T. J. Cobden-Sanderson

Name: The ideal book or book beautiful
Author: T. J. Cobden-Sanderson

The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

Summary

“The ideal book or book beautiful”, published in 1900, is a work by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. It explores elements such as the Book Beautiful, making and Calligraphy.

Quotes from The ideal book or book beautiful (T. J. Cobden-Sanderson)

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ I apprehend that when the illuminator, passing on from the decoration of significant or initial letters, took to the making of pictures in this fashion within the folds of them, he was pressing his art too far. He was in danger, as the event showed, of subordinating his Text to himself, of sacrificing the thing signified to the mode of its signification, for in the end the written communication became as it were nothing, or but the framework or apology to support a succession of beautiful pictures, beautiful indeed, but beautiful at the expense of the Text which they had set out to magnify. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ HANDWRITING and hand decoration of letter & page are at the root of the Book Beautiful, are at the root of Typography & of woodcut or engraved Decoration, & every printer, & indeed every one having to do with the making of books should ground himself in the practice or knowledge of the Art of Beautiful [2] Writing or Calligraphy, and let both hand and soul luxuriate and rejoice for a while in the art of Illumination. Such practice would keep Type alive under the influence of an ever living & fluent prototype. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ And the whole duty of beautiful typography is not to substitute for the beauty or interest of the thing thought and intended to be conveyed by the symbol, a beauty or interest of its own, but, on the one hand, to win access for that communication by the clearness & beauty of the vehicle, and on the other hand, to take advantage of every pause or stage in that communication to interpose some characteristic & restful beauty in its own art. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ On the other hand each contributory craft may usurp the functions of the rest & of the whole and growing beautiful beyond all bounds ruin for its own the common cause. I propose in this brief essay, putting aside for the moment the material, paper or vellum, the binding & decoration, & the literary content of the Book Beautiful, to say a few words on the artistic treatment of the vehicle of expression—Calligraphy, Printing, & Illustration—and on the Book Beautiful as a whole. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ FINALLY, if the Book Beautiful may be beautiful by virtue of its writing or printing or illustration, it may also be beautiful, be even more beautiful, by the union of all to the production of one composite whole, the consummate Book Beautiful. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ Thus in our own case the illuminator destroyed by over relative development the purely written text, & the moral is that every artist, in contributing to the Book Beautiful, must keep himself well in hand and strictly subordinate both his art and his ambition to the end in view. He must remember that in such a case his art is a means only & not itself an end. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ As this tradition died out in the distance, the craft of the Printer declined. It is the function of the Calligrapher to revive & restore the craft of the Printer to its original purity of intention & accomplishment. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ The type is rigid and implacable. The labour is divided and dispersed: the picture or illustration, for example, is too often done quite independently & at a distance, without thought of the printed page, & inserted, a stranger, amid an alien type. Yet in the making of the printed book, as in the making of the written book, this adjustment is essential, & should be specially borne in mind, and Calligraphy and immediate decoration [3] by hand and the unity which should be inseparably associated therewith would serve as an admirable discipline to that end. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, The ideal book or book beautiful (1900)

“ The Printer must at the same time be a Calligrapher, or in touch with him, & there must be in association with the Printing Press a Scriptorium where beautiful writing may be practised and the art of letter-designing kept alive. ”

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson

Summary

Quotes from The ideal book or book beautiful (T. J. Cobden-Sanderson)

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