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Meadowsweet.
Collotype reproduction of a woodblock print by the Author.
(Frontispiece.)
THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES
OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS
EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY
WOOD-BLOCK
PRINTING
A DESCRIPTION OF THE CRAFT OF
WOODCUTTING & COLOUR PRINTING
BASED ON THE JAPANESE
PRACTICE BY F. MORLEY FLETCHER
WITH
DRAWINGS AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY
THE AUTHOR AND A. W. SEABY.
ALSO COLLOTYPE REPRODUCTIONS
OF VARIOUS EXAMPLES OF
PRINTING, AND AN ORIGINAL
PRINT DESIGNED AND CUT BY
THE AUTHOR PRINTED BY HAND
ON JAPANESE TAPER
LONDON
SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD.
PARKER STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.2
BATH, MELBOURNE, TORONTO, NEW YORK
Printed by
Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd.
Bath, England
EDITOR'S PREFACE
In issuing these volumes of a series of Handbooks on the ArtisticCrafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims.
In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books ofworkshop practice, from the points of view of experts who havecritically examined the methods current in the shops, and putting asidevain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship, and to setup a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especiallyassociated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat designitself as an essential part of good workmanship. During the last century[Pg vi]most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of an academic kind, werelittle considered, and there was a tendency to look on "design" as amere matter of appearance. Such "ornamentation" as there was wasusually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided byan artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved inproduction. With the critical attention given to the crafts by Ruskinand Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to detach designfrom craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is aninseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selectionof good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expertworkmanship, proper finish, and so on, far more than mere ornament, andindeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fineworkmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship whenseparated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought—that is, fromdesign—inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation,[Pg vii]divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly fallsinto affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a languageaddressed to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech ofthe tool.
In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanshipbefore people as furnishing reasonable occupations for those who wouldgain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art, thecompetition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can