St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1884-04-19
Early Type Founding and Wood Cutting.

The very earliest printers were proba-
bly, their own type founders, and posi-
bly at times their own wood cutters too,
but this cannot very long have been the
case. A man setting up a printing
press for the first time usually started
with font of type which he had bought
from some already established printer.
Thus. Jacob Bellaert, at HARLEM,
bought type from Gerard Leu, at
Gouda; Hugo Janszoen, at Leyden, be-
gan printing with type and cuts which
had already been almost worn out by
Bellaert at HARLEM. Many ether
instances, of a like kind might be noted
where type changed hands, passing
from q printer in one town to less
prosperous workman in another. So
soon as the new printer had made a fair
start he generally bought or made for
himself an entirely new font of type,
which became the characteristic of his
press.
The early types, as we know, were
nothing but copies of the careful writing
of the day; thus they..varied exceedingly,
and it is possible, without much diff
Guilty, to get to know almost every font
by sight. 1t is then found possible to
group together certain fonts as possess
ing general characteristics in common,
and these will usually be seen to belong
to certain district or period. The
varieties in each group may have arisen
from various causes. Some are due to
the necessity of having types of different
sizes, some to alterations found advisa-
BILE to avoid unnecessary wear and tear:
some were, no doubt, made with view
to greater distinctness in the printing.
One very common kind is one of the
most difficult to detect. A font of type,
we will imagine, had been used till it
began to wear out. To save trouble in
moulding the dies for new set, the
printer chose out an alphabet from the
old ones, and with knife trimmed the
letters to make them sharp and dis
tinct, cutting off detail here and there,
and generally making the outline some
what thinner. From these he cast dies,
which were used to strike off q fresh
set. The font thus manufactured
would closely resemble its predecessors,
differing from it alone in details not
readily perceived. The relations ex-
listing between wood cutters and print
ers are not so easy to discover. The
French wood cutters had from the very
first adopted style completely differ
ent from that either of the Germans
or Dutch. Their blocks were ALWAYS
much more uniformly filled with even
masses of careful shade: there were no
large spaces left unoccupied and white
on the paper. They We're far-ahead of
their contemporaries in neatness and
dexterity, but there was little life in
their work. As result, nothing great
ever came from them; but all their early
productions are pleasing, and contrast
agreeably with the rude work of their
foreign contemporaries. Very few of
their blocks ever passed into Holland.
In his later years Gerard Leu con-
stantly uses set of cuts and borders
which present marked difference from
ANYTHING he had ever used before.
They were clearly intended for a pray
er-book, ard the complete series is |
found in enc, but not until after Leeu's |
death. Each page of the book was sur
rounded by gracefully designed Dor
der, within which either the text or the |
cuts could be printed. The cuts were !
used separately on many occasions, but |
the series was never divided. and after |
Leeu's death it came complete into the
hands of Leisveldt. These were the
first French cuts which ever passed
into Holland. They seem to have
started quite rage, and a brisk de-
mand arose for them.
From origins so barbaric. from ESSAYS
SO simple and imperfect, there have
arisen the magnificent industries we
know. The printer and the engraver
have come to be in some sort the good
genii of the world of art. Theirs it is
what the artist has pro-
duced<to bring within reach of the
many that which is primarily achieved
for the declaration and endowment of
the few. Developed and perfected, the
rude craft of the nameless masters who
worked for Leu and his fellow trad
ers has become necessary of the in
tellectual and emotional life of civilized
humanity.-Magasine of art.