THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS EDITED BY W. R.
LETHABY 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. 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 Preface 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 Preface
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 detachdesign from craft in this 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, Vlll
ornamentation, divorced from workman-Editorial ship, is necessarily
unreal, and quickly Preface 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 un ix 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 inthe city, and
it is probable that more consideration will be given in this
century than in the last to Design and Workmanship.
General
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