subject: Bookbinding - I Am The Decoration Of A Well Bound Book [print this page] The craft of bookbinding originated in India, where sutras were copied on to palm leaves with a metal stylus. After the leaf dried it was rubbed with ink, this caused a stain in the excised area. The leaves were then given numbers, and two long threads were passed through each end of the wooden boards which were often decorated. Buddhist monks took the idea through Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iran, and finally to China in the 1st century BC.
Coptic bindings, the first true codices, were used from as early as the 2nd century AD to the 11th century. They display some of the earliest examples of book decoration, if one were to include the scroll, that history would extend back much further.
It seems man has an innate desire to decorate. His tools, cooking implements, clothing, and indeed all manner of things, were subject to decoration.
During 12th century Europe, bookbinding and calligraphy were being practiced in monasteries, though the 12th century Winchester Domesday book has lost its original covers, still one can see exuberant examples of the calligraphers decorative art within its pages.
While illuminators we busy creating fanciful creatures in medieval manuscripts, the outside cover of the bookbinding was not being ignored.
Early books containing leaves of vellum, often had thick wooden boards with clasps or ties to keep the book flat. When paper became more common, the boards no longer needed to be made of wood, so boards made from compressed paper were used.
Early bookbinding decoration took the from of decorative designs engraved in brass or iron, and when warm, impressed into the slightly damp leather, the combination of heat and moisture caused the leather to darken in those areas, and even when dry the darkened impressions remained, thus creating both visual and textural decorative elements. This process is called "blind tooling", whereby the tool is impressed into the leather without the use of gold leaf.
The use of gold leaf as a decorative element in bookbinding emerged from 15th century Italy and continues through to this day.
The use of blind tooling and tooling in gold leaf called for a skill and appreciation of good design, when natural forms were adopted, the use of free flowing natural lines had to be employed, anything less would be patently obvious to a critical eye.
Blind tooling and tooling in gold leaf are still practiced today, by skilled bookbinders, and the rules of good design are still as important now as they were then.
Today the methods of producing a book may have changed out of all recognition from that of earlier times, but the laws that govern good design are still valid.
Fortunately from every epoch in history, there exists fine examples of the book decorators art, one only has to recall the works of Cobden Sanderson, Douglas and Sidney Cockerell and others from the arts and crafts movement of the late 19th century, through to fellows of the Society of Designer Bookbinders today, who, employing the skills of there predecessors, continue to raise the craft of bookbinding to an art form.
By Richard Norman
Bookbinding - I Am The Decoration Of A Well Bound Book
