Page 93 - Studio International - April 1968

Revivals, sterility and
riotous self-expression

Ernest Hoch

Tlie creative artist 'is at least a generation ahead of his art, contributing to art in return-and now that
time'. It is difficult for contemporaries to sift the designers are adopting Pop Art conventions and
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beginnings of a revival f om genuinely individual mannerisms for advertisements, and film and television
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contributions or fashionable echoes of the past. Perhaps titles, it seems that the style and time gap bet\\·een
that is why so many art revie,,·s convey not so much art and commercial art has been closed at least
genuine appreciations as the critics' fear offailing to temporarily-but one would guess that, as Pop Art seems
make this distinction. on the whole to leave aside the basic questions and
Bartok wrote: 'Only a fool will build in defiance of the values of art it will be a shortlived movement. Indeed, it
past. What is new and significant must always be may already be over, though it will take some time for
grafted on to old roots, the truly vital roots that are the wave of imitations and adaptations to spend itself.'
chosen with great care from the ones that merely survive. Before quoting a 'champion of the movement' and
And what a slow and delicate process it is to distinguish developing this point, it is worth looking at a phenomenon
radical vitality from the wastes of mere survival; but that may be more significant than is generally realized.
that is the only way to achieve progress instead of The rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution
disaster.' enormously accelerated the division of labour, and had
Any creative activity's relationship with the past is analogous effects on the arts. The creative man
complex. Revivals, hO\vever, have a special place in this engaged in diverse activities became the exception.
complex relationship and defining their place is not But among the men who influenced the development of
made easier by their tendency to emotional overtones. typography there are many who combined creative
Copying an old master-studying, absorbing, learning work in several arts. ( William Morris, for example,
does not necessarily imply 'revival'; nor are Picasso's only began to print books after decades of other work;
variations on Velazquez's Las Meninas any more even his founding of the Art Workers' Guild
revival than were Beethoven's variations on a theme by preceeded the l{elmscott Press by six years.) The
Haydn plagiarism. However far removed one painter's influence of contemporary architectural movements on
style f om another's, however closely akin one com­ typography has been much ,vritten about: there may
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poser's idiom may be to that of the original theme he be some significance in the fact that this was not
has adopted, the absence of mere imitation is the merely an environmental influence as certain of the
common feature. typographers concerned were architects, or engaged in
architectural work. Eric Gill is an example, as are
This is one case where the Oxford Dictionary offers an Max Bill and other Bauhaus teachers. Architects played
excellent point of departure: 'REVIVAL n. Bringing or a part too in the revival of the sanserif at the end of
coming back into vogue ( r. of learning, letters &c., at the eighteenth century. 3
Renaissance; r. of architecture, l 9th-c. reversion to
Gothic; . . . ' This immediately introduces the connection Revival movements, 'revival' attempts, or simply
between revival and fashion, between 'revival' and sham. fashion, can be looked at in the light of their social and
Our concern here is primarily with the typographical historical context, the aims of their exponents, and
aspects of 'revival'. 'Typography' will not be used as a their actual influence. To say of any art movement that
synonym for letterpress, nor even exclusively apply to it owed its rise to an element of fashion does not
traditional printing. There is nothing to gain by necessarily detract from it, nor is the value of the
excluding from this term .<,ignwriting and signposting, fashion reduced if it is based on a reversion to earlier
film, television, CRT character generation, or manually formal elements. In itself the validity of studying,
or photographically produced letterforms. The term reverting to and using formal elements from the past
covers the meaningful ordering and manipulation of cannot be questioned. Holbrook Jackson wrote of
(predominantly) alphanumeric characters for visual the Printer to the University of Oxford: 'Probably some
communication. desire to augment his own knowledge inspired his
Among the heterogeneous sources from which the 'pop' earliest enthusiasm for typographical oddments, but
movement derived its formal vocabulary art nouveau such an aim, if it ever existed, has been merged into a
plays an important part. Norbert Lynton went so far as larger purpose. He now takes the long view and sees his
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to say : 'It is satisfying to see the mass media, specimens as members of a cosmology of printing
themselves owing so much to many phases of modern wherein savants may reconstruct forgotten areas from
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