The Printed Book part 1

I'm admitting defeat. When I began this topic I started at the beginning; the study guide followed by the essays on "The Printed Book" web site. Then I discovered that there is too much to be discovered! What I mean is; with each question that arose while doing my readings I would search for an answer, but that only led to more questions, which in turn led to even more questions and so on. This is problematic because I just can't seem to get to an end point where I can say "okay, I've finished this section, I can post my blog and move on to the next". It's like the saying "tomorrow never comes", so I'm drawing my line in the sand (sorry about the mixed metaphores) - even though I don't feel I've covered everything, and will try and put my scratchings into some kind of order and post. Now.

Firstly, I posed a question on our uni forum and haven't had a reply, so in the chance that someone who reads this knows the answer: I like the way the movement in the water in this image has been created and it feels familiar. Is there a well-known artist who uses this linear style in their art?

St Christopher woodcut, c. 1423

In our "Guttenberg and after: Block Books' reading it mentions" : “Transfer of the ink from block to paper was initially carried out by hand rubbing, with the paper being printed on one side only and the resulting blank pages pasted together.” It seems like a step backwards in book production – in many of the illuminated manuscript the work on a recto (right) page can be seen through to a verso (left) page, but both sides of the paper are used regardless. Pasting the pages together must have made books feel thick and cumbersome, and wasted paper.

I found it interesting that the regions of Europe most know for book production; the Netherlands and Germany, were different to the area of manuscript production which were central Europe and Britain (there was an overlap in Germany), and incongruous that playing cards were printed with woodblocks before the technique was used to print books.

In the reading 'Guttenberg and After: the Development of Print Technology' it mentions the book Der Ackermann von Bohmen (The Farmer from Bohmen). Written by Johannes von Tepl, it was printed around 1460 by Albrecht Pfister; who was the first to print illustrated books. It was interesting to compare the original illuminated manuscript with the block-printed one. There are many more illustrations in the hand-written version, although many of them are almost-duplicates of others; the examples below illustrate.

folio 02 recto

folio 8 recto

I enjoyed learning about Guttenberg's Bible but was confused about how the illuminations were made given that the first illustrations were printed by Pfister 50 years after the bible was printed. The following from the Biblical Illuminator's Guild cleared things up: “Gutenberg produced these Bibles (which were printed, then rubricated and illuminated by hand, the work of specialized craftsmen) over a period of a year, the time it would have taken to produce one copy in a Scriptorium. Because of the hand illumination, each copy is unique.” While looking through the Bible's glorious pages (pictured here is Jerome's Epistle to Paulinus; copy on paper, there is also a vellum copy) at the British Library I noticed that the colour printing from the illustration on the recto page can be seen through the paper on the verso page. It made me curious about the quality of the paper used.

Volume 1 Folio 1r (recto)

Volume 1 Folio 1v (verso)

The same web site states that “Most 15th-century paper is of a very high quality, as is the paper used for the Gutenberg Bible.” If so, why can the illumination be seen through the page? Has something happened over the five hundred and fifty or so years to cause this?

Another thing I wondered about was what had Guttenberg used for ink? Was black made from lampblack as the illuminators used, and what was added to give it its viscosity and tacky nature required for printing? This quote from The Infancy of Printing “Gutenberg's ink formula, oil paint with a high copper and lead content, is still black and glossy after 500 years.” prompted my questions. This quote “The ink was adapted from Flemish artists' ink” from another page of The Infancy of Printing partly answers them, though I would like to know more.
PS. after posting this I found more! According to Richard W. Clement it was made from lampblack and varnish (paragraph 2).

Just as something I need to share because it is so amazing (understatement) is this example of rubrication on a page of Guttenberg's Bible.

Please, click on the image to enlarge it and let your mind boggle.