"Copperplate" Handwriting

[caliken]

There seems to be continuing confusion concerning the development of the handwriting style known as "Copperplate".

I'll make an attempt to summarise the story of this beautiful, fascinating style of lettering. Bearing in mind that I'm no learned historian, I will welcome any amendments / corrections to the following -

 

"Copperplate" Handwriting - a brief history

 

The English writing masters of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, wrote with an edged quill, producing the script known as "English Roundhand", hence the name on Mitchell's square-edged nibs, to this day.

 

The following extracts are from "Penmanship made easy" by George Bickham (calligrapher & engraver) London 1733.

 

"Make all your body strokes with the full & all hair strokes with the corner of your pen".

"Make the nib of your pen for the Round & Round-Text and the breadth of the full stroke and that part lying next ye hand something shorter and narrower".

 

In other words, in the downstroke of the small letter "t" for example, the stroke was even from top to bottom, determined by the width of the edged nib, until narrowing at the foot when the nib was turned upwards onto the left corner to form the hairline stroke.

 

For the production of copy books for teaching writing, the writing masters passed their work to engravers who were able, with the engraving burin, to clean up any irregularities. These engraved "Copper plates" were used to produce the copy books which showed lettering which had been drawn (by the engraver) and not handwritten.

 

In a sense, Bickham's instructions, as above, were rather unfair, as they applied to the method of his original hand lettering which he had subsequently engraved in preparation for printing. These instructions do not apply to his improved, engraved lettering which appeared in the printed copy book!

 

With an edged pen, it would have been extremely difficult to replicate the twists and turns and accuracy of the engraver's work, so sharpened, pointed quills were developed in an attempt to emulate the swelled strokes of the burin, opening the tines under control by applying varying degrees of pressure to downstrokes.

 

As they were more consistent and durable, metal nibs were developed and are still used to this day. The handwritten lettering thus produced, has become known as "Copperplate" in reference to its origin, but strictly speaking, it is handwriting based on the engraver's copy of original English Roundhand text.

 

This is esentially different from the version known as Engraver's or Engrosser's script, as exemplified by Dr Vitolo on the Zanerian site. Using the same flexible, pointed nibs, his drawn lettering is very beautiful and is probably as close as possible to the original engraved exemplars of the past.

 

caliken

Edited June 23, 2008 by caliken

[Daosus]

Wow, cool stuff I never knew. Thanks, caliken!

[Ann Finley]

Nice, to the point, summary. Thanks for posting it.

 

Best, Ann

[HDoug]

Thanks for helping me get my brain around this. So my timeline goes, humanist bookhand to italic, add loops to roundhand, to the engraver's plate to get copperplate. Is this it? Then from there, how do we get to Spencerian? And Palmer, that would be considered a development of roundhand, or reaction to Spencerian or...?

 

I realize that handwriting is always changing and that there may not be a strictly linear series of steps, but I'm just wondering...

 

Again thanks!

 

Doug

[caliken]

Doug -

 

I think that your understanding of the timeline is correct. The problem in understanding the development of "Copperplate" as a recognized style of writing can be confusing.

 

Briefly, the writing masters wrote the looped style with edged pens and in order that their work could be mass-produced as instructional copy books, it was painstakingly engraved onto copper plates. As the engravers were able to 'improve' on the original lettring, the resulting copybook, whilst very beautiful, must have been very difficult to emulate with the edged pen. The flexible pointed quill was produced in an attempt to copy the perfect flow of the engraver's work with the burin. These quills were eventually replaced by the flexible metal nibs, as used today.

 

There is no natural progression in development to Spencerian script. In fact, the only relationship between lettering in the Copperplate style and Spencerian, is in the use of the flexible nib in both styles.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Platt Rogers Spencer developed Spencerian as a flexible nib style of writing. It became the dominant force in handwriting education in America and "The Golden Age of Ornamental Penmanship" which lasted for approximately 75 years from 1850 was the direct result of his work.

In Copperplate script, every straight stroke is evenly shaded from top to bottom. In Spencerian script, the exact opposite applies with every shaded stroke swelled in the middle, always avoiding even weight. There are rules to the shading of minuscules, but they deliberately appear to be random, to add interest and colour to the overall writing. Copperplate, with its even shading of all downstrokes, was considered to be dull and monotonous. Another major difference is the early branching of upstrokes in minuscule letters. For example, the first two upstrokes in the letter 'm' branch from the baseline in complete contrast to most other forms of lettering where this is generally avoided. It's only on closer study that one begins to appreciate the subtlety of the gentle flow of this style of writing.

 

IMO Platt R Spencer was a genuine innovator and the importance of his work in the development of handwriting cannot be over-rated.

 

Some years later, Austin Norman Palmer developed his style of writing which became widely used throughout America. It closely relates to Spencerian but in order to increase speed, there are no shaded strokes.

 

caliken

Edited June 24, 2008 by caliken