32. Type, Lettering, and Calligraphy, 1450-1830

24-28 July 1995

The development of the major formal and informal book hands, the dominant printing types of each period, and their interrelationship. Topics include: the Gothic hands; humanistic script; the Renaissance inscriptional capital; Garamond and the spread of the Aldine Roman; calligraphy from the chancery italic to the English round hand; the neo-classical book and its typography; and early commercial typography.

1. How useful were the pre-course readings?

1: Useful, but hard to approach cold (ie, without some previous training/guidance re: identifications). 2: Very useful. 3: They will be more useful after the course. It was an extensive and good list. 4: Massive -- a lifetime of research (which is good). 5: Very helpful, very vast. Instructive annotations. 6: I found the reading list, and the annotation of items, extremely useful and will continue to refer to it. 7: Very useful. 8: Extremely. I'd emphasize the value of reading in the direction of personal interest (after hitting the basics). 9: Very, but there were too many to finish. 10: The list was vast -- I would have liked some more guidance as to what were the basic works in the field to start one's study and then the more specialized. The list could have been organized by subject/field rather than alphabetical. 11: Extremely useful, both for the course and, I imagine, the next several years.


2. Did your instructor prepare sufficiently to teach THIS course? Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class useful?

1: Yes and Yes! Instructor did a good job of providing citations for future follow-up. 2: Yes. Yes. 3: There should have been more handouts, illustrating and summarizing the letterforms discussed in the lectures. 4: Apparently no special preparation of books to be viewed in Special Collections. Materials distributed were highly useful. 5: JM seemed well prepared. Handouts were few and of little value, with the exception of the sheet of names and dates, which helped. 6: Yes; handouts were quite useful. I'm sure I will refer back to them. 7: Yes, absolutely. Very useful. 8: Yes, extremely. 9: Yes. I would have liked a field guide to the major families of type and scripts, giving the identifying features of each. 10: Yes, preparation made the course flow quite nicely, points emphasized and returned to. I would have liked perhaps some more handouts but JM referred often enough to sources where good illustrations could be found so it will only be a matter of collecting them oneself. 11: 1) Yes. 2) Very useful, especially the table comparing point sizes.

3. Was the intellectual level of the course content appropriate?

1: Yes, provided an introductory overview of letterform development and shifts and their echoes in type. 2-3: Yes. 5: I feel the course could have been taught at a much higher level. 6-7: Yes. 8: I could never have met the instructor's level -- but given that, yes. I'm ignorant but not stupid, I hope; a week is so short, but a beginning. 9: Yes. 10: On the whole, yes. There was a vast amount of material to cover -- people came with different expectations on what would be emphasized, so I'm sure the intellectual level varied according to the topic discussed and each individual's knowledge. 11: Yes.

4. If your course had field trips, were they effective?

1: Yes -- except for the disruption caused by one student who insisted on viewing material of interest to himself. 2: Yes, the visit to Special Collections. 3: Not really. What was accomplished, we could have done on our own. 4: Not particularly, because it's impossible for twelve or even six people to look at individual letter sorts simultaneously. 5: We went to Special Collections one time. It was essentially a waste of time. 6: Yes. 7: Yes -- we could have spent more time there. 8: Very much too short -- but crucial. I'd suggest at least one more session (I know there's no time) with the impossible better-viewing-for-all-around-the-table. 9: To Special Collections -- good, though there was not enough time to see any of the post-c16 material. 10: I'm sure it would have been, but there was one person who tried to divert the course content to his own design. As a result, our one meeting in Special Collections only covered one period and one kind of book. The material prepared and set aside by the instructor was never shown and we had no opportunity to return. A class of this sort should be looking more at the actual books and less at slides. 11: Not particularly well. Although I'm sure it makes many feel tingly to see a Gutenberg leaf, for a class of 12 it makes more sense to see a detailed slide than a page on a table.

5. Did the actual course content correspond to its RBS brochure description and Expanded Course Description? Did the course in general meet your expectations?

1: Yes, the course did a good job of providing basic overview of letterforms and placing them in an intelligible (and entertaining!) historical and cultural context. 2: Yes. Yes. 3: No, I expected a bit more structure and consistency. Visual handouts would have been helpful to study after the slides to reinforce the information while it was fresh in my mind. 4: Course content was as represented. 5: The content did correspond to the descriptions. As for meeting my expectations, see questions 6, 7, and 9, below. 6: Yes. 8: Yes, complete with lots of mystery and ambiguities left roughly where I thought they would be -- that is, the questions and interest I brought in I took out, knowing that they are interesting, if complex. 9: Yes. 10: Yes, although I wanted or expected more on typography and how it is used. After the first day I quickly saw the intent and flow of JM's lectures and where he wanted to go with them. Accepting his premise and goals for the course, I feel I have gotten a reasonable sense of the field and the subject. 11: Yes.

6. What did you like best about the course?

1: The instructor. The use of detailed slides as part of the lecture format. I was most appreciative of being guided (albeit rapidly!) through the history of letterforms and type and learning in a small way what to look for in identification. 2: Lectures with slides. 3: I liked the instructor. When he discussed styles of type and historical periods that really interested him, the class was much better. 5: JM was amiable and is obviously very knowledgeable. I felt he was trying to communicate his enthusiasms to us. 6: The opportunity to learn, both in the formal lectures and the informal discussion during class from such a knowledgeable scholar. The lectures provided guidelines for looking at letterforms and the discussion helped to provide a broader picture of this field of study. 7: It was a real privilege to be taught by a man who has such an impressive knowledge of not only printing, but also of all aspects of cultural and political history. 8: Absolutely the life-long learning the instructor brings to the material. His warmth and story-telling ability, great humaneness, to a field which can be grossly technical and mired in minutiae. The depth of understanding conveyed simply and intelligently. Liked very much the casting of type, the quiz at the end (wish we had had more). 9: The instructor's great knowledge -- theoretical, practical, and aesthetic -- together with his ability to communicate it. 10: Although a lot of material had to be covered, I liked the way JM tried to give a sense of the historical background to the different types: their antecedents, relationship to the time and place, other movements in arts and architecture, &c. 11: JM's incredible knowledge and depth of experience. He makes the difficult seem effortless.

7. How could the course have been improved?

1: This will sound harsh -- but the course (I felt) was negatively affected by the behavior of one individual in particular who made a point of monopolizing in the rudest possible way the class in the first two days. He was disruptive at the Special Collections session. Thereafter he made a point of contacting fellow class members to complain of his boredom and the fact that his needs were not being met. He came and went at will during the class day (two or three others began to join him in this habit) through the heavy Newcomb Hall doors -- very disruptive! I thought the overall morale of the class suffered as a consequence. I was thoroughly embarrassed for myself and for RBS at his rude (almost contemptuous) behavior to the instructor. It was clear from the final session in which we were asked to provide identification from slides that the class as a whole and this person in particular had much more to learn from JM. I myself am sincerely grateful for the opportunity to have sat in a class led by JM, even if only for a week. I am awestruck by how much he knows and the intelligent sensitivity of his opinions/guesses. He was also kind enough to allow me to Xerox a typographic bibliography (basic) he had put together. 2: Use of RBS museum to handle more books and printed sheets -- using the information discussed during the lectures and slides. This would have made a very fine course even better. 3: Maybe the course should cover a shorter period of time in more depth. If you are doing a survey this broad, the course needs to be more organized and the time used more wisely. 4: By having sample page packets so type on the page can be seen alongside the type on the screen. 5: JM would not discuss the aesthetics of letter forms. He turned away several attempts by students to discuss evaluative judgements and comments he made. I wanted to hear as much as possible about letterforms as solutions to design problems and as allusive symbols, as I had heard about typecasting, point sizes, &c. His aversion to this subject was (and is) a little baffling. The course could be improved by helping students to answer the questions ``What makes type good?'' and ``What makes type bad?''. 6: I think the structure of the course worked quite well. The content was excellent. Consequently, I have no particular suggestions for improvement. 7: Two slide projectors would facilitate the comparisons of typefaces. 8: We didn't go around and introduce ourselves, which would have been good, but which I'm now glad we did not do. I'll leave it at that. The class felt a little scary sometimes, but that's me and not always a bad thing. 9: A course of this sort desperately needs two slide projectors so that types can be compared. This has long been the characteristic pedagogical mode of art history, and type history as a branch of applied art demands no less. 10: More hands-on with actual books and materials. More on method of identification (I guess I'm asking for a procedure or step-by-step plan to look at type). 11: 1) I think breaking up the course into smaller time chunks (and therefore, several courses) is the way to go, ultimately. Especially as the RBS crowd becomes more professionally oriented, the courses may be called upon for more specific focus. I note that we have two graduate students from the UVa English Department, one c19, one medieval, an incunabulist from the trade, catalogers, &c. They were all looking for information which would help them professionally and the differing priorities led to frustrations.

8. Any final thoughts?

1: Try to spend as much time as possible immersing oneself in the preliminary suggested readings. 2: Read as much as possible ahead of time and be ready to absorb lots of information. Then block out a week back at work to review your notes and take advantage of the experience. 3: Reading beforehand is necessary and even note taking on specifics. The subject is very subtle and requires a good eye and some experience to really get something out of the course. I think JM should prepare a chart for the course which lists the names/dates/designers of the styles and depicts the characteristic relevant sorts of each so that they can be compared together. It is difficult to take in all of the specific characteristics of each style and take notes so rapidly. I alsothought that it was very cheap of RBS not to allow JM to give each of the participants a piece of cast type to take with us, after our demonstration. 4: Non satis scire. [Don't know enough -Ed.] 5: I can only say that I did not learn very much that could not be duplicated with a decent typeface identification book, of which there are many. If students come looking for answers to ``Why'' questions, they will be disappointed. We did not touch on the meanings of changing letterforms. We only discussed parallels with art and architecture toward the end of the week. The course seemed very heavily weighted toward the mechanics of making type. That said, I cannot say I did not enjoy the course. It's only that I didn't get what I came for. What I got was valuable, but I feel disappointed that I spent a week with this great scholar and did not get any closer to understanding what he sees when he looks at type -- beyond the slant of the crossbar on a lower case e or the shape of the top bowl of a capital B. Not the best things that JM has to offer. 6: Try to look at as many facsimiles of typefaces as possible before the course in preparation for the vast number of images to be examined throughout the week. 8: Trust JM's advice on the reading list and follow it. Find and simply look at facsimiles (or originals) to exercise the eye. 9: Do as much reading from the recommended items on the bibliography as possible. 10: It is unfortunate that there was a destructive element in the class who felt he was just so much better than all of us and more deserving of being there than any one of us. It placed a very unfair burden on the instructor and actually made interaction among the students and instructor very difficult. The atmosphere was tense, as this person was constantly complaining, bad-mouthing the course. His aim was to show up the instructor and it was counterproductive. I don't know the answer to such a problem or if it occurs often, but it should have been dealt with from the first. How, I don't know. But it does make evaluation of the course difficult. 11: RBS seems to be in transition, and this course in particular (at least according to JM) has moved from type buffs and calligraphers to librarians with specific needs, graduate students and professors in the humanities. With this change, I think, and with Institutes for the History of the Book cropping up like dandelions across the country, RBS needs to be more clear about its focus and declare where it does fit into the bibliographical state of the nation. There seems to be a willful refusal for RBS to acknowledge that there are rumblings and heated debates about the discipline and how it is practiced, although the yearly presence of Tanselle suggests that the lack of acknowledgement might be dismissal of one side. I'd like to see RBS be a place where the future of the discipline is debated and shaped.

Number of respondents: 11

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