DePaul Art Museum Research Guide: Dianna Frid & Richard Rezac: Split Complementary: Books as Objects

Created by the expert engraver Ugo da Carpi (c. 1480 – between 1520 and 1532), this book brings together the alphabets of the most renowned writing masters of sixteenth century Italy (Tagliente, Fanti and Arrighi). This anthology was a practical manual intended to instruct its user on the proper forms and principles of scribal styles. Writing books are especially rare today. Because of the important role they played in Renaissance education, the majority of editions were used until they fell apart.

Frederic Goudy (1865-1947) is one of the most renowned American type designers. He is remembered for his efforts to perfect the roman letterform and for the over 100 distinct types credited to him, including Copperplate Gothic, Kennerley and Goudy Old Style. Goudy's Alphabet supplies his readers with earlier examples of manuscript and printed letterforms and uses these precedents to inform and justify his own creations. His fonts are praised for their legibility, clarity, balance and beauty, and are still widely used today.

This Paris-based magazine first premiered in December 1937 with a bold cover by Henri Matisse. Verve was established as a direct reaction to the popular concept of “art des masses” which sought to democratize art through the installation of monumental public works, exhibitions and publications. The magazine, which ran until 1960, would go on to feature the works of some of the twentieth century’s most influential artists such as Picasso, Braque and Chagall. It also included contributions by James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway and was the venue for the literary debut of a young Jean-Paul Sartre. In vivid chromolithographs the magazine contrasted masterpieces of the past with contemporary compositions, leaving the reading public to draw their own conclusions.

Christian Zervos (1889 –1970) premiered the French artistic and literary journal Cahiers d’Art in 1926. Zervos envisioned the journal to be the arbiter of formalist modernism and positioned it as the defender of modern avant-garde. The journal famously published a number of Picasso’s works and also dedicated entire issues to the works of Matisse, Léger, Braque, and Gris. Cahiers d’Art played a significant role in establishing the cannon of modern art and the narrative of the evolution of modernism.  

The Encyclopédie Méthodique was an attempt by Charles-Joseph Panckoucke (1736 – 1798) to rationalize and reorder the famous Diderot’s Encyclopédie. Whereas Diderot’s work was organized in alphabetical order, the Encyclopédie Méthodique grouped the articles into related subject matter. The Encyclopédie Méthodique was published between 1782-1832 and at over 200 volumes, dwarfed Diderot’s Encyclopédie. Over its long print run, an army of editors revised and rewrote a number or articles making this work a remarkable tool for tracing developments in intellectual history.

In July of 1765, Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) of the Qing dynasty issued an edict calling for the commemoration of his military victories through a series of copperplate engravings to be produced by European craftsmen. Marquis de Marigny (1727-1784), the President of the French Royal Academy of Painting, was charged with supervising the engravings, and Charles-Nicolas Cochin (1715-1790) was named the chief engraver of the unique example of cross cultural exchange. After 12 years and 10 perilous sea journeys all 16 engravings arrived in China to be bound and presented to important dignitaries, government officials and the Emperor’s family. The provenance of the DePaul edition of this work is unclear, but the condition and subject matter hint that this work might have been acquired when the Vincentian Family had an active mission in China.