Leather cut

Stonyhurst College leather cut cover

The term leather cut refers to a technique of leather decoration in which a motif is cut with a knife into previously heated and soaked leather and then appears three-dimensionally raised by pressing the cut edges upwards.

The leather cut was used in the Middle Ages all over Europe to decorate many leather-related everyday objects. Chests and chests as well as sword scabbards and document containers were decorated in this way. Especially in the German-speaking area of the 15th century, leather cutting was also widely used on valuable bindings .

history

While the Copts decorated their bindings with leather cuts very early on, the use of this technique in the West , although known since the 7th century, was still a rarity. The two earliest surviving leather cut volumes date from the 8th century. The third Codex Bonifatianus of the Fulda Cadmug Gospels and the Cuthbert Gospels of Stonyhurst College in Lancashire are an exception both in their temporal occurrence and in their simple ornamentation .

Leather-cut binding from the 15th century

In the 15th century, however, leather cutting really flourished. German leather-cutting artists in particular created numerous luxury bindings, most of which were very diverse, imaginatively and richly decorated. The representations ranged from animal motifs, figures of the Madonna and saints to coats of arms and medallions to the preferred form of jewelry, purely ornamental patterns inspired by nature. At the beginning of the century it was kept relatively flat, only the area was punched down , the depictions became more and more vivid towards the middle of the century. Sometimes they even went beyond simply driving out the motifs and created relief-like appearances by placing putty under the cut edges. As a rule, the leather cut appeared as the only jewelry, only in the second half of the century it was occasionally combined with blind printing . However, colors or stains were able to liven up the appearance on the mostly brown leathers. At the beginning of the 16th century, the use of leather cutting ceased completely. The attempt of some artists of the 19th century, u. a. Georg Hulbe from Hamburg to revive him failed.

In contrast to other binding decorations, the leather cut was usually not in the hands of the bookbinder , but was carried out by independent leather cutters. However, these mostly worked anonymously and moved around, so that so far only in a few cases has a name been assigned. To what extent a cooperation between bookbinders and leather cut artists took place in the case of combined leather-cut and blind-printed volumes has not yet been finally clarified.

Manufacturing

Modern leather cut work

Like all ceiling decorations, the leather cut was always done after the book cover had been covered , the so-called insledermaking. Any processing of the leather by staining, however, had to be done beforehand in one operation with the sharpening of the leather. If available, the preliminary drawing first had to be transferred to the leather. This was moistened, the drawing was applied and traced with a sharp pen.

Before the leather was cut, the cover had to dry again. Then the knife was placed vertically and cut through the material away from the person carrying out the work, piece by piece along the preliminary drawing. Particular attention had to be paid to the depth of cut in order not to cut through the leather on the one hand, but also to give enough space for the following modeling on the other. The cut edges were initially made to swell up a little by moistening again. So that the lines no longer closed, they were then driven apart with the help of a tear pen and then brought into the final shape with the modeling tool. Finally, a hallmarking of the unworked ground could contribute significantly to the creation of light and shadow. Once the leather has dried again, the plastic shape was later permanently retained.

Web links

literature

Hellmuth Helwig: Introduction to Binding. Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1970, ISBN 3-7772-7008-3 , p. 76ff.
Otto Mazal : Binding customer. The history of the book cover (= elements of the book and library system 16). Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-88226-888-3 .
Friedrich-Adolf Schmidt-Künsemüller: Corpus of the Gothic leather cut bindings from the German-speaking area (= monuments of book art 4). Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-7772-8022-4 .

Friedrich-Adolf Schmidt-Künsemüller: leather cut. In: Severin Corsten (Ed.): Lexicon of the entire book system. Volume 4: Institute for Book and Manuscript Restoration - Lyser. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-7772-9501-9 , p. 427 f.

Fritz Wiese: The book cover. A working customer with work drawings. 5th revised edition. Schlueter , Hannover 1979, ISBN 3-8770-6300-4 , p. 340f.