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THE ART OF THE BOOK IN GERMANY. BY L. DEUBNER

“LETTERPRESS printing, even in the edition de luxe, is not an art, and neither the compositor nor the printer is an artist.” This is what was written in the year 1887 by Ludwig Nieper, at that time Director of what is now the Royal Academy of the Graphic Arts and Book Industry at Leipzig, a city which in the present year has in its International Exhibition, embracing every conceivable aspect of the industry as well as the arts most closely bound up with it, furnished such a convincing and impressive demonstration of the culture uniting the nations as perhaps has never been offered before. The conviction expressed in the passage just quoted, repudiating the existence of any influence of art on industrial labour, belongs to a period bereft of any real feeling for art and content with the imitation and repetition of historic styles while eschewing any contact with the practical requirements of the industry. Nowadays we know how beneficial and fruitful for both has been the reciprocal influence of art and industry in every sphere of activity, and that only by this means have we been able to proceed from mere external embellishment to artistic form, from book adornment to a true art of the book. Thus in the space of barely twenty-five years our views of what art really is and what are its functions have radically changed, and it must be left to those who come after us to estimate more correctly than we are able to at the present day, the immense labour which has been accomplished in the space of a generation. The incipient stages in the growth of the new movement in Germany date back some twenty years. At that time we looked with envy at the publications which issued from the private presses of England, and could boast of nothing that could compare with the far-famed “Faust” of the Doves Press; and if to-day we are at length able to stand on our own feet, it would yet be false to assert that the modern art of book production in Germany has developed from within, and to disavow the valuable stimulus and knowledge we owe especially to the English books of that period. And clearly as we perceived that the book in its entirety, with its harmonious co-ordination of type, decoration, composition, paper and binding, should form a work of art, yet only after many mistakes and deviations have we arrived at the goal. Thus nowadays no one would seriously seek to defend such a production as the official catalogue of the German section at the Paris Exhibition of 1900; and so, too, the so-called “Eckmann” type, which at one time was taken up with unexampled enthusiasm—a type in which the designer had contrived to adapt the ancient forms of the “Antiqua” type to the sinuous lines of modern ornament—is now almost completely forgotten. These and many other things which at that time were acclaimed as creative achievements, belong to that class of errors which are really nothing but exaggerated truths. But in the absence of such excesses and that exuberance of feeling which was so violently manifested, it would have been quite impossible to accomplish in so short a time what as a matter of fact was accomplished, and in spite of shortcomings has even now lost none of its importance in the history of the development of a new art of the book.

The first event of significance which followed the renewed recognition of the decorative value of the printed letter was the issue of some new types designed by Otto Eckmann and Peter Behrens respectively, the former slender, delicate, and round, the latter bold, distinguished, and angular, but both alike quite free, natural, and easily legible. It was these founts that really inaugurated the new development; and the foundry of the Gebr. Klingspor which issued them, placed itself by so doing at the head of all those enterprising type-foundries which have since enriched our printing press with a wealth of new and valuable founts. It had come to be recognised that lettering and ornament were closely correlated; that the ornamentation of printed matter could not be regarded as an end in itself, but must be adapted to the character of the lettering in order that the rectangular space of a page should be so filled as to achieve a good general effect and satisfy the sensitive eye. Nothing remained, therefore, but to entrust the designing of new types to artists who had already accomplished good and original work as book decorators; and as none of the numerous German type-foundries desired or indeed could afford to be behindhand in a movement of this kind, it resulted that in the course of a few years the printing presses of the country were inundated with a flood of new “artist” types, of which, nevertheless, only relatively few have been able to survive till now. To design a new type or to re-mould the old forms of “Antiqua” (Roman) or “Fraktur” (German Gothic), so that the new forms should not only have a good black-and-white effect but that the eye should be able to grasp with ease the sequence of “word-pictures” as well as each individual letter and to read the lines quickly and comfortably, is a task of extraordinary difficulty which many who have attempted to grapple with have under-estimated. To obtain an idea of the multitude of difficulties that have to be overcome, one must bear in mind that the fundamental forms of the individual letters are fixed, and that only small changes are possible in the general shape, in the proportions of the component parts, in the alternation of the upright, horizontal, and oblique lines, in the curvature of the so-called “versal” or capital letters, in the serifs, and in the sweep of preliminary or terminal flourishes; that the printed letter, unlike manuscript, is bound up with fixed laws, and that in order to justify its claim to consideration it should, while expressing the artistic individuality of its designer, not be too original and personal if it is to be employed for general use. Further, it should conform to the spirit and ideas of the age, and yet again it ought not to be wholly conditioned by contemporary considerations if it is to survive to a later age, as have many fine founts which the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have bequeathed to us.

As already said, only a few among our modern German designers of printed types have mastered all these difficulties, and among these few the names of Behrens, Tiemann, Koch, Kleukens, Weiss, and Wieynk are pre-eminent. In the course of some thirteen years that born architect, Peter Behrens, who began as a painter of easel pictures and a decorator of books, and now builds palaces, factory buildings, and gigantic business-houses, has himself designed four founts in which the whole artistic evolution of this strong-willed nature is reflected, and which yet seem so entirely the product of a natural growth that one is quite unconscious of the years of labour spent on their improvement and perfection in the interval between the preparation of the designs and the actual casting of the founts. As compared with the architectonic character of the austere, angular forms of the first Behrens type, the italic or “Kursiv” fount (p. 141) which made its appearance six years later looks more decorative with the gentle sweep and uniform flow of its lines, and in the most successful of the Roman founts the full vigour and monumentality of his later period of activity is clearly expressed; while the most recent of all, the “MediÆval” (p. 140), which was only issued a few weeks ago, is again more ornamental with its uniformly fine lines, and admirably answers to its designation as a type embodying the characteristics of the Italian Renaissance script.

Another “MediÆval” type which even excels that just mentioned in clearness and beauty of form has been designed by Walter Tiemann (pp. 146 and 147), who holds the position of instructor at the Royal Academy of Graphic Arts at Leipzig, and devotes himself almost exclusively to the improvement of the art of lettering and book production. Like all the other types designed by this artist, it has less of a personal character about it, and reason more than sentiment has been the guiding motive in the design; but its cool, distinguished reticence gives it a quite exceptional merit. It is, moreover, completely independent of its classical prototypes and their Romanesque imitations; very effective in all its gradations, the use of it is not restricted to the limited editions of our private presses, and in fact it is now one of the most popular founts we have.

The fine Roman types by F. W. Kleukens (pp. 151, 153 and 156) rank among the most gratifying achievements of our new school. They are free from eccentricity of any kind, there is a seductive charm in their unassuming yet distinguished forms, and even the ornamental slender kinds are agreeably clear. In spite of the thinness of their lines the letters belonging to this slender fount combine to make easily legible lines. The Kleukens types are practical as well as attractive, and in conjunction with specially designed borders, initials and decorative devices of all kinds, they are well adapted for the most diverse uses.

Of a far more personal character, but at the same time of a more restricted range of use, are the graceful types by Heinrich Wieynk (pp. 149 and 150). It is the spirit of the Rococo that dwells therein—that epoch to which, with its playful charm and light-hearted grace, we owe so many masterpieces of French typography. Even the superfluous loops and flourishes which were characteristic of that period are encountered again, with many bizarre peculiarities, in the “Kursiv” and “Trianon” of Wieynk, and yet there is a remarkable fluidity and vitality in each stroke; the general effect is highly artistic, and, as the examples now reproduced show, the founts are admirably adapted to numerous purposes.

Many attempts have been made to modernise the old “Schwabacher” type, which dates from the middle of the fifteenth century, and differs from German Gothic, or “Fraktur,” by being more compact. The most successful in this direction so far has been Rudolf Koch, whose “German Script,” in the three different forms here shown (pp. 142 to 145), has once more revealed the rich beauty and massive power inherent in the various kinds of German type. In these boldly designed letters is expressed a manly earnestness and also a simple grandeur which, in the sweeping, powerful forms of the initials, becomes truly monumental. They are, moreover, carefully thought out in all their details, and notwithstanding the strength of the lines, even in the smallest sizes, they are very expressive in their beauty.

Heinz KÖnig, too, has had good fortune with his “Schwabacher” type (p. 152). This is remarkably clear, and in its amalgamation of Roman forms with the characteristics of German founts it has proved both sound and serviceable, and it is one, moreover, which offers no difficulty whatever to the foreigner. The curls and loops which the champions of “Antiqua,” or Roman, find fault with in the German styles of type are absent; it is a Gothic purged of all unnecessary details and is at once dignified and decorative.

Among the new “Fraktur” or German Gothic types mention should first of all be made of that known as “Weiss-Fraktur,” which, designed by E. R. Weiss, has been perfected by him after many years of untiring collaboration with the Type Foundry of Bauer and Co. It has remained a purely German type, but is without the flourishes bequeathed by the old German Gothic. The light and open appearance of matter composed with it imparts to it a clarity which is distinctly agreeable, so that one can follow it with ease and comfort while deriving quiet pleasure from the simplicity and definiteness of a type which satisfies in equal degree the requirements of use and Æsthetic susceptibility. The Tempel Verlag, in common with a number of other important German publishing houses, has adopted the “Weiss-Fraktur” for its model editions of German classics.

When new desires call for satisfaction and new forms begin to develop, it is always those spheres of activity which offer easy and pleasant possibilities of accomplishment that are selected for experimenting. Thus some fifteen years ago the designing of book-bindings was a favourite occupation of the artists who interested themselves in the reform of industrial art, and many who have now attained to clear and definite ideas do not want to be reminded of the sort of work that was done in those days. Under the influence of Van de Velde's precept that every line is a force, the wrappers and bindings of books were among the things that were covered with a nervous labyrinth of lines which was expressive only of an attitude of mind radically at variance with all that had gone before. But many who at first occupied themselves with this kind of work in a more or less dilettante spirit, have by quiet, serious labour and steady development mastered its problems and have come to devote themselves almost exclusively to the graphic arts and the industry of book production, so that we now possess an important organisation of the workers in this field—the “Verein deutscher BuchgewerbekÜnstler” —whose collective exhibition at the International Exhibition now being held at Leipzig is one of the most interesting sections of this great display. Of the artists whose work is represented among the accompanying illustrations, Cissarz, Ehmcke, Kleukens, KÖster, Koch, Renner, Steiner-Prag, Tiemann, Weiss and Wieynk belong to this group.

Johann Vincenz Cissarz had in 1900 already advanced to such prominence in this branch of work that the artistic arrangement of the German Typographical Section at the Paris Universal Exhibition was entrusted to him. A long way behind as this catalogue now is, it was nevertheless at that date an exemplary achievement as regards type, ornament, printing, and binding; and to the large number of commissions it brought the artist may be due the fact that thereafter his chief attention was bestowed on the art of the book, in spite of his penchant and decided genius for painting of a decorative and even monumental character and his particular partiality for the etching-needle. From Dresden Cissarz migrated, first to Darmstadt and then to Stuttgart, where as teacher at the Royal School of Applied Art he found a welcome opportunity of communicating to others his own sound principles in regard to the internal and external arrangement of books, and already he is able to look back upon a teaching career which has been very successful. And here, too, many grateful tasks have fallen to him, not only in connection with special events, such as jubilees, presentation addresses, and such things, but more especially in the course of work undertaken for the publishing houses of Stuttgart. Though the luxurious binding executed by hand in costly materials may be superior in an artistic sense, yet from the economic and cultural point of view the tastefully designed bindings produced in large quantities by the publishing houses are of greater importance. A series of these publishers' cases of diverse design is illustrated on pages 168 and 172, and it shows how successfully the designer has utilised the space to display his boldly lettered title or to cover the whole field with becoming ornament.

Hugo Steiner-Prag, who first became known through his poetic drawings for children's fairy tales and books of verses, has also for some years past taught at the Royal Academy of Graphic Arts at Leipzig. His chief successes have been won as an illustrator, but from the bindings now reproduced (pp. 166 and 167) it will be seen that he has a marked talent for the embellishment of the book. By means of simple lines and decorative ornament, usually confined to a well-proportioned centre field, he achieves really charming effects.

Karl KÖster was at one time a pupil of Peter Behrens, and in order to be able to take advantage of all the possibilities open to the bookbinder he has not shrunk from learning the craft in the regular way. Thus in the course of his work he has not been wholly concerned with the external embellishment of the book, which he always endeavours to harmonise with its contents, but has also kept in view the practical purpose of the binding as a protective covering for the book. His great skill in achieving delightful effects with the simplest means is amply demonstrated by the numerous bindings he has designed for publishers. Thus in the bindings here illustrated, “Heimkehr” and “Buch Joram” (p. 169), three lines of lettering suffice to animate and decorate the entire surface; but he is quite capable of employing much richer decorative devices with discretion and good taste. From the way in which he has placed a simple cross of violet leather in the richly ornamented middle field of his red missal binding (p. 163), to show to the greatest advantage the colour of the amethysts set in the silver mounts, it may be inferred that he is capable of producing new and peculiar arrangements of form and colour without breaking with the best traditions. In his second missal binding the form of the cross which dominates the entire space is distributed over twelve circular panels or fields, of which the middlemost is worked with a white leather inlay and gold-tooling. The other circles are lined with violet leather, and with the four amethysts of the corner rosettes, the sea-green morocco, and the rich gilding, produce a splendid effect of colour.

Among the professional craftsmen who yielded to the new ideas of book production Paul Kersten is perhaps the best known, as he is without doubt the most successful. With an extensive practical experience, which has mastered all the technical possibilities, he combines artistic susceptibility and a literary aptitude which has enabled him to uphold the objects he has at heart in thoughtfully written essays and books. As head of the Technical School for Bookbinders in Berlin he is in a position to exercise an educative influence in the best sense. The bindings illustrated on pages 164 and 165 enable one to judge of his technical versatility and his methods of decoration, which are not restricted to a particular scheme. They are without exception leather bindings in which the title is placed independently on the back or within a panel left for it, the ornamentation of the cover being therefore uninfluenced by it. In bindings of a richer character he is very fond of utilising a diversity of colours for the sake of the animating effect. Thus in his dark-blue morocco binding, whose centre panel is occupied by five hexagons within circles, the flowers displayed therein are of red, green, and violet leather; while in the chamois binding of Baudelaire's “Fleurs du Mal,” for the ornamentation of which, in gold and blind stamping, no fewer than 18,000 impressions were required, leather overlays in seven different colours were used. But even with such an abundance of decoration one is not conscious of any excess, but only perhaps that agreeable sense of assurance which the practised hand communicates. Three colours, black, red and blue, are employed for ornamenting the calf-binding with a circular centre panel, the decoration of which is carried out by a special process of tooling and staining.

Of a much simpler character is the work of Franz Weisse, who likewise has come from the ranks of the handicraftsmen, and is now engaged as teacher at the School of Applied Art in Hamburg. The simple but bold stamping in which the decoration of his pigskin binding (p. 170) is executed comports well with the outspoken candour of Grimmelshausen's “Simplicissimus.” A feature of interest is the use of the “batik” process[A] for producing floral ornament spread over the sides and back of the parchment binding.

Again, in the richly decorated bindings of F. A. Demeter (pp. 161 and 162) one observes the sure hand of the experienced practitioner who knows how to take advantage of the beauties of material and technique in the fulfilment of his artistic aims. His ornamentation is certainly not quite original, but is distinguished by a clever decorative treatment of floral motives and a tasteful application of them; and even when he completely covers the back and sides with decoration of a uniform character, one does not feel that it is overdone. A beautiful example of his work is the binding with a design of leafage in gold on a reseda-green leather. Demeter also is a professional binder, and at present is head of the applied art department of the HÜbel and Denck wholesale bindery at Leipzig. Even these large industrial concerns, equipped for the wholesale production of cheap bindings, have been obliged to take account of the growing desire for books that have an artistic value, and to attach to their establishments special departments in which, under the supervision of artistically minded craftsmen, not only simple bindings in “boards,” but also the costly and elaborate kinds of binding requiring most careful hand-work, are prepared.

One of the most individual of the German artists who have devoted themselves to the modern art of the book is Emil Preetorius. He is a born illustrator, and has mastered all the various means of expression in equal degree; even in the very concise outline of the silhouette he achieves an abundance of characterisation and vitality. The silhouettes shown here (p. 160) are from a popular edition of Daudet's “Tartarin de Tarascon,” which he has embellished and illustrated with refined artistic feeling; they figure there merely as the decorative headpieces to certain of the chapters, and serve as a jocose premonition of what is to follow. They are not the actual illustrations of the book, but they certainly afford an excellent idea of the happy way in which with these queer little black figures he has caught the grotesque comicality of this strange adventure. He is also fond of giving the reader in his title-pages a foretaste of what awaits him, of expressing graphically, in drawings often containing a number of figures, the contents and spirit of the books in which they appear. His figures are mostly those of people who lived in the “Biedermeier” age; they have a distinctly old-fashioned look about them, but none of that sentimental “gush” which so often makes the so-called “Stimmung” pictures of that period unpalatable to us moderns. While having a decided partiality for the peculiarities and foibles of the “Biedermeier” folk, Preetorius is thoroughly modern in feeling; his drawings are austere rather than sweetly sentimental, and even their Æsthetic defects are pertinent to his art.

The part played by various enterprising and ideally minded publishing houses in fostering and stimulating that pleasure in beautiful books and their acquisition which has increased to such an extraordinary degree in Germany during the past decade must not go unrecorded here. Among these the firm of Eugen Diederichs, of Jena, claims primary consideration because of the ungrudging spirit in which it has afforded to all who have made a name in the sphere of artistic book-production an opportunity of displaying their ideas and skill. This firm caters for all the manifold cultural tendencies of our age, and its publications being of a serious character, the collaboration of these artists has been in the main restricted to wrappers and bindings, title-pages, initials, ornamental borders, and other decorative details. On the other hand, there are houses, such as that of Georg MÜller in Munich, which besides good decoration go in largely for book illustration, in which also numerous and interesting developments have taken place, including a revival of various processes—such as wood-engraving, lithography, and etching—that had fallen largely into disuse, but now once more enjoy considerable favour for the purpose of book illustration. The Insel-Verlag of Leipzig, S. Fischer of Berlin, Paul and Bruno Cassirer of Berlin, Kurt Wolff of Leipzig, and many others, have helped materially in this reflorescence of German illustrative art. But at the same time, there are more than a few who hold that a well-printed book with unimpeachable letterpress, paper and binding requires neither decoration nor illustration, and that its intrinsic merit depends on the perfect manner in which the technical work is carried out. Thus the celebrated editions of the Hyperion Press and the splendid issues of the Century Press of the Munich publishing firm of Hans von Weber are brilliant examples of German typography; nor need the publications of the Janus Press of Leipzig, produced with consummate technical care under the supervision of Walter Tiemann and Carl Ernst Poeschel, fear comparison with the books that issue from the private presses of England. These volumes are only printed in small TITLE-PAGE DESIGNED BY PROF. PAUL LANG-KURZ TITLE-PAGE DESIGNED BY PROF. PAUL LANG-KURZ editions of one hundred and fifty to two hundred copies, and satisfy the utmost demands of discriminating bibliophiles. Of distinction on account of their typically German character are the “Rudolfinische Drucke,” brought out by Rudolf Koch in association with Rudolf Gerstung at Offenbach, and published by Wilhelm Gerstung. In these books, which are also genuinely German in their contents, everything is expressly avoided which in any way deviates from the considerations of chief importance—proper spacing of the letters and the well-balanced composition of the page of letterpress in Koch's essentially German fount, together with uniform excellence of workmanship throughout. Thus only the title-pages are specially designed, and the body of the letterpress is but sparingly relieved with the imposing initials belonging to this fount; but the bindings, with their cover-papers cut and printed by the artist himself, also bear witness to the virile beauty of his art. Of a more arresting and luxurious character are the productions of the Ernst Ludwig Press of the Grand Duke of Hesse, the artistic supervision of which has been entrusted to F. W. Kleukens; and the costly editions de luxe of the Pan-Press of Berlin, which are embellished with lithographs by Slevogt, Corinth and Pascin, or etchings by Geiger or Walser. Such productions, however, are beyond the scope of this work.

What Germany is now able to offer in the art of book production is superabundantly shown in the International Exhibition which is being held this year at Leipzig. That after barely a score of years we should have seriously ventured to invite the civilised races to peaceful competition in this special domain is a proof that we are conscious of the value of our work, and do not fear the verdict of the world.

ORNAMENT DESIGNED BY PROF. F. W. KLEUKENS, FOR D. STEMPEL, FRANKFURT A.M.