Lettering and the adaptability or application of■
{ 215} [Illustration: Initial letter, with character portrait. Drawn by Mantelet, enlarged from a cut in a French periodical. A drawing might be made this size if intended to be reduced to the size of the cut opposite.]
■{ 216} the pictorial to printing are matters which we have allowed to force their way into almost every page, so a■
■summary of our method of teaching in this series would not be complete without a further word about the decoration of a page.
Let us next, therefore, consider the matter of periods or styles in illustrating. The initial letter designed by Auriol represents a modern style of design.■
Illustration from a French periodical. Crayon and silhouette effect.]
■{ 217} Twenty years ago the half-tone, as in this portrait, was unknown, and while the white and black goes back to the fifteenth century, the free distribution of the leaves is due to the French artists having studied Japanese designing.
The “Théatre du Chat Noir,” designed by the same artist, is also Japanesque in treatment. It may be profitably compared with the Grasset page. Auriol’s initial■
■“L” you will at once recognize as Gothic, and that also, you see, goes back farther than the fifteenth century. Now, does not that suggest to you that in modern designing there may be much recourse to antique styles? Recognizing this, you will grasp our idea in publishing these different Ls. We do not say any special one, like our initial “L,” could be of immediate use to you; but we do say that, in the hands of a clever designer, every one could serve as a basis on which to build a style of design.
Looking at these initials from this point of view, they offer various suggestions. Here, for example, are more natural forms, but not in the Japanese styles. A close observer of nature might be able to engrave a somewhat clumsier, { 218} but none the less interesting, initial of this kind, while he could not draw a Japanese-like design with the grace of Auriol.
Leaves and flowers are not the only motives at the designer’s service. Here is a little street vista in which the suggestion of buildings is nicely brought out, yet the lines are by no means exact. If one or two lines have been cut away in the process of engraving, we hardly miss them; and if a few more should be cut away from the design as it is, they would not be missed. A style of designing in which free lines are used in this way has its value, though we should not advise one to found a study of drawing upon such principles.