THE DISTINCTION IN LETTERING BETWEEN SUPERFLUOUS ORNAMENTS AND ORGANIC LINES — A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF LETTERING — STUDIES, WITH THE QUILL PEN, OF THE CAROLINE ALPHABET AND ITS MODERN REVIVAL IN FRANCE BY GRASSET AND AURIOL — THE MINNESINGER LETTER NOT VERY ORNATE BUT MORE COMPLEX THAN THE CAROLINE — THE MINNESINGER CORRESPONDS TO THE STIMMEL AND ROGEL ALPHABETS — THE BERGOMENSIS LETTER MORE COMPLICATED AND MORE REGULAR THAN THE MINNESINGER — THE ITALIC LETTER MORE SIMPLE AND ROUNDER THAN THE MINNESINGER.
In the last chapter we said, “The distinction between the superficial ornament and the organic lines of a letter is easily understood by first practicing the Caroline letter and then the Gothic.” Let us explain the benefit of this practicing; the keynote to the matter is found in our Caroline example. Draw the second I and you will find that it is virtually a simple shaft with a little spreading at the top and bottom. If you draw with a quill or reed pen it is very easy to get this swell by a little extra pressure as you begin to draw and as you finish; and in almost all Caroline writing the I is made freehand and the shape depends upon pen pressure and varies a little each time the letter is made. It is not mapped out beforehand. The thin curved line on top of the first I is superfluous ornament; that line is made by a second stroke. We find several such ornaments in the first two lines which form the head of a chapter, just as we find much ornamentation of the initial letter; but we { 192} do not find any ornamentation of the I’s in the eight lines of text. There the I’s are all made with a single stroke of the pen, so that the top and bottom of each one is a trifle different from that of the others. In the first line of text there is superfluous ornamenting of the T’s, and of the H. Otherwise this is a true pen hand; the I made with one stroke, the C, D, L, O, P, Q, U, X, etc., with two strokes, the A, B, E, M, N, R, S, with three. The reader is advised to copy this alphabet with as large a quill pen as procurable, making the letters from half an inch to an inch high, and then, turning to the Grasset “Nouveau Larousse Illustré,” it will dawn upon him that he knows exactly how the letters there were made; and he will have little trouble in imitating almost to perfection the three words, “En Six Volumes.” When he tries the words, “Nouveau Larousse Illustré,” he may have some trouble with the A, the S and with the O, which does not show its separate halves as in the Caroline: the horizontal line of the L also is more difficult to make than if it were the same width throughout. The I, R, N and V he will find quite simple. As he familiarizes himself with the Caroline M, D, V and I; with the H in the second line of the text under the ornamental H; and with the P, S, C, he will begin to realize that upper and lower case letters were originally the same. He will also be surprised, if he next falls to studying the Minnesinger letters (last chapter) under a magnifying glass, to find how like they are to the Caroline. Is not the capital I somewhat clumsier than the first I in the Caroline top line? Are not the c, d, h, i, o, p, s, u, v and y clumsier, more angular drawings of the same letters as in the■