In 1866 Henri Marius Michel, though only twenty years of age, had taken
an important position in the business, maintaining the traditions of his
father with equal zest and talent; and ten years later the atelier
became one for binding in all its branches, a change which enabled Henri
to develop his instincts for originality, the firstfruits of which were
seen in the incised and modelled leather covers exhibited by him at
L’Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs in 1881. But it was the days of the
Trautz mania; and no collector would hear of any binder but Trautz. All
the old books must be broken up to be recovered by him, and even
bindings by Bozérian were destroyed to be replaced by those of Trautz.
Notwithstanding his enormous output, the workshop was filled with books
which he kept years without touching, and prices continued to increase
until the Lacarelle sale in 1888, when there were signs of a change. In
one auction-room there were 420 Trautz bindings, in another 380; in the
library of James de Rothschild there were 2800 items, of which 1400 were
in nineteenth-century binding, a thousand of these latter being bound by
Trautz. But time brings its revenges; the place of Trautz is possibly
now as much below his deserts as it was then above, while Henri Marius
Michel, whose gifts of invention were long ignored as revolutionary, is
now at the height of his reputation. M. Béraldi calls him the finest
binder since the Renaissance, and there are those who say that the
idolatry of Trautz has given place to another and no less extravagant
form of hero worship.
Unceasingly occupied with decoration, he gave up the practice of gilding
with his own hand, but has continued to execute the Cuir Ciselé, which
is one of the styles in which he first achieved success and in which he
is undoubtedly past master. Another style that has been associated with
his name since 1885 is that known as _le flore stylisé_, in which flower
motives are very slightly conventionalized, but with a certain
individuality that makes his work unmistakable, notwithstanding the
number of his imitators. Modern French designs of this type are not
nearly enough conventionalized for our English taste, where a frankly
realistic treatment of natural growths has always been considered
unsound.
[Illustration: 38. BOUND BY MERCIER.]
With the death of Trautz and the rise of the new book-collecting had
come the moment for a revolution in binding, and Henri Marius Michel was
quickly followed by others. He had, in fact, set the ball rolling, and
broken with the long-kept traditions of symmetry, only to let loose a
flood of eccentric work for which there was little to be said, and which
often had not even the saving grace of technique. He at once became
reactionary, and there was a period during which he returned to repeated
patterns, simple line borders and the ordinary corner and centre
ornaments, rendered with faultless execution. But Marius might turn
reactionary for a time; the craze for _l’art nouveau_, as it was termed,
was not to be lightly checked. Everything was now pressed into the
service for the mere sake of novelty—leather, wood-carving, bronzes,
ivories, enamels, miniatures, all found a place until a binding looked
like any but what it should be, namely, a thing to be pleasant in the
hand and intended to protect a book, without needing protection for
itself. Curiosity shops were ransacked for silks and satins as
board-linings. Japan yielded its papers and its embossed leathers,
flowers of exotic growth lent strange forms to design, and symbolism
became rampant. For a time, indeed, emblematic bindings were accepted as
the note of the new style which was to mark the century, and in the
hands of the indifferent artist became a real terror. There is obviously
no such thing as ‘new art’—there is simply art or there is not, and
there can be no real art without good craftsmanship. Under pretext of
inventing a style that was to belong to the century, all that was done
was to perpetuate grotesqueness instead of originality and a burlesque
of ideas in their application to binding.
Meanwhile discussion as to the limitations of material naturally became
faster and more furious, while the literature on the subject grew apace.
In 1896 a controversy arose between Gruel and Michel, the former being
supported by Bosquet, a binder holding an important position in the
library of Messrs. Hachette and a frequent writer on his craft both in
its historical and technical aspects. We, for whom the artistic crafts
occupy a very subordinate position, can hardly imagine the heat of
discussion that rages round a subject like this in France. The
combatants at once range themselves on opposite sides, and the weapons
used are all the resources of a language pre-eminently suited to satire
and ridicule, but which somehow seem an armoury out of place on so
restricted a battlefield. The Frenchman, however, is never so happy
himself, nor, may we say, so entertaining to his neighbours, as when his
tongue and his pen are giving effect to the ready wit that seems always
at his service.
[Illustration: 39. BOUND BY MERCIER.]
M. Gruel, whose efforts were directed towards stemming the tide of
eccentricity associated with _l’art nouveau_, pointed out the
impossibility that a new style should spring up on demand, and
recommended a return to the study of past models and a gradual
transformation of these into fresh departures. M. Michel replied that a
firm break with tradition was necessary in order to avoid the constant
repetition of the past and the mixture of styles which had long been the
only resource of the ineffective designer. It was necessary, he said,
either to return to nature or to seek inspiration from other arts
besides binding. So the excitement grew, aided that same year by an
exhibition in the Champ de Mars in which bindings from the school of
Nancy, under the direction of Wiener, achieved a notoriety which only
fanned the flame. These bindings soon got the nickname of _reliures
d’affiche_, and painting was the art from which they derived their
inspiration. The book was now looked on as a canvas on which to depict
in different-coloured moroccos various scenes from life or nature. In
some cases the composition was not even contained on one panel, but
strayed over the back to finish on the under cover. The symbolist school
with its picture binding has had a considerable vogue, though not in the
extreme of violent reproduction of the Nancy school. Michel was himself
influenced by it, and both he and Meunier were represented in this same
exhibition with subjects in relief and allegorical representations in
mosaic. The next development was the sculpture binding, which Michel
distinctly furthered by suggesting to Lepère that he should model a
cover for the solitary copy on Japan paper of _Paysages Parisiens_,
which he had not only illustrated, but the drawings for which he had
also engraved on wood and on copper. Since that time the modelled
leather work of Lepère has taken a permanent place among book covers of
the day; it is masterly in conception and execution, but would be as
fine and more appropriate in a panel framed on a wall than on a binding.
The art of the leather worker is one, whether applied to the coffer, the
blotter, or the book—it is but the shape and the purpose that defines
the appropriateness or inappropriateness of any particular treatment.
Marius and Lepère represent the highest point attained by _le cuir
incisé_. Artists of their attainments are rare, and it is only such
artists who can be tolerated in deviations from the normal and whose
inventions can in any sense be held to justify the result. Most
collectors content themselves with a specimen or two in their libraries
of the sculptured or symbolic or bejewelled binding, be it ever so
curious, and turn with satisfaction to the more ordered ways of some
modification or another of past traditions.
[Illustration: 40. BOUND BY MERCIER.]
[Illustration: 41. BOUND BY MERCIER.]
To turn now from this brief account of the recent developments of French
binding to the Galliera exhibition.
The books shown by M. Léon Gruel, whom his son Paul now most ably
seconds, were, as may be supposed, of the highest importance. The house
is one of the oldest in Paris, having been established in 1811 by
Deforge, by whom M. Gruel’s father was employed. M. Léon Gruel is an
enthusiast who has all the antiquarian as well as the practical
knowledge of binding at his fingers’ ends. He has a fine collection of
old bindings and all sorts of documents relating to them, and some of
these he used for his important publication in 1887, _Manuel historique
et bibliographique de l’amateur de reliures_, a second instalment of
which appeared in 1904. The characteristic of the business has always
been the production of fine editions of liturgies and books of a
devotional character, which made it famous long ago, and the bindings of
which have always been specially designed and carried out under the
direction of M. Gruel. It would have been natural enough had he been
content with the great commercial success attained by the house, due to
the industry and business qualities of the direction of successive
members of his family. But instead of that, it has been his ambition to
show that he could with equal success follow every turn taken by the art
in the various directions that its recent evolution has demanded. The
styles associated with the names of Grolier, the Eves, and le Gascon,
are reproduced for those clients who demand them, while the more modern
mosaic work, blind-tooled or with gold, is invented and executed with
equal facility. One style revived from the past, that of _le cuir
incisé_, he has made especially his own, and he treats it in an entirely
different manner to that of Marius. The difference in procedure is
briefly this: the incised leather of Marius is not one with the binding,
but is a thick piece of calf, worked first by cutting and modelling, and
then introduced as a panel sunk into the cover. In Gruel’s method the
cover is the unit on which the design is modelled while damp, then
coloured, and finally hardened. To succeed in this technique needs great
delicacy of handling and a constant practice in its methods. It gives
plenty of scope for emblematic treatment, which, in the hands of
Rossigneux, who designed much of this work in former days for Gruel, was
of great artistic merit: at the present time it is executed mainly by a
son of M. Bosquet, already spoken of as an important writer on the
critical and technical aspects of what is also his own craft. Rossigneux
was an architect and designer of surprising talent, who did not hesitate
to learn the technicalities of binding that he might devote himself to
the decoration of book covers, not only in leather but in carved wood,
for which he was especially famous. M. Léon Gruel is the master of a
large workshop to which his men are proud to belong. As President of the
Chambre Syndicate he has rendered important services, freely
acknowledged, in an insistence on sound teaching and a wise
encouragement of the coming generation of binders. The variety of his
achievement is a constant surprise even to those who know his
versatility, for at each successive exhibition he seems able to add
fresh laurels to those which have always surrounded the name of his
house.
[Illustration: 42. BOUND BY RUBAN.]
Émile Mercier has the reputation of being the finest gilder in
Paris—_l’artiste impeccable_, as his fellows call him—and he is perhaps
the one man in whom they and the public recognize the chief exponent of
the best traditions without being in any sense a servile imitator of the
past. His individuality is a sympathetic one to all, and even in that
little world of keen opposition and personal jealousy he cannot count a
single enemy. He took over the atelier of Cuzin in 1890, at the age of
thirty-six, on the death of his chief, with whom his relations had long
been of the happiest kind, and for whose clients he had executed all the
fine designs associated with the name of Cuzin. There is an immense
difference in the mere technique of ‘tooling,’ or gilding as it is
always called abroad—a difference almost impossible to put into words,
but which is none the less visible to the eye for such distinctions. No
French gilding could possibly be mistaken for English, and the reverse
is also true. But even among French gilders, where the method prevails
of laborious and patient but absolutely certain reworking of the tools
in impressions previously made, Mercier stands out as pre-eminent. His
work has a vigour and sureness of handling, his gilding a brilliancy and
solidity as well as elegance of appearance that are beyond criticism.
Though he himself works as hard as ever, he has already brought up in
his workshop several young finishers of great merit, among whom
Mayloender is mentioned as already of fine performance as well as of
future promise. Content to quietly excel, Mercier has raised no
opposition by any manifesto, and his position of first rank is accepted
by all without hesitation as to its justice.
Pétrus Ruban, born at Villefranche in 1851, seemed for some time
undecided as to whether he should join the ranks of the traditional or
the revolutionary binders. He was at first obviously inspired by the
newer decorative attempts of Henri Marius Michel, but has recently left
the circle of innovators for the more restricted ranks of the
_relieurs-doreurs_, of whom Mercier is the head. Nevertheless M. Ruban’s
power of invention has enabled him to produce some remarkably fine
‘blind-tooled’ mosaics, in which striking effects of colour have been
managed without a sacrifice of taste. The finish of his craftsmanship is
undoubted: no one has finer mastery over tools and leather, and a
faultless treatment of exquisite material distinguishes everything he
turns out. It may seem as if too much stress is laid upon this
perfection of execution which characterises French work in a way that is
unknown to our craftsmen. And it is true that it too often proves a
snare, giving an occasion for making difficulties merely to show how
they can be triumphed over. But, on the other hand, it is a matter in
which we in England are all too negligent. The insistence of late on the
comparative unimportance of technique in relation to originality of
invention has been disastrous, and the Arts and Crafts Society has, if
we may venture to say so, given far too much encouragement to that point
of view. There have been bindings shown there which were defective in
the very elements of sound ‘forwarding’—in the finish that comes of an
effective _corps d’ouvrage_, and that should never have been admitted
into an exhibition supposed to be especially selective. It may be truly
said that nothing is a work of art unless it attains to a fairly perfect
technique, even though the decorative conception may be of considerable
value.
[Illustration: 43. BOUND BY RUBAN.]
[Illustration: 44. BOUND BY RUBAN.]
Charles Meunier, born in 1866, served a short but energetic
apprenticeship to Marius Michel, and then at the age of twenty decided
to start for himself. Keen to succeed and make a place among the
foremost binders of Paris, he worked with a restless and unceasing
effort that might well have proved disastrous to his career. The
increasing costliness of whole-binding due to the demands for
originality made by amateurs had given an impetus to half-binding which
Meunier was not slow to avail himself of. He at once set about supplying
the demand, executing some five or six hundred, each with a different
emblematic design upon the back. It was the moment when, as has been
shown, the symbolist movement was at its height, and the young binder
naturally echoed the note of the day. It was the same with the _cuir
ciselé_, in which he quickly attained great skill, doing forty copies
alone, with as many different designs of _L’histoire des quatre fils
d’Aymon_, a book illustrated by Eugène Grasset, which proved a failure
commercially until Marius floated it by means of his fine bindings with
motives taken from the illustrations themselves. Meunier has now almost
attained the position he coveted. His style has become chastened in
accordance with the increasing distaste of eccentricity, and he gives
greater care to the details of execution, which, according to French
standards, left something to be desired in the early days of his rather
too exuberant fancy. Last year he held a special exhibition in New York,
showing some seventy specimens in which his decorative skill was
extensively represented. His taste in colour may seem somewhat crude and
his motives bizarre, but of the mastery over his materials there is no
doubt. His snare is that he is a decorator before anything else, and not
always sufficiently restrained, or mindful of the best traditions of
decoration in its particular application to binding.
[Illustration: 45. BOUND BY CARAYON.]
The reputation of M. Carayon is based upon _le cartonnage_, or ‘casing’
as we call it, and which is with us an inferior form of binding mainly
confined to publishers’ editions. In this work the cases or covers,
whether of cloth or leather, are made separately and the book held to
them by the very slight attachment of pasting down the endpapers,
instead of the slips on which the book is sewn being laced into the
boards and then being subsequently covered with the material selected.
But in France _cartonnage à la Bradel_ has become a fine art mainly
through the instrumentality of M. Carayon. Supposed to be of German
origin, it takes its name from the binder who first used it in France,
where for some time it was considered as a temporary binding for books
of value which in this way were left uncut at the edges and handled as
little as possible. M. Carayon, born in 1840, started life as a soldier,
soon giving up that career to become a decorative painter; but his love
of books and all that concerns them finally decided his occupation. Type
of the true art worker, he is to be found all day long in his atelier,
though sadly crippled with rheumatism, devising some new application of
_le genre Bradel_. All materials come alike to him; morocco, calf,
vellum, brocade, velvet, even simple paper, produce in his hands the
most exquisite results. Amateurs confide to his charge their most costly
possessions, and the first artists of the day, such as Robaudi, Henriot
and Louis Morin, decorate his vellum work with pen-and-ink and
water-colour drawings. If one wants, indeed, to realize that the beauty
of a binding does not lie in tooling, or indeed in any kind of ornament,
one need only handle the little paper-covered books turned out by
Carayon for a few francs. At the same time neither inlaying nor gilding
has any secrets from him, and he devises the modelled, leather work
executed for him by Rudeaux with the delicacy and sureness of taste that
distinguish all he undertakes.
[Illustration: 46. BOUND BY CARAYON.]
[Illustration: 47. BOUND BY CARAYON.]
Chambolle most worthily continues the traditions associated with the
name of his father. As an interpreter of the past he has a place apart
and almost untouched by the main revolutionary movement that has
penetrated nearly every atelier in Paris, and modified, if not
overturned, its inherited traditions. To him are confided the classics
of former times, which he clothes in the styles appropriate to them,
keeping to a simplicity of ornamentation which reveals great taste and
feeling for composition. Wisely enough, he rarely goes outside his own
domain, where, in these days of reckless pursuit of novelty, he remains
almost supreme.
Canape is a young binder of increasing reputation. At present he seems
to specialize in what is called _la gaufrure à froid_, in which
different-coloured moroccos are tooled without gold—a style which has
been much in favour of late years, and in which Marius Michel was the
first to effect great triumphs. His career has been watched with much
interest for the last few years, and he is thought to be steadily taking
place in the first rank.
Kieffer, too, is a binder whose work has a distinctly personal touch,
and whose bindings have an individuality of their own. The reproductions
shown testify to a certain largeness of conception in design, which,
though somewhat mannered, has distinct value.
M. Pierre Roche has struck a new note in what he calls _la reliure
églomisée_. It is work done on something of the same lines as that
attempted by Mr. Cedric Chivers of Bath. He uses a transparent vellum
which covers and protects the decoration, which thus appears, to use his
own words, as if behind a veil. ‘C’est l’esprit du livre qui vient du
dedans en dehors apparaître au travers des matières solides qui le
protègent.’ A sculptor of great talent, this has been merely a
recreation to him. He has done but a small number of books for a few
distinguished clients, and, notwithstanding their success, has, like a
true artist, refused to be drawn into manufacturing them, feeling it
doubtful whether it is a style that should be popularized to any great
extent, or rather remain as an occasional variation of the more
accredited ways of book-cover decoration.
[Illustration: 48. BOUND BY CHAMBOLLE.]
We have perhaps said enough to indicate the variety of the work shown at
the Galliera Museum, its high attainment in the field of design, and its
still higher achievement in the matter of craftsmanship. One impression
remains very clearly, that there were two distinct classes of
exhibitors, the professional binder, so to speak, and the artist intent
on producing decorative material for bindings. The first looks at a book
as a thing to bind and handle, and is restrained in his methods by the
use and purpose to which it is to be put. The second considers it as a
surface to decorate, by means of painting or the aid of any other of the
arts. The modelled work of Lepère, above alluded to, is an instance of
this; so also is that of Mdme. Vallgren, which likewise consist of
panels that are let into bindings prepared for that purpose by Marius
and others. Admirable in their way, they would be equally effective as
decorative objects framed upon a wall, and can but be considered a
fantasy in connexion with books. Bibliomania in France is responsible
for much that is disastrously eccentric and decadent. It is a form of
vanity in which collectors vie with each other, and involves an
expenditure not only on books but on bindings that would now seem to
have reached the limit of extravagance. But such eccentricity is less
than it was, and need no longer fill the eye to the exclusion of what is
really finely conceived as well as exquisitely executed. If Paris still
produces too many bindings of the bizarre and overdecorated kind, we can
still go to her for the masterpieces of simplicity and for flawlessness
of material faultlessly treated. Some day even the best binders may
cease to support _l’art nouveau_ by the force of their skill and energy,
but will rather confine themselves, as in the past, to the simple
dignity that distinguished bindings in the best periods, and to the
accomplishment of that fine restraint which must always be the
high-water mark of bookbinding as a fine art.