TIPOMETRÍAS Tribute to the Spanish Language and the Art of the Book Artistic creation with movable wooden types Project

Sebastián GARCÍA-GARRIDO

Index Preface/Presentation Introduction. Western movable wooden types as cultural heritage Birth and evolution of movable wooden types The Western print From calligraphy to typography Typography and the art of the book The form of the letter Identity and geographical features from typographies Typography creators Picasso, Cubism and typography incorporation in painting creator Letters and types in Contemporary Art Typometry Project for the movable wooden types Milennial In the origin of the spiritual sentiment in art Free game between language signs and forms Constructivism and geometrical art inspiration Art and design in the Modern Movement origins Ibero-American Constructivism and geometrical Art Personal journey precedents The Hispanic language, from Alfonso X to the Renaissance Princes Overall Typometry Project Bibliographical Selection Bibliographical notes Apendix. Documentary references about his plastic creation work

Preface

We are already used to continuously perceive and attend to new creative incentives society and its artists produce, perhaps with greater abundance and speed than have ever been experienced before. Contemporary creators’ material resources and intellectual capabilities produce a stream of incentives that end up leading to the vast estuary the global world where our experiences elapse is. This fact can produce a saturation of messages and sensations that can hardly be read in its entirety and that could retract from these many manifestations.

It is because of this, that it is gratifying to find firmly constructed artistic projects, result of a continuous and extensive work, that surface throughout small but important concepts which, just as the tip of the iceberg, appear, announcing a greater impact. Travelling through this book contents I have been able to verify that we are faced with one of these circumstances. Sebastián García-Garrido, starting from primary elements such as wood, as the nature of all things reflection, the craft skill, with its utilitarian capacity to ease a man’s life, and the thinking used to reflect about everything that surrounds us, creates an original, rich and interesting way to contemplate his work.

The wooden type, an object we could qualify as industrial, ordinary, technical, instrumental or common, is established as axis of this process. The artist puts it this way:

“Regarding to the movable wooden type, this has lost the functionality for which it was created and deprived from that, it acquires by itself the possibility to be considered and looked at exclusively as an aesthetical element, either as a reflection of the letter performed, alone, or in a word related to a defined concept. In this sense referring to a concept or own name, the expressive possibilities of the work grow in the specific sense it transmits”.

And it does so in a lengthy and detailed process of work and research, in which the knowledge and experience of someone dedicated to intellectual work has been accumulated. His training allows him to explore the writing and printing cultural legacy in all their manifestations, as well as the remaining graphic arts. He elaborates a scientific reflection process throughout his work, thoroughly analysing every trajectory of the writing culture and its evolution, which allows him to establish a dialogue between the movable type historical notions, especially from wood, and the new aesthetical and conceptual meanings. Shapes that have been used to transmit messages are now messages on their own, in a knowledge deepening process.

In this way, he achieves his goal, the artistic creation. It is not usual for an author to make a detailed explanation of the steps that lead him to proceed in a certain way and with a particular material. In Sebastián García-Garrido’s case it is like that, which allows us to better understand the significance of his creations. Thus, the documental complement he presents, which we can see in this book that frames and summarises the artist’s work, is an added value to his works. We are then faced with a solid and justified work that allows us to think about our own culture.

José Bonifacio Bermejo Martín Municipal Print-Art of the Book Museum Director, Madrid

Introduction Western movable wooden types as cultural heritage

In order to exist, each person needs to give testimony of his daily life, To express his creative capacity and preserve the traits of his story. This is only achieved through cultural heritage1

This monograph is the result of a basic research project applied to the artistic creation of the works that have been made since 2011 and which have been named Tipometrías. It is first and foremost a conservation initiative of the artistic and cultural heritage, such as movable wooden types, through the dissemination of its knowledge and reality as a piece of special interest, and highlight their value by means of a previous study and their incorporation into works of artistic creation, as a tribute to the Spanish language and the Art of the Book, as body and soul of their origin. The referents of the study are, therefore, the birth and evolution of our language, from calligraphy and manuscripts codices to the development of printing, the first books printed in Spain, the beginning and evolution of the typography meant for literature and the great writings published in our country. On the other hand, we will resume the appearance and development of the text in works of art, from cubism’s birth, and constructivism’s foundations and geometric art as means to enable that integration of typographical characters and plastic composition. Constructivism and geometric art with special mention to our Ibero-American and Spanish cultural heritage, respectively, without been muted in our case for what is done in other cultures, given that it is a very fruitful connection the mentioning of great names, like, Paul Klee, Max Bill, Bruno Munari, Piet Mondrian or Josef Albers.

The study moves quickly until the evolution of this system, through typography design and the traits that these pieces of our heritage keep in the nobility of the wood, ink residues and usage. From there we jump to the reinvention of the press in the renaissance Europe, in which context the necessary data are collected and connected to help build the sequence about the creation and applications of movable types in Spain. In this sense, it amounts to build this evolution from our country, in a comparative study that includes the main international references, as a global reality that has scarcely been studied. Furthermore, it has been partially treated, and even hidden in some of the studies conducted in other latitudes, and underestimated in contemporary studies and forums at national level, apart from a few rare exceptions. However, this task would be too transcendent and complex so as to be resolved in this project, whose essential purpose is simply to provide a coherent and conceptual corpus, from a personal point of view able to absorb this referent in order to develop the necessary spirit to guide the artistic creation of works in which movable wooden types can express their own essential nature in our own language context and the reality of type design, the press and the art of the book, in general, in our nearest physical and emotional environment. Thus, fonts regain their most prominent roles as artistic creations from the open notion of the current works of art, and at the same time as art objects that have shaped the most outstanding creations within visual remembrance, advertising and the art of the book. The harmony in its layouts, its inner coherence to compose alphabets, lines of text, pages, etc. The variety of fine woods in which they were created- given that they were made out of joinery remains of furniture-, the ink footprint in each of the characters, depending on how much use they had had, even some of them intact due to the fact that they are characters not often used in a language… All this substantially expresses the noble course of our cultural

1 Centro de Información de Naciones Unidas para México, Cuba y Rep. Dominicana (United Nations Information Centre for México, Cuba and Dominican Republic): http://www.cinu.org.mx/eventos/cultura2002/importa.htm (04.01.2011) prominent heritage. The course of movable wooden types in the West, and the text graphic element from handwritten calligraphy, in design and contributions to the art of the book, and graphic art in general, in the path of our country-from the beginning of paper manufacturing in Europe, in Córdoba, Toledo and Játiva during the XII century, and the printing of the first books in Spain, in Sevilla 1470, Segovia 1472 and Valencia 1473- will be the topic of this monography. Moreover, its aim is to preserve and to value such an exceptional heritage2. The study and dissemination strategy is complemented by a collection of artistic works, by the same authoring that the previous research, in which we use these types as an essential part, in the way the first Cubists used the collage of headlines and texts from that time. With this, it has been simultaneously studied the rich and lengthy tradition of geometric art in Spain, from the remarkable figures of Cubist pioneers and that, however, has had an unfair and succinct account, inside and outside our borders, even though Spanish and Ibero-American Constructivists are part of an endless list of values that, in times of need and liking to resume the essence of the Modern Movement and Neoplasticism, is necessary to study in order to maximise its value and recognition.

Yet, at the same time, typography has not been playing a simple formal and aesthetical role in relation to each period, but about content as well. Consequently, language, is not just the communication of ideas but also with literary wealth and record, in addition to the cultural element and the diversity of places and towns that have been using it, is a reason of praise and pride that has not been fairly appreciated in a country that traditionally has not valued its own identity, or many other elements of its vast tangible and intangible heritage, perhaps because of being endless and obvious among the main nations in the world. Thus, this commemoration and highlight project, of such prominent pieces of our art and culture, is featured with the classic shape of a tribute, reminiscing over centuries the recognition and sponsorship of different nature, in the beginning of so many books…It is introduced with this concept one of the first conferences held at the Museum of Grabrado Español Contemporáneo (1995), when the architect of the collection and the developer in Marbella3 were still present, and the project was still full of illusion and prestige: Elogio del grabado, el arte y la técnica (Tribute of the engraving, the art and the technique). A specific topic with which this project linked in the trajectory of the museum, which announced the exhibition of its progress for the summer of 2012, following this privileged precedent of its beginning, by the authorship of Juan Carrete Parrondo, as Director of National Chalcography.

The artwork body and study are, at the same time, a progress in the commemoration of the thousandth anniversary of the movable types creation in China, in the first decades of the year one thousand of our era. A contribution, among others expected from a country and a culture that has had a significant role in the West, in this area4. Also a required advance, because

2 Initiative presented in: García-Garrido, Sebastián, “Proyecto de preservación y puesta en valor de los tipos móviles de madera: Tipometrías (Safeguarding and highlight of the movable wooden types value: Typometry) 3 José Luis Morales y Marín, y José Manuel Vallés, respectively. 4 Bi Sheng (1023-1063), also known as Pi Sheng, a craftsman and staff member of the China emperor, is generally considered as the printing system creator, and the date of creation would be, according with the referents existing at the moment of such difficult fact to specify given its own origin, around 1045 (1041-1048). According to authorized sources: Jurado, A. La imprenta, origen y evolución (Printing Press, Origin and Evolution), volume I, Capta, Torrejón de Ardoz 1988, p71; Needham J. The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 14; y MEGGS, PH.B./PURVIS, A.W. History of Graphic Design, RM Verlag, México D.F. 2009, p. 40. approximately 25 years after movable wooden types ceased to be in use, and other 25 years till reaching exactly the thousand years of their creation will be enough for these interesting pieces of our culture to disappear. Another aspect that requires to initiate their full consideration as artistic and cultural heritage is the relay of the analogical generation, that has studied and has worked in physical contact with these technical procedures and that in 25 years will be removed from the possibility of beginning any own research performed by wooden movable types active life’s last witnesses and their traditional procedure.

As own initiative in view of this fact, and intending to show and maximise the value of these pieces, it was considered to integrate them in works of art, such as a collage. Aesthetically composed, or even composing words or expressions belonging to the subject of the set, they are the centre of a general constructivist composition, of lines and geometric characters, of alleged ‘text’, in different sizes, lengths and colours. Instead, fonts would act as block of illustration (artwork), that is, exchanging their role in order to give it greater significance and reputation.

It is noteworthy the fondness of artists like Rembrandt, Picasso, Sorolla, Matisse, etc. in collecting works of art and any other kind of related object, which they rescued from tradition and other cultures, and which influenced not only their ideas and aesthetical course but also their work, these pieces have not been common to find inside their own work. In our project, this fact is justified by the idea, already established by Leon Battista Alberti in his treaty On Painting, when he defines beauty and ornament:

It is a generally accepted opinion that the impression of grace and amenity results exclusively from beauty and ornament. […] who if not these could protect art from men’s offences, at easing men’s insults? Thus beauty gets enemies to defuse their anger and allow it to stay intact; for what I will dare say: nothing more than forms with dignity and charm can preserve a work unharmed from the insults of men5.

If these pieces from the richest tradition of printing are included as a part of an art work, which is also intended to highlight its aesthetical values and to contribute to improve its presentation and its expressive capacity, we can assure that they will endure through time and in their future consideration, regardless of the importance and authoring of the resulting work of art.

In relation to Alberti’s quote, in which ornament is considered a common complement of beauty, it is interesting to our goals to collect the definition in such farsighted time of transition between the ancient world and our era.

But, what is beauty and ornament, and what are the differences between them, perhaps we can sense it more easily in our inner self than what I can express with words. […] beauty is a certain amount of harmony among all the parts that compose it, in a way that nothing can be added, taken or changed, without making it more condemnable. […] if they had had ornaments, that is to say, with the use of inks, hiding the parts that emphasized its deformities, and highlighting the most beautiful parts, it would have been achieved the effect of ones being less insulting and others more delectable. If this example is convincing, then ornament can be described as a subsidiary shine or as a complement of

In addition to text printing with movable ceramic types, text printing with copper casted characters dates from 1403, in Korea. MERKLI, W.E. “Landmarks in Printing. From Movable Type to the Microship”, in El Correo de la Unesco, num. 09, Paris July 1988, p. 5. 5 ALBERTI, L. B. On Painting and other Works about Art (introduction, translation and notes by R. de la Villa), Tecnos, Madrid 1999, pp. 159-160.

beauty. […] while beauty is something inherent and innate that inspires the whole body, which is beautiful, ornament seems an additional attribute, added to nature rather than inherent6.

In our case, the artistic discourse reasoning of the work is organized around the font as the main element and primary focus of attention, around which the overall composition revolves. A figurative artistic path, despite being developed in the field of science and technology, of admiration for geometry and structure, and increasingly for the bionics base in product or system design, in an academic activity in this field, will unavoidably end in a complex and coherent project in this regard.

The typographic pieces found, that result from a creativity activity and a commendable cultural dissemination, are the engine of a work in which the materials, not only the wood but also every written or printed character, the own “señal y figura mágica7” as the DRAE8 defines the term “carácter9” in one of its meanings, allow the creation of a free and characteristic semantic, as Picasso would describe it in a quote shown below. This way, fonts are the centre in the hierarchical organization of the compositional space of these new works destined to highlight and maximise the value of the typographic pieces and, at the same time, be an armour that will protect them of a potential disregard, in view of their lack of usefulness, and resulting in their destruction. There exists, on this consideration of the sign or magical figure, numerous examples inside the historical tradition like the Ave Maria anagram, carved on the lintel of the houses front doors and which had the purpose to protect the home and its inhabitants.

Even more transcendental and according to this second stage of the project, there exists in the DRAE another meaning for carácter: “Spiritual sign that stays in a person as result of knowledge or a significant experience…” This point is developed through the second aim of the first stage of this project and, as María Luisa López Vidriero, from the Biblioteca Real de Palacio expressed10: “The only true poet is the one that forces himself to rearrange tradition”11.

In connection with the nature of the interest in rescuing wooden types, in the study of their history and the uses given to them, and, finally, the inspiration to create artworks with them has full justification, in the foreseeable fate of their affiliation in an activity related to wood and specifically to the joinery remains. Before the age of one, I played with them underneath the bench where my father, or one of his workshop colleagues worked, at the workshop that was in our house in Infantes Street in Ronda; later on I kept playing, already using the hand tools of such activity, in order to build thumbnail cities or houses to play in. In this regard, this project connects with the earliest experiences, as a child of an acknowledged cabinetmaker and carver, Francisco García Villalba-national prize for trade skill-.

In this research approach, prior to the project creation, it has been collected the historical data needed to compose a track record from the grounds that generated movable wooden types till the reasons that made them appealing and useful solely as classical mould of the most

6 Ibid, pp. 160-161. 7 Sign and magical form. 8 DRAE =RAE. Diccionario de la Real Academia Española. In Spanish we can use either RAE or DRAE. 9 Character. 10 López-Vidriero, M. L. “El libro y sus sombre: los límites de lo previsible (The Book and its Shadow: the Limits of the Foreseeable)”, in Paper Museums (lecture in the Book, Paper and Printing museums International Congress in 2012), National Library, Madrid s.e. 11 García-Garrido, S. “Elogio a la Lengua y Artes del Libro a través de los tipos móviles de madera (Tribute to the Language and the Art of the Book throughout movable wooden types)”, Ibid. authentic traits of typography as cultural knowledge of our society, used to stamp contemporary art works. The interesting reference to the cause that motivated types origin adds to the fact that their practical applications have already disappeared to acquire, for that very reason, an exclusively aesthetical value in their own materiality. However, this contrasting artistic value is even more enriched as the patrimonial heritage they have acquired over the last thousand years, dedicated to print the culture of the last millennium culture.

In the evolution study of movable wooden types we will see the unique and aesthetical affinity and their application in outstanding works, not only in size and small print run but also in their own appealing functionality, from the their proper beginnings, and that same aesthetical nature has been the reason to develop this artistic creation project.

Movable wooden types, object of creative applications, have been used over the last few centuries, in typographic printing and especially in posters and works of unique characteristics, ought to the significant sizes of the characters rescued from printings, antique shops and collectors from Great Britain, Germany, Italy, United States and some others from France, in addition to Spain12. This recovery of master pieces, of the most refined and valuable tradition of typographic stamp, has been the work of study and collecting over the past decade and which belongs to different centuries, typologies and aesthetics, from the invention of printing in the 15th century.

But, in this circumstance, the motivation needed to initiate the project arises as a result of the recent Intangible Cultural Heritage statement about wooden movable types (Nairobi, 16-19 November 2010), from which we had a special echo thanks to the statement of Flamenco as new heritage regarded listing of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Then, the mass media made reference to “movable wooden types” among other referents listed with this distinction, which resulted in a special gratification due to the course of collecting prominent pieces of this field and their indisputable artistic and cultural standards, as well as the great need to preserve them before they disappear after so many decades have passed since their use declined. Nevertheless, in doubt, because of the news that put them as intangible heritage, being obviously physical pieces, the UNESCO web was consulted and it was noticed that what they were trying to preserve was a custom from an area of China, in which movable wooden types were still used to elaborate genealogy books for the families in that community13. We inquired into it, and

12 Most of the types that were being used in Spain disappeared, already in the Civil War, when we have records of different testimonies from contemporary eyewitnesses, saying that they were used as lumber to bonfires. A circumstance that unfortunately comes not only from the own hardships of the war we suffered, but also from the own idiosyncrasy of a country that traditionally has not valued either its past or its great historic-artistic heritage, from which, nonetheless, we have so much left. García-Garrido, S. Ibid. 13 Wooden movable-type printing of China. One of the world’s oldest printing techniques, wooden movable-type printing is maintained in Rui’an County, Zhejiang Province, where it is used in compiling and printing clan genealogies. Men are trained to draw and engrave Chinese characters, which are then set into a type-page and printed. This requires abundant historical knowledge and mastery of ancient Chinese grammar. Women then undertake the work of paper cutting and binding, until the printed genealogies are finished. The movable characters can be used time and again after the type-page is dismantled. Throughout the year, craftspeople carry sets of wooden characters and printing equipment to ancestral halls in local communities. There, they compile and print the clan genealogy by hand. A ceremony marks the completion of the genealogy, and the printers place it into a locked box to be preserved. The techniques of wooden movable-type printing are transmitted through families by rote and word of mouth. However, the intensive training required, the low income generated, popularization of computer printing technology and diminishing enthusiasm for compiling genealogies have all contributed to a rapid decrease in the number of craftspeople. At located detailed photographs of this activity as well as of the kinds and procedures used. Finally, we even got a set of these Chinese movable types, which will be integrated in a work related to the movable types birth and, meanwhile, they will be displayed in exhibitions of the project developments.

Movable wooden types still used in China to compose family genealogies in Rui’an, activity catalogued by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in 2010. Unesco UNESCO © Culture Ministry 2009

present, only eleven people over 50 years of age remain who have mastered the whole set of techniques. If not safeguarded, this traditional practice will soon disappear. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single- view/news/four_cultural_elements_from_china_and_croatia_in_need_of_urgent_safeguarding_unesco_committe e_decides/ (04.01.2011)

Current genealogies made with movable wooden types. UNESCO © Culture Ministry 2009

Some of the few specialists dedicated to movable wooden types composition in China. UNESCO © Culture Ministry 2009

Spaces dedicated by authorities to the composing, printing and binding activity of certain traditional genealogies. UNESCO © Culture Ministry 2009

In light of the zeal of the Chinese cultural authorities to preserve their heritage and traditions, it was obvious the oblivion of a heritage valued by those who had access to Latin movable wooden types, which in a few years will be difficult to be enjoyed by society, because they will have been scattered and will eventually have disappeared if they do not obtain a special consideration. Except for some small samples, sometimes not even alphabets nor atlas or full printing sets that exist in museums related to stamping and printing, as the new Museo de la Imprenta Municipal-Artes del Libro of Madrid (Art of the Book-Municipal Printing Museum), the one from the National Library, The Basel Paper Mill Museum, the recent Lithographic Museum on the proper walls of Cadiz, the Museum of Characters and Typography in the Veneto area, the Bodoni Museum of Parma, the Plantin-Moretus Museum in the former Plantin Press establishment of Antwerp, or the National Museum of Print in Port. Instead, we had the fortune to keep as a museum the last factory of wooden types in the United States, the Hamilton Manufacturing Co., which will be referenced in the next chapter.

Creation and evolution of movable wooden types

This previous study, or the first phase of the project, is dedicated to the evolution of movable wooden types from their creation in China almost a thousand years ago, and that have been used since then until they became obsolete at the end of the millennium. The chronicles about those first moments, when independent pieces were manufactured with their own ideograms of that language, agree on wood as the material used to do so, even though clay and wood ones were soon replaced by porcelain pieces, easily reproduced and with greater hardness, as well as different metals that were subsequently made. If Bi Sheng, in the 11th century, is credited with the first movable types made in clay, wood appears in movable types made by Wang Zheng, in the 13th century (1221), meanwhile in this same century there are reports that other metals were used in Korea to the same end14.

If well into the year 1000 of our time the movable types print system was created, in China, the thousand signs, consisting in ideograms, that were needed to write in their language, made this process impossible to widespread. That huge amount of signs necessary to compose the different texts made the work easier by carving complete pages15.

Set of movable wooden types acquired in China, corresponding with the original types created a thousand years ago, thanks to been kept in the present custom stated as Intangible Cultural Heritage. Some of the pieces can be seen in their original state, little used, on the contrary, others are worn and damaged by the inadequate ink cleaning once they have been used. Colec. SGG.

As it is seen in the images, typographic signs were drawn with ink, with a brush and on wooden pieces already cut that acted as square modular grid in which the spelling of each character was written. The usual height of the movable block was 16mm, an approximate wooden cube when the square of available space in this block or grid, in which the carving was made, was of the same size. It was like this in most parts, although it could be up to 12mm in the pieces shown in the previous image. Later they were carved with a knife or gouge used, already at that time, in the carving and woodcutting.

14 DÍEZ-BORQUE, J. M. El libro de la tradición oral a la cultura impresa, Montesinos, Barcelona 1985, p. 65. 15 “The way the Chinese have of printing is to form their letters, or better said signs or hieroglyphics, in well-burnished wood planks; all of it necessarily with the same measurement of the book to be made, and if this has to have twenty useful pages, they have to open or sculpt forty planks, so each one serves as side or surface, and nothing more; due to the fact that they only stamp in a single side, and leave the other blank. Once this book is concluded, those planks cannot be used for a different book, but they can be use to reprint it every time they want (1). This is why they say they have their houses full of printing planks, as it should be”. Méndez, F. Tipographia española, o Historia del arte de la imprenta en España (Spanish Typographia, or The Printing Art History in Spain), Escuelas Pías Printing, Madrid 1861, p. 12.

Movable wooden types drawing in China. UNESCO © Culture Ministry 2009

Movable wooden types carving in China. UNESCO © Culture Ministry 2009

Movable wooden types stamping in China, overlapping the paper on the setting box and pressing with a vegetable fibre brush. UNESCO © Culture Ministry 2009

However, when around 1450 Johannes Gutenberg is credited with the reinvention of the movable types printing in Mainz, this technique acquires a significant growth given the limited set of letters and signs in the languages of this geographical environment16, which, once the process is consolidated, allows a very important development in the design and layout of their characters, which this collection is proof of. The substantial difference between original types and those created by Gutenberg was in the width and vertical proportions, with lines that also vertically protrude from the base line and the x line of writing, as well as in the different blank spaces between letters, while Chinese ideograms were composed in square pieces of approximately standard dimensions and without a defined space between them. Calculating upper case and lower case letters, specific symbols, numbers and punctuation marks, in addition to the repetition of repeated pieces that can be required to compose in a certain language, it is necessary to make or to have simply 150 characters available. Once the procedure is consolidated, whose reinvention also brought the creation of pieces with precise orthogonality which facilitates a proper fit to enhance the good appearance of the page, since the original ideograms allowed a bigger and more uneven space in extension than the space

16 M.A. Quaknin, as a prominent specialist, claims, in his work Les mystères de l’alphabet (1979), that “the alphabet we know today in our Western Languages comes from the proto-sinaitic script, whose birth dates back to 3.500 years before. It was discovered by F.W.M. Petrie in 1905 and dates from the XIV-XV before the Christian era. It is a small sandstone sphinx discovered in the Hatkor temple, in the highlands of Serabit-el-Khadem on the Sinai Peninsula where turquoise mines are, the place where Petrie discovered this writing”. Quoted in Costa, J/Raposo, D. La rebelión de los signos y el alma de la letra (The Sign Rebellion and the soul of the letter), La Crujía, Buenos Aires 2088, p. 62. required by the different letters needed to compose a single word. Eventually, this small set of characters allowed a significant development of their design and layout, from which it is testimony the collection of fonts presented in the artworks made in the project.

The last manufacturers ceased to exist or to pursue this activity during the 1990s. However, today they remain as material to be used in artistic creation, to print works made by creators and lovers of this procedure and these wooden characters that manage to awake an intense aesthetical feeling by themselves. The imperfect appearance of its printing, when the inking process foresees it in typographical surfaces stamped in an irregular manner, have added an interesting value in contrast to the prevailing perfection creation and digital printing. In many cases, they have continued, although as incomplete alphabets, and their diversity of sizes and styles, also increased by the use of different colours, generates an appealing possibility to compose them under an aesthetic that has allowed post-modernity to continue living even though its end would be confirmed in this very decade.

Core element from which the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) tribute is projected, in this tribute to the Spanish language. Colec. SGG

In the last centuries, the use of typographical printing has been limited to a few copies, signs and advertisements, and especially in posters and works of extraordinary features.

Their significant size in connection with the possibilities of the metals used to reproduce characters of small proportions is the reason why they were early relegated even in the dawn of the printing press in Mainz. In addition to the illustrations, that centuries before, had already been carved in wood and inserted in texts, movable wooden types were kept in use in decorative capital letters. Yet, it will be precisely their size that excluded them to be used in texts for books, the very reason why they have been used and manufactured for until very recently. Relatively big metal surfaces permitted irregularities produced by the variation of temperature with which the metal was cooled down in the different areas during the casting process to be seen, and only wooden types allowed even surfaces in typographical characters of the size required for advertising, posters, etc. A notorious typographical designer and at the same time an excellent researcher of the printing press evolution, makes the following statement, perfectly referenced:

Neither in the documents about early printing nor in the own printed papers it has been found any news related to the technique that allows to refuse the use of hallmarks, matrixes and moulds from the very first moments. There are authorized opinions that assert otherwise. In the 18th century these were those who claimed that the most primitive types were carved in wood. John Elliot Hodgkin17 made careful experiments in order to test if such hypothesis was possible, and his report refers to the first trials, Johannes Enschedé18, from Haarlem, in the year 1765, refused to print Origines typographicae by Gerard Meerman because the author claimed that the oldest types were made from wood19.

Wooden characters do not only reproduce designs that are also casted in metal. Especially in the first centuries, there are many artists that create fonts of their own, due to the affordable price of the direct carving process versus the chiselled process, which requires the implementation of moulds and subsequent cast.

In Spain, a series of critical factors converge in a short period of time. In 2011 it was the 250th anniversary of the creation of the Royal Printing (Royal Edict, 19th June 1761) by Charles III, essential link in the sequence of remarkable events to our culture and international competitiveness as they were the basis in the development of a self-identity as a country, already independent from the vast consideration along the former European possessions under the House of Austria (House of Habsburg). In the same R.E.20 it was approved the link between the Royal Printing and the National Library, with the purpose to create a reputation and strength from the symbiosis of both of them. The first king of the House of Bourbon, Phillip V, starts the essential structural reforms for this identity and for the protectionism of our interests as a nation; with regard to this study, he creates the National Library (founded on 29th December, 1711, and opened to the public on 1st March, 1712) that has just turned 300 years old. His firstborn son, Ferdinand VI, acknowledged patron of the arts and the sciences, continues these reforms and provides a fundamental encouragement to the artistic professions shown in the creation of the Royal Fine Arts Academy of San Fernando in Madrid (1752).

The Royal Printing, known precedent for the National Chalcography, transforms itself at a time in which book production did not require Royal ward, and is essentially focused on the production of currency paper, timbres and postage stamps in addition to official forms. The National Chalcography maintains, however, the connection between the Royal Printing and the Royal Fine Arts Academy in relation to the education of professionals specialised in tasks of research, creation and production. The Academy is responsible for ensuring the development, dissemination and promotion of the different techniques of engraving, in which stood out artists like the engravers and typography designers Jerónimo Gil (Zamora 1732- México 1798) and Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros (Murcia 1732-Madrid 1812) both trained along the master Tomás Francisco Prieto (Salamanca 1716-Madrid 1782), the first engraving director this Academy ever had.

Characters from different typographies that show the wood diversity, the patina that informs about the uses they have added to printing and the appealing rotundity of their carved lines. Colec. SGG.

In the historical record and the succession of styles, applications and specific creations of new typographical designs, most of the time the most studied in this first phase of the historical data recollection, in a few occasions it has been featured by scholars and researchers of our culture, whether it been Spanish or Hispanic regarding the link between typography and language and even the affinity existing with the new communities of America, whose first

17 Rariora, II [1902] pp. 39-46. 18 ENSCHEDÉ, Ch. Fonderies de caracteres et leur matériel dans les Pay-Bas du XVe au XIXe siècle, Haarlem, 1908, p. 2. 19 Carter, H.G. A View of Early Typography: up to about 1600, Ollero&Ramos, Madrid, 1999, p.40. 20 R.E stands for Royal Edict. universities, printing presses and Fine Arts academies entrusted to educate their own professionals were the result of Spanish creation, and contemporary of many other important universities in Europe. This special consideration to the conquered territories has always been, unlike other nations, a distinctive feature of our culture. A feeling of equality and special zeal to develop a process in the new lands that in most of the occasions resulted into the oblivion of the own territory of origin. We have the clearest example of this in the relocation of Jerónimo A. Gil in Mexico, the best engraver and type designer we had in Spain, leaving unfinished his valuable role to provide the Royal Printing with models of their own, and that in his new destination creates the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos in New Spain (1783), following the pattern of the Academy of San Fernando, to educate all types of professional artists, and specifically engravers and type designers to provision for the book industry. His letter to the king asking to create a Royal Print in Mexico, which would have contributed to the development of the remaining prints in this side of the Atlantic Ocean, received no reply. His prominent calling as a professor, which overcame his own consideration as an excellent artist in the creation of fonts to the point that his work was taken into small consideration, both in Spain and Mexico, is due to the fact that he was the first to recue this craft after more than a century buying fonts to foreign foundries, and together with Antonio Espinosa, the first two scholars of San Fernando to teach and spread this fine art. It goes without saying that in Mexico his endless contributions were even less considered, relegated to oblivion and highlighting shallow traits as his alleged ‘bad temper’21. A disregard as a result of not only the Spanish idiosyncrasy heritage but also, specially of the foreign propaganda, which effectively delegitimized and soiled the role that Spain was performing in America, until achieving their independence just to fall in the hands of countries clearly little worried about culture or native population of the conquered or intended territories, at least in their political and commercial dependency.

Therefore, that lack of studies in the technical element, procedures and language of its artistic creation, as well as the acknowledgement of its authors and sponsors, above the necessary but aseptic data recollection, it is a role we must begin as soon as possible. A mission necessary not only in order to get to know and highlight the value of such an undoubted and rich patrimony but also as a contribution to the development and empowerment of our cultural identity and the possibility to make progress in the design, artistic creation and price of our patrimony, within and outside our borders, through a system that is coherent with our roots, aesthetic singularity and personality as a nation. However, there have been several contributions such as the work of encouragement, and the academic-scientific and professional development of the typography congress held every two years in Valencia, Raquel Pelta’s y Paco Bascuñán’s initiative, the personal work of well-known teachers- researchers-professionals as is the case of José María Ribagorda in Madrid, or the creation and maintenance of the dissemination, promotion and contact in the network, as it is the website www.unostiposduros.com, a qualified open group whose soul is in its founders, two specialists as José Ramón Penela y Josep Patau. Even in the historical field, although with the particularity of a contemporary vision from Art History, an excellent professional researcher in this field as Albert Corberto López has been consolidated in these last few years. The works and results originated from these initiatives open a path that, fortunately, is thrilling to all those who are connoisseurs of their content.

Albert Corbeto himself expresses the inconsistency of the little attention and consideration in foreign studies of such an interesting patrimony, in one of his first works: “In a way it is surprising that the contributions to the study of the magnificent works produced during the

21 Fernández Hernández, S. “Una tipografía ignorada: el ‘Gilismo’ de Jéronimo Antonio Gil en la Nueva España” (An Overlooked Typography: the ‘Gilismo’of Jerónimo Antonio Gil in the New Spain), Act 2 Typography Congress, Valencia 2066, p. 74. second half of the 18th century by Spanish hallmark engravers are yet so rare. Our hallmarker’s activity should be valued for its decisive role in the proper functioning of the relaunched Spanish printing, as well as its pioneering attitude in a successful performing of an industry without any tradition in the country, as long as we refer to the design and manufacturing of types. The vast quantity and, without doubt, the brilliant Spanish typographic production of that time continues to be practically ignored by foreign bibliographical traditions and, in fact, it doesn’t seem to have awaken any particular interest among the Spanish book historians”22 The same exclusion exists in the cast and books about Design History from any time, in light of the Spanish production, that it is, obviously, on the same level as the most regarded in any field, although its representatives are more the product of perseverance and personal genius than the result of an educational system as well as a business and institutional consideration of this competitive discipline that has not reached the support it deserves, since its promotion in the last quarter of the 18th century.

It is obvious that these studies and considerations of our patrimony must start with the own Spanish researchers and designers, since, also in this area, not only did they silenced but sometimes also denied an evident and admired development in the typographical creation in 18th century’s last few years, from a country such as France where all the relevant international achievements and the bright reality that flourish everywhere are considered negatively. It is much more irritable for them, to take into account that our natural creativity gets to overlap the political apathy lived in so many occasions, combined with the lack of self- esteem as a nation. In those moments when we finally got to recover our foreign types dependence, and when Pradel, Gil and Espinosa have been creating fonts for over a decade, it was specially painful that in the Pierre S. Fournier’s Manuel Typographique (Paris 1764-1766), which, at the time, was the international referent, it was stated that in our country “there were not font engravers”23. More even so when they perfectly knew about the progress in our printing, and his suspicion, and the fact that it was our master printer Joaquín Ibarra who anticipated the professional activity rationalization in the international field whose book would reproduce in so many facets24. This way, Fournier hides and appropriates the preceding achievement in order to show himself as its promoter together with Fránçois-Ambroise Didot. In the same way, Ibarra gets ahead of them, considered however, as the creators of the point and the didot respectively: “when it did not exist yet a unit of measurement for the composition of pages, Ibarra took its width dimensions on ems justas de parangona, that corresponded with the modern 18”25. Anyway, the printing global activity is not the centre of this research.

But, it is because of this, that this tribute initiative through the project of artistic creation would be unsubstantial without the present introductory study; what is more, it will be a

22 Corberto López, A. “Caligrafía y tipografía en España durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII. Características de la letra bastarda en los caracteres de Jerónimo Gil (Typography and calligraphy in Spain during the second half of the XVIII century. Features of the bastard letter in the characters of Jerónimo Gil), in Act 2 Typography Congress, Valencia 2006, pp. 54-59. 23 Villena, E. “El grabado de punzones para la fundición de caracteres de imprenta en el siglo XVIII” (Hallmark Engraving for printing characters casting in the XVIII century) in Ribagorda, J.M. (coord.), Royal Printing. Spanish typography fonts, Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Ministry, Madrid 2009, p.61. 24 “It was in his workshop where he thought of regularly write the technical observations and upgrade them to guidelines, which in 1811 resulted in the first Spanish typography manual publishing, named Mecanismo del Arte de la Imprenta (Printing Art Mechanism), written by the regent of the Kingdom Printers and Librarians Company, mister José Sigüenza, disciple of Ibarra”. http://www.unostiposduros.com/grandes-maestros-de-la-tipografia-joaquin-ibarra-y-marin/ (03.04.2012) 25 Ibid. trivial matter corresponding the authoring of this work to a member of our academic- scientific University system. Here, we study design, with all its constraints, in order to create fonts or types, and that is necessary to specify that, in any case, it is not about the so referred ‘fonts’. This term is a start error. Its use has been spreading during the digital technology period of validity applied to design and to the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon dominance that, in this sense, has been achieved with the consequent prevalence of the English language. The identification of the most used movable types, product of their manufacturing in metal casting, with the English term font, which at the same time refers both to foundry and fountain, is obvious that it has nothing to do with this last meaning.

In the study that is presented to its knowledge, comprehension, dissemination and acknowledgement, and to highlight the value of professional tradition and the works of our cultural legacy in the field of typographical creation, we are not only obliged to reflect a global evolution but specially to recover the chapters of our own Spanish tradition in this field. Nonetheless, always taking into account this international vision, as it has been usual in our open concept of culture, inherited from all the classic Mediterranean peoples. Open cultures that have been shaping our own idiosyncrasy, so useful in a global reality in which it is necessary to stop the uniformity that interests dominant multinational agents in order to preserve the local differences before they are destroyed and forgotten from a multinational legacy, still rich.

A figure of special consideration in the role that represents in our own type design field, from the highest quality not only according to our expensive dependency of foreign types, but also to rescue and to adapt our excellent and thoughtful tradition in the calligraphic design creation to the needs of the modern print is that of Charles III. He was far beyond his role of simple promoter and generator of structural changes needed in the country in order to be at the same level as the most advanced nations of the time. Even so he was called the ‘the printer king’ because from an early age he learnt the arts of printing, from the professor he had on this matter in his childhood. But even more important in this field was the term, officially created by Charles III –through a Royal Charter- diseño (design), so that our products could be highly competitive in the most priced foreign markets, and to equip of well-qualified workforce our young industry and the Royal Factories. The word diseño is described, in the ministerial order of the first Free School of Design (1775), as a variation of the existing term dibujo (drawing) and recurring to the Italian referent of its origin. Instead, as it was expected from what has been stated here, it is internationally considered the beginning of this activity and the global referent of its origin in London with the same concept under the term design, almost fifty years later, and without documentation to prove it until some time later.

The definition of this new concept, at the same time as a professional speciality instituted through that same functional document was: “the adequacy of drawing to the requirements of mechanical and serial production, without neglecting good taste and creative spirit”26. However, in the same official documentation referring to the instructions given to the master engraver of the Royal Academy of San Fernando, among the knowledge that he had to provide his students with, was the word diseño without the need to explain what, at that time in the year 1754, was already understood in our country as: “etching practice, use and handling of burins, hallmarks and more instruments needed to open seals, form stamps to empty coins and medals (…) the way and the qualities with which these instruments are made, not only making them witness and watch the material and procedure, but also giving them with clarity and method the news and warnings that could enlighten them, thus in this difficult and delicate manoeuvres, as well as in the knowledge of perspective, drawing and

26 Ruíz Ortega, M. La Escuela gratuita de diseño de Barcelona (Barcelona’s Free School of Design) 1775- 1808, Catalonia Library, Barcelona 1999. more abilities (…) to increasingly perfect themselves in design, so as to study the geometry27”.

Accordingly with this prelude, the rotundity of the design of typographies in fine woods and the patina of inks of its regular use, we are sure, will awake the sensitivity and admiration of engravers, artists and lovers of art in general, that will understand the reason for this tribute.

In the introduction it was referenced that, among the small collection of wooden movable types samples that have been preserved from disappearance, apart from the isolated pieces existing in almost every museum related to print, it had been a huge achievement to have kept the patrimony of the last big factory in the production of these types. The Hamilton Manufacturing Co. is created by James Edward Hamilton in 1880, surprisingly to coincide with what is considered the start of advertising, for whose bearings and applications wooden types were used. This preservation of such an interesting patrimony has taken the form of The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum, which happily maintained the same construction built for the renewal of the initial factory (1927) in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. A wide sample of more than a thousand models manufactured between 1880 and 1990, are displayed there, supplemented by an interesting activity program. To name but a few, the possibility to see a demonstration of how they were manufactured, to participate in printing workshops with original types, and to admire a huge collection of signs and posters made between 1930 and 197028.

Seat of The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum, in Wisconsin. © Minnesota Prairie Roots

27 Hermosilla, I. (Secretary of the Academy), “Instrucción para el maestro grabador Tomás Francisco Prieto. Y régimen para sus discípulos” (Instructions for the master engraver Tomás Francisco Prieto. And rules for his disciples), Royal Academy of San Fernando archive, Madrid 1754, leg.49-3/I. Gathered by Villena, E. op. cit. P. 63. 28 Some of these references and an interesting exhibition about this Museum can be seen in the famous documentary film Typaface, 63 min. colour, in English: http://kartemquin.com/films/typeface/

In a context fully conquered by digital technology, it is especially gratifying to find this place, where the painting traditional procedures, the pasted papers, the different types of wood pieces overlapping or the stroke brushes have left, continue to enjoy the same allure they did before. Extraordinary as it is, and regarded as a piece of art, the fact of using wooden types again, which are devoted to a new task. Regardless of its functionality, their introduction in works of artistic consideration will provide them the opportunity to be preserved in a new condition that in the future will allow them to be directly watched and admired in order to touch the observer in their materiality and the traces of their former use. Furthermore, this is also the spirit that moves the growing contemporary tendency of using objects, pieces and materials that have ceased to be useful, so as to reuse them as valuable elements thanks to their emotional and semantic load in the newest art and design.

In a time when people can carry computers in their pockets and watch TV while walking down the street, Typeface dares to explore the twilight of an analog craft that is freshly inspiring artists in a digital age. The Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, WI personifies cultural preservation, rural re-birth and the lineage of American graphic design. At Hamilton, international artisans meet retired craftsmen and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique. But the Museum's days may be numbered. What is the responsibility of artists and historians to preserve a dying craft? How can rural towns survive in a shifting industrial marketplace where big-box retailers are king?29

Bucks to organise wooden types in The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. © Minnesota Prairie Roots

29 Ibid.

Entrance to the posters and machinery exhibition in The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. © Minnesota Prairie Roots The Western print

It took this movable type procedure almost five hundred years to reach the West, although its reinvention and application came to be unavoidable due to the growing incorporation of illustrations made by woodcutting print of stamps, manifestos and even booklets and books. However, there exist previous precedents with the invention of cards in Germany at the beginning of the 14th century, printed by means of carved planks; and even these precedents go back to the Roman era, in which the use of seals to stamp and the minting of coins technique were very similar techniques30.

30 “Cards, invented in Germany in the first years of the 14th century, and painted by brush, started to be printed, towards the end of the same century, using wood moulds. This is the men’s first step to the printing press discovery. Cards manufacturers exploited the mould printing discovery, also using it to stamp cardboards with saint images. They came to be very trendy. This might be considered as the second step. There were two kinds of image books: some with texts, and some without them, although in those without text, it was custom to engrave some words or sentences. The types were wooden made. Saint Christopher’s stamp, which is the oldest one of the first kind, and that is preserved in the Earl of Spencer’s cabinet, has at the bottom three short sentences, engraved and printed along the image, in 1423. (…) There is another work that has an artificial memory system, engraved with wooden moulds the same way The Biblia pauperum (Paupers’ Bible), and has the text separated from the illustrations, distributed in fifteen sheets for each one. The characters are very wide, but as Mr. Orne observes, the Speculum Salutis is undoubtedly the most perfect book among the old image books that precede the printing press invention. It is so due to both its design and its execution”. Méndez, F. op. cit. pp.71-73. However, in the same book by Francisco Méndez it is added a much older precedent:” Johann Daniel Schöepflin says, talking about the ancient writing, that Romans had typography in their hands, and that they only lacked to make movable and unlinked letters; since it is known they made stamps with raised lettering, in order to mark their vases or jewellery, and the same process to make coins, forming reversed letters in the stamp or matrix, so later they would appear right in the coins. This same thing can be said about Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Carthaginians, etc. It is a proven fact that Romans put letters in their clay vases, whose pottery in Sagunto was famous due to the land’s suitability for that kind of manufacturing, which Plinio mentions (Plinio, lib. XV. Cap. XII) and Marcial (Book XIV, num. 108)”. Ibid. 15-16.

Portrait of J. Gutenberg in a 16th century engraving

The city of Mainz is considered to be the birthplace of this technique, which is usually credited to Gutenberg, although there is no lack of other opinions and views between his initiative and his partners’ contributions. This new craft would be the one of printer and more precisely the one of typographer, also referred to the creator of types or hallmarks opener. The printer was in charge of composing the pages with movable types which brought the opportunity to reuse the types already used, and to edit a page or a book with lower cost and in less time that it would take to the carving or engraving of the pages in one piece and for a single use in that book. These three definitions will be especially enlightening of the terminology and referents of the printing press and its professionals.

1. The printing press can be defined as: an art of composing and arranging in dictions and lines the moulds or figures of all letters, and to stamp them in paper or in other susceptible material. 2. By printing press we mean, both the art itself and the craft or workroom where it is performed. In Latin it is typographia, from the voice typus, meaning form, figure or mould; and grapho, meaning writing. 3. The name of the printer, although taken from the last art operation, which is to print, with all that is common to its architects or officers, as well as the composers or typesetters, as the pressers or handlers. Printing needs all of the above mentioned, the study and skill of some of them and the care and strength of others. And due to the fact of cooperation with their government, industry or providence, the name of printers and typographers suit not only the office managers, but also the same owners31.

The fact that the print allowed the revision of the tests before them being stamped, and even though being a usually extended value, it would not be such because the pages of one piece could be perfectly corrected after its drawing and before they were engraved. Nonetheless, they had to be reviewed on the matrix drawing, without engraving and therefore, without the possibility to have a printed test in paper, it had to be read and drawn beforehand with the help of a mirror. As it was mentioned at the beginning of this section it was during all of the Gothic era, previously to the typographical procedure, that these type of books, stamps or pages from woodcutting planks with illustrations and texts were printed. But, it is precisely in these type of works, editing at great speed any kind of text or combination of previously carved illustrations, where Gutenberg, along with his partners Johannes Fust and Peter Schöfer, achieved the greatest commercial success. They promoted the base of printed advertising and newspapers, editing indulgences, calendars and other printed works that were quickly requested. Here, we include three of the considerations about the different printing presses that concur in this time, according to their performing procedures:

John Daniel Schoepflin differentiates three types or kinds of printing press. The first one is called Xylographia, that is the array of writing, or letters sculpted in a plank, with which a whole side of a page could be printed all at once (this is the Chinese printing) whose invention is credited to Laurens Coster, citizien of Haarlem in Holland. The second kind of printing was from the person who thought of unlinked letters, or detached ones; that which is appropriately named Typographia; and this kind of advance is due to John Gutenberg (…) “Gutenberg could well have taken the idea of unlinked letters from bell smelters (…) The way the ringers have of putting in the bells the same signs, is the same typesetters have to compose their moulds in printing press, with the only difference that the letters of the formers are from wax, and the latter from tin or other metal: and this could have been enough for Gutenberg to think of loosening the letters(…) the third kind of printing press, casted in metal the letters that before were from wood. This one is credited to Peter Schoiffer, from Mainz, and it was the last perfection of the art: but for me, whichever way you look at the invention of the printing press, it always comes to the Chinese Xylographia, which was the idea of everything that came after it32.

From the early days of this technique, wooden movable characters were used along with others made of metal. In Holland, Peter Scriverius is considered to be the inventor of the movable types printing, in this case metal types, and taking place in the city of Haarlem a decade before33.

Page of the 42-lines Bible, first book printed using movable types, Mainz between 1453 and 1455.

Laurens’ first typographic workroom. He is considered to be the first one in Holland (c. 1440) to assemble metal cast movable characters in order to mechanically reproduce a text. Copper engraving by Peter Scriverius, Haarlem 1628. A. Jurado.

31 Ibid p.2. 32 Ibid pp. 18-20. 33 Jurado, A. op. cit. p. 361. Shortly after the launching of what would be a lucrative business, Mainz is plundered and destroyed in 1462. The workers of these first printing workshops scattered throughout Europe, although not in a gradual and chronological way from their place of origin since there existed, already from the last few years of the Middle Ages, an advanced communication status in this part of the world. Thus, the first printings arise in Cologne (1464), Basel (1466), Rome (1467) or Venice (1469). In Spain, the first book printed with movable types, opposed to the popular belief that it was in Valencia in 1474, was the Sacramental by Sánchez Vercial that was edited in Sevilla in 1470. It appears so in the chronology El arte tipográfico en España durante el siglo XV34, from Francisco Vindel, Madrid 1945-1951, first basic and documental referent about this craft in our country, which has 8 volumes plus another one of general indixes and an appendix to volume I. More recently, Augusto Jurado, in his great work, in two volumes magnificently taken care of, and edited on the finest papers available, La Imprenta, Orígenes y Evolución35, collect the details of this fact36. The architects of this first Spanish book were the calligrapher Antonio Martínez associated with Alfonso del Puerto and Bartolomé Segura, who decided to try themselves the “manufacturing of printing types, which they did with wooden carved letters, of small size and unlinked ones, in order to be used as movable types in printing”. At that time, they had already been acquainted with this practical procedure through the copies that reached the port of Sevilla. No German typographer had brought the technique until 1490, when the first German establishment was dated37. According to the same source, they are followed by these three first printers, Johannes Parix of Heilderberg in Segovia (1472), Alfonso Fernández de Córdoba in Valencia (1474) and Matheus Flanders in Zaragoza (1475).

The city of Mainz in the 16th century in an engraving by Sebastian Muster

The progress in the printing technique of movable types does not change so much in terms of means and procedures from its origins to the 19th century. Then, substantial changes in the presses and, at the same time, in the wooden types manufacturing are incorporated. The first iron press was built by the English Earl of Stanhope circa 1800, even though it is still a vertical press, as we can see in an engraving of the time. Subsequently, the horizontal press would be adopted, with the corresponding rollers, not only to ink the composition block to be printed but also to apply the paper on it.

Old movable type press in the Municipal Printing Museum, Madrid. Photograph by SGG.

Albrecht Dürer draws like this, one of the first presses and the way it is operated after seeing his godfather Anton Koberger’s presses in his visit in 1511. A. Jurado.

34 The typographical art in Spain during the 15th century (author’s translation). 35 The Printing Press, Origins and Evolution (author’s translation). 36 In the first colophon they printed, following the incorporation of colophons and symbols in the ones coming from abroad, in the Sacramental and Repertorium edition, by Díaz de Montalvo, in his translation from the original Latin, said: “If you wish to know who the first printers Sevilla saw were, wise and experimented in their art, shown by their own genius, they were three men called Antonio Martínez, Alfonso del Puerto and Bartolomé Segura”. Ibid p, 346. 37 The own Catholic Monarchs, in pragmatics such as the one from 1477 “exempt the payment of almojarifazgos (tax that was in the collection of a customs duty on all goods be taken out of the ports) and alcabalas (taxes on sales, use, or production, and sometimes on business procedures or privileges) to the bookseller Teodorico Alemán for bringing foreign books. Exposing himself to the sea many dangers in order to bring them to Spain and ennoble the bookstores”. Ibid. First iron printing built c. 1800 by 3rd Earl Stanhope38.

It is necessary to make explicit reference to the typography creators and hallmark engravers, regardless of printings and printers, since the latter “financed and organised the manufacturing of types, but did not take an active role in this work. The tasks of hallmarks engravings, hitting and rectifying matrixes, manufacturing moulds and casting were external to the printing, and were performed by independent contractors. These had to posses great skill and experience, and their work was only profitable after a long specialized training39.

In the 19th century there is a huge increase in the labelling demand, as the result of a higher competition and business activity, enhanced in the year 1880, considered as the birth of advertising as we know it at present. This great business development took place in a broader and important way in North America, where, consequently, important and successive breakthroughs were made in industrial manufacturing of wooden types, whose evolution we can follow in David Shield’s study40. The considerable production of wooden types dates back to 1827, when Darius Wells promotes the industrial manufacturing in New York and edits the first catalogue of the designs he produces the following year. The advantages of wood as the ideal material for the stamp of a single sheet or short print runs in protruding size texts are described in this catalogue as well as the lightness of the wood, its availability and that it costs which was half the prize metal had. What it is more, valuable printing qualities are also mention. Until then, movable types had been made by drawing them on the wooden surface at their final scale, by cutting their outlines with a kind of chisel or gouge, depending on the sort of section to cut, and then the surface of the wooden type was lowered a few millimetres around and inside the surface of the letter that had to leave its footprint in the print. After this, Wells introduced the side cutter, a basic invention that allows a greater control and speed in cutting each letter. Nonetheless, the most important technical improvement appeared in 1834, when William Leavenworth created the pantograph and added Wells’ side cutter. This new tool introduced the possibility to outline the different levels or sizes of letter from a convenient size drawing, although its precision was not good enough.

It was around 1836 when Edwin Allen, a cabinetmaker’s son, improved the association between the pantograph and the sideways track cut in order to obtain a significant quality that led him to create his own factory in Connecticut. Allen’s workers soon left to manufacture their own products, given the business interest, and this way, important manufacturers such as John Cooley, Morgan & Wilcox, Tubb’s American, William Page or Hamilton Mfg. Co. emerged in the country. This latter corporation, created by James Edward Hamilton, introduces in 1880 the use of holly wood for types and gets a great advantage in cost and quality, to the point of later purchasing his main competitors. Hamilton still introduces a new technique (1891) in the manufacturing procedure, by incorporating the production machinery through the die-cutting method, that therefore refines even more the quality of the characters outlines cut.

The production declines in the 1920s with the colour and definition possibilities that the lithography technique acquires, but maintains the manufacturing until the last years of the past century, as mentioned before when referring to the museum created in its place. The size developed by characters manufactured in North America widely exceed those made in Europe and reached dimensions close to 500mm.

38 Reproduced in the book The cabinet of Useful Arts and Manufacturers, C. Whiting, London 1831. Jurado, A. op. cit. p. 406. 39 H. Carter, op. cit. pp. 36-37. 40 Shields, D. What is Wood type? The Logical Material, Rob Roy Kelly Collection, Texas University, Austin s.d. Great size characters (168mm), still in the 19th century, because we can see the sharpest angles manual bevel in order to facilitate a uniform inking and an ink cleaning once they are used. They come from English printings although imported from North American manufacturers. Colec. SGG.

Nowadays, just when movable wooden types for printing are going out of production, laser technology is incorporated for precise wood cutting and any other material surface, using it, for example, to cut letters or illustrations meant to signalling and other applications even in the field of artistic creation.

Finally, and in order to finish this chapter, it is interesting to have a look at the art printing manuals from different times. Among them there exists a corpus of Spanish authors, the first manual edited in Lyon, because the first ones were written in Latin and had a wider assignment, and the rest already in Spanish. We have this interesting corpus available, free and complete, in the network, with an introductory study, compared and meticulously analysed by its author Oriol Nadal Badal, a philologist and theologian lover of texts, specialized in techniques and editorial management. Its work: Códigos tipográficos: fuentes para conocer la imprenta manual41.

Contrary to the calligraphy handbooks, which in Spain has been particularly fruitful in and whose quality, as we will see in the chapter devoted to design, is admired everywhere in Europe, there was a significant deficit in the field of typography. A lack of these important study facilities, standardization and professional terminology, contribution of technical and proceeding improvements, and also an undoubtedly lack of training. The reason for that was our foreign dependence until the second half of the 18th century, when the regeneration and the creation of our own printing moulds are promoted. Among the authors named before, usually the type creators, typesetters or printers, there is the one edited in France, by Juan Caramuel (1664), who had to cover an extent empty period of time on average around two centuries, since the one written at about the same date, in Spanish and by Alonso Víctor de Paredes (1680), never got to be published. There are only a few copies made by its experienced author in the art of printing surely as a means of training and guidance for the staff working with him, because he constantly travelled to Madrid, Sevilla, Italy, Sevilla again, etc. We understand from that the desire to have a limited number of copies for private use. Alberton Corazón42 is in charge of taking us in a historical journey through these Spanish typography manuals and broadly praises this last one high above the one from Caramuel, “little known and used”, which is more ideological and ecclesiastical than the first, totally practical, clear and with a specific Spanish terminology, without so many designations of French filiation. Corazón jumps, in his considerable interest, from Paredes’ unpublished manual to the one by Juan José Sigüenza y Vera (1811) which he describes as ‘legendary’ and to “in which it seems not to exist a technical literature”.

Once the manufacturing of types in Spain is regenerated and consolidated, thanks to Charles III’s measures, there appears, however, a significant number of these manuals: by José M. Palacios (1845), Antonio Serra y Oliveres (1852), José Famades Villamur (1882), José Giráldez (1884), Juan José Morato (1908 y 1929), Álvaro Fernández Pola (1904), Miguel Lozano y Ribas (1928), F. Fábregues and J.M. Saavedra (1933), Pelegrín Melús and Francisco Millá (1937) or Vicente Martínez Sicluna (1945). After this general revision in Códigos tipográficos (Typographic codes), are described the most important details and differences existing among

41 Nadal Bala, O. Códigos tipográficos: fuentes para conocer la imprenta manual (Typographic codes: sources to get to know the manual printing), UniCo. Unión de Correctores (Reviewers Union), Madrid 2011. 42 Corazón, A. “De los orígenes hasta Ibarra: malas noticias” (From the beginnings to Ibarra: bad news), in Ribagorda, J.M. op. cit. pp. 113-121. a selection of them: Syntagma de Arte Typographica, by Juan Caramuel; Institución y orígenes del Arte de la Imprenta y reglas generales para los componedores, by Alonso Víctor de Paredes; Elementos de la Typographia (Barcelona 1751) by Joseph Blasi, who includes it as a further part of his Epitome de la Orthographia castellana; and the most recent and recognised one, Mecanismos del Arte de la Imprenta para facilidad de los operarios que la ejerzan (Madrid 1811) by Juan José Sigüenza, disciple of the great printer master Joaquín Ibarra.

Albrecht Dürer begins his education as engraver in the woodcutting technique in Basel, and his first known engraving this cover with Saint Jerome (1492). In a short period of time he acquires the expertise that characterises him, and before doing the great illustrations of The Apocalypse, which close this first phase before his dedication to metal burin engraving, he makes this Holy Family with Three Hares (c. 1496). National Library43.

43 Reproductions in Huidobro, C. Durero Grabador (Engraver Dürer) (author’s translation), Electa/Ministry of Culture. National Library, Madrid 1999, pp. 17 and 21. From serration to woodcutting

The oldest technique of graphic reproduction is wood engraving, which receives the name of serration because it consists in engraving or carving the wanted image on a wood surface that acts like stamp or matrix. It is the traditional name of this procedure, even though today we know it as woodcutting, from the Greek xilos -wood-, that is the term used by specialists since the 19th century44. As a result, it is stated in Spanish studies specialized in graphic art techniques, in recent years, that the ideal denomination for wood engraving made between the 15th and 18th centuries is serration, because it is the most used word at the time. However, in the nineteenth-century’s terminology woodcutting is applied only to wood engraving, on crosswise cut wood, perhaps the most used of the time and, on the other hand, the most widespread procedure for printing wood types carving45. The reason to carve the image in perpendicular direction to the tree vertical fibres is to provide a greater accuracy in blade and gouge control with which the carving is made, as well as to avoid the own wood seams on the stamped surface. Crosswise wood is also advantageous to inking, because of the fibre cut pores contribute to retain the ink in a quite uniform grain surface. The traces left by the fibres of thread cut wood, in the same direction as the fibres, has a more irregular behaviour due to a different consistency of the cut surface as a stamping layout, but also due to a bigger problem to control the cut or the carving, caused by the interference of the fibre’s own direction, and the different hardness, as the one wanted in the drawing or cut.

Regarding movable types, it is advisable that it is a hardwood, so that the engraved lines do not collapse, and about their texture, fine-grained ones are preferred, because they provide a more uniform and defined stamp46. For example, oak tree wood is hard but it has excessively thick enough grain, so the most appropriate woods are those of fruit trees, such as cherry, pear, apple, etc. Boxwood and holly are very resistant, and ideal for movable types, the problem is that they are too hard to work in the fibre direction but excellent for crosswise fibre work. Poplar is a lot softer, but harder than pine and spruce, so they are appropriate for broad lines or images with a lot of white to lower on the wood surface, that can be later hardened by applying a 50% lacquer in alcohol dissolution, to achieve a greater penetration, and once it gets dry the surface has to be sanded in order to smooth it by eliminating wood raised strands. Another wood treatment, not just to harden it, is applying a linseed oil on both sides, which have to be previously sanded. Once the oil is dry, the stamp surface is sanded again, consequently, this treatment will avoid the ink’s oil to be absorbed and, as a result, will achieve a greater stamp quality47.

44 González González, L.G. Anatomía humana desde la plástica en el trazado de la línea. Movimiento y contrucción, dissertation held at the Cádiz University in order to achieve Medicine doctorate, Cádiz 2011, p. 211. 45 Blas Benito, J. /Ciruelos, A. /Barrena, C. Diccionario del dibujo y la estampa. Vocabulario y tesauro sobre las ates del dibujo, grabado, litografía y serigrafía, Royal Fine Arts Academy of San Fernando/ National Chalcography, Madrid 1996. Quoted Ibid. 46 The old ones used boxwood and cedar woods, while In the Middle Ages beech was more used. Anonymous, Printing Press History…op. cit. pp.17-18. 47 Chamberlain, W. Woodcut printmaking, Blume, Madrid 1988, p. 63-65.

Woodcutting matrix on pear tree hardened Wood, anonymous, first half of the 20th century, integrated in the Woodcutting Tribute work, SGG 2012.

From calligraphy to typography

In the professional tradition, the skills required by a typographical designer were essentially, mastering of drawing, compass and ruler; the type anatomy knowledge, referring to their layout and modulation with the corresponding optic compensations; the application of body measurements in height and width to settle each letter proportion and align them with each other in the most frequent combinations of each language; the knowledge of the classic composition rules, harmony, geometry, golden ratio and types general architecture; and to have the sufficient creativity to generate new types and to develop them in the whole alphabet, numbers and punctuation marks according to a global coherence48.

Albrecht Dürer devoted part of his drawing wisdom on typographic design, in his book De Symmetria (1525), as the Franciscan mathematician Luca Pacioli geometrically studied the Roman capital letters construed during the Renaissance. It is believed that he worked together with Leonardo Da Vinci, although the latter is considered to have worked with all the art and science anatomy professionals of the time. These skills in geometry and mathematics are essential to a typographic designer. The work of Dürer as well as the one by Pacioli, published in Venice –The Divine Proportion (1509)-, are basic manuals to know the concept of proportion and harmony of types. Pacioli composes each letter in the alphabet inscribed in a circle and, at the same time, on a square. This circle is the base of any of the drawing curved lines, defining its thickness as 1/9 of the square side and with that, they would correspond, in their inner order, to the same principles that rule the generality of the cosmos. In Spain, this geometrical interpretation of types is introduced by the eminent calligrapher Juan de Icíar, who we will refer later, in an appendix of his calligraphy manual Arte subtilissima, by which is taught to perfectly write (1550); and also by the master Claudio Aznar de Polanco (1663- 1736), who applies this typographic layout base in his Arte nuevo de escribir, por preceptos geométricos y reglas matemáticas (1719).

48 These requirements have been redifined and extended based on the ones proposed in: Fernández Hernández, S. op. cit. p.77.

Luca Pacioli’s book, The Divine Proportion, 1509. Albrecht Dürer’s book, De Symmetria, 1525.

Juan Claudio Aznar de Polanco’s book, Arte nuevo de escribir, por preceptos geométricos y reglas matemáticas, 1719, in whose “Little bit gestural method he enhances the outlines to find order and rules in the bastard letter form”49, National Library.

Type design, contrary to what we have seen in the printing technique, does gradually progress, from the Gothic letter ’texture’ of the 42-lines Bible and the proximity to the different areas of influence calligraphy models, as the Italian, and the exempt types, more independent from the writing gesture, belonging to the printing art and rightfully considered as typography.

A new typographic application, with functional needs, practical as well as aesthetical, required a particular design of movable types against the distinctive handwriting of bibliographic production till that moment, and even with planks engraved with images, other times with inclusion of texts that were mainly published as religious stamps such as bulls, ordinances or announcements in general. The linked writing characteristic of calligraphy, known as calligraphic ductus, was the style that, in the early days, defined any kind of typographical creation and, in Spain, it did last, as we will see later, until the second half of the 18th century.

Until then, just a great calligrapher as Juan de Icíar (1522-1590), expert in the Italian printing, makes, perhaps, the first try of creating “printing letter models” and gives himself the task to apply his skills to the new way including an appendix of “letters and capital letters for printing books” in his Arte subtilissima, by which it is taught to perfectly write (1550). “Icíar ignores the hallmark and casting technique, so he seeks a wood stamps skilled engraver’s help, Juan de Vingles, and hires him to make his woodcutting alphabets. The book, that has a previous version (Recopilación Subtilissima…published in Zaragoza 1548)50 is greatly successful; in a short period of time seven editions are made, but as a manual for calligraphers. There is not the slightest repercussion in new typographical designs”51. However, Icíar creates, in the 16th century, the Spanish bastarda o bastardilla52, that will be transferred into typographical design and will be kept as native typology until the new typographies created during the second half of the 18th century. This Spanish bastarda (bastard), based on the Italic created by Aldo Manucio, gets to banish the previously existing paleographic model “on its clarity and good construction”, and so begins the history of humanistic calligraphy.

49 Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. pp. 242-243. 50 Herrera Fernández, E. /Fernández Inurritegui, L. “Recuperación y digitalización tipográfica del Arte Subtilissima de Juan de Íciar” (Gathering and digitalisation of the Arte Subtilissima by Juan de Icíar) in the third Typography International Congress Acts, Valencia 2008, p. 133. 51 Information and quotes from the paragraph in Corazón, A. op. cit. pp. 115-116. 52 Jurado A. op. Cit. p. 32. An interesting visual story from calligraphy to the last types created, composed by Otl Aicher53.

The Vatican Chancery School was the reference for this writing design model everywhere in Europe, that is the reason why it is specifically defined as ‘chancery hand’. In this environment, between the German origin and the papal power, the Venetian school emerged with the same typographical characters inherited from the old calligraphy. The whole of Italy refused to use the strict Gothic letter due to its lack of elegance. The Renaissance was developing in Italy, at the same time, Gothic letters were widely used in the rest of Europe, which brought a new type named humanistic minuscule, based on the Carolingian minuscule- which, on the other hand, was the one used to handwrite the classics- with a more calligraphic layout54. In this humanistic minuscule stood out names like the own Aldo Manucio, Francesco Griffo, Ludovico Vicentino, Francesco Giovanni Cresci and Giambattista Palatino, who passed down the aesthetics and way of writing to all the continent, and from whom our calligraphers Juan de Icíar (1515-1590), Francisco Luca (c. 1530-1580), Pedro Díaz Morante (1600-_), José de Casanova (1613-1692), Juan Claudio Aznar de Polanco (1663-1736), Joseph de Anduaga y Garimberti (1751-1822), Domingo María de Servidori (c. 1724-1790) or Francisco Javier de Santiago Palomares (1728-1796) admirably learnt, this last one already in the neoclassical aesthetic of the second half of the 18th century. The following data and illustrations from their works are mostly reproduced from the catalogue of the Royal Printing: Spanish Typography Fonts exhibition, curated by José María Ribagorda55, held between December 2009 and January 2010 in the National Chalcography exhibition hall, in the Royal Fine Arts Academy of San Fernando in Madrid.

53 Aicher, O. Typographie, Campgràfic, Valencia 2004, p. 214. 54 Pohlen, J. Letter Fountain: The Anatomy of Type, Taschen, Cologne 2011, p. 24. 55 Ribagorda, J.M. op. cit. Arte subtilissima, by Juan de Icíar, edited by Esteban Nájera in Zaragoza (1553), first educational writing art discourse printed in Spain, and in which the Spanish bastard can be appreciated. His self-portrait at the beginning of the work reinforces the concept of calligrapher authoring opposite to the simple clerk. Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 228.

Arte de escribir (The Art of Writing), by Francisco de Lucas… edited by Juan de la Cuesta in Madrid (1580). Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 234-235.

Third part of Arte nueva de escribir que el maestro Pedro Díaz ha compuesto… (4 volumes) edited by the Royal Printing in Madrid (1629). Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 239.

First part of Arte de escribir todas formas de letras, edited by Diego Díaz de la Carrera in Madrid (1650). Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 241.

First part of Arte de escribir, por preceptos geométricos y reglas matemáticas by the master Juan Claudio Aznar de Polanco, edited in the Manuel Ruiz de la Muga’s heirs Prinitng in Madrid (1719). Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 243.

Arte nueva de escribir inventada por el insigne maestro Pedro Díaz Morante e ilustrada con muestras nuevas… de F.J. by Santiago de Palomares, edited by Antonio de Sancha in Madrid (1776). Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 254.

Geometría de la letra romana mayúscula y minúscula… edited in the Andrés Ramírez Printing in Madrid (1780). Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 251.

Illustrations for the Reflexiones sobre la verdadera arte de escribir publishing, by Domingo María Servidori, edited in the Royal Fine Arts Academy of San Fernando in Madrid (1780). Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. p. 254. Typography and art of the book

Typography is an essential part of a book, not only as an art object, by itself or as an artist’s book, but also as literary support or different manuals. Typography, used as text setting or as graphic element in the composition of pages is a clear resource that has been kept in use by artists of different cultural areas. Undoubtedly, types made of wood, brass, lead or any other material product of the old printing press use, or those specifically cut from new materials by laser will continue to provide a lot of pleasure in the new contemporary art field.

From the first half of the 20th century, the typography and the book are protagonists wide sample of an artist’s book as a distinctive experimenting way of the historical avant-gardes. In their ground-breaking compositions they intended to anticipate the taste of their contemporaries through the integration of the literary and visual arts, poetry and typography joined in experiences that are “an intellectual and visual amazing adventure”. However, there are few experts who had access to a wide sample of these “avant-garde books”, which will be reunited with other works where typography prominence is an essential element in the exhibition organised by the Juan March Foundation in the spring of 201256. Both artists and designers of that time took an interest for this printed setting, book, magazines and even posters, as experimental territory far from the Art History linear vision and that, on the contrary, open new ways through transversality and osmosis between the different isms developed in art. In that typological vision Scudeiro57 identifies “four aesthetical tendencies”, the first one being “freedom of words” introduced by Futurists and with a poetic-literary origin able to materialize in typography. This inmersion of the visual arts in typography, more than the other way around, the second tendency is the product of its natural evolution, in which the word turns out to be a native image, self-representative, that does not require further illustrative details. A third and a fourth tendency are developed together due to the temporary “overlap” of their use. On the one hand, it determinates the “orthogonality and diagonally” that handles the new typographic case, dynamic and, at times, asymmetrical and, on the other hand, it focuses on the use of “basic geometrical” shapes, becoming clear with this interaction their Constructivist and Suprematist origin.

With reference to the historical development of the printed book, it is highlighted the fact that different foreign printers settle in Venice in order to respond to the trading demand that has been the core business of its inhabitants during the last centuries. At the end of the 15th century, among the precedents of important printers emerges the figure of Aldo Manucio, disciple of the great Florentine humanist Pico della Mirandola, who can be considered the most significant printer of all time. Facing the huge demand of editions he is commissioned with, signed at the colophon with the famous mark of the anchor and the dolphin, he creates the Aldina Academy in 1501, to train new professionals. However, his great project, the Hebrew-Greek-Latin Bible (1487-1498), does not meet the requirements needed to be edited, and a project of such magnitude does not get the chance to be made until Cardinal Cisneros embarks on the editing of the Multilingual Bible and publishes it in Alcalá de Henares (1514- 1517)58.

Typographical models close to the calligraphic writing characteristic of the hand stroke were reproduced in this tendency. In Spain, the Gothic letter was kept in use, in the beginnings of the printing press in our country, in different variants linked to the Visigothic writing distinctive of the Peninsula Christian kingdoms and thus, descendants, all of them, of the

56 Scudiero, M. “A Transverse Reading of Typography and the Graphic Avant-Gardes”, in VV.AA. The Avant-Garde Applied 1890-1950, Juan March Foundation, Madrid, 2012, p. 163. 57 Ibid. 58 Jurado, A. op. cit. pp. 329-331. manuscripts elaborated in the monastic rich tradition, whose reputation spread throughout the West. The texts that characterised the typography developed in the Hispanic area had this particularity close to the Carolingian minuscule, a kind of semiuncial59, but with different heights between upper case and lower case letters, with upward and downward tracing. This semiuncial is a clear precedent of the Renaissance own humanistic letter, both of them developed with the intention of continually linking the uncial isolated lines that had been used, respectively, in manuscripts copied in monastery scriptoriums and the Carolingian minuscule with which the Vatican documents were written. This typographical style based on the writing of that time was the one which characterised our country, whose different versions from the calligraphic writing were named, for that very same reason, as ‘bastard’. It was a sweetening of the Gothic minuscule with the influence of the mastery achieved during the centuries of Carolingian writing, which made the first German printers to get to Spain feel attracted by the balance between their gothics of origin and the rounded or humanistic that had already extended in Spain because of the close relation with the Italian peninsula territories, the art and the ideas of the Renaissance60. Cursive, also known as italic, and contrary to the rounded one, was widely admired, specially the final result of the characters designed in Spain, where it was known as ‘bastardilla’, which expressly referred to any kind of inclined letter.

Extent of English origin Gothic characters. Colec. SGG.

Extent of North American origin Gothic numbers. Colec. SGG.

As claimed before, in Europe the Gothic minuscule remains in use until half of the Italian Cuatrocento, which resorts to the Carolingian lines in order to provide writing with a more ductile and humanistic sense. That does not mean that the Gothic minuscule has not been kept in use for more formal occasions in Northern Europe till the last century, and that in Germany new versions have been created and manufactured, as a sign of their own identity until recently.

Extent of English origin humanistic characters. Colec. SGG.

59 If the uncial letter was a rounded upper case letter, created to parchment paper handwritten copies and developed in light of the possibility of reducing the Roman capital letters writing speed that have been using until the 11th century, the semiuncial letter also included lower case letters, all of them written with the same height although they slightly incorporated upward and downward strokes characteristic of some letters, and which was kept in use until the last years of the 13th century. At the same time, the rounded setting was determined by the lines of the goose quill pen, bevel cut, which was the writing tool used since the year 300. Charlemagne was forced to boost the Carolingian minuscule model as the official kind of writing in the year 768, in order to avoid the unrestrained text proliferation created in such a vast land, and to coordinate the communication and administration need in direct proportion of this extent. However, this especially careful and meticulous typography stopped being used close to the 13th century, and it was replaced by the letter known as Gothic, one of this Gothic variant, known outside our country as ‘texture’, was the one used to print the 42-line Bible. Specific data in: Pohlen, J. op. cit. pp. 18-22. 60 Although not all first printers were German, the first ones settled in Zaragoza five years after the publishing of the first book in Sevilla, where they did not arrive until 20 years later (1490) and it took them 26 years to reach Granada (1496), it is interesting to state this quote in A. Jurado: “All first printers were German, but they immediately adapted in a greater degree than any of the German and French printers settled in Italy ever did. They started to print with modern rounded types, only to immediately go back to Gothic types, direct descendants of the Spanish manuscripts”. Steinberg, S. H. Five Hundred Years of Printing, Zeus, Barcelona 1963.

Extent of German origin Neogothic characters, created during the 20th century. Colec. SGG.

This one from Vox (1954) can be considered the referent among the attempts made to classify the most representative typographical design models61.

The most interesting thing about this type design that influenced the letters of the first printed books is the ability of Spanish typographers to absorb other cultures and ideas, the ability to identify and blend themselves in order to generate a particular result of the most aesthetical consideration. Pablo Picasso himself surprised us with his ability to assimilate and converse with any kind of aesthetical or way of making approach, having no trouble at making himself what he saw around him, achieving, in addition, a genius hardly surpassed by the referents mentioned in his works. This capacity, as the Classical Culture heirs developed in the Mediterranean is the type of letter that, until the new creations of the 18th century, identified our printing, and that is why they had been named Spanish bastard in different versions, but all of them the result of the blending or mixing between the Gothic and humanistic minuscule, always related to the calligraphic manuals from the first centuries in printing, worthy examples of the Roman chancery and the aldina minuscule. In Europe, the Spanish bastard was known and appreciated thanks to the huge production of the Plantin printing in Antwerp during the second half of the 16th century, due to the close relationship established by Phillip II, who named him printer of his court in 1570. In new art of writing, by Palomares, it is expressly acknowledged the recognition of a few foreign printers62, as the Frenchman Sebastian Grif, who credits the successful outcome of our editions to “the beautiful Spanish and Italian bastard letters”. Grif named this particular feature of the bastard letter as Grifa, which not only did established a link with Francesco del Grifo’s remarkable humanistic calligraphy but also created a link with his own last name.

Cover of El Arte de escribir, by Juan de Icíar, printed in Zaragoza by Pedro Bernuz in 1550. First Spanish treaty that, apart from calligraphy, dedicates an appendix to movable types for printing design. A. Jurado63.

In the 16th century, and during a large part of the same period, “printing acquires a great perfection in Spain. The sumptuous character of some books and the typographical harmony of their pages reveal the caring work and the printers’ professionalism at that time, whose art, thanks to the opening of new workshops, spreads all over the country. The book illustrations, consisting in beautiful wooden engravings, are more frequent than in the 15th century, as well as the use of big initials and edgings in the text and in the covers. In Valencia, Jorge Costilla prints, in 1510, la Suma de las Crónicas del Mundo64 (…) with beautiful engravings, in 1520 in Zaragoza Jorge Coci (…) an edition of The History of Rome65, by Livy, which is credited as the best printed book in Spain during that century (…) In Alcalá de Henares, as we have seen, the typographer Arnao Guillén de Brocar prints the Multilingual Bible (1551-17), typographic monument for which different alphabets were casted, from Hebrew, Greek and Chaldean Languages. The first wood engraved map of America published in Spain appears in Sevilla in 1511, stamped by Cromberguer in the work Oceanis Decada, by Pedro Mártir de Anglería (…) The decline in the Printing Art, which began at the end of the 16th century -a time characterised by the Gothic minuscule typographic box disappearance, which was totally

61 Reproduced in Pohlen, J. op. cit. p. 56. 62 Quoted, at the same time, in Corberto, A. “Tipografías y caligrafía en España…” (Typography and Calligraphy in Spain…) op. cit. pp. 57 and 58. 63 Jurado, A. op. cit. p. 387. 64 The Sum of the World Chronicles (author’s translation). 65 Ab urbe condita libri. replaced by the round letter, in most cases of defective drawing and poor casting-, depends much more in the 17th century, turning into manual work; printings become extremely imperfect; the perfect symmetry of pages line spacing disappears; typographies are defective; printers have no trouble using types which were crushed and broken by use; typographical edgings, on the covers, do not keep the harmony in the succession of ornaments that compose them and result in worse printings that they really are, due to the quality of the paper in which they are stamped66”.

In the 18th century, Charles III, known as the printing king67, founder of the Royal Printing (1761) embarks on the task of getting the country out of its dependence of foreign typographies. Over the previous century typographies had been fundamentally imported from Holland, as we said before. During all this century the Spanish printing acquires greater quality, not only because of having its own typographies available which were better in the chiselling and type manufacturing processes but because of having paper of greater quality and considerable skill in chalcographic engraved illustrations as well. On the other hand, the essential purpose was the promotion of typographies of its own, that collected the excellent Spanish calligraphic tradition, although in order to do so it was necessary a technique like the one implemented by Francisco Asensio y Mejorada to Palomares’ designs, whose illustrations he engraved, publishing, in 1780, a manual about “rules for geometric drawing, aligned with a typographical concept of the letter”68. The commission of the Royal Society of Friends of the Basque Country to Palomares in 1774 is the moment when the Spanish bastard reaches its peak, because its object was to provide the country printings with “a distinctive national character like other countries have”69.

Juan de Santander, Royal Librarian, sets in motion the creation of the casting workroom, and in order to do so he involves the most prestigious calligrapher of the time. We are referring to Santiago Palomares, in cooperation with type designers, who were previously trained as engravers and who by then were professionally considered as ‘hallmark openers’. Typographical models were directly engraved on the hallmark tip of the same metal, and together with counter-hallmarks and matrixes made with both of them composed the necessary sets of metal types manufacturing. The details of these instruments and their use are clearly gathered in Elvira Villena’s valuable contribution70. In this particular case, the hallmark opener’s work in collaboration with the calligrapher Palomares’ art direction was entrusted to Jéronimo Gil, already acknowledged engraver, who made an excellent work repairing hallmarks and matrixes in the Royal Printing collection, and completed some levels and families that required necessary characters for its use. That is how this pioneer of a craft that did barely exist in Spain got the necessary skill to his professional development and other hallmark openers as Antonio Espinosa, already mentioned because of his training in the Royal Academy of San Fernando. Along with them, Eudaldo Pradel, who had been dedicated to gun engraving under the excellent consideration of the royal patronage, starts in this craft. Privilege that would have liked to acquire the two typographers mentioned before, and that, due to being born in this craft and professional need did not count with that much support to their work, even though their ‘characters’ were more interesting, that is how the typographies or typographical families were named back then. Pradel had less initiative in his design and his characters were very similar to those still coming from Flemish foundries, in

66 Ibid. Pp 386-393. 67 Because he was educated in the printing art from an early age, and was a great connoisseur and admirer of these disciplines, on the other hand, he specially valued the progress brought to the dissemination of knowledge and the Spanish role among the main powers of the time. 68 Ribagorda, J. M. op. cit. pp.226-227. 69 Ibid. 70 Villena, E. op. cit. pp. 59-72. fact Pradel considered himself ‘gunsmith master’ rather than type opener, as it was described in the headline of the letters catalogue he made and edited in 176371.

The form of the letter

Multiple manuals state the beginning of writing four thousand years B.C. in Egypt, whose interest to codify the language defines phonetic signs that have their graphic transcription in hieroglyphics. The first of them, in this first alphabet order, the bull head, has turned into our uppercase letter ‘A’, after the conversion to sign of this head that scribes have represented quickly and each time in a more schematic way, and that causes the abstraction of this initial referent, also in the first sign of Sumerian and Babylon writings. In the year 1200 B.C. Phoenicians already draw the uppercase sign ‘A’, product of the evolution of that bull head, though rotated 90º to the left. From this sign the Greeks end up settling the first letter through a single line, in three directions, until the Latin spelling that defines the uncial from our alphabet start is finally consolidated.

From that very moment, the Western letter is defined by that Latin writing equipped with vertical lines finishings, like a column shaft, which is always defined by the express finishing of its base and capital. “In order to better understand the transition between serif typographies and sans serif typographies, is necessary to consider the most profound sensations one can have watching any given line. The observer, when the last points of a line are not reinforced, experiments a discomfort resulting from an unfinished and infinite line. (…) In calligraphy, the reinforcement of opening and ending lines served to grant its particular style to writing. In the lower finishes of the humanistic type we can see an unconscious search for stability (…) Modernity alone dared to use the bare column: the concrete pillar. The fear of the disappearance of unlimited lines, bare ones, faded with the rational thinking, and in such a way, the path for sans serif types was opened”72.

We have, with this simplified evolution that includes 6.000 years, the fundamental guidelines which had led to our alphabet graphic structure base, on which infinite creative possibilities already shaped exist, and these will continue to flow from our talent and interpretation capacity.

Referring and continuing with the paragraph devoted to letter design terminology, in the section related to the art of the book, the bastard, as we have been mentioning, is a cursive in line with the humanistic minuscule that emerges in the different Italian areas during the Renaissance. It is born linked to the Carolingian minuscule and close to the chancery influence promoted by the Vatican administration. In our country it has the same filiation with those calligraphic models, due to its proximity to common beginnings and, distinctively, because of its long and valued monastic calligraphic tradition, the Toledo School of Translators proper or the first universities, also crucial in the manual production of books. Tradition that evolved in line with the different tastes and uses, thanks to the creations of our calligrapher masters till the final years of the 18th century, when it was reflected in the new letters for movable types.

To sum up, this typology follows the same structural and aesthetical base as the letter known as round, complementing the Roman capital letters with the lower case ones, model of the Roman Column of Trajan, and this is the reason why it is also known as Roman writing. There

71 Document at the National Library. 72 Frutiger, A. Signs and Symbols: Their Design and Meaning, Gustavo Gili, Barcelona 2007, p.65. previously exists second global branch, a writing we could generally call Gothic, linked to the monastic writing of the Middle Ages. The different models or standardisations of this type lead to the Spanish Visigothic or Carolingian writing. A third typology would be the one known as sans serif, also called as grotesque and even ambiguously named in English as gothic, which refers only to the lines that define the characters basic structure, without any feature that links it with the writing personalisation, leading to a basic sign and of artificial gesture, and according to the values of the Modern Movement73.

73 An excellent work by Xuso Insua explains the trajectory and the formal and aesthetical assessment of this third global typology: “The sans serif reinvention, up to its rise to modern typography icon, is a phenomenon that takes place purely in the German environment (…) It seems clear that in Germany the sans serif was considered from an early stage, in spite of its vernacular and industrial origin (Renner) or relaying on it (Tschichold), as the starting point to define a new typography. And because of that, due to the genre’s inherent characteristics, and more precisely to the specifics of the Grotesk typology-its monoline, geometrazing and purist tendency – [Meanwhile, this same typology, in its British and American interpretation, clearly represents a more conservative interpretation as far as structure and modulation. England would not go any further than the Gill Sans, ironically attached to the Roman structure and the calligraphic ductus] (…) Later on, when –with the Swiss Tpography- the sans serif is definitely consecrated as a first order type and its use becomes standardised, already assumed as the Zeitgeist absolute representative, it does so under the recently designed New Grotesque form, types based directly on the German models: Grotesk from the last years of the 19th century” Insua Pardo, X. “Sobre el origen alemán del palo seco. Hacia una posble reevaluación del papel de la tipología Grotesk en la génesis del sanserif (About the sans serif German origin. Towards the possible reassessment of the Grotesk typography role in sans serif genesis), in Act 2 Typography Congress, Valencia 2006, pp.78-79.