Читать книгу Geofroy Tory. Painter and engraver; first royal printer; reformer of orthography and typography under François I онлайн

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The second book of 'Champ fleury' is, I apprehend, only a paradox; but that paradox is maintained by arguments so ingenious, that one lacks courage to condemn it. Tory holds that the shapes of all the roman capital letters are derived from the different parts of the human body, which he looks upon as the type of the beautiful; and he makes a most admirable use of wood engraving to explain his idea. Moreover, if Tory was mistaken, we must acknowledge that he did not fall into the error inconsiderately. Indeed, I believe that he had for confederate his friend Perreal, to whom we may attribute the greater number of the designs on wood in the second book, judging from those in the third, which are directly attributed to him by Tory, as we shall see hereafter. However that may be, Tory seems to have studied his subject for a long time, not only on ancient monuments, but on modern ones as well, and in the works of contemporary authors who had turned their attention to the shapes of letters. His judgement of these latter is as follows:—