and swear to carry on his work well and honestly. Observe, however, that, although a master, he remained all his life under the control of the governing body of the corporation, the members of which could enter his shop at any moment, seize his materials if of inferior quality, confiscate them, and inflict punishment upon him. Lastly, in disputes between himself and his clients the guild was called in to decide between them. We can imagine no condition less in touch with the schemes of modern and social democracy, which so often deal exclusively with the needs of the worker and neglect those both of the employer and the consumer.

18.Bound by Douglas Cockerell.

19.Bound by Douglas Cockerell.

20.Bound by F. Sangorski and G. Sutcliffe.

In connexion with this topic, mention should be made of Mr. C. R. Ashbee’s experiment with the Guild and School of Handicraft. It began its existence at Essex House in East London, and, after fourteen years, in May 1902, removed to Chipping Campden, a small Cotswold village where the wool trade flourished during the Middle Ages and the silk trade in the eighteenth century. The aim of the Guild is set forth in a little pamphlet, distributed to visitors at the Dering Yard Gallery, 67ANew Bond Street, where the work of the school is annually exhibited. It need only be said here that its object is to set a higher standard of craftsmanship by liberating the workman from the restrictions of the trade shop, and directing his independence away from purely individualistic efforts on to lines of art service to the community, and that it is conducted co-operatively, the men having an interest and a share in the concern and its government. While recognizing the importance of what a man does and theconditions under which he does it, both to himself as a citizen and to the community for which he labours, the Guild endeavours to strike a mean between the socialism that cares only for the worker and the commercialism that disregards him and his idealistic as well as material needs. The work carried out at Chipping Campden is very various, and includes furniture, metal work, jewellery, printing and binding. After Mr. Morris’s death, Mr. Ashbee acquired the plant hitherto in use at the Kelmscott Press, and began a series of books, first in a Caxton type and later from a fount of his own design. Binding followed almost as a matter of course on these issues from the Essex House Press; and in connexion with it, besides the ordinary plain-tooled leather bindings, excellent in restrained ornament, he has revived certain fifteenth-century styles for which he has a special predilection, and which include the use of enamels and wooden boards, the latter often carved in low relief. The bindings, though designed for the most part by Mr. Ashbee, are carried out by Miss Power, who is in the main responsible for them. These books raise again the question whether such deviations from the ordinary paths are legitimate attempts to enlarge the limitations of the binder’s art. The ultimate serviceable use of a book should ever be kept in sight, and must in the end determine the matter. Leather and vellum, tooled with a few fine stamps, disposed with taste and restraint, will always remain the best coverings for books, because they are unobtrusive and can be pleasantly handled and easily disposed. Work that is embossed, enamelled, carved, or even too decorative in colour for unlimited production, can only be desired as occasional specimens of interest in themselves, and as exceptions proving the rule.

21.Bound by de Sauty.

22.Bound by de Sauty.

Mr. Douglas Cockerell, a pupil of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, has written the first of a new series of technical handbooks on the artistic crafts which is a model of thekind and should prove the text-book for all future binders. It is, no doubt, the outcome of some years’ teaching at the County Council School in Regent Street, where, for many years, he did excellent work in training the younger men to an intelligent interest in the various processes of their craft. No craft can be well learned anywhere but in a practical workshop; and he considers the value of class teaching to be limited to helping those engaged in a trade, and that such help is of great value in giving higher ideals and encouraging experimental work. From the beginning Mr. Cockerell has been specially interested in the repairing of books and in the preservation of old covers, and has given his pupils some training in all that relates to the care of books. There are numbers of old bindings that after four hundred years of wear and tear are still capable of fulfilling their original purpose of protection, with a little help from modern hands. To give a new lease of life to fine old books is really of far greater importance than the continual production of new and pretty bindings. Mr. Cockerell’s original work is well known both here and in America, and there is luckily a great deal of it that is simple as well as highly decorated. It is comparatively easy to do the latter; but a plain binding that yet has the stamp of the maker’s individuality is a very exceptional achievement, and in work of that character Mr. Cockerell is unsurpassed.

23.Bound by Miss Adams.

Mr. F. Sangorski and Mr. G. Sutcliffe, who were formerly with Mr. Cockerell, have started a bindery of their own, and are engaged both in teaching and doing varied work of a pleasant character. Trained in the methods of Mr. Cockerell at the Technical School at 316 Regent Street, Mr. Sutcliffe now controls the teaching for the County Council at its branch establishment in Camberwell, and Mr. Sangorski that of the Northampton Institute in Clerkenwell.

Mr. de Sauty is another young binder,and his work is of considerable merit. His inlays are distinguished for the taste shown in the association of colours, and his finishing has some of the brilliant qualities of the French school, seen particularly in the finely studded tooling of which he seems particularly fond. He has now the post formerly held by Mr. Cockerell.

24.Bound by Miss MacColl.

25.Bound by Miss Alice Pattinson.

In concluding this sketch of Bookbinding in England as it appears to-day, we must not omit to speak of the entrance recently effected by women in many of the handicrafts, and notably in the one under consideration. Quite a number are now trying to make a livelihood out of bookbinding; and possibly, therefore, a few words less of criticism than of counsel may not come amiss. It may be said that there are certain conditions absolutely necessary for successful achievement, quite apart from financial gain, which is another matter. The first of these is a workshop training, which, though impossible some years ago, is now no longer so within certain limits; that is to say, there are one or two binders with small workshops who undertake to give women systematic teaching for a limited time. In a workshop they will see a variety of work that they will miss if taught privately, and they will learn the habit of rapid and dexterous manipulation of tools and materials without which it is impossible to work quickly enough for a profitable return upon the outlay. A second most necessary qualification is that they should have the physique for standing and working at a bench during the hours of an ordinary working day. For binding is not like other less specialized crafts that can be taken up at odd hours and laid aside with equal facility, but needs concentration of mind as well as sureness of hand. A third element in the desirable equipment is a certain faculty of imagination controlled by right feeling or good taste, so that the results of workmanship have the note of individuality without eccentricity. In art as in life, personality is the one thing needful,and we may fairly look to women to show the realization of it that can hardly be expected from those working in the stereotyped grooves of production.

Back to Index Next