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I Like What I Know, or
Typography Obscured
John S. Carroll in a very interesting and well written article, “Taste and Type”, Campane Number 61, revived a debate I have had with myself for some years. It is not exactly that I disagree with Mr. Carroll; in fact, by and large, I do agree with him. But I don’t believe it is all that simple and obvious. Even the quoted Toscanini’s taste has been questioned – some critics contended that his tempo was far too fast in the third movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.
Underlying the Carroll article is the assumption that taste is absolute, invariable and immutable, and presumably some are born with it, some achieve it, and for others there is no hope. This view may be extended to maintain that there are real, absolute standards of art, architecture, design, etc. There are many cogent supporting arguments. It is said that any artist recognizes as a fellow artist the painter of prehistoric animals in the caves in France. Greek statuary, Japanese screens, Aztec carvings and many other examples of almost universally appreciated unrelated, artistic efforts abound to lend credence to the argument that standards are not mere whims.
And yet there is a disturbing amount of evidence which suggests that we like what we have been taught to like and whatever we are accustomed to; or in the case of our young people, the negative of the preceding. Looking backward, we know that painters now recognized as masters were abhorred and ridiculed in their day by the very arbiters of good taste, the art critics. Can we really be sure that future generations will not revere pictures of Campbell Soup cans? Are there not whole fields of art, say oriental music or African Masks, which are meaningless to cultured people in our society. Do the letters on Trajan’s column please us because they are very like the letters we now use? If letter forms had evolved in another direction would we not regard the Roman letters as primitive designs?
Typography appears to me to be one of the most difficult arts both in execution and appreciation. Consider the following which serve to bewilder me:
The Gutenberg Bible is one of the world’s most beautiful books. It is almost illegible; I can distinguish letters only by picking out familiar words.
The Kelmscott Chaucer is an astonishingly beautiful book. It is very difficult, indeed painful, to read.
I learned to read German in Fraktur, a face not even a mother could love. German in roman never looks “right.”
Before I learned that I should admire Caslon, I thought a page of it presented a messy appearance. Now I know to call this “honest,” “unassuming,” etc.
Did Baskerville like Caslon? What was wrong with his taste that he thought it needed redesigning?
I never liked the looks of Civilite type until I learned it was the first script face and was essentially designed as it now is in 1557 in France following the handwriting of the time. Should this make a difference?
I once thought Century Expanded a clear, legible, unaffected type. Now I know that it should be used only to advertise fire sales to the lower classes. Do the “lower classes” prefer unattractive typefaces, or is it felt that it is wasteful to use a good typeface on them?
I know a man who would not drink wine because he could not bear the phony talk about it. Some of the typographic language is suspiciously like wine language which is exceeded only by art critic language.
In fact to stretch the analogy further, it’s as if we were discussing not wine but wine bottles since, to a large extent, typography is the container; not the thing contained. This is an important distinction as Thurber once said to a man who claimed he had been struck over the head with a quart of milk. (This was before the ubiquitous paper milk carton.)
The Kelmscott Chaucer, often extolled as the epitome provides an example of this loss of distinction. The type face used is said to be singularly appropriate to the subject matter. The fact is that the Kelmscott Chaucer is unreadable; the book is all Morris and no Chaucer. Chaucer would be better served by charcoal scratches on the backs of wooden shovels.
In short, there are books and there are iconobooks (images of books). I take it for granted that the purpose of a book is simply expressed – A book is to read! A book so printed that the words are only an element of the design presented by the page is an iconobook. If you want to read it, it’s a book; if you want to frame it, it’s an iconobook. The Gutenberg Bible, presumably, was originally a book but it is now an iconobook. The Morris Chaucer was always an iconobook and is properly located in a glass case in the Smithsonian rather than in a library. This is not to say that I deprecate either books or iconobooks; it is simply that we must keep them separate in our thinking in consonance with their disparate goals.
It is hard to have really independent judgment about typography. One has a reasonable chance of forming some opinion about paintings and sculptures without the benefit of critics and interpreters but typography is an “invisible” art when applied to real books so that by the time one knows it exists he is imbued with the establishment thinking.
It is natural for the amateur printer to lean toward the iconobook side; who wants an invisible hobby? He is naturally more concerned with the container than the contents and I have no quarrel with this. Let him use more “sock,” be a little fancier, experiment with ornaments and type faces, and in general be the free man and anachronism that he is. Fortunately, if his taste is bad, he won’t know it; if told, he won’t believe it. He has only to please himself and secondly to please his fellow hobbyists if he can.
Contrary to Mr. Carroll, I like Goudy Old Style, Goudy Gimbel and almost everything Goudy did that I have seen. I like Perpetua although the italic g is annoying. All this, according to Mr. Carroll, proves that I am a novice, which really needs no proof. I agree in principle that the letters can not simply be magnified or reduced, but if the 10-point Centaur used by Newman in The Web is made that way, I must say the results are beautiful. However, I like Caslon, Garamond and Baskerville, though I wish people would use Baskerville in a larger point size. Sometimes I like Kennerley and sometimes I don’t. It’s this kind of thinking that makes my type procurement program a total mess. Right now my favorite book face is this Deepdene, but I prefer it on a softer paper than this where I think it prints a little thin. The body of the recipe on the back page is in Century Expanded which, perversely, I still like.
If you have a taste for pasta do not fail to try the lasagna prescribed on the back page. This is the heavy, delicious, filling type which consumed with a bottle of Chianti will absolutely satisfy your appetite, not matter how gross.
Lasagna
From the kitchen of Carole Brooks.
Meat Balls:
1½ pounds ground beef
1½ cups Italian style flavored bread crumbs
2 eggs, slightly beaten
pinch salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese to season
Sauce:
1 or 2 medium onions, sliced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
2 cans tomato sauce
2 cans tomato paste
1 tablespoon sugar
Remaining Ingredients:
1 pound lasagna noodles
1 tablespoon oil
1½ pounds ricotta cheese
¾ pound mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese
Mix meat ball ingredients well and sauté in a little oil. Then to prepare sauce sauté in oil, until soft, the sliced onions and the two minced garlic cloves. Add tomato paste, tomato sauce, pinch of salt and pepper, sugar and enough water to more than cover meat balls. Cook about one hour till meatballs are tender and sauce thick.
Cook lasagna noodles in salted water to which one tablespoon oil has been added. Put a little sauce on bottom of pan; add a layer of noodles; dot with a generous amount of ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese; mash meat balls and add a layer of this; ladle sauce over this. Continue layers in same order, ending with noodles. Add more sauce on top and sprinkle on a generous layer of Parmesan cheese.
Bake 30 minutes at 375°F. Let stand 30 minutes before serving.
Printed by Jacob L. & David L. Warner at their private press.
Greenbelt, Maryland 20770