- About Bookbinding -
Famous Book Binders
Padeloup and Derome part 2
And it was in the reign of Louis XIV., also, by sheer reaction against the leaden showiness of the fashion set by the king, that there arose the simple style of binding called after Jansen, and adopted by the sect of Port Royal. The Jansenists bound their books soberly, with no gilding whatsoever on the sides, relying on the simple beauty of the leather in which their volumes were clad and decorating only the inside border – the dentelle, as it was called, from its resemblance to delicate lacework. These under decorated books were better bound in a technical sense than those of an earlier day, however much more beautiful the older books were to the eye. The books bound by Bayet, for example, toward the end of the seventeenth century, were more solidly prepared, more carefully sewn, more cautiously covered, than those sent forth from the workshops of his immediate predecessors. The Boyets, one of whom in 1733 was binder to the king, kept alive the traditions of "Le Gascon," and although they were not encouraged and sustained in their more artistic endeavors, as their indisputable skill deserved, yet they are the bridge from the days of "Le Gascon" to those of the Padeloups and the Deromes.
Shortly after the death of Louis XIV was produced one of the most remarkable bindings in the history of the art - the "Daphnis et Chloe" of 1715, which is adorned with the arms of the regent, and which was recently in the Quentin-Bauchard collection. Its chief characteristic is that it is a mosaic – that it has a polychromatic decoration formed by inlaid leathers of various colors. The colored bindings of Grolier's time owed their varied tints to bands of paint, and although there had been now and again attempts at inlaying, there had been no 'Such bold effort as this "Daphnis et Chloe," attributed generally to Nicolas Padeloup, one of a long family of binders, existing for more than a century and a half. A binding in mosaic of the regency or of Louis XV., is generally credited to padeloup, just as a picture with a white horse is often ascribed to Wouwerman without further warrant. The decoration of the" Daphnis et Chloe" was obviously inspired by the designs of the contemporary potters.
And here occasion serves to say that the interdependence of all the decorative arts, their varying influence one upon the other, can be seen in the history of bookbinding, perhaps more clearly than anywhere else. The modern art of bookbinding began boldly in the fifteenth century in Venice, which had close relations with the Orient, and to which many Greek and Arab workmen had been attracted, bringing with them their theories and habits of decoration. Geometric designs of Arabic origin are abundant on all the objects made by Venetian handicraftsmen at this time, especially on the fragile glassware for which the city of islands is still famous; and M. MariusMichel reproduced a decorative band taken from the tiles which adorned the interior of a mosque in Constantinople, and applied also the Venetian embroideries, then given as a model in a volume of Andrea Guadagnino, promptly copied by the Italian bookbinders, and soon borrowed by their French brethren.