‘The Inscriptions of Ralph Beyer’ by John Neilson

Ralph Beyer really was a remarkable letterer and to a large extent one of a kind. The influence of his German parents just before the Second World War was considerable, and the rather peripatetic childhood that he had resulted in experiences that affected his later work.

This new book by John Neilson focuses on Ralph Beyer’s inscriptions, but it is so much more than just this. It would be impossible to write about this remarkable man without touching on his time with Eric Gill, the influence of Henry Moore, how David Kindersley helped and very much more.

Because war was imminent, Beyer was sent to the UK from Germany when he was 16 years of age leaving the rest of his family behind, and one of his uncles arranged for him to go to Pigotts to work in Eric Gill’s workshop. Beyer seemed to find the rather traditional atmosphere restricting, and the contradictions of no electricity but a phone, and doing everything by hand but using a car rather strange. He was asked to draw a Roman Capital alphabet with a pencil. Eric Gill then used a red fountain pen to improve the letters as shown here.

It was the inscriptions at Coventry Cathedral where Ralph Beyer showed his great prowess. The mediæval cathedral had been bombed and almost destroyed in the Second World War, and the architect Basil Spence was chosen to design a new, modern one. His aim was to have a up-to-date building but incorporate many craft skills in a more contemporary way, and certainly Beyer’s inscriptions fulfil that role. He took on other lettering in the Cathedral and also carved the shell shape into the boulder of rock from Bethlehem to make the font.

It would be expected that work would come flooding in after the publicity of his work in Coventry Cathedral, although not everyone was in favour of the differing shapes and sizes of the letter-forms, but this didn’t happen and for some time his income, and the support for his family, was rather precarious. Beyer did, though, cut the letters for the National Library of Scotland.

And for this he was helped by his assistant Peter Foster (shown on the right here). Sadly neither the lively coat of arms, nor the name are there now after a refurbishment programme.

Ralph Beyer cut letters in a rather unusual way. Rather than position the chisel with the corner in the central part of the letter, he placed it on the outer edge and cut from there.

His lettering, though, continues to inspire, and to help the reader focus on the text in a new way.

And one of my favourites, the lively lettering for the Thames Chamber Orchestra, shown particularly well against a red background.

This book by John Neilson captures the spirit of this great letterer, it explains Ralph Beyer’s background and influences and the way in which he made his work all his own. It is a terrific tour-de-force and gives inspiration to calligraphers, type designers, logo designers (use hand-drawn lettering!) and letter cutters. It is highly recommended.

‘It is not yet spring …’

Most calligraphers are always on the lookout for words and texts that appeal and can be written out and interpreted. I noted these wonderful words by Edward Thomas (who for a time lived near us) early in 2020 before the resulting pandemic became so restrictive. I wrote them out in the winter of 2020 when it really did seem that any spring really was being dreamed as being ‘more wonderful and more blessed than ever was spring’.

As always, the words were addressed first. I needed to work out the length of the line of text so that I could select a size of oval that fitted. A piece of vellum of suitable size was prepared and the oval shape drawn in as a guide for the lettering. I thought that this colour green for the text would work well with the theme.

Yet again, dear Edward Thomas did not consider us as calligraphers when he wrote. How wonderful it would have been if he had thought to include some words that had ascenders that could be flourished in the top left half and at the base.

And now to the flowers. I researched photographs of spring flowers; I would have preferred to have used actual examples but I was working on this at the wrong time of year. I made sketches of where various flowers could go – it seemed sensible to have taller flowers near the top and smaller flowers nearer the base, so bluebells were in the upper part and violets, crocuses and primroses towards the lower part.

I sketched out a possible layout in coloured pencils and checked it for size of the flowers and colour balance with the lettering.

This stage was partway through the painting. The leaves on bluebells are yet to be inserted and I didn’t like the straightish line on the top of the violets on the right hand side. The primroses also needed more definition, but it’s on its way.

And this is the finished piece. The bluebells don’t look quite so isolated now they have some leaves to accompany them. The single hellebore and primroses have more definition, there are now more hellebores lower right and left, with crocuses in a bed of grass in the base.

There is always a delicate balance between text and illustration and in this instance it can rightly be said that there isn’t that much of a balance here, let alone a delicate one! The density and colour of the flowers really do outweigh the lettering which dances around trying to hold its own but not succeeding very well! However, this was an effect of the pandemic and the thought that when spring comes it really will be ‘more wonderful and more blessed than ever was spring’.

Patricia Lovett: Exhibition at Sevenoaks Library 2017

I was delighted and honoured to be invited by Sevenoaks Museum to put on a small exhibition of my work at Sevenoaks Library. It is small because there are but two shelves in a display case. However, I was thrilled when Lord Sackville kindly came to see a piece I had done on stretched calfskin vellum with leaf gold on gesso of the Sackville family coat of arms which is on display (Photo kindly taken by Roger Lee).

Because there is restricted room, many of the pieces are small, and these certainly are! Two dice, about an inch long on each side. Here’s more about them in a previous post.

This piece came about in a way because of a large new Roll of Honour I had been asked to do by Plaxtol village, more details here. I loved painting the cob nuts and hops at the base of this panel and did this again to decorate this poem by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.

Many subscribers to my free online monthly newsletter will know that I love using colour in a pen. This is what I did here, combining red and blue, to indicate the two people in this piece, one finding ‘in this shadowland of life one true heart’ and the other being that true heart. Those phrases that I found particularly poignant, I wrote in one colour and added shell gold background to the letters (powdered gold in gum Arabic base) for emphasis.

This butterfly and caterpillar piece is on stretched calfskin vellum, with the writing in shell gold. The caterpillar, feeling that its world is at an end, is sheltering under the shape of a hill, whereas the butterfly, which the caterpillar turns into when that world doesn’t end, is flying free from a valley-shape.

I know that some people may think this a little weird, but I had wanted to make a flagellum since I saw one on display in the British Library. Flagella were often used during Lent to ‘beat’ the devil out of a sinner’s body, the strips of the flagellum having biblical texts written on them. This seemed rather archaic, but I do hate the way business-speak contorts the English language.

So I wrote out all those phrases and words which I find so annoying – faux=fake, compact=small, I hear what you say=I’m not actually listening, economical with the truth=lying etc. and figured that these were beating the living daylights out of the language we love! With Chinese stick ink and vermilion ink on strips of vellum, with the phrases separated by gold leaf dots on gesso, it seems a fitting combination of new words and old techniques. here‘s more.

This is a simple copy of David as Psalmist from the Westminster Psalter.

And this one I wrote about recently in a blogpost – again combining colours in the pen as I write, ‘controlled random’ writing. It is a verse from Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Gift, and worth reading in full. More about it here.

Art and History of Calligraphy

The Art and History of Calligraphy, published May 2017 by the British Library, does pretty much what it says on the tin! It covers writing from what is thought to be the earliest known writing by a woman in Britain in the first century, to the present day (as much as a book published in 2017 can do that!). Here is a sneaky peak inside the book.

What I love about the design is that images of manuscripts are large and so it’s possible to get up close and personal to the letters. Here a page from the Luttrell Psalter has been spread over two pages at the beginning of the book. I chose this page for its wonderful trumpeter – his instrument long enough almost to extend right across the whole column of text!

The first chapter is called, surprisingly enough, the Art and History of Calligraphy, and, after defining the way in which calligraphy is going to be regarded in the book, traces writing through the ages. A number of manuscripts will be familiar, but there are some new ones here, including this lettering by Bembo and a delight of chrysography on dyed black vellum.

Then a chapter is devoted to how the manuscripts were actually made, including quills, vellum brushes, pigments and gold.

This is followed by a section on Writing the Letters, based on Edward Johnston’s 7-point analysis.

And then there are full page double spreads of over 70 manuscripts from the second century AD to right up to the present day. In many cases, as here, there is an enlargement of a couple of lines to show the lettering really closely. The Bosworth Psalter is on the right.

Here is the Lacock Cartulary with wonderfully flourished letters.

And this is one of the first times that Edward Johnston’s Scribe, given to Dorothy Mahoney, has been shown this size in full colour.

And the book is brought as far up to the present day as a publishing schedule will allow. A stunning piece by Stephen Raw of a poem by Carol Ann Duffy is shown on the right.

I really enjoyed writing the book, sharing information that I have learned from others and researching the manuscripts, and I do hope that others will enjoy reading it. It’s available from the British Library Bookshop, and I am also selling it through my website. If you order a copy from me here then I shall happily write a name in the book calligraphically to make it really special.

A festive piece

Occasionally, just very occasionally, a project somehow seems to work without a great deal of effort, and this is what happened with this piece. I was asked by Landlove, a UK lifestyle magazine, to have ‘a festive piece’ ready to be photographed for their Christmas 2016 issue, when they were running a six-page piece about me. This was at the end of September, and thoughts were not turning to Jingle Bells!

On a walk in the woods I saw some ivy trailing over a tree, and pulled a strand off, and a few steps away was a holly tree. This reminded me of the Christmas carol ‘The holly and the ivy’, and I thought that I could perhaps do something with this. I cut a few twigs of holly and took them and the ivy back to my workroom so that I could paint them.

I had the idea of a circular design, with the words going round in a circle and the greenery in the middle. I wrote out the words using a small nib (Mitchell size 5) and checked on the guidelines in one of my books – The British Library Companion to Calligraphy, Illumination and Heraldry (available from my website here) – on how to measure a circle to fit the text. I knew what to do but couldn’t find any compasses! So I found a stencil for ovals, and decided to change my design (such trivial reasons can change designs in this way!).

Not knowing how the words would fit I chose a size of oval that somehow looked about right, and started to write. The easiest way of dealing with the words would be to start at the top centre point of the oval, but I wanted the words in the first line to be obvious and sort of ‘straddle’ the top curve. Without really knowing where to place my pen, I started where I thought it was about right, and wrote around the line of the oval. Amazingly, the words fitted! I really couldn’t believe it, but there were some adjustments needed, with gaps where there shouldn’t be and a bit of bunching elsewhere. Also, the first line of the Christmas carol wasn’t placed evenly along the top curve and required a bit of tweaking. Using the holly and ivy that I’d brought home, I used a pencil to draw holly and ivy inside the oval, trying to create a balanced design.

I wrote it out again, starting a little further to the right for a better balance of the first line, but this time I ran out of space. I should have written it again, but didn’t have the time, so I knew that it was a deep breath and hope situation!

Usually the calligraphy should be completed first, as it’s easier to correct painting than it is lettering, but I had been doing a lot of calligraphy, and I wanted to do some painting for a change. I prepared the vellum skin and transferred the design using Armenian bole paper as carbon paper (see my Illumination book and DVD). I then reinforced the design with very dilute red gouache, and finally started painting. Once the design was in full colour, I realised that there was a bit of a gap on the bottom left, so I added in some more holly leaves to remedy this.

Then it came to the writing. Really I should have written this out again to ensure that the words would fit, but I was really pushed for time. I placed the vellum over the first effort, adjusting the starting point so that the first line would be balanced, and lightly traced through, tightening up the spacing where I thought it was a little loose. It seemed to fit, and I decided to just trust to luck and a following wind! I cut a quill to approximately the same nib size, mixed up Schmincke Calligraphy Gouache to make a dark green, and, with a deep breath, just went for it. I really couldn’t believe it when the words seemed to fit and looked even all the way round. I tidied up the lettering and the painting and then the piece was ready to be photographed by the magazine. I also had some cards printed to use for our Christmas greetings card this year – spoiler alert!

The Ramsey Psalter

The Ramsey Psalter (BL, Harley 2904) is a masterpiece of the tenth century; it was the manuscript identified by Master Calligrapher Edward Johnston at the beginning of the last century as a good example of strong letter-forms to start to learn calligraphy. Psalm 1 in the psalter begins with a huge gilded B and this is then followed by enlarged capital letters for (B)eatus Vir qui non abiit in consilio imporum (Blessed is the Man who walketh not in the path of the ungodly …), see right.

Opposite this majestic page is a wonderfully delicate line drawing of the crucifixion with Mary and John the Evangelist. The economy of line is truly admirable. The artist also contributed to Harley 2506 which you can see here.

The Ramsey Psalter was written in Winchester in the last quarter of the tenth century, and is reputed to have been produced for St Oswald who became Bishop of Worcester in 961.For more about St Oswald and the manuscript, the Clerk of Oxford website has a great article here. The script is English Caroline Minuscule; the forward slant, small x-height and elongated ascenders and descenders of Caroline Minuscule have been changed. Once across the Channel, the x-height has increased, ascenders and descenders decreased, and the letters are upright resulting in a grander script perhaps.

Edward Johnston developed an analysis of scripts by looking at 7 aspects of letters such that they could be copied. Here is my analysis of the Ramsey Psalter using Johnston’s 7 points (taken from the Historical Source Book for Scribes, I have a limited number of copies so do contact me through my website if you would like to buy one).

There are superbly executed smaller gilded and decorated initials, as here.

Psalms start with an enlarged gilded initial, and then verses begin with a smaller gilded letter, followed by the grand text script.

Explicits and incipits were written in Rustics. The gilded Square Roman Capitals starting each psalm are particularly fine.

What is intriguing to me is the slight darkening around the small gilded initials. I have a theory – it could be excess gold leaf being scraped off, or it could be the stickiness in the gesso leaching out. My preference is for the latter.

To see the whole book click here.

Type is Beautiful

This new book by Simon Loxley ‘Type is Beautiful’ brings together fifty different fonts from Gutenberg (used from around 1454) to Zulia (designed in 2013) and many in between. It starts with a chapter explaining about type design, why we need more than one style, how letter designs are translated into type, the development of different designs for headings and titles, and how type is designed and used today. Simon Loxley’s selected fifty types are not ‘the best of’ but ones that have a significance, and, more often than not, a story.

The type used by Gutenberg for the first printing presses in Europe, in Mainz in Germany, was based on Gothic Black Letter manuscripts. It was a Frenchman, Nicolas Jenson, working in Italy, who produced a Roman type (based on the work of others) that, from the 1470s, lead the way for many years. It was not only the type design that was important, but also the type-setting. Unlike modern newspapers, magazines and books the impression on the page on the right is one of clarity and evenness; even though there are right and left justified margins, no lines are denser as the letters have been packed in, nor any lighter as the letters have been stretched out.

John Baskerville was an English type designer, who created the letter-forms in ‘Baskerville’ which first appeared in 1754. It is a design of great elegance and style, with a roundness of form. Baskerville was concerned not only with type but also the ink and paper used in the printing process. His eponymous typeface was described as ‘letting in the light’, and the page on the right shows ‘the art of concealing care and the sense of balance which has taken infinite pains to obtain the right interlinear spacing and letterspacing, the right gradations of size.’

William Morris was a polymath who, it is said by his biographer, typically spent five years on something achieving a very high standard, and then moved on to something new. When setting up the Kelmscott Press Morris knew that he wanted ‘letters pure in form; severe, without needing excrescences; solid, without the thickening and thinning of the line’. An example of the ‘Golden Type’, designed by Morris and Emery Walker, and first seen in 1891, is in the first book printed at the Kelmscott Press – ‘The Glittering Plain’.

‘Neuland’, first seen in 1923, is a completely different typeface from those that have gone before. Rudolf Koch from Germany was a great calligrapher as well as type designer, and it was said that ‘All his founts are derived from written hands. They spring into life quite freely’. For Neuland, Koch cut the letters directly on to the punches which is remarkable. It is chunky and has great charm.

We may pass them every day but road and motorway signs use typefaces and they have to be designed. ‘Transport’ is the one used in the UK. It first appeared in 1958 and was designed by Jock Kinneir from Britain and Margaret Calvert from South Africa. The design for such signs needed to be clear and easy-to-read particularly from a distance. When travelling at speed confusion between letter-forms can be dangerous!

We are used to brand recognition by company logos, but NatWest bank went one further by commissioning British type-designers Freda Sack and David Quay to create a typeface especially for them. Initially asked to design a one-weight headline for the bank, it was then used for more than that. ‘Natwest’ was said to be one of the first identities that was type-led, and although literature from most banks may not be easily recognisable, because of this typeface, that of NatWest is.

This is a fascinating book giving the background to fifty different type designs from the classic to the fun, and it even includes Comic Sans – the Marmite of typefaces!

*NB The illustrations used here are not necessarily the ones in the book, as these weren’t available at the time of writing this blog.

Patricia Lovett MBE

Calligraphy | Illumination | Design