The first printed bookplate is a small Gothic woodcut print showing an angel presenting the coat of arms of the family of Hildebrand Brandenberg. This first Bibliothekzeichen, or library mark, was produced in Germany about 1470 and is an unforgettably strong graphic image rendered with simplicity and quiet beauty. The plate is also the starting point of a special graphic tradition of personal marks of book ownership that at their best reflect almost every aspect of the development of the printing arts.The bookplate tradition unfortunately also became badly entangled in the heraldic preservation of family genealogy. This preoccupation eventually turned in time to obsession with prideful family crests, and the ensuing flood tide of armorial bookplates overwhelmed more artistic concerns.
Only at the end of the nineteenth century did the woodcut revival and the vision of such artists as William Morris and Lucien Pissaro bring the fresh air of more direct artistic statement to all aspects of the art of the book, including the bookplate.
The modem bookplate has its best solutions in the return to the simplicity and honesty of the small woodcut image. Jacques Hnizdovsky, as much as any modem artist, has breathed new life into both the woodcut technique and the ancient form of the bookplate.
These small prints, all created for personal friends of the artist, are models of graphic clarity and simplicity of statement. Like all of Hnizdovsky's work, his woodcuts celebrate a basic good order in the world around us.
The modem bookplate has its best solutions in the return to the simplicity and honesty of the small woodcut image. Jacques Hnizdovsky, as much as any modem artist, has breathed new life into both the woodcut technique and the ancient form of the bookplate.
These small prints, all created for personal friends of the artist, are models of graphic clarity and simplicity of statement. Like all of Hnizdovsky's work, his woodcuts celebrate a basic good order in the world around us.
Where too many modern artists seem to look for chaos and disorder, Hnizdovsky finds pattern, symmetry, and geometry of form everywhere. Even apparently wild aspects of the natural world-tangled plants, snarled hair, or jumbled produce-are carefully untangled, combed, and properly arranged. This establishment of good order is particularly evident in Hnizdovsky's immaculate woodcuts of well choreographed sheep, symmetrical flowers, or sharply outlined architecture, where all is "brought into line."
The complex made simple is really one good definition of art, whether found in the earliest woodcut bookplate of the Brandenberg angel, or in the most recent woodcuts of Hnizdovsky.
Dale Roylance, Curator
Graphic Arts Collection
Princeton University Library
