Do Stubs And Italics Take The Individuality Out Of Handwriting?

September 30, 2013

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o565/mboschm/DSC_0550_zps596c260e.jpg

I think it looks great! Very individual.

September 30, 2013

Writing with a stub or italic forces me to writer larger and slightly slower. As a result my letters are more carefully formed, making my writing more uniform and legible. I wouldn't call that a loss of distinctiveness or character, but rather a loss of sloppiness.

October 1, 2013

@Salman: Yep, I'm guilty of calling a broad-edged nib "Italic". I guess, mostly because that's my standard mode of using a broad-edged pen. But the broad-edged nib has a history that goes 'way back -- thousands of years (literally). The number of hands written with a broad-edged pen must go into the hundreds.

@Columbia Livy: Always enjoy your beating on the modern writing masters of the Italic persuasion. They are a feisty bunch, for sure. Many of the pointed-pen manuals are equally as bombastic and just as hard on the Italic group. After all, a writing master has to sell his teaching. So he better believe he is the best. What amuses me is that the imperatives that resulted in business writing are the same imperatives that led to Italic. Namely, the need to turn out written material in a minimum of time and with a maximum of legibility. I write both Italic and Copperplate -- each has its uses, each has its flaws.

Enjoy,

October 1, 2013

I think it is somewhat unfortunate that broad (or square) edged nibs are called Italic. We don't call pointed flexible nibs 'Spencerian'. Does anyone know about the origin of this confusing naming convention?

Call them uncial nibs if you like, Salman, but I don't think it'll catch on...

We don't call pointed flexible nibs 'Spencerian' in Britain, because Spencerian is a commercial American style that is hardly known over here, at least among the general population. Show any Brit some Spencerian and they'll likelier than not tell you it's copperplate, because that's the name people give to any fancy-looking loopy writing.

And we do call some of our nibs copperplate pens.

So I don't think it's confusing. It's down to familiarity, and anyone who is interested in any of the Gothic or Carolingian styles will already know that an italic nib is called for.

Oh, and we sometimes call those roundhand pens.

October 2, 2013

Oh, and we sometimes call those roundhand pens.

They got called roundhand pens because they were made in imitation of the soennecken Rundschrift pen (introduced circa 1875). Soennecken pens were the first really popular metal broad edged nib and "Soennecken pen" became used to refer generically to broad edge nibs in America:

http://i.imgur.com/Jpz9bgr.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/o3o9752.jpg

The reason they were called Rundschrift pens in the first place was that Frederick Soennecken, in the late 19th century, produced copy books and material promoting a style he dervived from French Roundhand and thus the name of the nib Rundschrift, which became Round-hand in English.

Here is a page from his "Methodical Text-Book of Round Writing", published in London in 1879:

http://i.imgur.com/Z8U8XlY.jpg

It's scanned in on Google here: http://books.google.com/books/about/Methodical_text_book_of_round_writing.html?id=mgkIAAAAQAAJ&redir_esc=y

Edited October 2, 2013 by Columba Livia

October 2, 2013

Always enjoy your beating on the modern writing masters of the Italic persuasion. They are a feisty bunch, for sure.

It's not bashing anyone to try and illustrate more fully the context and history of something! Calligraphy and handwriting is great and the history of it is wonderful too. That is why Italic is great because it's a style of such lasting value. However, I want to know the bad as well as the good and I think that the revivalists of Italic handwriting did some bad things as well as their good work. If you want to see bashing, consider what Lloyd Reynolds said about Spencerian and Business writing:

Compared with Arrighi, the Spencerian systems seem coldly mechanical in nature, quite illegible, and thoroughly lacking in character. The writing is in hair lines that are almost invisible, and when pen pressure is used to widen the stroke, it is distracting and adds nothing to the legibility of the script [...] finally gave way to the vapid commercial cursives of the Palmer variety, the reaction to this decadence had begun earlier - Lloyd Reynolds in "2,000 Years of Calligraphy", p129

To say that Spencerian is "illegible" is just downright false and all styles of writing are perfectly legible in their copybook forms anyhow. The real issue is how they look as written in everyday useage. Is also worth noting that Lloyd Reynolds also passed his prejudices on to his students. One of them: Jaqeline Svaren, author of "33 Alphabets for Calligraphers" wrote this:

Copperplate engraving with a burin created loops, imposing them upon italic forms. Hidden inside every ugly, loopy commercial-cursive letter is a cursive italic form - Jacqueline Svaren in "33 Alphabets for Calligraphers", p60

Getty & Dubay also studied with Lloyd Reynolds and so its no surely coincidence that they also took on his dislikes and the curious and irrational prejudice against loops.

Acknowledging that people have written these things is not bashing: it allows us a truer and more nuanced picture of things. I don't think there is anything wrong with Italic and so I think it needs to shine with its own true lustre and not by tarnishing that of other hands.

For me, that is the key thing: that all hands shine with their own true lustre and that the true history of handwriting and calligraphy is communicated, without predjudice or favour.

What amuses me is that the imperatives that resulted in business writing are the same imperatives that led to Italic. Namely, the need to turn out written material in a minimum of time and with a maximum of legibility.

Well, curiously, the originator of modern Italic handwriting: Graily Hewitt may not have agreed with that assesment. Graily Hewitt thought handwriting should be slow(er) and that anything written fast didn't deserve the name handwriting. He is quoted on p59 of "Handwriting of the 20th Century" by Rosmary Sassoon as saying in 1916 rapidity cannot, even in commercial places, be called the first essential in handwriting and she states that he didn't even consider note taking to be handwriting at all, comparing it to a childs gabble. He thought that because we had typewriters, we didn't need to write with any speed any more.

Another thing to consider is that professional promoters of Italic were also expecting people to return to using the broad-edged nib for their every day handwriting; when you consider how wonderfully convenient the ball-point pen is, this was obviously never going to happen: they took a step backwards and threw away hundreds of years of evolution in handwriting by insisting on the broad edged nib. I don't think it was until the 80s when professional promoters of Italic finally got around to re-inventing the wheel with a monoline Italic handwriting.

If we compare that to English Roundand, the historical context of its development is very different. London in the late 18th century had 6 deliveries of post a day, no typewriters, before the industrial revolution, writing masters in the classical sense existed etc etc etc.

So I'd argue that the context of the development of the hands was quite different: Roundhand was about meeting the needs of the day and Italic was about reviving an old style and an obsolete writing tool (for general everyday use, not for lettering of course). The flexible pointed pen is also obsolete nowadays for general everyday writing too. Indeed, I suppose it was obsolete by the late 19th century, when Business writing replaced Spencerian.

That these tools are obsolete for general everyday use doesnt mean any individual cannot use them as they please of course, it just means that they are not going to become general tools used by a significant portion of the population. I don't think in any way this diminishes the artistic qualities of Italic or should dissuade anyone from practicing it today. People should do what they want.

Many of the pointed-pen manuals are equally as bombastic and just as hard on the Italic group.

Can you give some quotations, or else give me the titles of these many pointed-pen manuals which are hard on Italic? I'd be interested to learn more about this, if it is the case. Edited October 2, 2013 by Columba Livia

October 2, 2013

Can you give some quotations, or else give me the titles of these many pointed-pen manuals which are hard on Italic? I'd be interested to learn more about this, if it is the case.

I've never seen any examples of pointed-pen manuals which are hard on Italic, but I think that I know what Randal6393 means. In IAMPETH circles. Italic is virtually ignored and very rarely mentioned.

Given its historical importance, I think that this is unfortunate, to say the least.

.

Ken

October 2, 2013

but I think that I know what Randal6393 means. In IAMPETH circles. Italic is virtually ignored and very rarely mentioned. Given its historical importance, I think that this is unfortunate, to say the least.

IAMPETH has various examples of Italic on their website in the artwork section:

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Ivey_wedding.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/WalkerFragmentedItalic.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Walker_wuthering_heights.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/ZanManHC0002.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/CostarasTextLet.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Ivey_pointed_italic.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Ivey_ourfather.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Blackwellinvitation.jpg

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/bwalker_02.jpg

Its not as if IAMPETH is the be all and end all of calligraphy anyway. Besides, Italic has its very own organisation devoted to promoting it: The society for Italic handwriting, which is a registered charity in the UK and which produces its own publications, a magazine and so on:

http://www.italic-handwriting.org/

I'm certain you are already familiar with it, but some people reading this thread might not be.

Now if we want to consider Italic being ignored, I think something to consider in that respect is professional promoters of Italic handwriting ignoring/passing over 17th and even late 16th century Italic, except when they denounce it:

G.F Cresci published a writing manual in 1560 [...] The downfall of the true Italic began - Carolyn Knudsen Adams, An Italic calligraphy handbook, page 15

This beautiful Italic was in a book published by Pedro Diaz Morante in 1631, and I think it is clear evidence that there was no downfall of Italic at all:

http://i.imgur.com/clvZhbq.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/v1OE4zb.jpg

^

http://bibliotypes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/familia-diaz-morante-el-virtuosismo.html

Most modern instructional publications, that I have seen, on or which include Italic give a rather triangular and zig-zag style obviously derived from Arrighi, but I think its high time the later Italic styles of Scalzini, Morante and others had some attention.

Plus, look at the beautiful flourishing of the bird chasing after the fly on the second example. Flourishing is another thing that deserves attention seeing as how its so often been partnered with fine writing over the centuries, not least Italic writing.

Also, its worth considering that woodcuts are an inferior method of reproducing writing compared to engraving, therefore engraved reproductions of Italic are better for study and imitation than woodcut ones byway of being more faithful reproductions of the original writing.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Columba Livia

October 2, 2013

I'm only echoing what's already been said, but how can any nib remove individuality? It's simply a mark-making tool, manipulated by the individual, and can only produce what the person puts down.

For instance, school children in France learn a specific hand - it's the teaching that removes individuality, not the pen.

I can see how it can be observed that a group of people, choosing to imitate a particular style, and selecting a stub or italic nib as suiting that style, may appear to lose individuality. But again, it's because they are writing after a set method rather than the tool that causes the similarity between hands.

October 2, 2013

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Ivey_wedding.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/WalkerFragmentedItalic.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Walker_wuthering_heights.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/ZanManHC0002.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/CostarasTextLet.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Ivey_pointed_italic.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Ivey_ourfather.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/Blackwellinvitation.jpg
http://www.iampeth.com/artwork/bwalker_02.jpg

Interesting examples - thanks for posting.

Thanks also, for your earlier explanation of 'Round Hand' appearing on Mitchell edged nibs - not being an historian, this has puzzled me for years!

Ken

My apologies to Blade Runner for going off-topic.