Of Light and Shade

A specialist on the art of Leonardo, Jean Paul Richter (1847-1937) completed a translation and examination of the artist’s notebooks entitled Literary Works of Leonardo in 1883. Chapter 3 of volume 1 presents six books on the effects of light and shade, which are now available in full text online (III. Six Books on Light and Shade).

In response to these chapters, the contemporary artist Judith Rothchild created six intaglio prints, using mezzotint with rocker, roulette and, dry point additions. These were matched with text set by Mark Lintott in Vendome Romain and printed by him on an Albion press. Lintott bound the entire set in wrappers and a slipcase covered with handmade papers screenprinted by Rothchild.

Leonardo da Vinci, Of Light and Shade from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci…as compiled, translated, and edited by Jean Paul Richter. Intaglio prints by Judith Rothchild ([Octon, France]: Verdigris Press, 2009). Copy 9 of 15. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process.

118. Of Light. “The lights which may illuminate opaque bodies are of four kinds. These are: diffused light as that of the atmosphere, within our horizon. And Direct, as that of the sun, or of a window or door or other opening. The third is Reflected light; and there is a fourth, which is that which passes through [semi] transparent bodies, as linen or paper or the like, but not transparent like glass, or crystal, or other diaphanous bodies, which produce the same effect as though nothing intervened between the shaded object and the light that falls upon it; and this we will discuss fully in our discourse.” http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/dv/

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, compiled and edited from the original manuscripts, by Jean Paul Richter … (London: S. Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1883). Marquand Library Oversize ND1130 .L56q

Typography VIS 215

Over at 185 this week, the students of Graphic Design: Typography with David Reinfurt pinned paper to the wall to share their innovative designs using words and images. The class has been reading essays by Beatrice Warde (1900-1969), Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), and Paul Elliman, which provide “the raw material for hot metal typesetting in the letterpress print shop, photo-typesetting in the mechanical paste-up studio, and state of the art typesetting and design software in the digital computer lab.” They practiced design not only from their own imagination but in the spirit of historical masters.

As an additional exercise this year, each of the students designed a class stone for Nassau Hall. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S39/63/00K80/#comp000052ff592200000035935c56

What a treat it was to see all the provocative and strong pages to come from the class.

20140428_160836_resized

Since 2010, David Reinfurt has been teaching elements of graphic design to Princeton students, opening the type shop to them for the first time in many years as well as a state of the art digital studio. In addition to his teaching, in 2012 Reinfurt, Stuart Bailey and Angie Keefer set up a 501c3 corporation called The Serving Library, a cooperatively-built archive that assembles itself by publishing. It consists of 1. an ambitious public website; 2. a small physical library space; 3. a publishing program which runs through #1 and #2. http://www.servinglibrary.org/

Happy Birthday Don Bachardy

Inside back cover, image under Japanese paper

Next month on May 18, portrait artist Don Bachardy will celebrate his eightieth birthday. Thanks to the generosity of Peter Putnam, Class of 1942 (1927-1987) and the Mildred Andrews fund (named for his mother), the Graphic Arts Collection holds 27 portrait drawings by this talented California artist. In addition, Putnam donated several books of Bachardy’s portraits, including October (1981) and Don Bachardy: 100 Drawings (1983). .

To these gifts, we added the collaboration between Bachardy and the actress/printer Gloria Stuart (1910-2010), published through her private press Imprenta Glorias. The design of the book, embellishments, handset type, and printing were all accomplished Stuart, while the images and text are by Bachardy. All 30 copies were bound by Allwyn O’Mara.

Don Bachardy (born 1934), Portrait of Stephen Spender, January 21, 1964. Pencil on paper with ink wash. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Peter Putnam, Class of 1946

Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), October, drawings by Don Bachardy (Los Angeles, Calif.: Twelvetrees Press, 1981). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize PR6017.S5 Z47 1981q

Don Bachardy (born 1934), Don Bachardy, one hundred drawings (Los Angeles: Twelvetrees Press, 1983). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) NC139.B24 A4 1983

Don Bachardy (born 1934), The Portrait ([Los Angeles]: Imprenta Glorias, 1997). Copy 10 of 30. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize Z232.I326 B32q

Stencil ornamentation

Maurice Pillard Verneuil (1869-1942), L’ornementation par le pochoir (Paris: Schmid, [1896?]). Portfolio of pochoir plates. Charles Rahn Fry Pochoir Collection. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize NK8667.V47 O76f

At the turn of the last century, the French artist and decorator Maurice Verneuil published a series of model books for the stencil design of wallpaper, cloth, ceramics, carpets, stained glass, jewelry, and much more. Through his writings he played an important role in the definition of ornamental style between the floral decoration of 1900 and its evolution to Japonisme at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in 1925. Here are some of his earliest designs.

Lending Day at the Princeton Print Club

“Lending Day” at the Princeton Print Club was an semi-annual ritual on campus throughout the 1940s and well into the 1950s. As a reporter for the Princeton Alumni Weekly noted, these young men are “continuing a six-year custom that has caught the fancy of the undergraduate body.” Each fall and spring, the Princeton Print Club staged its lending day and in 1946 “a record crowd queued up outside 36 University Place to choose from the group of 400 contemporary American originals made available. Each man was entitled to select one framed print to decorate his room for the remainder of the term. No charge or deposit fee is required, and in the six years since the program was instituted not a single print has been lost.”

The Club sponsored exhibition, lectures, and demonstrations. Above, Harry Shokler, president of the National Serigraph Society, demonstrated the correct technique to a group of students and faculty (and wives?). Below, John Taylor Arms showed the group how to make an etching.
Once or twice a week evening seminars were held at 36 University Place, where exhibitions were also mounted by the student members. Note the book binding over the fireplace.

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The 75th anniversary of the Princeton Print Club is coming soon. Do you remember the organization or did your father participate? We are collecting reminiscences and comments either below or at jmellby@princeton.edu. Thank you.

Tour of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians, and Slovenians

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Zájezd ,,,Národního shromáždění Č S R. do Království Srbů, Chorvatů a Slovinců ve dnech 2. – 12. října 1926 [Tour …of the National Assembly of the Republic of Czechoslovakia to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on October 2 to 12, 1926]. Album with 39 gelatin silver photographs and letterpress title page. Graphic Arts Collection. On deposit from Bruce C. Willsie, Class of 1986.

In 1922, a delegation of the National Group of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenians visited Czechoslovakia, touring Prague (The National Assembly, the Senate, and Prague Castle) and the town of Hradec Králové.

In October of 1926, a group of seventy members of the Czechoslovakian National Assembly returned the compliment and paid a friendly visit to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929). During the ten day trip, the delegation traveled to several towns, including Belgrade where they visited the Yugoslavian Parliament. They laid wreath at the Grave of Unknown Hero on the Avala Hill and in Split, the group watched a performance by Yugoslavian folk dancers.

Thanks to the generosity of Bruce C. Willsie, Class of 1986, the Graphic Arts Collection now holds what we believe to be an official album documenting the Czech delegation’s 1926 tour. Each photograph is embossed and credited to the Prague photography studio of A Wanner, also listed as A.F. Wanner. Tomáš Masaryk (1850-1937), chief founder and first president (1918–1935) of Czechoslovakia, is recognizable in these photographs as one of the few men with a beard.

To see a 1926 silent movie of the delegation on tour, prepared by Ministerstvo národní obrany, click here: http://film.nfa.cz/portal/avrecord/0063401.

Masqueronians, in English and in French

Joseph Grego writes “On August 15, 1800, Mr. Ackermann issued at his Repository of Arts, 101 Strand, a series of six plates designed and etched in [Thomas] Rowlandson’s boldest and most spirited style, and finished and coloured in almost exact imitation of the original drawings. Each plate contains three large distinct heads, festooned with attributes peculiar to the respective designs.”

“It is not very clear whether these symbolical groupings, which are superior in execution to the average of Rowlandson’s published works, were devised to be cut up for scrap-books, screens, or wall borderings, but they have become remarkably scarce since the date of publication, and sets of these typical heads (eighteen in all) are rarely met with at the present date.”

The Masqueronians are named:
Plate one: Philosophorum, Fancynina, Epicurum
Plate two: Penserosa, Tally ho! Rum!, Allegoria
Plate three: Physicorum, Nunina, Publicorum
Plate four: Funeralorum, Virginia, Hazardorum
Plate five: Battleorum, Billingsgatina, Trafficorum
and Plate six: Barberorum, Flora, and Lawyerorum.

In 1814, a possibly forged set of Rowlandson’s designs was released by the Parisian publisher Vallardi, under the title Caricature Anglaises. The sheets held at Princeton, under the heading Symbolical groupings, [Grego’s words] are two per page and several of the figures are laterally reversed, presumably traced from the original.

Dorothy George describes one plate as from “a group of Caricatures Anglaises that was listed by Vallardi in the Bibliographie de France for 10 September 1814. It is a partial copy of a print by Rowlandson with heads titled Billingsgatina and Battleorum, from the series Masqueronians (1800).”

“The French series has copies after most of the Masqueronians, other known titles as follows (from impressions in the collection of Nicholas Knowles):
No. 8, Mons. Friteur gargotier ambulant, La fantasie (Epicurum, Fancynina)
No. 9, Mons Craque Perruqier Mad. Flore (Barberorum, Flora)
No. 10, Mons. Sabbat Avocat. La religeuse (Lawyerorum, Nunina)
No. 12, La comedie. Mons. Taiant chasseur (Allegora, Tally! Ho! Rum!)
No.14, La Tragedie Le croque Morts (Penserosa, Funeralorum)”

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), Masqueronians ([London, Ackermann, 1800]). 8 col. pl. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 1800.71f

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), Symbolical groupings ([London, Ackermann, 1814]). 3 col. pl. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 1800.7f

Tempesta, “Raging death steers the boat”

Antonio Tempesta (1555-1530), Vita et miracula D. Bernardi Clarevallensis abbatis. Opera & industria Congregationis regularis obseruantiae eiusdem Hispaniarum ad alendam pietatem Vniuersi Ordinis Cisterciensis. Aeneis formis expressa. Pars prior. Cum priuilegio, & superiorum permissu. = The Life and Miracles of Lord Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux. The Works and Diligence of His Regular Observant Congregation of Spaniards for the Spiritually Nourishing Piety of the Whole Cistercian Order. Printed with copper plates. Part one. With the privilege and permission of the superiors (Rome, 1587). 56 engravings depicting the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 or 1091-1153), 11 with monograms identifying various printmakers.

Bound with: Les Portraits de quelques personnes signalées en piété … de l’ordre des minimes (S.l., 1668) and Les figures et l’abrégé de la vie, de la mort et des miracles de S. François de Paule (Paris, 1664). More about these two in other posts.

Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) was a multifaceted Baroque artist who worked both large and small, in color and in black & white, designing enormous wall frescos as well as modest, albeit complex, book illustrations. In Rome, he was one of the artists Pope Gregory XIII selected to decorate the Loggia Gallery of the Vatican Palace, among many other projects. At the same time, he produced over 1,500 engraving, released in portfolios and as bound plates.

For his first published book, Tempesta was commissioned by the Cistercian Order to tell the story of the French abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, (1090-1153) who founded a monastery known as Claire Callée or Clairvaux. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Bernard “began that active life, which has rendered him the most conspicuous figure in the history of the 12th century. He founded numerous other monasteries, composed a number of works, and undertook many journeys for the honor of God.”
Custodit Dominus animas sanctorum suorum. Psal. 96. Lib. I. Cap. XII. Aduersa laborans valetudine uno tempore, & de daemone, & de morte triumphat. = [The Lord] preserveth the souls of his saints. Psalms 97:10. Book 1, ch. 12. Struggling simultaneously against disease, the devil, and death, he triumphs.

For the text, the Jesuit, humanist and polygraph Giulio Roscio (1550-1591) was selected, a specialist in religious poetry. He wrote six lines of verse at the bottom of each of Tempesta’s plates. This one translates:

Lying sick in bed, Bernard sees both the horrors of the enemy, and the face of the one who is gentle in judging. / This one befriends, that one flees; now the nether regions themselves hold no terrors; he, however, stands; and raging death steers the boat. / The boat also departs, and sets sail far from shore. A double crown encircles Bernard’s head.

See more of Tempesta’s work:

Antonio Tempesta, Metamorphoseon, siue, Transformationum Ouidianarum libri quindecim, æeneis formis ab Antonio Tempesta Florentino incise… (Amsterodami, Wilhelmus Ianssonius excudit [1606?]) Rare Books (Ex) NE662.T45 O94 1606

Antonio Tempesta, Septem orbis admiranda ex antiqvitatis monimentis collecta, et oblectationi pvblicae in aereas tabvlas ab Antonio Tempesta Florentino relata (Antuerpiae, Venduntur apud I.B. Vrintium [1608]) Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books NE662.T24 A3

Otto van Veen, Batavorum cum Romanis bellum, engraved by Antonio Tempesta (Antuerpiae: Apud auctorem vaeneunt, 1612) Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 2009-0462Q

Steel-engraved advertisements

Wrightson’s New Triennial Directory of Birmingham . . . . Embellished with plates, engraved purposely for this work (Birmingham [England]: Printed and published by R. Wrightson, 1823). [76] leaves of plates (9 folded) “R. Wrightson, printer, Birmingham.”–colophon. Plates are mostly engraved advertisements, three printed in colored inks; some are letterpress. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process.

“The term ‘trade card’,” writes Michael Twyman, “already ambiguous in its first usage (historically it referred to an item of paper), has become doubly ambiguous through its use to denote multicoloured collectable give-aways. The bubble-gum card, and all its related phenomena, must be clearly distinguished from the original tradesman’s name-and-address slip.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired an extraordinary business directory for the city of Birmingham, which includes large format, engraved advertisements bound with the address listings. These are too large, for the most part, to be re-printed trade cards and so, must have been separately designed and steel-engraved plates that were specifically created for this publication by the entrepreneur Robert Wrightson (active 1805-1850).

According to The Book Makers of Old Birmingham (1907), “In 1818, Robert Wrightson of 7 New Street, Birmingham, published his New triennial directory of Birmingham, in which were listed ‘the merchants, tradesmen and respectable inhabitants’ of the town (or, more precisely, such of them as had thought it worth their while to pay for an entry).”

These directories, which continued until 1846, were “profusely adorned with illustrated advertisements, many of these, as the work of well-known engravers, being of interest and value. … Besides the Triennial series, Robert Wrightson was one of the first to introduce lithographic printing to Birmingham…. He designated his shop “The Athenaeum” and preserved the somewhat distinctive character of his business to the end.”

Joseph Hill, The Book Makers of Old Birmingham (Birmingham: Printed at the Shakespeare Press for Cornish Bros., 1907). http://books.google.com/books?id=MmEbAQAAMAAJ

The Encyclopedia of Ephemera: a guide to the fragmentary documents of everyday life for the collector, curator, and historian by Maurice Rickards; edited and completed by Michael Twyman, with the assistance of Sally De Beaumont and Amoret Tanner (New York: Routledge, 2000). Graphic Arts: Reference Collection (GARF) Oversize NC1280 .R52 2000q

The Elysium of Animals: A Dream

“The Knacker’s Yard,” by George Cruikshank (1792-1878), second state, in Egerton Smith, The Elysium of Animals: a Dream (London: J. Nisbet … 1836). Frontispiece by W. Harvey, the other illustration by Cruikshank. Originally published in The Melange. Prospectus of the Late Association for Promoting Rational Humanity towards the Animal Creation, and of its quarterly periodical, The Voice of Humanity, issued together. Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1836.9. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888.
The Knacker’s Yard, First state. (c) British Museum

The Monthly Review for 1836 commented on the book,

“That the author has succeeded in his endeavour to exhibit to the reader the odious character of wanton severity towards the lower animals, in a more forcible light than the common observer would discover for himself we admit. He has also put the subject upon such a ground, and treated it in such a shape as will naturally arouse the attention of the young, and the unreflecting. At the same time, we feel that he sometimes pitches his appeals too high, and that thereby he has run the risk of defeating the very object he had in view. For instance – and we care not by what human authority he backs his conjecture – it seems to us quite unnecessary, in pleading in behalf of the inferior animals, to suppose that they may enjoy a future state of existence.”

Cohn 758: Egerton Smith, The Elysium of Animals. A Dream. 8vo. London: J.Nisbet, Berners Street. 1836. Etched plate at p.83 of “The Knacker’s Yard” in second state (see note to no. 825). There is a frontispiece by W. Harvey.

Cohn 825: The Voice of Humanity: For the Communication and Discussion of all Subjects Relative to the Conduct of Man towards the Inferior Animal Creation. 3 Vols. 8vo. London: J. Nisbet, Berners Street. 1830-1833. The first volume was issued in four quarterly parts, the second and third volumes in white-grey printed cloth boards. The title of the second and third volume was changed to The Voice of Humanity: for The Association for Promoting Ratinal Humanity toward the Animal Creation. In the second volume the publishers’ name upon the title is spelt “Nisbett” instead of Nisbet as in the first and third volumes.

Part 4 of Vol. 1 contains the famous etching of “The Knacker’s Yard” in its first state before its alteration; and the same plate, in the second state, with the addition of more chickens, the notice, and writing above the window, in the centre of the plate, is at p.134 of Vol. 4. Douglas states that there is a still earlier state of the plate with the date at the bottom of the plate in the right-hand corner, and this state should be in Part 4 of Vol. 1. I am very doubtful of this, however, especially as he gives the date 1931, instead of 1830. Certainly it is not so in my copy of the parts, which belonged to Mr. Truman, and in which he has placed an autograph note, stating it to be first state, while the etching in Vol. 3 he designates second state. I have never seen copies with the date as mentioned by Doubglas. The plate appears int he second state in ‘The Melange,’ ‘The Elysium of Animals,’ and ‘Address of Earl Stanhope,’ . . .”

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