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THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY
HERALDRY
HERALDRY FOR CRAFTSMEN & DESIGNERS
BY W. H. ST. JOHN HOPE LITT.D., D.C.L., WITH DIAGRAMS BY THE AUTHOR AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS COLOURED LITHOGRAPHS AND COLLOTYPE REPRODUCTIONS FROM ANCIENT EXAMPLES
PUBLISHED BY JOHN HOGG 13 PATERNOSTER ROW LONDON 1913
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD LONDON
EDITOR'S PREFACE
In issuing this volume of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims.
In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of workshop practice, from the points of view of experts who have critically examined the methods current in the shops, and, putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially associated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat design itself as an essential part of good workmanship. During the last century most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of an academic kind, were little considered, and there was a tendency to look on 'design' as a mere matter of appearance. Such 'ornamentation' as there was was usually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by an artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved in production. With the critical attention given to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish and so on, far more than mere ornament, and, indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought--that is, from design--inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a language addressed to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech of the tool.
In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing reasonable occupations for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors, yet as artistic craftsmen there is some probability that nearly every one who would pass through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success.
In the blending of handwork and thought in such arts as we propose to deal with, happy careers may be found as far removed from the dreary routine of hack labour as from the terrible uncertainty of academic art. It is desirable in every way that men of good education should be brought back into the productive crafts: there are more than enough of us 'in the City,' and it is probable that more consideration will be given in this century than in the last to Design and Workmanship.
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Designers have at times to deal with some matters which are almost common to all the arts, matters which they either know or do not know, and in which the genius they are apt to trust in goes for little apart from knowledge. They must learn lettering for inscriptions much like they once learnt the multiplication table, and they should learn the elements of heraldry in the same way. This it has been difficult to do, as most of the books on heraldry, in seeking to be complete, so effectually muddle up the few important points with the vast number of things unimportant, or worse, that the art student is likely to give it up in despair. Many books on heraldry, which in itself is surely a gay thing, have been made to resemble grammars and dictionaries of a meaningless jargon.
Any student, however, who has become interested in a single shield, or in the look of the thing as seen in a collection of fine examples of heraldry such as are illustrated in this volume, should be able to master the main principles in an hour or two. The curious terms are only old-fashioned; they are used, so far as they are necessary, not of malice, but because it is of the essence of heraldry that everything shall be so strictly defined that a few words may represent a shield of arms as surely as a picture. Hence everything has a name, everything is clear, sharp, and bright, the colours are few, the forms must be large and simple. Even the seemingly arbitrary dictum that 'no colour must be put on colour or metal on metal' may probably have arisen from the fact that when gilding or silvering was used on a shield it would form a perfect foil for colours, but as they reflected light in the same way, they could not be distinguished if used one on the other. Even yellow pigment on white would not tell clearly at any distance; the maxim is merely a rule for the sake of distinctness. Again, the curious vigorous drawing of beasts and birds with the eyes staring and the feet spread out was not the result of a desire to be quaint, but arose naturally from the same need of being clear. A good naturalistic drawing of a lion would be useless on a flag. Granted the special needs of heraldry, it developed in a perfectly understandable way.
On the question of heraldic drawing I should like to caution the student against thinking that it is so easy as it looks. Elementary and exaggerated, it may seem as if any child might do it, but in truth it is terribly difficult. The old shields were designed by experts with great experience; they placed the charge perfectly on the field and so distributed the parts that they were balanced in 'weight'; there were no weak lines and nothing was crowded for lack of room. Much practice made them perfect, and perfection is still difficult.
The present volume seems to me exactly what artists have wanted.
W. R. LETHABY
March 1913
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book is an attempt to place before designers and craftsmen such an account of the principles of the art of Heraldry as will enable them to work out for themselves the many and various applications of it that are possible to-day.
To that end the different usages which have prevailed from time to time are dealt with in detail, and are illustrated as far as may be from ancient sources.
Should it be thought that undue stress has been laid upon the pre-Tudor heraldry, to the comparative exclusion of that of later times, it may be pointed out that until the principles of the earlier heraldry have been grasped and appreciated, it is impossible to get rid of the cast-iron uniformity and stupid rules that bound the heraldry of to-day, and tend to strangle all attempts to raise it to a higher level.
To what extent these chilling ideas prevail, and how necessary it is to get rid of them, cannot better be illustrated than by two letters written to the author, after most of the following chapters were in type, by a critical friend who has not read any of them.
He points out in his first letter that on the very day of his writing there had been brought to his notice, not for the first time, the great need that exists for a book in which sculptors and painters may find out what they legitimately may and what they may not do as regards heraldry. What, for example, may be left out from an achievement of arms, and how the different elements composing it may be varied, or even rearranged.
He instances the case of a sculptor who had been supplied with a drawing, 'brilliant in emerald green and powder blue,' of the arms that had been granted to a famous Englishman whose memory was about to be honoured by the setting up of a statue with his arms, etc. carved upon the pedestal.
The arms in the drawing did not present any difficulties, but the crest was not shown upon the helm, and the whole was surrounded by a series of trophies which to this unenlightened sculptor were as heraldic as the arms and crest. Out of all this, asked the sculptor, what could lawfully be omitted? If any of the trophies were supporters, must they be shown? And must the crest be used? Ought the crest to be on a helm? And should the helm be shown in profile or full-faced?