BOOKBINDING BOOKBINDING, AND THE CARE OF BOOKS- A TEXT-BOOK FOR
BOOKBINDERS AND LIBRARIANS by DOUGLAS COCKERELL WITH DRAWINGS BY
NOEL ROOKE AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS. THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES OF
TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS by W. R. LETHABY. Considered by many
bookbinders and librarians to be the clearest and most valuable
exposition of hand bookbinding in English, this volume concisely
covers virtually every aspect of the craft - from folding and
collating pages, trimming and gilding edges, to preparing covers,
designing and inlaying on leather, and creating clasps and ties.
PREFACE: IN issuing this volume of a Series of Editor's Handbooks
on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to state what are our
general aims. In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy
text-books of workshop practice, from the points of view of experts
who have critically examined the methods current in the shops, and
putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good
workmanship, and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts
which are more especially associated with design. Secondly, in
doing this, we h o e to treat design itself as an essential part of
good workmanship. During the last century most of the arts, save
painting vii Editor and sculpture of an academic kind, were little
considered, and there was a tendency ti look on design as a mere
matter of appearance. Such ornamentation as there was was usually
obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by an
artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved in
production. With the critical attention given to the crafts by
Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to
detach design from craft inthis way, and that, in the widest sense,
true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as
it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance
for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish and so on,
far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself
was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of
merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by too wide a
gulf from fresh thought-that is, from designing inevitably decays,
and, on the ... other hand, ornamentation, divorced from
workman-Editorial ship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls
into affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a language
addressed to the eye it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech
of the tool. In the third place, we would have this series put
artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing reasonable
occupations for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within
the bounds of academic art, the competition, of its kind, is so
acute that only a very few per cent. can fairly hope to succeed as
painters and sculptors yet, as artistic craftsmen, there is every
probability that nearly every one who would pass through a
sufficient period of apprenticeship to workman.. ship and design
would reach a measure of success. In the blending of handwork and
thought in such arts as we propose to deal with, happy careers may
be found as far removed from the dreary routine of hack labour, as
from the terrible Editors certainty of academic art. It is
desirable Preface in every way that men of good education should be
brought back into the productive crafts there are more than enough
of us in the city, and it is probable that moreconsideration will
be given in this century than in the last to Design and
Workmanship.
General
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