THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES
OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS
EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY

BOOKBINDING

Copyright, 1901,
By D. Appleton and Company

All rights reserved

White Pigskin.—Basle, 1512.

EDITOR’S PREFACE[7]

In issuing this volume of a series ofHandbooks on the Artistic Crafts, itwill be well to state what are our generalaims.

In the first place, we wish to providetrustworthy text-books of workshop practice,from the points of view of expertswho have critically examined the methodscurrent in the shops, and putting asidevain survivals, are prepared to say whatis good workmanship, and to set up astandard of quality in the crafts whichare more especially associated with design.Secondly, in doing this, we hopeto treat design itself as an essential partof good workmanship. During the lastcentury most of the arts, save painting[8]and sculpture of an academic kind, werelittle considered, and there was a tendencyto look on “design” as a mere matterof appearance. Such “ornamentation” asthere was was usually obtained by followingin a mechanical way a drawing providedby an artist who often knew littleof the technical processes involved inproduction. With the critical attentiongiven to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris,it came to be seen that it was impossibleto detach design from craft in thisway, and that, in the widest sense, truedesign is an inseparable element of goodquality, involving as it does the selectionof good and suitable material, contrivancefor special purpose, expert workmanship,proper finish and so on, farmore than mere ornament, and indeed,that ornamentation itself was rather anexuberance of fine workmanship than amatter of merely abstract lines. Workmanshipwhen separated by too wide a gulffrom fresh thought—that is, from design—inevitablydecays, and, on the other hand,[9]ornamentation, divorced from workmanship,is necessarily unreal, and quicklyfalls into affectation. Proper ornamentationmay be defined as a language addressedto the eye; it is pleasant thoughtexpressed in the speech of the tool.

In the third place, we would have thisseries put artistic craftsmanship beforepeople as furnishing reasonable occupationfor those who would gain a livelihood.Although within the bounds ofacademic art, the competition, of its kind,is so acute that only a very few per cent.can fairly hope to succeed as painters andsculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen, thereis every probability that nearly everyone who would pass through a sufficientperiod of apprenticeship to workmanshipand design would reach a measureof success.

In the blend

BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!

Sitemize Üyelik ÜCRETSİZDİR!