“The craftsmen of Paris have a lengthy and expensive apprenticeship, provide about 500 francs of tooling, and are bound in unhealthy and foul-smelling premises, have longer working days than their foreign comrades, to earn wages lower than those of laborers.”
— French political pamphlet published in 1912 by Chambre syndicale des ouvriers ébénistes du département de la Seine. The drawing is by Paul Poncet. Image found by Jeff Burks. Note: One French inflation calculator indicated that 500 Francs from 1912 are the equivalent of more than 1,650 Euros in 2012.
With “By Hand & Eye” at the printer, our sights are set on completing the first volume of the A.J. Roubo translation.
All I can say is thank goodness for Jeff Burks. If it weren’t for his regular stream of research, I wouldn’t have much to post here except: “Day 630, still editing Roubo and looking stuff up in the original French.”
During this admittedly drawn-out process, several readers have said something like: “Come on. Just run the text through a translation program. Look up the weird words the translation program doesn’t recognize and be done with it.”
To demonstrate what that piece of rotten sausage that idea is, here is a simple exercise in that process. Jeff Burks sent me a cool Dutch children’s book called “De historie van de kaboutermannetjes” from 1873. The kaboutermannetjes are like gremlins and get into all sorts of mischief. I extracted the text and ran it through Google’s translate program.
And here’s what comes out. Reading it out loud is hilarious, particularly after two beers.
Oh, what a golden age was that,
When m ‘in every home in country and city
Gnome Mannekes had,
That was a maid ‘journey lazy and slow?
Or deemed d ‘labor acid plague,
Pst! came at night,
If mice so soft,
And scoured and performing ablutions,
And washed and splashed,
And auctioned,
And mopped,
And wormden and saddled,
And scrubbed and scrubbed,
So that was the hour to stand by on
The maid àl ‘t homework was done.
The metslaarsknechts and carpenters
Also had hard work of the effervescent,
There, they thought it was small-menfolk
And d ‘labor over for them.
‘t handle hammer and ax,
Drill, truffle and file,
The addict and trotted,
The drilled and scraped,
It added,
The toiled,
As it withers and food
Gladweg was forgotten,
Until very ‘t chore was dismissed
And the people could go. Pub or bed
The baker and his white servant
Deen but also what their well thought only,
Because, if it’s small people saw them luiren,
Came it from the chimney for the day.
They took the flour
From attic or part,
They sifted and kneaded it,
They weighed and did it,
they moved
‘t In d’ oven,
Stoking the coals on
And fit well on
Until, at the crowing of the cock,
The boss’ t diff baking was done standing.
it went to the butcher just so far:
Had that night to a pig or cow,
But he and his servant often,
‘t Leprechaun People helped with entertainment.
Keelden that the animal,
Which made it nigh,
Who went to ‘t heels,
Getting it down and snap,
That flushing,
Which churned,
Who smeared and spilled,
Who stopped the sausages,
And, dear broke tomorrow,
‘t Meat was only to save. upon the hook
The kastlein tasted sweet in inward peace
But up to his guests;
Because it was all his work which he drank,
There until he sank down on.
So he lay at rest,
Then it was a delight,
How it small people are repelled,
‘t In’ t chalk standing noted,
How it pondered,
How it appropriate,
To room and buffetkas
Weather was just pure and
And where they looked but around,
Every thing was good in the place again.
Sat once a tailor in pain,
Because a suit had to be ready soon
He slate but it drape down with him
And went to ‘t snore like a bear.
Went with a seesaw
‘t Kleine-folk to the cut;
She tucked and stung,
They zoomed and suffocated,
Garneerden,
Watt migrants,
And pierced and sewed,
And squeezed and twisted
At night through – if the tailor stood on,
Had the Sinjeur ‘t new suit already.
Oh dear, now done that time;
‘t Leprechaun People is to the moon!
One can not loafing more,
It should present themselves busy;
Currently some will,
Not to sit still,
Who keep themselves awake dough,
That stir themselves …. the wretch!
That gape,
That her lie,
Clean it long hour of rest there,
Is not ready for his work. –
So, boys, girls! keeps you well,
And do your duty with courage frischen.
After reading the authors’ first draft of “By Hand & Eye,” a curious question occurred to me:
Can a book teach someone to sing?
Throughout this book, George Walker and Jim Tolpin use music as a metaphor to explain the mechanics of design. The metaphor is helpful in understanding their material, but I wondered if the metaphor exposed a weakness in their method. Namely, that design, like music, is something you can develop only through the act of doing it and gauging the response of others to your work.
But as I read the book for the third time during the editing process, I realized that Walker and Tolpin have indeed created a book that can teach you to sing. And they have done three things that no other book on furniture design has accomplished.
1. They refuse to accept that furniture design is a system of secret codes and numbers that merely need to be applied at the drafting table to create beauty. Or that design is innate and un-teachable.
2. They reveal a much simpler system – similar to notes on a scale – that can guide your efforts to train your hand, eye and mind to create pleasing forms.
3. They give you a roadmap (instead of a plane ticket) for you to follow in the journey ahead. They show you the musical scales you need to practice. They show you how the instrument works. And they even play a few of the scales to show you the results.
The next steps, however, are up to you. Take this book, try the exercises and see if they can teach you to sing at the drafting board. The trip ahead might be long, but with this book (and some traveling music, perhaps) you won’t ever get lost.
“By Hand & Eye” by George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin is now for sale in the Lost Art Press store for $34 with free domestic shipping until May 30, 2013, which is when the book is scheduled to ship from the printer.
You can read more about the book and order a copy here.
You can download a sample chapter in pdf format using the link below.
P.S. We will be offering 26 leather-bound copies of “By Hand & Eye” this summer for $185, and we’ll also offer electronic versions in both ePub and Kindle versions. We do not know if any (or all) of our retailers will carry the book. As always, it is their call – not ours.
“By Hand & Eye” is 200 pages long with full-color illustrations printed on heavy #80-pound matte coated paper. The book is casebound and Smythe sewn so it lasts a long time. The hardback boards are covered in cotton cloth with a black matte stamp. Like all Lost Art Press books, “By Hand & Eye” is produced and printed entirely in the United States.
Some early drawings of workshops show working conditions that seem impossibly crowded. Sometimes you will have four people working on a small bench, each doing operations that would be certain to annoy the others.
Ever tried to saw dovetails while someone is planing on your bench? Even on a stout bench, it’s not fun.
While some of these compositions are likely artistic license, overcrowded living and working conditions in the 19th century were real. In fact, collapsible campaign-style furniture was sometimes employed to convert dining rooms to sleeping quarters at night.
So take a good look at these eight guys working in a shop that is smaller than a master closet in a McMansion.
Dug up by Jeff Burks, naturally, this is an undated image of a French joinery shop that is signed “Bombled.” Jeff reports:
Louis Charles Bombled was born July 6, 1862, in Chantilly. His father was the the Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer Karel Frederik Bombled. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris, where he received an honorable mention in 1885, and a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1900. Bombled was known as a painter, watercolorist, draftsman and illustrator, especially of military subjects. He provided illustrations for many books and magazines, including contemporary publications “La Caricature,” “Le Chat Noir,” “L’Illustration,” etc.
