Bookbinding, and the Care of Books : A Handbook for Amateurs Bookbinders & Librarians / Cockerell, Douglas ; with drawings by Noel Rooke, and other illustrations [1901]In issuing this volume of a series of Handbooks on the ArtisticCrafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims.In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books ofworkshop practice, from the points of view of experts who havecritically examined the methods current in the shops, and puttingaside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship,and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are moreespecially associated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope totreat design itself as an essential part of good workmanship. Duringthe last century most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of anacademic kind, were little considered, and there was a tendency tolook on "design" as a mere matter of _appearance_. Such"ornamentation" as there was was usually obtained by following in amechanical way a drawing provided by an artist who often knew littleof the technical processes involved in production. With the criticalattention given to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seenthat it was impossible to detach design from craft in this way, andthat, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element ofgood quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitablematerial, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, properfinish and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, thatornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship thana matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by toowide a gulf from fresh thought--that is, from design--inevitablydecays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced fromworkmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls intoaffectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a languageaddressed to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speechof the tool.