History Background of Copperplate CalligraphyThe emergence of Copperplate as a calligraphic style must be examined within the context of European history. Two major factors combined to establish the importance of Copperplate in the eighteenth century: the stature of England as a major economic power and the development of metal-plate engraving.The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 gave England control of the seas, which led to a tremendous upsurge in trade. By the mid-seventeenth century, England was firmly established commercially. With the rise of a business class came the need for an ever-increasing number of scribes, educated in writing and record keeping. To fill this need, writing schools were established where enterprising young men could learn penmanship and accounting. Education flourished and the status of the teacher, or master, rose from that of itinerant tutor to master craftsman. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the age of the English writing masters was in full flower.Competition among writing masters was rife. To attract pupils, they advertised their skills as penmen, teachers, and scholars in astonishing superlatives. John Ayres, one of the most important and successful writing masters of the late seventeenth century, described himself thus: “All the famous Masters of our Country areall at once outdone in the Vainglorious conceit of a Young and wonderful Author lately Drop’d from the Clouds. For he hath a fix’d unerring Judgement and also outdoes all Mortals in Writing that ever were before” (Introduction to A Tutor to Penmanship,1698). Ayres is one of more than three hundred writing masters who flourished from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth century and were listed in Ambrose Heal’s massive biographical and bibliographical source, The English Writing-Masters and Their Copy-Books 1570-1800 (Cambridge University Press,1931).Many writing masters published copybooks, printed text from which student could copy the calligraphy of the (self-proclaimed) master scribe. These books served the multiple purpose of attracting students, advertising the penman’s prowess, and denigrating the skill of the competition.The method by which these books were reproduced was copperplate engraving, which consisted of incising fine lines onto a metal printing plate with a sharpened steel tool called a burin. The penman’s designs were transferred onto the plate in reverse by the engraver and could be corrected and adjusted, making the resulting prints far more accurate than the original art. (This is not unlike the improvements contemporary designers can make before an image is photographically reproduced.) It is important to realize that theengraved copperplate important to realize that the engraved copperplate pages we see today show the hand of the master engraver as well as that of the scribe, combining to create what seem to be almost impossible curves and flourishes.Engraving was first used to reproduce illustrations in the early fifteenth century. In 1570, first writing book--a translation of Jean de Beauchesne's French copybook,A Booke Containing Divers Sorts of Hands, published in Paris in 1550- was engraved in England. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the publication of dozens of such books, many elaborately decorated with fanciful beasts and birds, knights and angels. In contrast to these fabulously ornamented pages, by such penmen as Edward Cocker (163 1-76) and John Seddon (1644- 1700),the works of many of the later masters, who openly scoffed at excessive ornamentation, stressed clarity and legibility. In his preface to his copybook The Art of Writing, In Its Theory and Practice (published in London in 17 12), Charles Snell wrote:I have here furnish'd a Youth with such plain, easie, and useful Examples in the several Hands, as may help to fit them for Business: And as I am certain every Judicious Man will readily allow, that this ought to be the chief Aim in Books of this kind, so I am persuaded, that even some of our late Authors, who have made Owls, Apes, Monsters, andSprig'd Letters, so great a Part of their Copy-Books, could not but know that Merchants and Clerks, are so far from admitting those wild Fancies… as a part of Penmanship, that they despise and scorn them: From whence it seems to me, that these Men have acted contrary, even to the little Knowledge they have, in hopes, by amusing the Ignorant, to gain the Reputation of Masters: and thus we see what mean Shifts the want of Merit drives Men to....He goes on to exhort his readers to throw such worthless books away.Although numerous copy books were produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, few have survived. These books were meant to be used and discarded, even more so toward the end of the eighteenth century when“head-line copy books"- in which blank spaces were left on the page for students to copy the masters' examples, came into vogue.An invaluable source of Copperplate calligraphy is, however, easily available to modern scribes and students. Between 1733 and 174 1, George Bickham, master engraver and calligrapher, called upon twenty-five of the finest penmen in England to provide him with examples of their artwork, which he printed and distributed to subscribers in fifty-two parts. Two hundred and twelve of these engravings were later bound in book form and entitled TheUniversal Penman.Many of the pages are in copybook format: lavishly decorated, impeccably penned admonitions to live a life of honesty, prudence, and modesty. Other pages show examples of bookkeeping, business letters, invoices and other documents needed for the scribe/accountant. A paperback facsimile of The Universal Penman has been published by Dover Publications and provides the twentieth-century calligrapher with models of the hand at its finest.The calligraphic style that predominates in The Universal Penman, which we call "Copperplate," was known in the eighteenth century as “Roundhand." In many ways, the shapes of the letters were determined by the printing method; the combination of the pointed burin and the hard metal plate led to changes in letterforms from the Italic and secretary hands of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Scribes emulated the strokes made by the engraving tool by using a flexible quill that was sharpened to a point. Curves became rounder, letter slant increased, and the contrast between fine lines and heavy strokes became more pronounced.In England, Roundhand quickly gained favor as a business hand because of its speed, clarity, and legibility. The accomplished scribe could move his quill rapidly across the page, connecting letters in a readable cursive script.England's commercial success gained the attention and respect of other nations, and its business script was emulated in continental Europe where it became known as anglaise in France, letra inglesa in Spain, and lettera inglese in Italy.Copperplate letterforms survived through the nineteenth century, although the perfection of the script of Bickham and his contemporaries was not equalled. The vast increase in popular education in the nineteenth century created a need for teachers to teach handwriting to the masses, a need that inevitably led to a decline in the status of the writing master and the quality of calligraphy.The invention of the ballpoint pen in the twentieth century marked the end of an era. When the ballpoint replaced the flexible quill of the eighteenth century and the similarly flexible steel pen of the nineteenth century with an inflexible tool, the contrast between the thick and thin strokes of the Copperplate alphabet, and thus its beauty and elegance, vanished.To revive Copperplate as a calligraphic script, it is necessary to return to the flexible pen as our tool and to the eighteenth-century masters as our source.。
