De la Typographie

Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944) and Charles Rickets (1866-1931)

19.9 x 13.3 cm.

Beckwith, Victorian Bibliomania catalogue no. 22

Collection: John Hay Library, Brown University

Although William Morris stood apart from Art Nouveau, its members embraced him. Charles Ricketts was at the center of the circle of aesthetes designing and illustrating Oscar Wilde's books, and rivaled Aubrey Beardsley (cat. 37) in his application of Morrisonian borders and illuminated initial letters to texts. Wilde's attitude toward book design, on one occasion at least, echoed that of William Morris and John Ruskin. Wilde warned, "There is a danger of modern book illustration becoming too pictorial. What we need is good book ornament—decorative ornament that will go with type and printing and give to each page a harmony and unity of effect" (Wick, 9). On the fringes of the Art Nouveau group was Lucien Pissarro, son of the Impressionist painter Camille. [continued below]

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Commentary by Alice H. R. H. Beckwith

Although William Morris stood apart from Art Nouveau, its members embraced him. Charles Ricketts was at the center of the circle of aesthetes designing and illustrating Oscar Wilde's books, and rivaled Aubrey Beardsley (cat. 37) in his application of Morrisonian borders and illuminated initial letters to texts. Wilde's attitude toward book design, on one occasion at least, echoed that of William Morris and John Ruskin. Wilde warned, "There is a danger of modern book illustration becoming too pictorial. What we need is good book ornament—decorative ornament that will go with type and printing and give to each page a harmony and unity of effect" (Wick 9). On the fringes of the Art Nouveau group was Lucien Pissarro, son of the Impressionist painter Camille. Lucien worked with Ricketts for some years in the 1890s, but they drifted apart over Pissarro's interest in using color at his Eragny Press and Ricketts's involvement with earlier art, among other reasons (Darracott 54).

The Ricketts-Pissarro collaboration on De la Typographie shows the continuing influence of Morris after his death, and signals the loss of awareness of work done by book artists of the first half of the Victorian Period. Set in Vale type, the volume echoes Morris in both form and content. Vale was one of three types designed by Ricketts and is very close to the form of Morris's Golden type. On the first page, illustrated here, we are told that the arts and crafts revival, which had been underway for thirty years, did not have a significant book designer until the time of Morris. Such a lack of awareness of the work of Henry Noel Humphreys, Owen Jones, and Charles Whittingham's Chiswick Press is not restricted to this essay, but pervades the attitudes of artists and critics on the Continent in the early twentieth century. The exclusive focus on William Morris, the statement in the colophon that Pissarro began work on this book in 1897, and the use of French for the text, all suggest that Pissarro is the primary author of De la Typographie. There are, however, reminders of medieval hand-illuminated books in the design of De la Typographie. The text block is placed on the page with the margins increasing in size from the gutter to head to fore-edge, with the largest at the tail. Although the decorative borders are missing, mute testimony is made to them by the red-ruled margins. A shoulder note in red recalls manuscript practice, as do the capitalization of the first word and the two different fleurons. The overall impression of the page is austere, however, when compared with the books of the 1840s to 1860s.

A bow to Morris and his delight in ornament is made in the binding of two kinds of holland paper over boards. Characteristically, Morris bound his books in half holland with a canvas spine, a temporary binding similar to those of the eighteenth century and the first years of the nineteenth century (cat. 1). Ricketts and Pissarro covered the spine of De la Typographie with holland paper carrying a peach-colored fleuron in a diagonal repeating pattern lapped over plain holland, producing a remarkably delicate and charming interpretation of Morris's manner.

The bookplates of this copy indicate the continuing international influence of De la Typographie. Apparently an early owner was René Lalique (1860-1945), the Art Nouveau designer of glass and jewelry. George Parker Winship, a subsequent owner, was Daniel Berkeley Updike's biographer (cat. 12), Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, and, later, Librarian at Harvard University. Recognized as the dean of American bibliographers, Winship wrote widely on the history of books and printing.

References

Beckwith, Alice H. R. H. Victorian Bibliomania: The Illuminated Book in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Exhibition catalogue. Providence. Rhode Island: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1987.

Darracott, Joseph. The World of Charles Ricketts. New York: Methuen, 1980.

Pissarro, Lucien, and Charles Ricketts. De la Typographie. London: Hacon & Ricketts, Vale Press: France: Floury, 1898. Designers: Charles Ricketts and Lucien Pissarro. Printer: The Ballantyne Press, supervised by Charles Ricketts.

Wick, Peter A. The Turn of a Century, 1885-1910. Cambridge: Houghton Library, 1970.

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Last modified 29 December 2013