James Guthrie - His Book of Book-Plates (1907)

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0 S of t c ov er , 1907, 62pp. ; 24i l l us t r a t i ons .

Ot t oS c hul z e&Compa ny Publ i s her s , E di nbur gh.

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JA M E S G U T H R IE HIS BOOK OF BOOKPLATES

Three Hundred and Twenty jiv e copies, o f which are Twenty-five on Japanese Vellum, only printed o f this Book,

The copies on Japanese Vellum are all num­

bered and Signed by the Artist.

JA M E S

G U T H R IE

HIS BOOK O F BO O K ­ P L A T E S , CONSISTING of 2 4 ORIGINAL D ESIG N S

P U B L IS H E D 1907 BY O TTO SC H U L Z E & CO..

20 SO U TH FR E D E R IC K S T R E E T . E D IN B U R G H

IN TR OD UC TION HPH E bookplate, despite its occasional nature, has been repeatedly proved worthy of the attention of those who love fine draughtsman­ ship and design. The facilities of photographic engraving have certainly confused the evolution of adequate treatment by furthering the too hasty reproduction of conventionalities and mannerisms numerous enough to obscure all true principles of design ; yet the same facilities have chiefly enabled the draughtsman to take this petite art out of the hands of the heraldic engraver, and make of it the dainty mode whose choicest examples may well vie with the koroplasts’ figures of Tanagra in the regard of a posterity of connoisseurs.

No more earnest and sensitive talent than that of Jam es Guthrie has ever turned thus to

the service of book-lovers ; and his imagination and sympathy have so possessed the apparently limiting requirements of the genre that a collection of his book-plates might pass for a little gallery of his work, a microcosm of his visions.

His most characteristic achievem ents may be said to be in a vein of romantic landscape— landscape in which the accidental reality is not perm itted to take the brush and paint for him, but is led by a very personal observation and study to yield materials for the expression of his sense of elemental things implied by natural events, and their mysterious influences upon men set among them.

In his series of designs to poems by Poe the shapes of rock, tree, cloud, and water which have delighted and terrified him are thus combined and re-combined in the way a musician handles his melodic subjects; and the resulting fantasies are certainly the only illustrations of Poe ’s work which command wonder and dread and an uneasy sense of immortal influences in as grea t a degree as the famous poems they accompany.

It is, perhaps, unjust to insist on the land-

scape aspect of Guthrie’s work ; for even the public that cares for art too often thinks of the landscape artist as a journeyman who paints trees because he cannot paint men ; and man recurs appropriately in Guthrie’s designs whenever the expression of the natural and elemental demand his presence. In fact a considerable proportion of his work is con­ cerned wholly with figure-composition, as will be seen when a folio volume, entitled “ Frescoes,” on which the artist is working in co-operation with a comrade in another art, is ready for publication ; while his recent portrait of his friend Mr D. Phaer (a little-known artist whose work is beginning to attract the attention of shrewd critics anxious to discern what great­ ness the immediate future holds) is in itself sufficient proof of the authenticity and variety of Guthrie’s power.

It is not possible in this place to speak fittingly of Guthrie’s literary activities, though the delicate poems which appear in “ The Elf,” a magazine of his designs and writings, have many admirers; but his achievements in artistic typography at the Pear Tree Press demand specific notice on account of the influence his B

experiences of hand-printing have exercised upon his production of book-plates—for skill in manipulating blocks in the press can enhance the effect of the most perfect design.

His work in connection with his Press has, moreover, initiated and justified many novel experiments in the use of colour. His pictures in pastel, gouache, and tempera had, indeed, previously proved him to be a colourist of charm and perception, able to carry out and intensify his romantic designs with a full palette in a convincing manner often denied to talented pen draughtsmen (who are not infrequently seen to believe that colour is another means of working in black and white): and, when this sense of colour was applied to the differing conditions of press-work, new possibilities in the use and unmechanical blending of coloured inks were manifested, which have since been applied to some of the book-plate designs in the ensuing pages with subtle and perfect results.

The fancy and versatility in choice of subject manifested in the ensuing pages are certainly notable ; whether the theme be landscape or figure or decorative device, a sympathetic

handling makes every variation seem equally and wholly appropriate for its purpose and position within a book. A little angel, as riant and debonair as the angels of Filippino Lippi in a, famous Florentine tondo, a winged and aspiring tree, a sower going forth to sow, may well express in Guthrie’s handling the sympathetic ownership of precious volumes no less than the artist's feeling for a flawless disposition of shade and contour in a given space; garden­ mazes and enchanted forests signify no less the wonder and ripeness that lurk in a choice library.

But perhaps the most delightful of his draw­ ings for this purpose is the dandelion-puff, whose broken circle is to counsel the readers of many desirable books to make the most of time ; Diirer and Hokusai would have praised the dignity with which this simple plant-study (as close to nature as the cuts in the old herbals) allies itself with the steadfast purposes of great design. This plate is fortunate in having its vigour and sincerity enforced by being carefully and faithfully cut upon wood— in which connection, it may be noted, that much of Guthrie’s work, though intended for */

mechanical methods of reproduction, owes something of its richness and ardour to its appearance of having been prepared with a thought for the requirements of the engraver on wood; for the freedom granted by modern processes cannot undo the fact that the most effective economy of hand-engraving has stated essentially the fundamental laws of black and white work.

In concluding a necessarily brief note, the consciousness remains that the originality of this artist’s vision deserves fuller appreciation; his ability in weaving decorations of abstract pattern has had no mention, though it has been employed both in book-plates and title­ pages ; but the ensuing series of plates will rectify such omissions while it justifies the opinions for which space has been found.

Certainly Guthrie is an artist of positive achievement, and still more power of beauty and insight is to be looked for from him in years to come.

G ordon B ottomley.

July 1907.

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M r Guthrie and Messrs Schulze ty Co. desire to thank the owners o f the Book-plates collected in the preceding pages f o r their courtesy in lending them f o r reprodiiction, as such a collection would have been impossible

without their sympathy and concurrence.

P R IN T E D BY TU R N BU LL A N D SPEA R S E D IN B U R G H

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