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The old printers and publishers did not bind books, they simply let the buyer/owner make a choice in how he wanted to keep his pages in a row on the shelves. In my collection of antique books I have several groups of pages simply held together with one clumsy stich right through the left upper corner. Binding as in artist's-books is something again belonging to the artisitic basics of balancing inner values and outer function resulting in 'taste' (it would be a sad thing if taste decided what an artist would or indeed could do); "'taste' is what an actual period looks like as to the standards of those that made it look at all", my guess would be. Proper old fashioned book-binding is the trade by wich one could keep fire, animals and moulds out of the inside of a book. I for one have seen this utterly useful function of the bindings of older books in the Barbarigo Library in Montefiascone. But: It is one thing to do something against onsloughts - it's another thing to do something for the very best reasons of making an honnest product. "Alles van waarde is weerloos" (anything of value is defensless), I am a child of that time, and in that tradition I love the idea of making a book valuable without defenses from inner inside to outer outside; even if it is not defending itself against the onsloughts of fire, animals and moulds.       this book is on Salt Marshes on the shipping South-East side of Great britain     Photographs and books - from idea up until the final execution - on this page are by Joseph Joh'n' Visser INDEX |