[Gutenberg 45181] • Heraldry for Craftsmen & Designers

PRE-ISBN

From the Editor's Preface:

“Designers have at times to deal with some matters which are almost common to all the arts, matters which they either know or do not know, and in which the genius they are apt to trust in goes for little apart from knowledge. They must learn lettering for inscriptions much like they once learnt the multiplication table, and they should learn the elements of heraldry in the same way. This it has been difficult to do, as most of the books on heraldry in seeking to be complete, so effectually muddle up the few important points with the vast number of things unimportant, or worse, that the art student is likely to give it up in despair. …

… The curious terms are only old-fashioned; they are used, so far as they are necessary, not of malice, but because it is of the essence of heraldry that everything shall be so strictly defined that a few words may represent a shield of arms as surely as a picture …

… On the question of heraldic drawing I should like to caution the student against thinking it is so easy as it looks. Elementary and exaggerated, it may seem as if any child might do it, but in truth it is terribly difficult. The old shields were designed by experts with great experience; they placed the charge perfectly on the field and so distributed the parts that they were balanced in ‘weight’; there were no weak lines and nothing was crowded for lack of room. Much practice made them perfect, and perfection is still difficult.

The present volume seems to me exactly what artists have wanted.

WR Lethaby

March 1913.”