After a drought of graphic-design creativity during the 1600s, the eighteenth century was an epoch of typographic originality. In 1692 the French king Louis XIV, who had a strong interest in printing, ordered a committee of scholars to develop a new typeface for the Imprimerie Royale, the royal printing office established in 1640 to restore quality. The new letters were to be designed by “scientific” principles. Headed by mathematician Nicolas Jaugeon, the academicians examined all previous alphabets and studies on type design.
To construct the new roman capital letters, a square was divided into a grid of sixty-four units; each of these units was divided further into thirty-six smaller units for a total of 2,304 tiny squares. Italics were constructed on a similar grid. The new letter designs had fewer calligraphic properties inspired by the chisel and flat pen; a mathematical harmony was achieved by measurement and drafting instruments. However, these designs were not merely mechanical constructions, for the final decisions were made by the eye.
This Romain du Roi, as the new typeface was called, had increased contrast between thick and thin strokes, sharp horizontal serifs, and an even balance to each letterform. The master alphabets were engraved as large copperplate prints (Figs. 8–1 and 8–2) by Louis Simonneau (1654–1727). Philippe Grandjean (1666–1714) cut the punches to convert the master alphabets into text type. The minute refinement on a 2,304-square grid proved worthless, however, when reduced to text-size types.
Types designed for the Imprimerie Royale could be used only by that office for royal printing; other use constituted a capital offense. Some typefounders quickly cut types with similar characteristics, but they made certain the designs were sufficiently distinct to avoid confusion with Imprimerie Royale fonts.
Followed by further editions, the 1702 Médailles folio was the first book to feature the new types. As the first important shift from the Venetian tradition of “old style” roman type design, the Romain du Roi (Fig. 8–3) initiated a category of types called transitional roman. These break with the traditional calligraphic qualities, bracketed serifs, and relatively even stroke weights of Old Style fonts. As William Morris observed in the late nineteenth century, the Romain du Roi saw the calligrapher replaced by the engineer as the dominant typographic influence.
Graphic design of the rococo era
The fanciful French art and architecture that flourished from about 1720 until around 1770 is called rococo. Florid and intricate, rococo ornament is composed of S- and C-curves with scrollwork, tracery, and plant forms derived from nature, classical and oriental art, and medieval sources. Light pastel colors were often used with ivory white and gold in asymmetrically balanced designs. This lavish expression of the era of King Louis XV (1710–74) found its strongest graphic design impetus in the work of Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune (1712–68), the youngest son of a prominent family of printers and typefounders. At age twenty-four, Fournier le Jeune established an independent type-design and foundry operation after studying art and apprenticing at the Le Bé foundry operated by his older brother, where he had cut decorative woodblocks and learned punch cutting.
Eighteenth-century type measurement was chaotic, for each foundry had its own type sizes, and nomenclature varied. In 1737 Fournier le Jeune pioneered standardization when he published his first table of proportions. The pouce (a now-obsolete French unit of measure slightly longer than an inch) was divided into twelve lines, each of which was divided into six points. Thus, his Petit-Romain size was one line, four points, or about equal to contemporary ten-point type; his Cicero size was two lines, or similar to contemporary twelve-point type.
Fournier le Jeune published his first specimen book, Modèles des caractères de l’imprimerie (Models of Printing Characters), shortly before his thirtieth birthday in 1742. It presented 4,600 characters. Over a six-year period, he had both designed and cut punches for all of these by himself. His roman styles were transitional forms inspired by the Romain du Roi of 1702. However, his variety of weights and widths initiated the idea of a “type family” of fonts that are visually compatible and can be mixed. He personally designed and set the more complex pages, which were richly garlanded with his exquisite fleurons, used singly or multiplied for unlimited decorative effect. His explorations into casting enabled him to cast single-, double-, and triple-ruled lines up to 35.5 centimeters and to offer the largest metal type (equivalent to contemporary 84- and 108-point sizes) yet made (Fig. 8–4).
Printing has been called “the artillery of the intellect.” It might be said that Fournier le Jeune stocked the arsenals of rococo printers with a complete design system (roman, italic, script, and decorative typestyles, as well as rules and ornaments) of standardized measurement whose parts integrated both visually and physically (Fig. 8–5). Because French law prevented typefounders from printing, Fournier le Jeune delivered made-up pages to Jean Joseph Barbou, the printer of his Modèles des caractères, whose nephew, Jean Gérard Barbou, was closely associated with him. In addition to publishing all of Fournier le Jeune’s other books, the younger Barbou produced volumes of exceptional rococo design, combining Fournier le Jeune’s decorative types and copperplate engravings by Charles Eisen (1720–78), who specialized in illustrations of graceful intricacy and sensual intimacy in vogue with royalty and the wealthy. Adding the talents of the engraver Pierre Philippe Choffard (1730–1809), who specialized in ornate tailpieces and spot illustrations, resulted in book designs such as Jean de La Fontaine’s Contes et nouvelles en vers (Tales and Novellas in Verse) of 1762 (Fig. 8–6). In a small number of copies for a special audience, the engravings showing coy romantic escapades were replaced with other versions depicting explicit sexual conduct. In the éditions de luxe, the typefounder, printer, and illustrator combined their talents to project the psychology of the rococo era—showing the wealthy living extravagant, sensuous, and pastoral lives in a joyous fantasyland, oblivious to the growing militancy of the poverty-stricken masses. These wildly popular books remained in vogue until the French Revolution of 1789 brought the monarchy and the rococo era to an end.
Fournier le Jeune planned a four-volume Manuel typographique (Manual of Typography) (Fig. 8–7) over many years, but produced only two volumes: Type, Its Cutting and Founding, in 1764, and Type Specimens (originally planned as volume four), in 1768 (Fig. 8–8). An improved measurement system based on the point (instead of the line and point) was introduced in the 1764 volume. He did not live to complete the other two volumes, one on printing and one on the great typographers’ lives and work. Although his crowning achievement was only half completed, Fournier le Jeune made more typographic innovations and had a greater impact on graphic design than any other person of his era.
While even the most extravagant designs of Fournier le Jeune and his followers maintained the vertical and horizontal alignment that is part of the physical nature of metal typography, engravers were free to take tremendous liberties with form. Basically, an engraving is a drawing made with a graver instead of a pencil as the drawing tool, and a smooth copper plate instead of a sheet of paper as the substrate. Because this free line was an ideal medium for expressing the florid curves of the rococo sensibility, engraving flourished throughout the 1700s. Delicate detail and fine lines made this medium much prized for labels, business cards, billheads, letterheads, and announcements. The renowned English writing master and engraver George Bickham the Elder (1684?–1758?) was the most celebrated penman of his time (Fig. 8–9). In 1743 he published The Universal Penman . . . exemplified in all the useful and ornamental branches of modern Penmanship, &c.; the whole embellished with 200 beautiful decorations for the amusement of the curious. Bickham and other accomplished engravers prominently signed broadsheets, title pages, and large images for domestic walls that were frequently based on oil paintings.
As engravers became increasingly skillful, they even produced books independent of typographic printers by hand-engraving both illustrations and text. Englishman John Pine (1690–1756) was one of the best engravers of his time. His books, including the 1737 Opera Horatii (Works of Horace) (Fig. 8–10) were sold by subscription before publication, and a list naming each subscriber was engraved in script in the front of the volume. Because the serifs and thin strokes of letterforms were reduced to the delicate scratch of the engraver’s finest tool, the contrast in the text material was dazzling and inspired imitation by typographic designers. Each letter was inscribed by hand; thus the text has a slight vibration that gives it a handmade quality instead of a mechanical uniformity. In addition to book design and production, Pine was chief engraver of seals for the king of England, and he created portfolios of large etchings. One extraordinary set published in 1753 depicts the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada in 52 by 36 centimeter prints.
Caslon and Baskerville
For over two and a half centuries after the invention of movable type, England looked to the Continent for typography and design leadership. In England, civil war, religious persecution, harsh censorship, and government control of printing had created a climate that was not conducive to graphic innovation. Upon ascending to the English throne in 1660, Charles II demanded that the number of printers be reduced to twenty “by death or otherwise.”
Type and design ideas were imported across the English Channel from Holland until a native genius emerged in the person of William Caslon (1692–1766). After apprenticing to a London engraver of gunlocks and barrels, young Caslon opened his own shop and added silver chasing and the cutting of gilding tools and letter stamps for bookbinders to his repertoire of engraving skills. The printer William Bowyer encouraged Caslon to take up type design and founding, which he did in 1720 with almost immediate success. His first commission was an Arabic font for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. This was followed closely by the first size of Caslon Old Style with italic in 1722, and his reputation was made (Fig. 8–11). For the next sixty years, virtually all English printing used Caslon fonts, and these types followed English colonialism around the globe. Printer Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) introduced Caslon into the American colonies (Fig. 8–12), where it was used extensively, including for the official printing of the Declaration of Independence by a Baltimore printer.
Caslon’s type designs were not particularly fashionable or innovative. They owed their tremendous popularity and appeal to an outstanding legibility and sturdy texture that made them “comfortable” and “friendly to the eye.” Beginning with the Dutch types of his day, Caslon increased the contrast between thick and thin strokes by making the former slightly heavier. This was in direct opposition to fashion on the Continent, which was embracing the lighter texture of the Romain du Roi. Caslon’s fonts have variety in their design, giving them an uneven, rhythmic texture that adds to their visual interest and appeal. The Caslon foundry continued under his heirs and was in operation until the 1960s.
Caslon worked in a tradition of Old Style roman typographic design that had begun over two hundred years earlier during the Italian Renaissance. This tradition was bolstered by John Baskerville (1706–75), an innovator who broke the prevailing rules of design and printing in the books he produced at his press in Birmingham, England. Baskerville was involved in all facets of the bookmaking process. He designed, cast, and set type; improved the printing press; conceived and commissioned new papers; and designed and published the books he printed. A native of rural Worcestershire who had “admired the beauty of letters” as a boy, he moved to Birmingham as a young man and became established as a master writing teacher and stonecutter (Fig. 8–13). While still in his thirties, Baskerville became a manufacturer of japanned ware. His frames, boxes, clock cases, candlesticks, and trays were made from thin sheet metal, often decorated with hand-painted fruit and flowers and finished with a hard, brilliant varnish. Manufacturing earned Baskerville a fortune, and he built an estate, Easy Hill, near Birmingham. Around 1751, at the age of forty-four, he returned to his first love, the art of letters, and began to experiment with printing. As an artist who wanted to control all aspects of book design and production, he sought graphic perfection and was able to invest the time and resources necessary to achieve his goals. He was assisted by John Handy, a punch cutter, and Robert Martin, an apprentice who later became his foreman. Baskerville’s type designs, which bear his name to this day, represent the zenith of the Transitional style bridging the gap between Old Style and modern type design. His letters possessed a new elegance and lightness. In comparison with earlier designs, his types are wider, the weight contrast between thick and thin strokes is increased, and the placement of the thickest part of the letter is different. The treatment of serifs is new: they flow smoothly out of the major strokes and terminate as refined points. His italic fonts most clearly show the influence of master handwriting.
As a book designer in a period of intricate, engraved title pages and illustrations and the generous use of printers’ flowers, ornaments, and decorated initials, Baskerville opted for the pure typographic book (Figs. 8–14 through 8–16). Wide margins and liberal spacing between letters and lines were used around his magnificent alphabets. To maintain an elegant purity of typographic design, an unusually large percentage of each press run was rejected, and he melted down and recast his type after each printing.
Baskerville’s improvements for his four presses, built in his own workshops, focused on perfect alignment between the inch-thick brass platen and the smooth stone press bed. The packing behind the sheet of paper being printed was unusually hard and smooth. As a consequence, he achieved even, overall impressions.
Trial and error led to the development of an ink composed of boiled linseed oil aged for several months after black or amber resin had been added. Then, a fine lampblack— acquired from “glass pinchers’ and solderers’ lamps”— was ground into it. The resin added a sheen to the unusually dense black ink, whose luster bordered on purple.
The smooth, glossy surface of the paper in Baskerville’s books had not been seen before. It was achieved by using hot-pressed wove paper. Before Baskerville’s Vergil, books were printed on laid paper, which has a textural pattern of horizontal lines. This pattern is created in manufacture by wires that form the screen in the papermaker’s mold; the close parallel wires are supported by larger wires running at right angles to the thinner wires. The wove paper manufactured for Baskerville was formed by a mold having a much finer screen made of wires woven in and out like cloth. The texture of wire marks was virtually eliminated from this paper.
All handmade papers have a coarse surface. When paper is moistened before printing on a hand press, it becomes even coarser. Baskerville’s desire for elegant printing led him to hot-press the paper after it was printed, to produce a smooth, refined surface. How he hot-pressed, or calendered, his paper is not known, because early sources give conflicting reports. One version is that Baskerville designed and constructed a smoothing press with two copper rollers 22 centimeters in diameter and almost 1 meter long. A second is that Baskerville employed a woman and a little girl to operate a pressing or glazing machine that worked much like ironing clothes. Yet another declares that as each page was removed from the press, it was sandwiched between two highly polished, heated copperplates that expelled moisture, set the ink, and created the glossy surface. Because Baskerville closely guarded his innovations, we can only guess which of these methods were employed. Realizing the potential market for mirror-smooth writing paper, he used his process to develop a steady stationery business through booksellers.
The net result of this effort was books of brilliant contrast, simplicity, and refinement (Figs. 8–17 and 8–18). Professional jealousy caused Baskerville’s critics to dismiss him as an amateur, although his work set a standard of high quality. Some of his critics argued that reading Baskerville type hurt their eyes because of the sharpness and contrast. Benjamin Franklin, who admired Baskerville, wrote him a letter relating that he, Franklin, had torn the foundry name from a Caslon specimen sheet, told an acquaintance who was complaining about Baskerville’s type that it was Baskerville’s specimen sheet, and asked the man to point out the problems. The victim of Franklin’s whimsy proceeded to pontificate on the problems, complaining that just looking at it gave him a headache.
Baskerville published fifty-six books, the most ambitious publication being a folio Bible in 1763. While he was met with indifference and even hostility in the British Isles, the design of his type and books became important influences on the Continent as the Italian Giambattista Bodoni and the Didot family in Paris became enthusiastic about his work. After his death, Baskerville’s punches and matrixes were purchased by the dramatist and revolutionary Pierre de Beaumarchais (1732–99), who produced the texts for the operas The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville.
The origins of information graphics
The foundation for information graphics is analytic geometry, a branch of geometry developed and first used in 1637 by the French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist René Descartes (1596–1650). Descartes used algebra to solve geometry problems, formulate equations to represent lines and curves, and represent a point in space by a pair of numbers. On a two-dimensional plane, Descartes drew two perpendicular intersecting lines called axes: a horizontal line called the x axis and a vertical line called the y axis. Any point on the plane can be specified by two numbers. One defines its distance from the horizontal axis, and the other number defines its distance from the vertical axis; for example, x = 2, y = 3 denotes a point two units along the horizontal line and three units along the vertical line. These numbers are called Cartesian coordinates. The axes can be repeated at regular intervals to form a grid of horizontal and vertical lines called a Cartesian grid.
Cartesian coordinates and other aspects of analytic geometry were later used by the Scottish author and scientist William Playfair (1759–1823) to convert statistical data into symbolic graphics. A passionate man with strong opinions about trade and economics, Playfair worked hard to champion and spread his beliefs. In 1786, he published his Commercial and Political Atlas. This book was laden with statistical compilations and, in forty-four diagrams, introduced the line (or fever) graph and the bar chart to graphically present complex information. Playfair calculated the area of descending sizes of circles to show the relative land area of European countries and to compare the populations of cities. These diagrams appeared in his 1822 publication A Letter on Our Agricultural Distresses (Figs. 8–19 and 8–20). He introduced the first “divided circle” diagram (today called a pie chart) in his 1805 English translation of a French book, The Statistical Account of the United States of America. Playfair’s diagram was a circle cut into wedge-shaped slices representing the area of each state and territory. Readers could see at a glance how vast the newly acquired western territories were in comparison with states such as Rhode Island and New Hampshire. In this way, Playfair created a new category of graphic design, now called information graphics. This field of design has gained importance because humanity’s expanding base of knowledge requires graphics to present complex information in an understandable form.
The imperial designs of Louis René Luce
A type designer and punch cutter at the Imprimerie Royale, Louis René Luce (d. 1773), achieved an imperial graphic design statement. During the three decades from 1740 until 1770, Luce designed a series of types that were narrow and condensed, with serifs as sharp as spurs. Engraved borders were being widely used and required a second printing: first the text was printed and then, in a second run of the same sheets, the borders. Luce created a large series of letterpress borders, ornaments, trophies, and other devices of impressive variety and excellent printing quality. These were designed with a mechanistic perfection that projects an air of imperial authority. Cast in modular sections, these ornaments were assembled into the desired configuration by a compositor. The density of line in Luce’s ornaments was carefully planned to be visually compatible with his typefaces and often had an identical weight so that they looked as if they belonged together in a design. In 1771 Luce published his Essai d’une nouvelle typographie (Essay on a New Typography), with ninety-three plates presenting the range of his design accomplishments (Fig. 8–21).
Both Fournier le Jeune and Luce died before the French Revolution tore apart the world in which they lived and served, the ancien régime of the French monarchy. The opulent architectural, graphic, and interior designs patronized by royalty lost all social relevance in the world of democracy and equality that emerged from the chaos of revolution. Perhaps the ultimate irony occurred in 1790, when Romain du Roi typefaces commissioned by Louis XIV were used to print radical political tracts in support of the French Revolution.
The modern style
The son of an indigent printer, Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) was born in Saluzzo in northern Italy. As a young man, he traveled to Rome and apprenticed at the Propaganda Fide, the Catholic press that printed missionary materials in native languages for use throughout the world. Bodoni learned punch cutting, but his interest in living in Rome declined after Costantino Ruggeri, his mentor and the director of Propaganda Fide, committed suicide. Shortly thereafter, Bodoni left the Propaganda Fide with the idea of journeying to England and perhaps working with Baskerville. While visiting his parents before leaving Italy, twenty-eight-year-old Bodoni was asked to take charge of the Stamperia Reale, the official press of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma. Bodoni accepted the charge and became the private printer to the court. He printed official documents and publications desired by the duke as well as projects he conceived and initiated himself. His initial design influence was Fournier le Jeune, whose foundry supplied type and ornaments to the Stamperia Reale after Bodoni took charge. The quality of Bodoni’s design and printing, even though scholarship and proofreading were sometimes lacking, contributed to his growing international reputation. In 1790 the Vatican invited Bodoni to Rome to establish a press there for printing the classics, but the duke countered with an offer of expanded facilities, greater independence, and the privilege of printing for other clients. Bodoni elected to remain in Parma.
At about the same time, the cultural and political climate was changing. The revolt against the French monarchy led to a rejection of the lush designs so popular during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. To fill the formal void, architects, painters, and sculptors enthusiastically embraced the classical forms of ancient Greek and Roman art, which captivated the public in the 1790s. All areas of design required a new approach to replace the outmoded rococo style; Bodoni led the way in evolving new typefaces and page layout (Fig. 8–22). The 1771 type specimen title page from Fregi e Majuscole (Ornaments and Capitals) shows the beginning of Bodoni’s evolution from Fournier le Jeune–inspired rococo to the modern style.
The term modern, which defines a new category of roman type, was first used by Fournier le Jeune in his Manuel typographique to describe the design trends that culminated in Bodoni’s mature work. The initial impetus was the thin, straight serifs of Grandjean’s Romain du Roi, followed by engraved pages by artists. Next came the letterforms and page layouts of Baskerville, particularly his practice of making the light strokes of his characters thinner to increase the contrast between thicks and thins. Baskerville’s rejection of ornament and his generous use of space were also factors. Another trend, the design of narrower, more condensed letterforms, gave type a taller and more geometric appearance. Finally, all of these evolutionary trends were encouraged by a growing preference for a lighter typographic tone and texture.
Around 1790 Bodoni redesigned the roman letterforms to give them a more mathematical, geometric, and mechanical appearance. He reinvented the serifs by making them hairlines that formed sharp right angles with the upright strokes, eliminating the tapered flow of the serif into the upright stroke in Old Style roman. The thin strokes of his letterforms were trimmed to the same weight as the hairline serifs, creating a brilliant sharpness and a dazzling contrast not seen before. Bodoni defined his design ideal as cleanness, good taste, charm, and regularity. This regularity—the standardization of units—was a concept of the emerging industrial era of the machine. Bodoni decided that the letters in a type font should be created through combinations of a very limited number of identical units. This standardization of forms that could be measured and constructed marked the death of calligraphy and writing as the wellspring for type design and the end of the imprecise cutting and casting of earlier type design. Bodoni’s precise, measurable, and repeatable forms expressed the vision and spirit of the machine age. It is noteworthy that as Bodoni was constructing alphabets of interchangeable parts, American inventor Eli Whitney was assembling firearms of interchangeable parts in his New Haven, Connecticut, factory, foreshadowing the mass-production techniques soon to revolutionize Western society.
In Bodoni’s page layouts, the borders and ornaments of the earlier decorative work that had brought international fame to the Stamperia Reale were cast aside for an economy of form and efficiency of function. The severe purity of Bodoni’s late graphic-design style has affinities with twentieth-century functional typography. Open, simple page design with generous margins, wide letter- and line-spacing, and large areas of white space became his hallmark. Lightness was increased by using a smaller x-height and longer ascenders and descenders. In some fonts, letters were cast on oversized metal so the type could not be set solid. As a result, these fonts always had the appearance of generous leading.
A majority of books of this time, including most of the 345 books published by Bodoni, were new editions of Greek and Roman classics. Critics hailed Bodoni’s volumes as the typographic expression of neoclassicism and a return to “antique virtue.” This is surprising, for Bodoni was breaking new ground. Bodoni designed about three hundred type fonts and planned a monumental specimen book presenting this work. After his death his widow and his foreman, Luigi Orsi, persisted with the project and published the two-volume Manuale tipografico (Manual of Type) in 1818 (Figs. 8–23 and 8–24). This monumental celebration of the aesthetics of letterforms and homage to Bodoni’s genius is a milestone in the history of graphic design. In 1872 the citizens of Saluzzo honored their native son by erecting a statue of Bodoni. Ironically, they carved his name in the base in Old Style roman letters.
A family dynasty of printers, publishers, papermakers, and typefounders began in 1713 when François Didot (1689–1757) established a printing and bookselling firm in Paris. In 1780 his son, François-Ambroise Didot (1730–1804), introduced a highly finished, smooth paper of wove design modeled after the paper commissioned by Baskerville in England. The Didot type foundry’s constant experimentation led to maigre (thin) and gras (fat) typestyles similar to the condensed and expanded fonts of our time. Fonts issued from 1775 by François-Ambroise Didot possessed a lighter, more geometric quality, similar in feeling to Bodoni’s designs evolving under Baskerville’s influence.
Around 1785 François-Ambroise Didot revised Fournier’s typographic measurement system and created the point system used in France today. He realized that the Fournier scale was subject to shrinkage after being printed on moistened paper, and even Fournier’s metal master had no standard for comparison. Therefore, Didot adopted the official pied de roi, divided into twelve French inches, as his standard. Then each inch was divided into seventy-two points. Didot discarded the traditional nomenclature for various type sizes (Cicero, Petit-Romain, Gros-Text, and so on) and identified them with the measure of the metal type body in points (ten-point, twelve-point, and so on). The Didot system was adopted in Germany, where it was revised by Hermann Berthold in 1879 to work with the metric system. In 1886 the Didot system, revised to suit the English inch, was adopted as a standard point measure by American typefounders, and England adopted the point system in 1898.
François-Ambroise had two sons: Pierre Didot (1761–1853), who took charge of his father’s printing office, and Firmin Didot (1764–1836), who succeeded his father as head of the Didot type foundry (Fig. 8–25). Firmin’s notable achievements included the invention of stereotyping. This process involves casting a duplicate of a relief printing surface by pressing a molding material (damp paper pulp, plaster, or clay) against it to make a matrix. Molten metal is poured into the matrix to form the duplicate printing plate. Stereotyping made longer press runs possible.
After the Revolution, the French government honored Pierre Didot by granting him the printing office formerly used by the Imprimerie Royale at the Louvre. There he gave the neoclassical revival of the Napoleonic era its graphic design expression in a book series, the Éditions du Louvre (Figs. 8–26 and 8–27). Lavish margins surround Firmin Didot’s modern typography, which is even more mechanical and precise than Bodoni’s. Engraved illustrations by artists working in the neoclassical manner of the painter Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) have flawless technique and sharp value contrast. In seeking to imitate nature in her most perfect form, these artists created figures as ideally modeled as Greek statues, frozen in shallow picture boxes. A seldom-equaled, though brittle, perfection is achieved (Figs. 8–28 and 8–29).
Bodoni and the Didots were rivals and kindred spirits. Comparisons and speculation about who innovated and who followed are inevitable. They shared influences and the same cultural milieu. Their influence upon each other was reciprocal, for Bodoni and the Didots each attempted to push the modern style further than the other. In so doing, each elevated the aesthetics of contrast, mathematical construction, and neoclassical refinement to the highest possible level. Bodoni is credited with having greater skill as a designer and printer, but the Didots possessed greater scholarship. Bodoni proclaimed that he sought only the magnificent and did not work for common readers. In addition to their extravagant folio editions, the Didots used their new stereotyping process to produce much larger editions of economical books for a broader audience. A year after the Manuale tipografico appeared, the 1819 Spécimen des nouveaux caractères . . . de P. Didot l’aîné (Specimens of New Characters . . . by P. Didot the Elder) was published in Paris.
The illuminated printing of William Blake
During the waning years of the eighteenth century, an unexpected counterpoint to the severe typography of Bodoni and Didot appeared in the illuminated printing of the visionary English poet and artist William Blake (1757–1827). As a child, Blake reported seeing angels in a tree and the prophet Ezekiel in a field. After completing an engraving apprenticeship and studying at the Royal Academy, Blake opened a printing shop at age twenty-seven, where he was assisted by his younger brother Robert. Upon Robert’s death three years later, Blake reported that he saw Robert’s soul joyfully rising through the ceiling. Blake informed friends that Robert appeared to him in a dream and told him about a way to print his poems and illustrations as relief etchings without typography.
Blake began to publish books of his poetry; each page was printed as a monochrome etching combining word and image. Blake and his wife then either hand-colored each page with watercolor or printed colors, hand-bound each copy in paper covers, and sold them at modest prices. The lyrical fantasy, glowing swirls of color, and imaginative vision that Blake achieved in his poetry and accompanying designs represent an effort to transcend the material of graphic design and printing to achieve spiritual expression. The title pages from The Book of Thel (Fig. 8–30) and America, a Prophecy (Fig. 8–31) show how Blake adeptly integrated letterforms into illustrations.
Blake’s single-minded unworldliness and spiritual beliefs led some people to dismiss him as mad, and he died in poverty and neglect. His reaction against the neoclassical emphasis on reason and the intellect combined with his focus upon the imagination, introspection, and emotions as wellsprings for his work make Blake a harbinger of nineteenth-century romanticism. His bright colors and swirling organic forms are forerunners to expressionism, art nouveau, and abstract art.
The epoch closes
British national pride led to the establishment of the Shakespeare Press in 1786 to produce splendorous editions to rival the folio volumes of Paris and Parma. The state of English printing was such that a printing house, type foundry, and ink manufactory had to be established to produce work of the desired quality. Punch cutter William Martin (d. 1815), a former apprentice to Baskerville and brother of Baskerville’s foreman Robert Martin, was called to London to design and cut types “in imitation of the sharp and fine letter used by the French and Italian printers.” His types combined the majestic proportions of Baskerville with the sharp contrasts of modern fonts. William Bulmer (1757–1830) printed The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare in nine volumes between 1792 and 1802 for publishers John and Josiah Boydell and George and W. Nicol. These were followed by a three-volume edition of Milton.
As a boy in Newcastle, Bulmer had a close friend in Thomas Bewick (1753–1828), who is called the father of wood engraving (Fig. 8–32). After apprenticing to engraver Ralph Beilby and learning to engrave sword blades and doorplates, Bewick turned his attention to wood-engraved illustrations. His “white-line” technique employed a fine graver to achieve delicate tonal effects by cutting across the grain on blocks of Turkish boxwood. Woodcuts were made by cutting with the grain on softer wood. Publication of his General History of Quadrupeds in 1790 brought renown to Bewick and his technique, which became a major illustration method in letterpress printing until the advent of photomechanical halftones nearly a century later.
This gentle volume might be called the lyrical envoi of a three-and-a-half-century period of graphic design and printing that began with Gutenberg in Mainz. Printing had been a handicraft, and graphic design had involved the layout of metal type and related material with illustrations printed from handmade blocks. The eighteenth century closed with stormy political revolutions in France and the American colonies. England was the nucleus for the gathering forces of the vast upheavals of the Industrial Revolution. The sweeping changes ushered in by the conversion of an agrarian society of handicraft manufacture to an industrial society of machine manufacture shook Western civilization to its foundations. All aspects of the human experience, including visual communications, were transformed by profound and irrevocable changes.