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BOEKEN & BOOKS
Making Books 1
Andrew Marvell, The Garden and
other Poems
Engravings by Harry Brockway
108 x 83 x 12 mm
The Folio Society Ltd.
Printed at the Bath Press Avon
1993.
Brownish-green calf binding of a speckled, metallic finish, with stiff panels,
which are cut and lifted at some of the corners, on both the covers and the spine.
Green leather headbands. Cream endpapers. Signed. Paper covered drop-back box.
Designer binding Pierre Thielen, 1994.
Collection Tregaskis Centenary
Exhibition/Collection 1994
John Rylands University Library, Manchester, UK
Also see catalogue Tregaskis Centenary Exhibition
Designer
Bookbinders, London 1994.
January 20, 2002
A few observations on the binding as a (potential!) artistic form.
The objective of this site could be to brainstormingly describe, in the purest possible way, the binding as an objet d’art, by trying to understand the requirements that a design has to meet. In doing so, we must realize, though, that there will always be 'paintings' on one hand and 'bonbonnières' on the other, even in the realm of bookbinding.
The above does not mean that a manual will be given, by which a good design can be made automatically as it were.
Apart from the rules generally in force for all creative activities (rules that can or cannot be applied, which could be a rule in itself), it is important – and this goes for sculpting, dancing, painting, writing poetry, gold- and silversmithing, building, etc. – to determine which could be the specific characteristics of a binding, and where a permissible relationship lies with already established artistic forms.
If it is true that there are designer/bookbinders who aim for 'art', and the artisan becomes an artist, then it is necessary that he becomes aware of this inquiry.
