Printed manuscripts Lithography and the aesthetics of the Arabic book

Transcription

1 Printed manuscripts Lithography and the aesthetics of the Arabic book Jan Just Witkam Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) Conference Mechanical Copying in Multilingual and Multiscript Manuscript Cultures: Xylography and Lithography in relation with Manuscript Production Hamburg, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures 30 June - 1 July 2017 [Source image: Cherbonneau, Exercices, Paris 1853, p. 39]

2 Abstract: The cursive nature of Arabic script makes it differ in principle from Latin printing type. Already in medieval manuscripts in Latin script, cursivity was not without exception. When Gutenberg invented movable type, the consequence was the reduction of the almost infinite number of script elements of manuscript culture into a limited amount of type for printing. Especially the number of ligatures was diminished. If printing was, among other things, an exercise in efficiency, font design for movable type was part of that project. A typesetter s case, and, much later, his keyboard, had only a limited number of positions. The cursivity of Arabic script was never given that opportunity. In the 16th, 17th and the 18th centuries the design of Arabic type remained outside the influence of Arabic manuscript culture. An uncomely type design was the result, the product of an unhappy marriage between the possibilities of movable type and the exigencies of calligraphy. And on top of that: all design was made by non-muslims, without the taste of the authentic. It may have been one of the reasons why printing was introduced so late in the Islamic world. To all this seemed to come an end with the introduction of lithography. From the early 19th century onwards, suddenly reduction of ligatures was not necessary anymore in type design. On the contrary, all manuscript conventions could simply be continued and even further develop. However, not everywhere in the Arab world lithography became popular. Aesthetics was not the only issue. Against the obvious advantages of lithography (traditional design, simple technical equipment) stood some serious disadvantages (limited print runs, lack of modernity because of difficult legibility, no technical compatibility with Latin typography). In the end, these disadvantages sealed the fate of lithography in the Arab world. In Morocco it became a popular technique for a while, also for mainstream publications. Nowhere else in the Arab world it became the preferred medium. Lithography was present there, yes, but for the production of graphical art (posters and the like) as in Europe, and for simple books, only. The final blow was given by the introduction of the Xerox technique in the Middle East, and of the music cassette.

3 Acknowledgement Source : 1. Moesman standing in his garden to be. It is now a wood with high trees. 2. One of Moesman s more scandalous paintings, Het gerucht, ( The Rumor ) of 1937 and later. 3. An example of our correspondence. I owe the beginnings of my interest in the outward shapes of the Arabic script from my association with the Dutch surrealist painter J.H. Moesman ( ). He was also an accomplished calligrapher and lithographer. In the last twenty years of his life he showed a vivid interest in the Arabic script. My ideas about ligatures and interline are largely based on the discussions that he and I had.

4 A terminology for the elements of the Arabic script The components and proportions of the Arabic script, here shown for a type font, can equally be used for a better understanding of the Arabic script. The terminology proposed here is useful for describing the constituent elements of script. It can also be used to describe characteristic differences between writing styles, such as Kufic and the varieties of round script. Source: Edo Smitshuijzen, Arabic Font Specimen Book. Amsterdam 2009, p. 19. Another complexity of the Arabic script in typography is font height. The distinctive element of the letter is given between the baseline and the loop height (the x- height). Ascenders and descenders do not add much more meaning to this, nor do they have a meaning of themselves. With the use of ligatures, the rigid horizontal baseline is ignored and a line of written text in Arabic script consists of a series of graphic units, starting high, ending low, with a baseline that is often not horizontal but that tends to go upward, near the end.

5 Aesthetics: Manuscript and typography The Arabic alphabet, designed after Andalusian manuscript examples, shown with woodcut movable type. Some connected forms and a few alternative forms are given. The author warns his reader (f. 21b) for the confusion that can follow from the reading of ligatures and about the interdependence of letters. Source: Chapter 37 of Pedro de Alcala, Arte para ligeramente saber la lengua araviga ( The art of easily getting to know the Arabic language ). Granada 1505, ff. 19b-20a. The book shows Arabic text in transliteration only. (Collection Witkam, Leiden)

6 Aesthetics: Manuscript and typography The opening page (Qur an 1) of the ill-fated Venice edition of the Qur an. The text is produced in typography in two font sizes (fonts not known to have been preserved), one for the Sura titles, the other for the text. The lay-out of the page is that of a Mamluk Qur an manuscript, but without the usual illumination. The header font has Ihmāl signs on the Sin, although in print, Ihmāl signs are not necessary. The cursive text font is well designed after MS models (e.g. the medial Mim, the dents preceding the final Nun). The orthography is far from faultless, but the vocalization is a total mess. It was long believed that the book had entirely disappeared. Source: Biblioteca dei Fratri Minori di San Michele in Isola, Venice.

7 Aesthetics: Manuscript and typography Source: Leiden University Library, F, Raphelengius Type Specimen of 1595, p. 4 (left), and Leiden MS Or. 251, parchment fly-leaf, as the example used by Raphelengius for his design. Franciscus Raphelengius ( ) of Leiden designed an Arabic type font for his own use. Apart from the Naskh font, he designed some Maghribi variants, for which he used a Qur anic fragment from al-andalus or the Maghrib in the possession of J.J. Scaliger (d. 1609) as an example. The manuscript still bears the sooth prints that Raphelengius made with his punches, while he was cutting them, testing among other things connections with two or three types. These cannot, however, be called ligatures.

8 Aesthetics: Manuscript and typography Source: Image of a copy of Winckelmann s Qur an which is part of the trade stock of Antiquariat Inlibris Gilhofer Nfg. GmbH (Vienna, Austria), downloaded in May Title-page and frontispiece of the Hamburg Qur an edition (1694) by Abraham Hinckelmann. The Arabic frontispiece is a Christian fantasy, both in form and content. Fonts of this weight did not exist for Arabic, so this is a woodcut. The Basmala (line 1) could have been inspired by a Central-Asian or Caucasian calligraphic style.

9 Aesthetics: Manuscript and typography Above: an Islamic seal from the cabinet of rarities of Jacob de Bary, Amsterdam, reproduced by copper engraving. Present whereabouts unknown. Below: the text (Qur an 2:255) on the seal in the cabinet of rarities of Jacob de Bary, Amsterdam, transcribed by H. Reland, reproduced by typography. In his essay on Arabic seals of 1708 Reland repeatedly mentions the beauty of his originals and the aesthetically inadequate rendering of Arabic texts by typography. Source: H. Reland, Dissertatio de Gemmis Arabicis. Utrecht (Broedelet) 1708 (Essay on Islamic seals), pp. 235, 236 (details). (collection Witkam)

10 Aesthetics: Manuscript and typography The Codex Martinianus, a falsification, was made in order to be undecipherable. The implied message is: Don t even try. The facsimile (copper engraving) of the first (and only) page of an assumed manuscript text on the early Arab history of Sicily was in fact a literary hoax by the Maltese priest Joseph Vella ( ). The beginning of the Arabic text, of which this was presumably only the first page (no MS was ever found), was printed in Palermo in An Italian translation by Vella of the entire text appeared from 1789 onwards in print in Palermo (6 volumes). The leaf was sent out to European scholars to ask them for authentication. Olaus Gerhard Tychsen ( ) of Rostock unreservedly lent his reputation of palaeographer to this fraud. Nobody knew at the time that Tychsen had been fed by Vella with a transcription and further false information. Source: Formerly MS. Juynboll No. 12 (27); now MS Leiden Or (27), verso.

11 Printing from stone Aloys Senefelder ( ) saw his invention of lithography (1796) as a solution for imaging. Till his time that was mostly done by wood cut and copper engraving and etching. Lithography was not meant to become a substitute for typography with the letter press. That had already become a perfectioned technique. In the Middle East, however, lithography in its most elementary and crudest form would become just such an alternative, at least for a while. Source: Aloys Senefelder, L art de la lithographie ou instruction pratique [ ]. Paris 1819, planche 20. Senefelder s portrait on the frontispiece of the book is by N.H. Jacob and was printed at the lithographical press of G. Engelmann. Leiden University Library A 10.

12 Istakhri s Atlas An Orientalist s effort to profit of the advantages of lithography. The printing, polychrome for the maps in five runs, and two colours in two runs for the text pages was done separately. The verso sides of the maps remained blank. Then the maps and the text pages were bound together. As a consequence recto and verso order became confused, so that two opposite pages in the facsimile had been recto and verso in the manuscript. The title-pages of Moeller s facsimile edition of MS Gotha A. 1521, done in The European page (right) is made after a typographical model. The Arabic page is an Orientalist fantasy. Facsimilist and lithographer: Johann Immanuel Uckermann, active in Erfurt c c

13 Istakhri s Atlas: the manuscript and the facsimile The facsimile edition of ca. 140 pp. manuscript text including the coloured maps was a technical feat, well ahead of the invention of photography. Text and maps were drawn from the manuscript on tracing paper, and mirror images of that were transferred onto the stone. The printing, polychrome for the maps in five runs, and in two colours (two runs) for the text pages, was done separately. The verso sides of the maps remained blank. Then the maps and the text pages were bound together. As a consequence the recto and verso sequence became confused, so that two opposite pages in the facsimile had been recto and verso in the manuscript. Source: MS Gotha, A 1521, ff. 39b-40a. Description and map of Fars (above). Moeller s edition of 1839 of the same map, with faulty imposition, at the right.

14 Mixed media: lithography and manuscript A copy of the Qur an. All black text is printed in lithography, the colours were added by hand. An example of a successful combination of techniques. At the right and upper left, the end of the Holy Text (Sura ), with, at the left, the calligrapher s and printer s colophons. Dated 1258/1842-3, probably printed at Tabriz, Iran. Source: Vancouver, UBC Library, uncatalogued MS, final opening.

15 Mixed media: lithography and manuscript The colophon of the lithographed Qur an from Iran offers the following information: - Praise of God, blessings for the Prophet Muhammad and invocation of the Imam Ali b. Abi Talib. - The name of the ruling monarch, Muhammad Shah Qajar (reigned ), with eulogies. - The name of the printer, Master Agha Jabbar b. al-hajj Ghaffar from Tabriz. - The name of the copyist, Ahmad b. Muhammad from Tabriz. - The date of writing the colophon, 1258/ A place of printing is not given, but one may assume that this is Tabriz, the town to which the names of both the printer and the copyist refer. Lithographic printing is assumed to have started in Tabriz in 1248/1832 or 1250/1834. Source: Vancouver, UBC Library, uncatalogued MS, detail last page.

16 Mixed media: lithography and typography (1853) Source: Auguste Cherbonneau, Exercices pour la Lecture des Manuscrits arabes. Paris (Hachette) 1853, title-page and p. 75 of the specimens. Lithography by Imprimerie Bineteau, Paris. French (and other) colonial civil servants had to learn how to read the handwriting styles of the colonized peoples. For this, lithography with its immense freedom of script forms was the perfect medium, not only for showing an authentic style of handwriting, but also for offering the student of Arabic script a great variety of writing styles, here arranged with progressive complexity. Transliteration and translation were given in typography.

17 Typography and lithography Source: The Pythagorean theorem in Euclid s Elementa, in two printed versions of the Arabic redaction by Nasir al-din al-tusi (d. 672/1274). At left the typographical edition on the Medicea Press, Rome 1594, p. 45, above the same, in the edition by al-balghithi, Fas, lithographical press, 1293/1876, vol. 1, p. 83. (Collection Witkam, Leiden) It s far from certain that the two editions of Tusi s redaction of the Arabic Euclid have a direct relationship, but it cannot be excluded either. There are numerous similarities in the lay-out of either edition. Extensive collation work needs to be done in order to prove or disprove the relationship. The lithographical process is useful in that it combined text and drawings in one print run. In the Medicea edition this was achieved with leaden movable type and woodcuts of the figures, printed in one run.

18 Lithography and the manuscript tradition In the manuscript, the title-page is often the contribution of the maker, the copyist, or his patron. In Arabic manuscripts the beginning of the text is usually on the verso side of a leaf, and the recto side remains blank. In the lithography this is more complex as more parties are involved. In the title-page of vol. 1 of the Fez edition of 1293/1876 the following elements can be distinguished: - Reference to God and the Prophet Muhammad - In dication of Part 1 of the text. - Author: Nasir al-din al-tusi - Content: geometry (Handasa) - No mention of the title al-usul (follows on the next page) - The press in Fez, with eulogies - By order of King Hasan I of Morocco, with eulogies - Beginning of the printing project, in the year 1293/ Wishes for the press owner (who is not mentioned by name) - In the four corners good wishes for King Hasan I. Source: The title-page of volume 1 of the Fez lithograph of Euclid s Elements, in the redaction by Nasir al-din al-tusi (d. 672/1274), in the lithographical press, Fas, 1293/1876. (Collection Witkam, Leiden)

19 Lithography and the manuscript tradition In the manuscript, the colophon is the contribution of the maker, the copyist, usually not of the author. In the lithographic tradition the maker is the editor and/or the publisher of the book. The colophons in lithographic editions are often much longer than those in manuscripts. In the Fez edition of Euclid s Elements there are in all some ten pages with prefaces and epilogues outside al-tusi s text. These do not contain, however, much concrete information about the editing and printing of the text. We see that the two volumes were printed on c = c. 900 pages (of machine-made [= imported] paper of 21.6 x 17.2 cm after cutting) in a total of = 115 quires of 8 pages each (quire marks are given throughout). If one press was used, this means that four pages were printed in each print run. The printing started beginning Rabi` I 1293 (27 March 1876) and was completed on 13 Shawwal 1293 (1 November 1876), that is in 220 days in total, with an average of slightly over 2 quires per day. The stones may have measured c. 44 x 35 cm. At least four stones must have been in constant use, probably six or even more. Source: The poetical end of the colophon of the Fez lithograph of Euclid s Elements, in the redaction by Nasir al-din al-tusi (d. 672/1274), in the edition by al-balghithi, Fas, lithographical press, 1293/1876, vol. 2, p (Collection Witkam, Leiden)

20 Lithography and the limits of the press The edition (Cairo 1304/1886) of al-balsaffuri s Diwan Nasmat al-sahar has between pp. 24/27 a folding plate that contains a Madha, a poetical composition in praise of the Khedive, in this case of the Khedive Tawfiq of Egypt who reigned The sheet folded open here shows the total size of the four pages that were printed from the stone in one print run. In this case that is 43.1 x 26.7 cm. Only with the invention and further development of cylinder presses, this limitation ceased to exist for typography. Yet, much larger stones are seldom used because of their great weight and fragility. Source: Diwan Nasmat al-sahar by Ali Abu Yusuf al-balsaffuri al- Azhari (d. 1913), Cairo 1304/1886, pp Leiden University Library 8087 F 8.

21 Lithography and exotism This unusual illustrated lithographic book from Cairo is full of exotisms, here summarized by the drawings in the Sarlawh, and by the use of the Farsi script. The colophon mentions the manager of the press (Ahmad Efendi al-azhari), who is also one of the two owners. The other owner is al-sayyid Abd al-hadi Naga al-abyari. The editor of the Arabic text is mentioned as al- Sayyid Muhammad al- Sayyid Abdallah b. al-sayyid Abd al-wahid al-amir al-husayni al- Hanafi al-khalwati al-rashidi. Source: Kitab Marzuban Nama of Sa d al-din Warawini (c. 622/1225) in the Arabic translation (from the Persian) by Shihab al-din Ahmad b. Muhammad Ibn Arabshah al-hanafi al-dimashqi (d. 854/1450). Cairo, Matba at al-hagar ( the stone press ) 1278/1861, pp. 2, 248. (Leiden University Library 889 E 40).

22 Some literature quoted or used Fawzi `Abd al-razzaq, al-matbu`at al-hagariyya fil-maghrib. Fihris ma`a Muqaddima Tarikhiyya. Rabat 1989 Pedro de Alcala, Arte para ligeramente saber la lengua araviga. Granada 1505 Ernst Braches, Raphelengius's Naschi and Maghribi. Some reflections on the origin of Arabic typography in the Low Countries, in: Quaerendo 5/3 (1975), pp Auguste Cherbonneau, Exercices pour la Lecture des Manuscrits arabes. Paris 1853 Euclid: Tahrir al-usul li-uqlidis, Ta lif Nasir al-din al-tusi. Roma 1594 Euclid: Tahrir al-usul li-uqlidis, Ta lif Nasir al-din al-tusi. Fas 1293/1876 Abraham Hinckelmann (ed.), Al-Coranus sive Lex Islamitica Muhammedis, filii Abdallae pseudoprophetae... Hamburg 1694 Al-Istakhri: Liber Climatum auctore El-Issthachri. Ed. J.H. Moeller. Gotha 1839 P.Sj. Van Koningsveld, A collection of lithographed editions from Fes, in: E.J. Brill, Catalogue No. 510, Islamic Collections (1979), pp Angela Nuovo, Alessandro Paganino ( ). Padova 1990 H. Reland, Dissertatio de Gemmis Arabicis. Utrecht 1708 (in: Dissertationum miscellanearum pars 3 et ultima, pp ) Edo Smitshuijzen, Arabic Font Specimen Book. Amsterdam 2009