After the beautiful productions of the German, Italian (of which some reproductions are given here), and French printers, our own William Caxton"s first books seem rather rough, though not without character, and, at any rate, picturesqueness, if they cannot be quoted as very accomplished examples of the printer"s art. The first book printed in England is said to be Caxton"s "Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers,"
printed by him at Westminster in 1477.
A noticeable characteristic of the early printed books is the development of the t.i.tle page. Whereas the MSS. generally did without one, with the advent of printing the t.i.tle page became more and more important, and even if there were no other ill.u.s.trations or ornaments in a book, there was often a woodcut t.i.tle. Such examples as some here given convey a good idea of what charming decorative feeling these t.i.tle page designs sometimes displayed, and those greatest of designers and book decorators and ill.u.s.trators, Albrecht Durer and Hans Holbein, showed their power and decorative skill, and sense of the resources of the woodcut, in the designs made by them for various t.i.tle pages.
The n.o.ble designs of the master craftsman of Nuremberg, Albrecht Durer, are well known. His extraordinary vigour of drawing, and sense of its resources as applied to the woodcut, made him a great force in the decoration and ill.u.s.tration of books, and many are the splendid designs from his hand. Three designs from the fine series of the Little Pa.s.sion and two of his t.i.tle pages are given, which show him on the strictly decorative side. The t.i.tle dated 1523 may be compared with that of Oronce Fine (Paris, 1534). There appears to have been a return to this convoluted knotted kind of ornament at this period. It appears in Italian MSS. earlier, and may have been derived from Byzantine sources.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
ALBRECHT DuRER, "KLEINE Pa.s.sION." (NUREMBERG, 1512.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY. ALBRECHT DuRER, "KLEINE Pa.s.sION." (NUREMBERG, 1512.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
ALBRECHT DuRER, "KLEINE Pa.s.sION." (NUREMBERG, 1512.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
ALBRECHT DuRER. (NUREMBERG, HEINRICH STEYNER, 1513.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
DESIGNED BY ALBRECHT DuRER. (NUREMBERG, 1523.)]
[Sidenote: HANS HOLBEIN.]
There is a fine t.i.tle page designed by Holbein, printed by Petri, at Basle, in 1524. It was originally designed and used for an edition of the New Testament, printed by the same Adam Petri in 1523. At the four corners are the symbols of the Evangelists; the arms of the city of Basle are in the centre of the upper border, and the printer"s device occupies a corresponding s.p.a.ce below. Figures of SS. Peter and Paul are in the niches at each side. But the work always most a.s.sociated with the name of Holbein is the remarkable little book containing the series of designs known as the "Dance of Death," the first edition of which was printed at Lyons in 1538. The two designs here given are printed from the blocks cut by Bonner and Byfield (1833). These cuts are only about 2-1/2 by 2 inches, and yet an extraordinary amount of invention, graphic power, dramatic and tragic force, and grim and satiric humour, is compressed into them. They stand quite alone in the history of art, and give a wonderfully interesting and complete series of ill.u.s.trations of the life of the sixteenth century. Holbein is supposed to have painted this "Dance of Death" in the palace of Henry VIII., erected by Cardinal Wolsey at Whitehall, life size; but this was destroyed in the fire which consumed nearly the whole of that palace in 1697.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GER. SCHOOL. XVITH CENT.
HOLBEIN. "DANCE OF DEATH."
THE NUN. (LYONS, 1538.)]
The Bible cuts of Hans Holbein are also a very fine series, and remarkable for their breadth and simplicity of line, as well as decorative effect on the page.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GER. SCHOOL. XVITH CENT.
HOLBEIN, "DANCE OF DEATH."
THE PLOUGHMAN. (LYONS, 1538.)]
It is interesting to note that Holbein"s father and grandfather both practised engraving and painting at Augsburg, while his brother Ambrose was also a fertile book ill.u.s.trator. Hans Holbein the elder married a daughter of the elder Burgmair, father of the famous Hans Burgmair, examples of whose fine and vigorous style of drawing are given.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
HANS HOLBEIN. (BASEL, ADAM PETRI, _circa_ 1524.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
HANS HOLBEIN. HIST. VET. TEST. ICONIBUS ILl.u.s.tRATA.]
[Sidenote: THE GERMAN MASTERS.]
[Sidenote: THE GERMAN TRADITION.]
Albrecht Durer and Holbein, indeed, seem to express and to sum up all the vigour and power of design of that very vigorous and fruitful time of the German Renaissance. They had able contemporaries, of course, among whom are distinguished, Lucas Cranach (the elder) born 1470, and Hans Burgmair, already named, who was a.s.sociated with Durer in the work of the celebrated series of woodcuts, "The Triumphs of Maximilian;" one of the fine series of "Der Weiss Konig," a n.o.ble t.i.tle page, and a vigorous drawing of peasants at work in a field, here represent him. Other notable designers were Hans Sebald Beham, Hans Baldung Grun, Hans Wachtlin, Jost Amman, and others, who carried on the German style or tradition in design to the end of the sixteenth century. This tradition of convention was technically really the mode of expression best fitted to the conditions of the woodcut and the press, under which were evolved the vigorous pen line characteristic of the German masters. It was a living condition in which each could work freely, bringing in his own fresh observation and individual feeling, while remaining in collective harmony.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
HANS HOLBEIN. BIBLE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
AMBROSE HOLBEIN. "DAS GANTZE NEUE TESTAMENT," ETC.
(BASEL, 1523.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
HANS BURGMAIR. "DER WEISS KoNIG" (1512-14).]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
HANS BURGMAIR. (AUGSBURG, 1516.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
HANS BURGMAIR. "HISTORIA MUNDI NATURALIS," PLINY. (FRANKFORT, 1582.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVITH CENTURY.
HANS BURGMAIR. "DIE MEERFAHRT ZU VILN ONERKANNTEN INSELN UND KUNIGREICHEN."
(AUGSBURG, 1509.)]
[Sidenote: PRINTERS" MARKS]
[Sidenote: EMBLEM BOOKS.]
The various marks adopted by the printers themselves are often decorative devices of great interest and beauty. The French printers, Gillett Hardouyn and Thielman Kerver, for instance, had charming devices with which they generally occupied the front page of their Books of Hours. Others were pictorial puns and embodied the name of the printer under some figure, such as that of Petri of Basle, who adopted a device of a stone, which the flames and the hammer stroke failed to destroy; or the mark of Philip le Noir--a black shield with a negro crest and supporter; or the palm tree of Palma Isingrin. Others were purely emblematic and heraldic, such as the dolphin twined round the anchor, of Aldus, with the motto "_Propera tarde_"--"hasten slowly."
This, and another device of a crab holding a b.u.t.terfly by its wings, with the same signification, are both borrowed from the favourite devices of two of the early emperors of Rome--Augustus and t.i.tus. This symbolic, emblematic, allegorizing tendency which had been more or less characteristic of both art and literature, in various degrees, from the most ancient times, became more systematically cultivated, and collections of emblems began to appear in book form in the sixteenth century. The earliest being that of Alciati, the first edition of whose book appeared in 1522, edition after edition following each other from various printers and places from that date to 1621, with ever-increasing additions, and being translated into French, German, and Italian. Mr.
Henry Green, the author of "Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers" (written to prove Shakespeare"s acquaintance with the emblem books, and constant allusions to emblems), said of Alciati"s book that "it established, if it did not introduce, a new style for emblem literature--the cla.s.sical, in the place of the simply grotesque and humorous, or of the heraldic and mystic."
[Ill.u.s.tration: HANS BALDUNG GRuN. "HORTULUS ANIMae."
(STRa.s.sBURG, MARTIN FLACH, 1511.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: HANS BALDUNG GRuN. "HORTULUS ANIMae."