Old Picture Books, With Other Essays on Bookish Subjects

Old Picture Books, With Other Essays on Bookish Subjects

The paper on 'England and the Bookish Arts' originally appeared as an introduction to 'The English Bookman's Library' (Kegan Paul and Co.). The other Essays are reprinted from 'Bibliographica,' 'The Connoisseur,' 'The Guardian,' 'The Library,' 'The King's College School Magazine,' 'Longman's Magazine,' 'Macmillan's Magazine,' 'The Newbery House Magazine,' 'The Pageant,' and the 'Transactions' of the Bibliographical Society. Separate acknowledgment of its source is made at the beginning of each paper, but the author desires here to thank the Publishers and Editors to whom he is indebted for permission to reprint. All the essays have been revised, and some of the illustrations appear here for the first time. IN the edition of Virgil published by Grninger at Strassburg in 1502, Sebastian Brant boasted that the illustrations to it, whose preparation he had superintended, made the story of the book as plain to the unlearned as to the learned: The boast was no ill-founded one, though it must be granted that Virgil would have been puzzled by the cannon here shown as employed in the siege of Nova Troja, and similar medivalisms abound throughout the volume. Coming almost at the end of the first series of early illustrated books, the Virgil of 1502 thus exemplifies two of the chief features to which they owe their charm: the power of telling a story and the readiness to import into the most uncongenial themes some touches of the life of their own day. But by Brant's time illustration was already losing its pristine simplicity. It could hardly be otherwise when such a man as Brant, who had just gained a European reputation by his 'Narrenschiff,' was concerning himself with it. At the outset it had been rather a craft than an art, alike in Germany, in Italy, in the Netherlands, and in France, and, if we do not add England to the list, it is only because in England the workmen, though nave enough in all conscience, were so entirely untrained that to call them craftsmen would be too great a compliment. But whether skilled or unskilled, the woodcutters' objects were everywhere the same: to render his design with the greatest possible simplicity of outline, to tell the story with a directness which often verges on caricature, and to keep his pictures in decorative harmony with the type-page on which they were to appear, printed with the same pull of the press, with the same excellent ink, on the same excellent paper. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 43518
Author: Pollard, Alfred W. (Alfred William)
Release Date: Aug 20, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English