FREE THE TECHNIQUE OF COPPERPLATE : A MANUAL AND MODEL BOOK OF THE POINTED PEN METHOD PDF

Gordon Turner | 48 pages | 01 Dec 1988 | Dover Publications Inc. | 9780486255125 | English | New , United States Calligraphy - manuals and copybooks (16th to 18th century) | Britannica

From the 16th through 18th centuries two types of writing books predominated in Europe: the writing manual, which instructed the reader how to make, space, and join letters, as well as, in some books, how to choose papercut , and make ink; and the copybook, which consisted of pages of writing models to be copied as practice. These three authors were frequently mentioned and imitated in later manuals, and their own manuals were often reprinted during and after their lifetimes. The first non-Italian book on chancery was by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator. Mercator expanded on the Italian teaching method of showing, stroke by stroke, how each letter of the alphabet is made; like his Italian contemporaries, he grouped letters according to their common parts rather than alphabetically. Thus caand d are presented together since they all begin with a common stroke c and are completed with a dotless i or l. His manual goes further than any previous one in presenting the order and number of strokes in making chancery capital letters. The Italians merely presented examples of such letters to be copied. Mercator also introduced the degree pen angle for writing cancellerescasomething never suggested or practiced by Italian writing masters. Like them he showed a variety of formal The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method informal hands and decorative alphabets. The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method manual differed from theirs in its inclusion of advice for teachers as well as for students. The italic hand had little effect on publications in 16th-century Germany and Switzerland, where black- letter alphabets predominated. This Kanzlei bears no resemblance to Italian chancery; the name of the script is derived from the place where the script was used a chancery is an administrative office and does not describe a particular writing style. This long-lived style was used as late as the 19th century by some German speakers in the United States and Canada. Because this technique was cumbersome, having two separate steps, and did not produce a sharp image, it would be nearly 30 years before intaglio engraving was used again in a writing book. Most 16th-century German writing books, like those produced elsewhere in Europe, continued to be printed from woodcuts. Relief methods of printingsuch as woodcut and , required less pressure from the press and produced a correctly oriented in one pass because the plate was made with a reversed image. The work reveals many of the techniques used in teaching formal and calligraphy in the 16th century. Detailed drawings show how to cut a and the right and wrong way to hold a pen. Most of the included alphabets are diagrammed stroke by stroke. Some rather remarkable pages show how to transform black-letter capitals into ornate by the addition of a few formulaic flourishes. The first writing books by French, Dutch, and English authors appeared in the second half of the 16th century. Like the German authors, these followed the Italian method of teaching the alphabets. Their books generally featured a rather spiky as well as some version of the Italian chancery script. By the time most of them were published between anditalic writing had undergone radical changes under the influence of the Vatican scribe Gianfrancesco Cresci. In relation to earlier works, these books show a chancery script written with a narrower pen, and as a result there was less contrast between the thick and thin letter strokes. The Essemplare is finely printed from woodcut blocks, but seven years after its publication a new and better method of reproducing elaborate calligraphy appeared. Hamon devotes the first part of his book to various forms of the French secretary hand, a style he writes adding such wild embellishments that they seem to take on an independent existence, in contrast to the relatively orderly flourishes found in contemporary Italian writing books. Hamon also takes The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method of the metal engraving process by presenting free-form letters drawn in thin outlines, something beyond the capabilities of the woodcut. Hamon was arrested in either for his Protestant religious beliefs, for forging the royal signature, or because he wrote some treasonable verses about the king. In any case, not only was Hamon executed that year, but all of his works were ordered destroyed. Divers Sortes of Hands has characteristics of both writing manuals and copybooks: it includes instructions on how to make ink, cut a quill for writing, hold the pen illustratedand sit at a writing desk. Yet it does not explain how to write any of the 15 styles of handwriting it contains. Beauchesne himself was a master of this hand, however. Likewise, the anonymous A Newe Booke of Copies follows the pattern of Divers Sortes of Handswith similar instructions and illustrations and on various secretary hands commonly used for writing legal and court documents. The focus of these books on commercial rather than calligraphic scripts probably reflects their most likely consumers—a merchant class in need of practical writing skill rather than a scholarly or courtly audience. Around the middle of the 16th century, cancellerescaor Italian chancery italic, had become the preferred hand of English intelligentsia and the royal court, who had learned it either directly from Italian or French writing masters such as Beauchesne or from printed books. Toward the end of the 16th century the Italians were losing their dominance in the writing-book market despite the number of titles they produced. Engraving had rapidly become the preferred means of reproducing all sorts of writing, and cancelleresca was evolving. The beautifully ornate writing in Exercitatio is somewhat overshadowed by the finely drawn cartouches that surround the examples, and it seems clear that this was a book not only for writers but also for artists, mapmakers, metalsmiths, and needle workers—in short, all those who used letters or borders in their work. The last quarter of the 16th century also marks the emergence of women from their relative obscurity in the field of calligraphy. They had played an important role in the production of manuscripts since the 8th century, when the oldest surviving Roman sacramentary Vatican Library, Reg. Nuns and laywomen were responsible for writing and illuminating manuscripts throughout the , but they, like monks and laymen of the time, often remained anonymous. The first calligraphy by a woman to appear in a printed work was that of Jacquemyne or Jacomina Hondius, the sister of the Dutch publisher, cartographer, and calligrapher Jodocus Hondius. Other important calligraphers of the day—such as Jean de Beauchesne, Ludovico Curione, Jan van den Veldeand Peter Bales—were also represented in the book. Another writing mistress of distinction is Marie Presot. Like Beauchesne, she and her husband were French Huguenots, and they settled in Edinburgh about They set up The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method school there where her husband, Nicholas Langlois, taught French language and composition and Presot taught writing. A single surviving manuscript by her in the Newberry LibraryChicago, shows a fine mastery of the French secretary and cancelleresca hands. Like many writing teachers, Presot also trained her children in the of writing, and one of them, as Esther Ingliswent on to become one of the most prolific calligraphers of the late 16th and early 17th century. Many of the books, in addition to showing a variety of 16th-century calligraphic hands, were decorated by Inglis with paintings or pen drawings of flora and fauna. Pavie includes a Cresci-style italic and two forms of French secretary on each page. The scripts are ornately presented and surrounded by pen- drawn calligraphic borders similar to those found in other lateth-century French writing books. Strick ran a French secular school for girls, first in Delft and later in Rotterdam. Her work, as was typical at the time, emphasized formal and informal Dutch secretary scripts and traditional italic writing. Her books demonstrate a mastery of flourishes and decorated initials. In a handwriting competition of The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method, her italic was judged best. Calligraphy continued to evolve in the 17th century, and The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method was increasing emphasis on varieties of cancelleresca. Some writing masters began to call their version of this script italienne bastardeor bastardein recognition of their alteration of this Italian hand. Others simply called it italique or lettera italiana. Regardless of the name, the hand had moved far from its earlyth-century prototypes. For example, at the beginning of the 17th century, writers began to change how the small letters were joined to each other. The bottom of some letters were connected to the top of others enfor example by a hairpin turn shape rather than at a sharp angle. He called his style lettre bastarde or lettre Italienne-bastardeand it would eventually influence 18th-century and 19th-century copperplate. In another significant development, the use of flourishes became more prominent. The Dutch especially excelled in pen decorations, and few important writing books appear without some form of flourishing for the rest of the century. Pisani goes beyond the mere presentation of plants or animals to create—solely by means of flourishes—full compositions reminiscent of contemporary Italian drawings and paintings. On one page the roles of letters and flourishes are reversed, and the text forms the frame for a calligraphic drawing of St. George and the dragon. Elsewhere, some plates have only borders, and a blank space in the centre is perhaps meant to be filled in by the reader. In Edward CockerThe Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method prolific writing master, mathematician, and engraver who produced more than two dozen writing books, followed the Dutch and Italian lead in flourishing, but as the century wore on the tide was changing. He treats capitals differently, writing them with a narrower flexible pen . Although he supplies no rules for forming capital letters, he does give two or three versions for most bastarde capitals, and he demonstrates some freedom in their creation. Flourishes serve their original medieval function of preventing written additions to official documents or correspondence. His flourishes appear above and below the text and at the end of every writing line, and they are made with a pen similar to the one used for capitals. For the most part they appear The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method heavy for the writing and lack the grace of earlier Dutch and Italian pen decorations. The works of the late 17th- and early 18th-century English writing masters stand out by their quantity, quality, and influence on modern calligraphy and handwriting. English scribes of the period synthesized the works of 17th-century French and Dutch masters into a style they called round hand. Ayres also reminds readers that good handwriting is a source of employment, no matter what the occupation. English writing masters did not hide their debt to continental masters even as they boasted of their own skills. English round hand is often mislabeled as copperplate or ; the confusion arises from their similarities. All have a steep letter slope to the right between 30 and 40 degreesand they all have capitals with broad downstrokes. However, differences can readily be discerned. Round hand has a relatively wide proportion of width to height in its small letters, and they are joined by steeply angled 40—45 degree hairlines. The script was written with a quill cut to a narrow with a small square edge on its tip and a slit long enough to allow a certain amount of flexibility when pressure was applied in making downstrokes. Hairlines were extremely fine. The small o was made in one continuous stroke beginning at the top, moving down the left side in a curved motion and up the right side in a pushed stroke, and the right side of a round hand obor e always shows a slight thickness in the northeast quadrant, reflecting the width of the edge of the nib. With few exceptions, engraving was considered a reproductive as opposed to a creative art in the 17th and 18th century. Prominent engravers such as John Sturt and George Bickham pointed out that engraving was no match for the pen in freedom or beauty and that the engraver depended on written copy. By aboutit was the principal commercial and decorative hand. By mid-century most books showed only round hand and a few varieties of the German text hand; Roman capitals and minuscules were included mainly as display alphabets in titles and text headings. Command of hand was limited to decorating display alphabets or finishing off short lines of writing, and pen-made calligraphic pictures faded from the scene. By this time, flourishing was considered frivolous and unnecessary in business, for which the chief and singular virtue of was legibility. By the end of the century, writing books from Europe and the United States shifted their focus away from calligraphic qualities and toward the ideal of a legible and easy-to-learn hand. By the end of the 18th century, as shown in The Art of Writing by the American John Jenkinsletters were reduced to a few simple, interchangeable parts. Legible penmanship became the overriding consideration, and methods of handwriting based on arm movement appeared on both sides of the Atlantic. This approach was a major break from the earlier practice of making letters by using the fingers and wrist. With the perfection and mass production of the flexible metal pointed pen in the s, calligraphy experienced a slight revival through the efforts of people such as the American Oliver . Goldsmith, who was an early and strong advocate for the use of metal pens for writing and decoration. Flourishes and calligraphic drawings would continue to grace their title pages, primarily to attract buyers rather than to teach the styles. Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy: A Step-by-Step Manual

The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method is the design and execution of lettering with a broad-tipped instrument, brushor other writing instrument. Modern calligraphy ranges from functional inscriptions and designs to fine-art pieces where the letters may or may not be readable. Calligraphy continues to flourish in the forms of wedding invitations and event invitations, design and typography, original hand-lettered logo design, religious artannouncements, graphic design and commissioned calligraphic art, cut stone inscriptionsand memorial documents. It is also used for props and moving images for film and television, and also for testimonialsbirth and death certificates, mapsand other written works. The principal tools for a calligrapher are the pen and the brush. Calligraphy pens write with nibs that may be flat, round, or pointed. However, The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method have also been created with felt-tip and ballpoint pensalthough these works do not employ angled lines. There are some styles of calligraphy, such as Gothic script, that require a stub nib pen. Writing ink is usually water-based and is much less viscous than the oil-based inks used in . Certain specialty paper with high ink absorption and constant texture enables cleaner lines, [11] although parchment or is often used, as a knife can be used to erase imperfections and a light-box is not needed to allow lines to pass through it. Normally, light boxes and templates are used to achieve straight lines without pencil markings detracting from the work. Ruled paper, either for a light box or direct use, is most often ruled every quarter or half inch, although inch spaces are occasionally used. This is the case with litterea unciales hence the nameand college- ruled paper often acts as a guideline well. The calligraphy of East Asian characters is an important and appreciated aspect of traditional East Asian culture. During the divination ceremony, after the cracks were made, the characters were written with a brush on the shell or bone to be later carved. Keightley, Mao Gong Ding is one of the most famous and typical Bronzeware scripts in the history. It has characters on the bronze which is the largest number of bronze inscription we have discovered so far. In Imperial Chinathe graphs on old steles—some dating from BC, and in Xiaozhuan style—are still accessible. Between clerical script and traditional regular script, there is another transition type of calligraphy works called Wei Bei. It had started at the South and North dynasty and ended before . Printing technologies here allowed a shape stabilization. The Kaishu shape of characters years ago was mostly similar to that at the end of Imperial China. The Kangxi and current shapes have tiny differences, while stroke order is still the same, according to old style. They were generally understood but always rejected in official texts. Some of these unorthodox variants, in addition to some newly created characters, compose the Simplified Chinese character set. Besides the traditional four tools, desk pads and paperweights are also used. Many different parameters influence the final result of a calligrapher's work. Physical parameters include the shape, size, stretch, and hair type of the ink brush; the color, color density and water density of the ink; as well as the paper's water absorption speed and surface texture. The calligrapher's technique also influences the result, as the look of finished characters are influenced by the quantity of ink and water the calligraper lets the brush take and by the pressure, inclination, and direction of the brush. Changing these variables produces thinner or bolder strokes, and smooth or toothed borders. Eventually, the speed, accelerations and decelerations of a skilled calligrapher's movements aim to give "spirit" to the characters, greatly influencing their final shapes. These styles' stroke orders vary more, sometimes creating radically different forms. Examples of modern printed styles are Song from the 's printing pressand sans-. These are not considered traditional styles, and are normally not written. Both Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese calligraphy were greatly influenced by Chinese calligraphy. The Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese people have also developed their own specific sensibilities and styles of calligraphy while incorporating Chinese influences. However, the calligraphic traditions continue to be preserved. Temporary calligraphy is a practice of water-only calligraphy on the floor, which dries out within minutes. This practice is especially appreciated by the new generation of retired Chinese in public parks of China. These will often open studio-shops in tourist towns offering traditional Chinese calligraphy to tourists. Other than writing the clients name, they also sell fine brushes as souvenirs and limestone carved stamps. Since late s, a few Chinese artists have branched out traditional Chinese calligraphy to a new territory by mingling with English letters; notable new forms of calligraphy are Xu Bing 's square calligraphy and DanNie's coolligraphy or cooligraphy. Calligraphy has influenced ink and wash paintingwhich is accomplished using similar tools and techniques. Calligraphy The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method influenced most major art styles in East Asia, including ink and wash paintinga style of ChineseJapaneseand Korean based entirely on calligraphy. is also influenced by Chinese calligraphy, from tools to style. is central to Tibetan culture. The script is derived from Indic scripts. The nobles of Tibet, such as the High Lamas and inhabitants of the Potala Palacewere usually capable calligraphers. Tibet has been a center of Buddhism for several centuries, and that religion places a great deal of significance on written word. This does not provide for a large body of secular pieces, although they do exist but are usually related in some way to Tibetan Buddhism. Almost all high religious writing involved calligraphy, including letters sent by the Dalai Lama and other religious and secular authority. Calligraphy is particularly evident on their prayer wheelsalthough this calligraphy was forged rather than scribed, much like Arab and Roman calligraphy is often found on buildings. Although originally done with a reed, Tibetan calligraphers now use chisel tipped pens and markers as well. Ethiopian Abyssinian calligraphy began with the Ge'ez scriptwhich replaced Epigraphic South Arabian in the Kingdom of Aksumthat The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method developed specifically for Ethiopian Semitic languages. Ge'ez literature begins with the Christianization of Ethiopia and the civilization of Axum in the 4th century, during the reign of Ezana of Axum. The Ge'ez script is read from left to right and has been adapted to write other languages, usually ones that are also Semitic. is recognizable by the use of the Latin script. The appeared about BC, in , and by the first century [ clarification needed ] developed into Roman imperial capitals carved on stones, painted on walls, and for daily use. In the second and third centuries the uncial lettering style developed. As writing withdrew to The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method, was found more suitable for copying the Bible and other religious texts. It was the monasteries which preserved calligraphic traditions during the fourth and fifth centuries, when the Roman Empire fell and Europe entered the Dark Ages. At the height of the Empire, its power reached as far as Great Britain; when the empire fell, its literary influence remained. Merovingian scriptLaon script, Luxeuil scriptVisigothic scriptBeneventan scriptwhich are mostly cursive and hardly readable. Christian churches promoted the development of writing through the prolific copying of the Bible, the Breviaryand other sacred texts. Charlemagne 's devotion to improved scholarship resulted in the recruiting of "a crowd of scribes", according to Alcuinthe Abbot of York. The first manuscript in this hand was the Godescalc Evangelistary finished —a Gospel book written by the scribe Godescalc. In the eleventh century, the Caroline evolved into the Gothic scriptwhich was more compact and made it possible to fit more text on a page. In the 15th century, the rediscovery of old Carolingian texts encouraged the creation of the or littera . The 17th century saw the Batarde script from France, and the 18th century saw the English script spread across Europe and world through their books. In the mids French officials, flooded with documents written in various hands and varied levels of skill, complained that many such documents were beyond their ability to decipher. The Office of the Financier thereupon restricted all legal documents to three hands, namely the Coulee, the Rhonde, known as Round hand in English and a Speed Hand sometimes simply called the . With the destruction of the Camera Apostolica during the sack of Romethe capitol for writing masters moved to Southern France. Bythe Italic Cursiva began to be replaced by a technological refinement, the Italic Chancery Circumflessa, which in turn fathered the Rhonde and later English Roundhand. In England, Ayres and Banson popularized the Round Hand while Snell is noted for his reaction to them, and warnings of restraint and proportionality. Still Edward Crocker began publishing his copybooks 40 years before the aforementioned. Sacred Western calligraphy has some unique features, such as the illumination of the first letter of each book or chapter in medieval times. A decorative "carpet page" may precede the literature, filled with ornate, geometrical depictions of bold-hued animals. The — AD are an early example. As with Chinese or Islamic calligraphyWestern calligraphic script employed the use of strict rules and shapes. Quality writing had a rhythm and regularity to the letters, with a "geometrical" order of the lines on the page. Each character had, and often still has, a precise stroke order. Unlike a , irregularity in the characters' size, style, and colors increases aesthetic value, [ dubious — discuss ] though the content may be illegible. Many of the themes The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method variations of today's contemporary Western calligraphy are found in the pages of The Saint John's Bible. A particularly modern example is Timothy Botts ' illustrated edition of the Bible, with calligraphic images as well as a calligraphy typeface. Several other Western styles use the same tools and practices, The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method differ by character set and stylistic preferences. For Slavonic lettering, the history of the Slavonic and consequently Russian writing systems differs fundamentally from the one of the Latin language. It evolved from the 10th century to today. As it is based on Arabic letters, some call it "". However the term "" is a more appropriate term as it comprises all works of calligraphy by Muslim calligraphers of different national cultures, like Persian or Ottoman calligraphy, from Al-Andalus in medieval Spain to China. Islamic calligraphy is associated with geometric Islamic art arabesque on the walls and ceilings of mosques as well as on the page or other materials. Contemporary artists in the Islamic world may draw on the heritage of calligraphy to create modern calligraphic inscriptions, like corporate logosor abstractions. Instead of recalling something related to the spoken word, calligraphy for Muslims is a visible expression of the highest art of all, the art of the spiritual world. Calligraphy has arguably become the most venerated form of Islamic art because it provides a link between the languages of the Muslims with the religion of Islam. The Qur'an has played an important role in the development and evolution of the Arabic language, and by extension, calligraphy in the . Proverbs and passages from the Qur'an are still sources for Islamic calligraphy. During the Ottoman civilizationIslamic calligraphy attained special prominence. The city of Istanbul is an open exhibition hall for all kinds and varieties of calligraphy, from inscriptions in mosques to fountains, schools, houses, etc. Some commercial companies in southern Mexico use Mayan hieroglyphs as symbols of their business. Calligraphy - Wikipedia

Last SeptemberI was lucky enough to visit my teachers Amanda and Keith Adams at their house in Catalonia for five days of private instruction and conviviality. I was fascinated by the points that Peter discusses and I thought it would be great to share it with more people as Copperplate calligraphy has gained a lot of interest in the recent years, so we can re-visit these points again from a new perspective. Since then, Peter has been mastering the technique and he is getting closer to being able to demonstrate it fluently. The article below was published at Letter Review in Vol. I hope you find this all interesting! When I phoned a colleague during the course of this research, she admitted to turning the page as fast as possible whenever she came upon anything about copperplate. Please, in the interests of historical fairness and justice, do not follow her example now…. Each age rewrites its own immediate past. It shows how, over the last century, a mythology has built up around so-called copperplate writing, and that the accepted history and practice of copperplate are distortions stemming from no small amount of ignorance, supposition, and ideological antipathy. A single example sums up the treatment copperplate receives in current calligraphic literature. This is a generally measured and sensible account, but having covered the Renaissance and the development of printing, the authors characterize modern calligraphy by saying:. In Britain, however, any pretence at a sound typographic and calligraphic tradition had, by midth century, virtually ceased to exist… [p. And that is as close as we get to a discussion of the copperplate tradition. Yet this tradition had dominated European writing for well over two centuries during the period when writing was available to a far wider segment of the population than it had been during medieval and Renaissance times. The quote seems to tell us that copperplate is not a sound tradition. On the face of it, the authors are quite justified. Calligraphic historians unanimously agree on the fact. As a style it lacked individuality and character though it looked pleasant enoughand in the opinion of many, copperplate writing, with its rigidity and lack of originality, bears much responsibility for the final decline of Western calligraphy. Generally it may be considered that in the 18th century calligraphy ceased to exist, although of course handwriting continued to flourish. The paradox can be explained by the fact that while more and more people were encouraged to write well, there was little concern for calligraphy as an art—let alone a fine The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method. Writing was a practical subject, and such it was to remain for a great many years. This belief that copperplate is somehow a degenerate commercial offshoot of a lofty and noble artistic tradition is one of the central principles of the copperplate myth. It is also The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method most easily disposed of. This should have been self-evident, and the The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method that such major calligraphic histories can make such a blatantly incorrect assertions requires explanation. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the , led by John Ruskin and , had emphasized the moral value of honest craft labor—as opposed to the dehumanizing and mechanical work fostered by the Industrial Revolution, with its division of labor. In the Arts and Crafts world view, there was no distinction between artist and craftsperson. Both saught harmony and simplicity and both had to remain true to the essential nature of the materials they used; for the movement abhored all artifice. To someone imbued with an arts and crafts philosophy and the potency of the Johnstonian tradition has kept that philosophy alive much longer in calligraphy than elsewherethe medieval scribe can be seen as an artist, as can Renaissance and modern scribes. But how is such a calligrapher going to react to the picture Whalley gives us of the writing teachers of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries? They are portrayed as engaged in commerce; writing books praising themselves and putting down their competitors, resorting to flourishing to draw attention to their work, and using a style The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method writing which derives not from the natural flow of the pen, but from a foreign medium—the copper plate and the burin. In such a context, it is not hard to see how they could be perceived as less than true calligraphers—let alone artists. Engaging in commerce was not a favorite occupation of the early twentieth century avant-garde, who were resolutely antibourgeois. It is, The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method, the last of these charges leveled against the writing masters that is the most insidious. This shows how completely taken for granted this relationship between the script and the plate is now perceived to be. The point is labored endlessly by Whalley and every other writer I have found that has actually dealt with the period. Alfred Fairbank, for example, in a section on pens in his highly influential The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method Book of Scripts says:. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century commercial hands require a flexible pointed pen held so that the downstroke…is the result of a pressure that splays the pen. Seemingly the aim was to imitate the strokes the engraving tool produced. Therefore it could be said that the pen was not master in its own house. It is not hard to see the propagandistic elements of this piece of writing. Fairbank invokes the arts and crafts and modernist prejudices about commerce and truth to materials, and then plays on contemporary fears by introducing a perceived analogy with the then very new ballpoint pen. To me, though, there are two other vital points. This suggests that the usage of the word copperplate as a label for the script was not contemporary with the development of the style. Thus far, I have not found it used in nineteenth-century texts, nor does use it in Writing, Illuminating, and Lettering A fine engraved example of the writing of the period, the text of this plate also makes it clear that original calligraphy was a collectable item at the time. Courtesy of the Newberry Library. What this actually means is that he has no solid evidence to back up his contention that the letterform derived from the burin and not the pen. A statement like this really needs to be supported by some type of primary source material. Fairbank did not have this. Interestingly, at no stage does Heal claim a causative link between engraving and writing. This is hardly solid evidence, and later writers provide little additional material. I have only found two who refer to original sources at all. Another Jackson Dick mentions some writing manuals in which the writers advocate the turning of the paper to create certain flourishes—a technique clearly borrowed from engravers. The first simply demonstrates that Cresci was aware that the burin could distort the integrity of his written forms, while the second refers only to a few flourishes—but not to letterforms. Whalley [English Handwriting —p. Mankind in general [looks] upon them [the engraved plates] as the sole production of the engraver, and not of the writing master…. All engraved are first designed and wrote by some master, or drawn in backwards by the engraver…. For as it is impractical for the engraver to produce an elegant piece of engraved writing, without the assistance of the master in forming the design for him, so it is likewise impossible for the penman to multiply his performances, and transmit his works for posterity without the aid of the able and judicious engraver. This illustration shows the different types of pens that were used for the various scripts used in the Eighteenth century refer fig. Even more revealing is the fact that there are examples of engravers expressing the same sentiments. Many who are ignorant conceive mighty things of Engraven copybooks and that no Written Copy can ever be so correct as that which is engraven which Opinion altho it has proved Beneficial to me as other Engravers yet the love I bear to Truth, as well as a particulour Honour and Respect to the Ingenuous Masters in Writing and their Art, obliges me to declare tho thereby I pass a self denying Act against myself that this Opinion is by no means true. It is easy enough, nowadays, to imagine engravers developing a burin-based script and then somehow imposing their will upon the hapless writing practitioners, but if this were so, why did they continue to engrave such large numbers of pieces including Roman and Gothic lettering? The fact is that at all but the smallest sizes the engraver would have had to make multiple incisions to simulate a calligraphic letterform—so there would have been relatively little difference in the difficulty of engraving one type of alphabet or another. Indeed, is there any reason to believe that these engravers were not skillful enough to copy whatever was asked of them? In the following text, written for a calligraphic collection, the engraver goes out of his way to advertise his accurate translation of the writing:. An Essay in Writing…Written by the late eminent Mr. Howard, London. This raises another important point. Calligraphy was collected at this time. The writing masters did not spend all their time on work that was to be engraved. Their original work was evidently valued. The fact that their copybooks are now the most accessible sources for their writing should not blind us to the fact that much copperplate calligraphy never went near an engraver—or was only engraved at a much later point, as in the The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method above. Why then should the scribe use scripts that were not natural to the pen, or try to teach such styles to people whose work was very unlikely ever to be engraved? In a chapter in Heal on the development of handwriting, Stanley Morison, an enormously influential typographer and researcher wrote:. Again, the tool of the copper-engraver produced an excessively brilliant line which tempted pupils to employ a correspondingly fine pen. Clearly, there is a need for further research into the origins of the copperplate style. At present, however, the available evidence strongly suggests that several myths held by modern scribes have no sound historical basis. These include: 1 Copperplate is not properly calligraphy, just a form of handwriting. In reality, the current theory about the relationship between pen and The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method appears plausible largely because almost every image of eighteenth- or nineteenth-century writing reproduced in histories of calligraphy comes from the engraved copybooks. Very few handwritten documents are shown—and these are almost invariably by children or amateurs. Such study is totally valid in its own right, but its effect has been to initiate a twentieth-century fixation on the engraved rather than the hand-written letterform. The situation outlined above suggests that a core mythology about the history of copperplate writing was established in the early part of this century and has been followed unquestioningly ever since. This copperplate myth has had a distinct effect on our understanding of the practice of the alphabet. When we assume that the cutting action of the burin provided the rationale for copperplate letter shapes, it causes us to focus solely on the action of pressure on a flexible pen. The flexible pen provides a quality of line that is temptingly analogous to the way a burin might cut metal, and as such there is no reason to seek other approaches. Instructional books therefore give a largely unified picture of copperplate practice. In it we are told that copperplate is done with a flexible metal pen, and that to write correctly we must either turn the paper at an oblique angle, or use an elbow pen. This information is not wrong per se, but if one questions the historical validity of the link between burin and pen, then it becomes necessary to re- examine some of the things that we have previously taken for granted. These include the type of pen used for copperplate, the way the paper is placed, and even the pen hold. But first, the pen itself. Contemporary copperplate calligraphers use a flexible metal pen. This is, in fact, completely incorrect. My own studies of the changeover from quill to metal pen in the records of Victorian New Zealand [Gilderdale p. There is, however, a much more fundamental reason why Jackson is wrong. The quills of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were neither pointed nor particularly flexible. They were, it turns out, broad- edged. Now, I cannot take credit for this observation. In the first version I submitted of this article, I made the same false assumption. His finding about the broad edged quill is, however, now reasonably common knowledge on the calligraphy internet newsgroup [Ross Green, Calligraphy Digest V