Name: When "technical handbooks" had flair
Item: Writing & illuminating, and lettering
Author: steerpike

Writing & illuminating, and lettering →

by Edward Johnston

When "technical handbooks" had flair

steerpike

Nov 5, 2024 7:12 PM

"Modern Calligraphy" is obviously ugly, but its hard to describe exactly why.

Edward Johnston's book treats writing, illuminating, and lettering as Art that deserves Art History. To be clear, he doesn't pretend to be that historian. But he writes this manual with a level of respect for that artistic tradition that comes in very short supply with modern introductions to calligraphy, which always seem to veer into homemade "Live, Laugh, Love" decor territory. I'll stop myself before I get too cynical about those books/blogs/influencers and pivot into what I love about working through the Handbook: it's simply a joy to read.

Here is what Johnston shares regarding the value of good lettering:

If once the principles [scribes] have established could gain currency, what a load of ugliness would be lifted from modern civilization! If once the names of streets and houses... were executed in beautifully designed and well-spaced letters, the eye would become so accustomed to good proportion in these simple and obvious things that it would insist on a similar gratification in more complex and difficult matters.

Compare this with the closest we get to something about the beauty or joy in calligraphy from the now-canonical Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy by Eleanor Winters (which I do otherwise recommend!):

There is tremendous gratification in making an elegant curve, a beautiful letter, or even a good stroke.

I mean, I'm obviously someone who agrees, but the prose here doesn't exactly get me rearing to fiddle around with some nibs and corrosive inks and hunch over tracing paper for an hour. But when Johnston tells me that "much would be gained by substituting, generally, writing for designing", and his editors that "workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh though--that is, from design--inevitably decays", well, now I'm excited to design some letters.

Beyond that, the wonderful detail given to the other arts of illuminating (burnishing, rubricating, gilding, all of which seem to be neglected now) working towards the "Theory of Illumination", as Johnston puts it, makes me hungry for some rainy afternoons to try them... lowkey think I would have thrived as a pre-printing-press monk

kunst

2 months ago

I wonder if more attention/scholarly study has been given to calligraphy in China and cultures influenced by China. It was considered one of the four main art forms for a long time, whereas in the West it was seen as ancillary and decorative post printing press.