Modern book-plates and their designers : being the Winter number of the Stvdio.

Date:
1898-1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Modern book-plates and their designers : being the Winter number of the Stvdio. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/91 (page 10)
    but not dishonourable rank of excellent de- signs. It would be invidious to speak dog- matically of the works of contemporaries, and finality of verdict is seldom within the power of any single judge. The fashion of the hour affects our vision more than we care to acknowledge, so that no doubt much of the chaff that to-day looks like honest wheat will be quickly dispersed to the four winds when other seasons have arrived. If a pattern be the mode, specious traves- ties are often able to pass muster, less be- cause they deceive us than because they seem so nearly meritorious, and so nearly as good as their betters that it would be unjust to condemn them entirely. Certainly no attempt must be made to rank all modern book- plates above their true level. A few, but only a few, are entirely admirable as works of art; a larger number are acceptable designs fulfilling certain conditions admirably; but others, even those which find some favour for the moment, are no whit better essentially than many of past dates, which now stand revealed in all their poverty of idea and slovenly or tamely mechanical execu- tion. Again, it is hard to apportion the merit of the second best in a BY J. WILLIAMS BY J. WILLIAMS BY J. WILLIAMS given hundred; some two or three (perhaps a half-dozen) would at once be placed first by the unani- mous opinion of critics of different views, but from the next batch, representing the current average, each critic would sort out those he chanced to dislike least, and pro- bably no two of such assortments would be the same. Therefore, even among those illustrated here, carefully as they have been selected, there are probably examples which will fail to please some readers. But, all the same, they may be taken as representing the best average of the best efforts of modern designers in this connection. What a book-plate should be is a large matter to define. But among its essentials are, first, that it bears legibly the name or, at least, the monogram of its owner (that is, of course, assuming it is a non-heraldic plate). It is con- venient in many cases that it should also include his address. But this apparently simple addi- tion is likely to bring sorrow upon the owner of the plate. Not because he may change his abode, and so make all the plates incorrect, requiring new ones substituted ; that is an obvious but minor trouble; the real danger is that, having divulged his address, the whole tribe of the collectors from the next street to the farthest ends of the earth write to him for copies. Sometimes they enclose specimens of their own plate, very rarely they are even courteous ID