New-York tribune., 1922-09-17

| faulty, because there is an artist be"
hind il. He is charming on the Al
brizzi "Gerusalemme Liberata" of 17A5.
one of the more horid tours de force Of
Venetian printing. It's chief splendor
is due to Piazzetta's illustrations. But
the types, though coarse, play up TO the
gorgeous designs. AIN spite Of press
work at times careless and muddy, the
pages have a great airl We may pull
the book 10 pieces and condemn every
detail: but it lives--insolently careless
Of what one thinks of itl" This is de-
lightfully characteristic of eighteenth
century Italy. One may say the came
thing, over and over again, about GER
tain types of painting, sculpture and ar
chitecture in that period. They are all
wrong, from an academic point of
view, but curious kind of artistic
vitality pulls them through.
There is no one missing from Mr..
Updike's long procession. German,
Italian, French, Dutch, Flemish, Spank
ish and English printers-the masters
are all duly commemorated. He
makes them live again and interprets
them with gusto through their works,
making such effective play with his
plates that we come really to SAVIOR
their specific traits. At the end, too,
he does thing peculiarly we'll calcu-
lated to keep US from thinking of these
men functioning like demigods In
worlds more favorable than our own to
the interests Of good printing. In a
really amusing chapter on the indus
trial conditions of the past he shows
US how those selfsamc masters fought
with problems different in no wise from
There has never been in Typography.
he asserts, n Golden Age in which good
work was universally done. He leaves
that mythical No Mans Land TO the
theorst. We must throw away all this
"bric-a-orac sentimentale ct moyen-
Ageux,' he insists, and face the hard
facts Of economic history. The master
printer and his employees were con
stantly at odds. at may come as a
surprise to the lover of ancient Gus
TOMS" says Mr.. Updike, chat among
the picturesque habits of sixteenth CEN
tury printers was that of going out on
strikes. The printers strikes and re-
sultant disturbances at Lyons and
Paris lasted from 1889 to 1872" The
, censorship, too, kept the printer on
pins and needles.
Nevertheless, the printer has per-
sisted. Why? Because the printer Is
! an artist, because he has something of
himself to express which will rot
down, something Of taste and feeling"
The fires Of genius that famed UP in
the historic past have, perhaps, died
; down. In his examination of certain
notable fonts designed in our own time
Mr. Updike is generous but not pre-
cisely ardent. His notes on William
Morris. for example, are sympathetic,
but refreshingly discriminating. No
where is he more scrupulously candid
than when speaking of certain types
, associated with his own press. He
makes structures on the Merrymount
font with all the frankness IN the
world. 1t is in this disinterestedness
of his that he puts the last touch to
a book which every lover Of good print
J ing will welcome. "The outlook for
Typography" he concludes, sis as good
as ever it was-and much the same"
All that printers have to do is to ac-
cumulate the knowledge and taste Of
: educated men. They must confront
hard work, drudgery, petty restrictions,
and they must count on no great re-
; wards. But printing, it may be saii
once more, is an art, and it brings an
: artists consultations. Mr.. Updike has
written a book which ought to give new
| life to that idea.