The name "Gothic" applies rather to the spirit than to the exact letter forms of the style. The same spirit of freedom and restlessness characterises the architecture of the period wherein this style of letter was developed; and Gothic letters are in many ways akin to the fundamental forms of Gothic architecture. Their effect is often tiring and confusing to the eye because of the constant recurrence of very similar forms with different letter meanings; yet this very similarity is the main cause of the pleasing aspect of a page of Gothic lettering.

Unlike the Roman letters, which attained a complete and final development, Gothic letters never reached authoritative and definitive forms, any more than did Gothic architecture. Every individual Gothic letter has several quasi-authoritative shapes, and all of these variants may be accepted, as long as they display an intelligent conception of the spirit of the style as a whole. Because of this lack of finality, however, it is impossible to analyze each of the letter forms as we were able to do with the Roman alphabet in Chapter I; yet this very variability and variety constitute at once the peculiar beauty of Gothic and the great difficulty of so drawing it as to preserve its distinctive character.

Any letter of Gothic form is usually called either "Gothic" or "Blackletter" indiscriminately, but this use is inexact and confusing. The term "Blackletter" should, strictly, be applied only to letters in which the amount of black in the line overbalances the white; and the proper application of the title should be determined rather by this balance or weight of the letter than by its form.

The original Gothic letter was a gradual outgrowth from the round Roman Uncial. Its early forms retained all the roundness of its Uncial parent; but as the advantages of a condensed form of letter for the saving of space became manifest, (parchment was expensive and bulky) and the beauty of the resulting blacker page was noticed, the round Gothic forms were written closer and narrower, the ascenders and descenders were shortened, with marked loss of legibilty, that the lines of lettering might be brought closer together, until a form was evolved in which the black overbalanced the white—the Blackletter which still survives in the common German text of to-day. Thus, though a Gothic letter may not be a Blackletter, a Blackletter is always Gothic, because it is constructed upon Gothic lines. On the other hand, a Roman Blackletter would be an obvious impossibility. The very essential and fundamental quality of a Roman letter lies in the squareness or circularity of its skeleton form.

For clearness and convenience, then, the following discrimination between the terms Gothic and Blackletter will be adopted in this treatise: When a letter is Gothic but not a Blackletter it will be called "Round Gothic"; when it is primarily a Blackletter it will be termed "Blackletter," the latter name being restricted to such compressed, narrow or angular forms as the small letters shown in 144, 147 and 148. The name "Round Gothic" will be applied only to the earlier forms, such as those shown in 141 and 142. Such a distinction has not, I believe, hitherto been attempted; but the confusion which otherwise results makes the discrimination seem advisable.

The three pages of examples, figures 141, 142 and 143, exhibit the characteristic forms and standard variations of the Round Gothic. In lieu of any detailed analysis of these letter shapes, it may perhaps be sufficient to say that they were wholly and exactly determined by the position of the quill, which was held rigidly upright, after the fashion already described in speaking of Roman lettering; and that the letters were always formed with a round swinging motion of hand and arm, as their forms and accented lines clearly evidence; for the medieval scribes used the Round Gothic as an easy and legible handwritten form, and linked many of the letters.

Figures 158, 170, 172 and 173 show some capitals adapted for use with these Round Gothic letters; but the beginner should be extremely wary of attempting to use any Gothic capitals alone to form words, as their outlines are not suited for inter-juxtaposition. Occasionally they may thus be used, and used effectively, as is shown, for instance, in the beautiful page of lettering by Mr. Edwin A. Abbey, 153; but so successful a solution is rare, and implies an intimate knowledge of the historic examples and use of Gothic lettering.

The late Gothic or Blackletter is condensed and narrowed in the extreme. No circles are employed in the construction of the small letters, which have angular and generally acute corners. As in all pen-drawn letters, the broad lines are made on the down right-sloping strokes, and the narrow lines are at right angles to these. Blackletter shapes, like those of the Round Gothic, cannot, as has been said, be defined by any set of general rules; the intrinsic quality of all Gothic letters almost demands a certain freedom of treatment that would transgress any laws that could be formulated. Indeed the individual forms should always be subservient to the effect of the line or page. Observe in almost every example shown how the form of the same letter constantly varies in some minor detail. The drawing by Albrecht DÜrer, reproduced in 144, will, however, serve to show the construction of an excellent Blackletter, which may fairly be considered as typical.

The first essential of a good Blackletter line or page is that it shall be of a uniform color. Unlike the Roman, the Blackletter form does not permit that one word be wider spaced than others in the same panel. The amount of white left between the several letters should be as nearly as possible the same throughout, approximately the same as the space between the perpendicular strokes of the minuscule letters themselves. Usually, the less the white space the better will be the general effect of the page, for its beauty depends much upon a general blackness of aspect;—and let it be noted in passing that, for this reason, it is doubly difficult to judge of the final effect of a Blackletter page from any outlined pencil sketch. Even in the cases of those capital letters that extend both above and below the guide lines it will be found possible to so adjust the spaces and blacks as not to interrupt the general uniformity of color, and it is sometimes advisable to fill awkward blanks by flourishes; although flourishing, even in Blackletter, is an amusement that should be indulged in cautiously. As a general rule the more solidly black a panel of Blackletter is the better (a principle too often disregarded in the modern use of the form); though on the other hand, the less legible the individual letters will become. The designer should therefore endeavor to steer a middle course, making his panel as black as he can without rendering the individual letters illegible.

No style permits more of liberty in the treatment of its separate letter forms than the Blackletter. The same letter may require a different outline at the beginning of a word than in the middle or at the end. The ascenders and descenders may be drawn so short as hardly to transcend the guide lines of the minuscules, or may grow into flourishes up and down, to the right or to the left, to fill awkward blanks. Indeed so variable are these forms that in ancient examples it is often difficult to recognize an individual letter apart from its context.

The two pages drawn by Mr. Goodhue, 188 and 189, deserve careful study as examples of modern use of the Blackletter. It will be observed that almost as many variants of each letter are employed as the number used would permit, thus giving the panel variety and preventing any appearance of monotony or rigidity. Notice the freedom and variety of the swash lines in the capitals, and yet that each version is quite as graceful, logical and original as any of its variants.

The examples of old lettering reproduced in figures 147, 148 and 149, together with the drawings by Mr. Goodhue, will indicate the proper spacing of Blackletter; but in most of the pages here devoted to illustrating the individual forms the letters have been spaced too wide for their proper effect that each separate shape might be shown distinctly. The style appears at its best in compositions which fill a panel of more or less geometrical form, as, for example, the beautiful title-page reproduced in 147. Could anything be more delightful to the eye than its rich blackness, energetic lines, and refreshing virility? In this design surely we have a specimen that, from the proportion and balance of its blacks, is more effective than anything which could have been accomplished by the use of the more rigid Roman letter; but despite its many beauties it suffers from the inherent weakness of the individual letter forms,—it is more effective than readable!

Another excellent example of the old use of Blackletter is the page from the prayerbook of the Emperor Maximilian, shown in 148, in which observe again the variety of the individual letter forms. Figure 149 shows the use of a Blackletter on an admirable monumental brass, which is reputed to have been designed by Albrecht DÜrer. A similar Blackletter form, also from a brass, is shown at larger scale in 186.

Any of the minuscule forms of Blackletter which have been illustrated may be used with the Gothic capitals of figures 164-5, 166, 177, 179, 185, 188-9; or with such Uncial capitals as are illustrated in 155 to 162; care being taken, of course, that these capitals are made to agree in style and weight with the small letters chosen. Although Uncial capitals are historically more closely allied with the Round Gothic, we have abundant precedent for their use with the minuscule Blackletter in many of the best medieval specimens.

When the Gothic Uncial capitals were cut in stone and marble there was naturally a corresponding change in character, as is shown in the Italian examples illustrated in 160 and 161. These examples, which are reproduced from rubbings, exhibit the characteristic stone cut forms very clearly. A Gothic Uncial alphabet redrawn from a German brass is illustrated in 162. The group of specimens from 154 to 159 exhibit the chronological growth of the Uncial capitals, which were used, as has been said, with the various small Blackletter forms, though they were also used alone to form words, as is shown in 160. The historical progression in these Uncial examples is most interesting; and, allowing for the variations of national temperament, traces itself connectedly enough. Figures 154 to 159 are pen forms, while 160 to 163 are from stone or metal-cut letters.

Figures 164 to 166 show alphabets of Gothic pen-drawn capitals that will serve as a basis for such adaptations as are shown in the modern examples 152 and 153. Figures 167 to 169 show a more elaborate but an excellent and typical variety of this form of capital, which is one of the most beautiful and distinctive of Gothic letters. Shorn of its fussy small lines the main skeleton is eminently virile; and, though extremely difficult to draw, it cannot be surpassed for certain limited uses. Figures 170 to 173 exhibit a group of Gothic capitals more or less allied in character and all pen letters. Figures 174 to 176 show forms similar to those of the previous group, but adapted for use in various materials.

Figures 177 to 179 show some English Gothic letters, the last being that employed so effectively in the pen-drawn page by Mr. Abbey, 153. Figures 180 to 184 illustrate various forms of Blackletter: 180 is from a German brass, 182 illustrates an Italian pen form, and 183 and 184 show Blackletters drawn by Albrecht DÜrer, the latter being the simplest and strongest variant in this style. It is the same letter that is employed to show Blackletter construction in diagram 144. Figure 185 shows the well-known and unusually beautiful initials designed by DÜrer. Figure 186 is a Blackletter from an English brass, although the letter forms in this example, as well as those of many other English brasses, may perhaps have been derived from Flanders, as many of the finest early Continental brasses were imported from the Netherlands.

The Italian forms of Gothic Blackletters are generally too fussy and finikin to be of practical value for modern use, though they often possess suggestive value. The letters shown in 182 are fairly typical of the characteristic Blackletter minuscules of Italy. Figure 187 exhibits an example of beautiful lettering in the Italian style, redrawn from a rubbing of an inlaid floor-slab in Santa Croce, Florence. The omission of capitals in long, confined lines is typical of many Blackletter inscriptions, as may be seen in 149, as well as in the plate just mentioned.

In view of the number of fine specimens of Blackletter which have been handed down to us, it has been deemed unnecessary to reproduce many examples of its employment by modern draughtsmen. The pages by Mr. Goodhue, 188-9, have already been referred to; and figure 150 shows a very consistent and representative use of similar letter forms by the same designer. Figures 190 and 191 illustrate two modern varieties of Blackletter, one very simple and the other very ornate. The small cuts, 151 and 152, show excellent modern Blackletters; the first, of unusually narrow form, being by Herr Walter Puttner, and the second, with its flourished initials, by Herr Otto Hupp.

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CHAPTER IV