Reviving French classics from the later Lead Age

konrad ritter

I have a question without an answer. Why are there so few revivals of some of the classics of French type from the Belle Epoque? In particular, I have in mind timeless beauties like Elzevir no. 3, and Peignot's Serie 16eme. 

Before you rush to correct me: yes, I know that Mario Feliciano is preparing Parnaso Text, his take on the no. 3 above; and I know that Coen Hofmann and Charles Mazé took on 16eme. But, their revivals are really display faces; they don't work for long text at all. Way too high-contrast. And, while I expect Parnaso T will be outstanding, that's just one revival. Shouldn't there be a lot more of them? It's an outstanding face by any measure; as is Peignot's S16; as it Perrin's Augustaux. For comparison, just recently we had two or three revivals of that compellingly awful Scotch by Phemister; I'm talking about Lineto's Catalogue and Pyte's Triptych. If that dreadful thing was worth reviving, so is the zenith of late-classical French type. 

So, what's going on? Is it the economics of type making in late capitalism that discourages these projects? They don't make enough money to justify the effort? What gives? Inquiring minds wish to know. 

Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)

I have a tome by Peignot on my shelf. Once I'm done with my German Art Nouveau project, I'll start in on the French stuff. I expect one or two text faces will make it into that set. But probably not until sometime next year.

John Savard

I thought the "compellingly awful Scotch by Phemister" was actually not bad at all, from some places where I saw it (such as a page from an old British codebook reproduced in David Kahn's The Codebreakers). But I'd still be willing to admit there's no real need for a revival of it, as Century Expanded is clearly better. (Oh, wait, maybe you're thinking of a different typeface than I am, because I'm thinking of Phemister's old style.)

Ah. Luc Devroye's page calls it Augusteaux. I can see why it's out of fashion; it doesn't really have the flaws of Cheltenham, but it's somewhat reminiscent of that typeface none the less.

If you mean the Elzevir No. 3 from Fonderie Turlot, it does seem to be a potential candidate for revival. Given the relative obscurity of French sources compared to items from Britain and the United States, it's possible that people considering reviving a typeface of that type would have looked instead at the typefaces used or recommended by De Vinne.

As far as Peignot, online I could find only his series 1 and series 18, not series 16.

This is not really an expression of disagreement with your aesthetic judgment, though. I favor more revivals rather than fewer, and I also agree there's no accounting for taste. Instead, I am simply noting that styles of typeface go in and out of fashion, and my attempts to check on the ones you've admired suggest that they may be suffering from having characteristics that are strongly out of fashion at the moment.

...which may be all the more reason why you should revive them, to help start a trend that would correct flaws and limitations in current taste.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

The pre-WW2 continental foundries did indeed produce wonderful ideas that warrant reviving. I think the revival of the Deberny* №16 by Mazé/ABYME is notable:
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/berthe/
Although I agree an optical axis that (further) tames its contrast would be wonderful.

* Not Peignot BTW. In fact the Peignot acquisition resulted in the scuttling of most of the sober work by Deberny, in favor of trendy display designs.

You might also enjoy this, just released in March:

https://twitter.com/205tf/status/1238812532082696195?s=20

Also worthwhile are many German designs from the first half of the 20th century.

Why do we not see more of them today? It must be fashion/money. But maybe the tide is turning... Fingers crossed.

konrad ritter

Thank you all for chiming in. Your insights are much appreciated. 

Mr Weiss: That's great news. I really look forward to your revivals, when they come. Your foundry is a favorite place of mine. By the way, I hope you won't leave German type behind. I think we still don't have a revival of the Roemische Antiqua/Romanisch that does it justice. For a look at how beautiful it was (and the italics, too, always a greater challenge to get right), here's a good selection, on pp. 109-116:
http://luc.devroye.org/Seemann/AlbrechtSeemann-HandbuchDerSchriftarten-1926.pdf


Mr Savard: Here's a good sample of the Serie no. 16. I grew up reading a lot of French books printed in it, and it makes for extremely pleasing typography. 
https://collections.bm-lyon.fr/MIL_01CTF00101130MG04?&query[]=publisher_s:%22Deberny%20%26%20Peignot%22&query[]=Peignot&query[]=Peignot&hitStart=43&hitTotal=200&hitPageSize=25
It gains from the ink spread, to be sure, but I think the artists who created it took that into account. Sadly, that lead-type-on-paper look is half the magic of old typography, and none of the digital artists who revived it took that into account. That's why I'm kind of disappointed in their work. 

Mr Papazian: Thank you for letting me know about Ms Savoie's work. I saw it when it came out, and I hope she expands on it. While we're at it, I should say that I love Mathieu Cortat, and I respect his artistry; but his Louize doesn't quite capture the sheer magic of Perrin's Augustal. I was dumbstruck when I saw his Corps 14, which you found for us to appreciate here:
http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-33035.html
It's just -- I don't even have the words for it. 

Lastly, you're absolutely right about older German work. A young designer would be well advised to take a stroll through the non-fiction/science books printed in Germany in the Interbellum years. They had some unbelievably good type--local variants of Romanisch and Scotch Romans that are just unbelievable. In terms of clarity, unobtrusiveness, and ease of reading, they gave Century OS and Times a good run for their money.  

Scott-Martin Kosofsky

Thanks for this interesting post. French types of the 19th century haven’t been ignored entirely: Tobias Frere-Jones and Nina Stössinger recently collaborated on a family of types called Empirica, which they based on Louis Perrin. It’s an interesting performance, as it emphasizes the 19th-century details of the letters over the underlying classical forms. And it adds a lowercase, which makes for an interesting comparison with Sumner Stone’s Popvlvs, a similar idea that remains firmly in the classical camp.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/frere-jones-web/font/families/specimen_documents/000/000/011/original/FrereJonesType_Empirica.pdf?1560816276

In 1975, when I was 22, I settled in Boston, where I lived for forty years. As a newly minted adult, I was obligated to perform a number of civic responsibilities, such as register as a resident, as a voter, and as a driver. The official forms were all relics of a long-past typographic era, set in French Elsevier text often with Tudor Black headings. These were all, I later learned, composed in hand-set metal type at a city-owned print shop located in the city’s North End. Sometime in the late 1970s, the city decided to modernize its graphics operation and sell off its old composing room. I went to the sale, hoping there might be something worth acquiring. (I picked up a rule-bending machine.) The official forms I had filled out were all there, kept standing for future printings and revisions. The types were badly worn. When the French Elsevier became too worn, they set the revisions in another type of the same body size, sometimes on the same line—making a ridiculous hodgepodge.

I already knew these “French Elsevier” types well from many visits to the green bouquiniste stalls that line the Seine near Notre Dame. It seemed that nearly every book or feuilleton published between the 1870s and 1918 was set in them. The ubiquity of these types is what probably led to their disappearance, like the way that Scotch types were used and disappeared in England and the U.S. They needed a long rest. But I think we’re ready for some revivals!

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Empirica's Italic is heartening.

konrad ritter

Ah, local-government typography in Boston... I was a bit familiar with it a few years ago, when I had some business at their City Hall. Their older signs were mostly in a crude-ish Scotch Roman, sensible and unassuming, which I liked. Then it looked like they had decided to 'modernize,' and switched to an ugly, little-legible slab serif. I didn't like it. 

On the Cambridge side of town, I was struck by the frequency of signs in some version of Goudy. Felt very New England. 

Claudio Piccinini

May it be that it’s more difficult to gather source material for a non-French speaker? People are a lot lazy nowadays… :-DD

konrad ritter

That could be true. In a way, it's hard for young people to know where to turn for inspiration if their main window onto the world is Instagram or Behance. Us older folks grew up reading a lot of things in a lot of languages -- and then you see just how rich the past of Western typography is. It's hard to get that from Tumblr or whatever. That's an impoverished world. 

John Savard

konrad ritter said:

Us older folks grew up reading a lot of things in a lot of languages -- and then you see just how rich the past of Western typography is.

Of course, while it is true older people read printed books, and now young people seem to be stuck to their computer screens most of the time... one part of that is not true of North America. English speakers even in Canada, never mind those living in the United States, are (and have been for at least a century or two) for the most part unlikely to be able to read anything written in any language other than English.

konrad ritter

I don't have what it takes to do this, but there are many talented folks on this forum. To tempt them, I'm posting a splendid example of the Serie 16eme at work. A sample from the 1950s. It was the standard font for the Greek And Roman bilingual editions in the Collection Budé, the French equivalent of Oxford Classical Texts. Behold. 

Claudio Piccinini

John Savard said:

English speakers even in Canada, never mind those living in the United States, are (and have been for at least a century or two) for the most part unlikely to be able to read anything written in any language other than English.

Really? Now, that’s quite unbelievable. Don’t they study at least a foreign language at school?

Mark Simonson

There are foreign language classes in American schools, usually Spanish, and sometimes others. They are not required for high school graduation, but colleges usually require some foreign language study for entrance. So, most anyone who goes to college will have studied a foreign language. Which isn't to say they can speak or read it well.

konrad ritter

Plus, whatever's taught in schools is not geared toward getting the student to read high culture in that language. It's only to get them to say, "Excuse-moi, ou est la Tour Eiffel, s'il vous plait?"

In fairness, a lot of other, small countries teach their kids foreign languages only because they have to. Not out of some cosmopolitan taste for world culture. America doesn't have to, so they mostly don't. 

Returning to French excellence, here's another sample of the glory of Serie 16eme. This may make it clear why I objected to Maze's Berthe. I don't think it captured the unassuming warmth of the real thing. Seems cold and clinical to me. Silver lining: there's room (and a need) for a better revival!

John Savard

Learning a second language well requires a lot of memorization, and that is something which tends to kill the enthusiasm of children for learning. If children feel more enthusiastic about school, they will perform better. So placing more emphasis on language learning might hinder America's schools in producing the scientists and engineers America so urgently needs, it might be thought.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

konrad ritter

And it shows. It's really beautiful! 

konrad ritter

Another beautiful example -- a late elzevirien from a 1915 collection of Latin texts:



Check out the beautiful italics, below. I'm sure Mr Feliciano's Parnaso, when the text version comes out, will match the beauty of this type. 

John Savard

I was able to find the book from which you gave those examples. It is "Recueil de Textes Latins Archaïques" by Alfred Ernout, from 1916. Instead of just being a collection of example texts, it appears to be in part a textbook of how to read such texts; it's mostly examples, but it has some other material, and seems to be intended as a supplement to a conventional course in Latin.

The following sample

shows a boldface which also occurs in the work, this may aid in identifying the supplier of the type used for the book in order to identify the face.

I was also able to find this, which may be in the same face, from Plantæ Delavayanæ sive Enumeratio Plantarum quas in Provincia Chinesensi Yun-Nan, by J.-M. Delavay, published also by Klincksieck but in 1889:

...ah, while it looked similar, a closer look shows it's no match.

and this, from 1921,

from Grammaire de L'Ancien Provençal ou Ancienne Langue d'Oc, by Joseph Anglade.

konrad ritter

Excellent work, Mr Savard! I envy your sleuthing skills. Also, I agree with your conclusions. The serif in the second sample you posted (by Delavay) appears to be a late-Victorian caslonic. Unusual at a French press, but it was a hugely popular face, because of its serviceable look. Here's a similar sample, from ca. 1898, but published at Clarendon:



The third sample (by Anglade) seems a neo-garalde. Strangely, it has two lowercase As; or maybe the setter reached inside two different cases. One A looks like the one that inspired Matthew Carter's Galliard; and the other somewhat resembles the A in De Does' Lexicon. Delightfully strange. Also unusual for a garalde is the short hood on the lowercase F.

John Savard

While I can't identify the typeface, I can provide examples of other faces belonging to the same general style from well-known American sources.

This is supposed to be Hess Old Style, from Lanston Monotype:

and this, from a 1919 ATF specimen, is MacFarland:

From a European source, Schelter and Gieseke's Roman No. 20:

As well, in older American specimen books, I saw various French Old Style and French Elzevir faces, but in general they were undistinguished, without a good resemblance to your example.

konrad ritter

Thank you, again. Hess is recognizable by the Italian-humanistic lowercase E, with its oblique crossbar. I've never seen the Roman no. 20 (which is really a German reinterpretation of an originally French design) set to French text. I'm a big fan of that font, and this one is particularly good. Note also the beautiful italics, which none of the modern revivals (sold as Romana) brought back. 

What I'm really intrigued by, and excited to discover, is MacFarland. It looks like nothing I've seen before. I thought MacFarland looked like the sample below, which Brunner revived as Bradford, from the Bradford & MacFarland foundry specimen. Live and learn, I guess. Anyway, very interesting. 

John Savard

konrad ritter said:

I thought MacFarland looked like the sample below,

You could still be right. I've seen a Scotch Roman typeface named "De Vinne" from one supplier: back in the 19th Century, there was quite a bit of inconsistency in how different suppliers named the typefaces they produced, and so the same name could be used for two very different typefaces.