Hendrik van den Keere
Hendrik van den Keere (c. 1540/2 – 1580) was a
Career
Van den Keere was the son of Ghent printer and schoolmaster Hendrik van den Keere the Elder,[5] and his career has sometimes been confused with that of his father.[6] Both he and his father used the name "Henri du Tour" in French.[1][7][a]
Van den Keere's grandfather had taken over the type foundry of Joos Lambrecht.[11] In 1566 he took over his father's printing firm, but soon gave up printing and began to specialise in punchcutting.[12]
From 1568 he worked particularly for
Over the course of his career he cut around 30 typefaces.[11]
Types
Van den Keere primarily cut punches in the textura style of blackletter,[8] roman type and music type.[15][16] Shown are some images of van den Keere's types, all from the Plantin specimen of c. 1585.[17][18][19]
The largest roman types cut by van den Keere had very bold proportions, a high
As influences on his types, Lane suggests types by Ameet Tavernier, Robert Granjon and Pierre Haultin,[32] and Vervliet an earlier type cut by Maarten de Keyser.[34][35] His body text type in contrast is more similar to earlier French types by the established French engravers such as Claude Garamond and Granjon.[36][37]
One of the more striking features of van den Keere's largest roman types is considerable variation in proportions to modern eyes: letters like 'n' and 'u' are very narrow while round letters such as 'o' stay near-circular. Digital font designer Fred Smeijers speculates that van den Keere wanted to "make the type economical" with the letters that could be compressed, while at the time it would not be normal to condense the circular letters: "it was to be two centuries" before truly condensed types which condensed all letters.[31] Smeijers noted that van den Keere's style could not be an accident as he "could work perfectly in the French tradition" when he wanted to, when cutting smaller types.[31]
Van den Keere also cut a rotunda gothic type, apparently based on Spanish lettering and intended for a book to be sent to Spain,[21][38] a Civilité and in Lane's view probably a spectacular set of Gothic capitals used as initials with an intricate, interlaced (Dutch: gestricte) design.[32][39][40][b] He is not known to have cut any italic types, which were not popular in the Netherlands during the 1570s.[41] His largest types were cut in wood and then duplicated by sand casting.[42]
Besides his own types, he justified matrices (setting their spacing) from other engravers,[43] cut replacement characters for some of Plantin's types with shorter ascenders and descenders to allow tighter linespacing,[44] and in 1572 compiled an inventory for Plantin of the types Plantin owned.[45][46] Van den Keere also owned matrices for type by other engravers, at the end of his life owning three roman types by Claude Garamond, two romans by Ameet Tavernier, and six italics and a music type by Robert Granjon.[13]
Many of van den Keere's punches, matrices and wooden pattern letters survive at the
Legacy
Van den Keere died young between 11 July and October 1580,
In 1581, van den Keere's widow sold many of his punches and matrices to Plantin.[11] Plantin's successors preserved the sixteenth-century materials and records of his printing office, which became the Plantin-Moretus Museum, and a large amount of van den Keere's work survives intact there.[55][13]
Thomas de Vechter, van den Keere's foreman, also acquired many of his materials from his widow, documented in a surviving inventory.
A close copy of van den Keere's Gros Canon capitals was used in Spain for over a century after his death, with a later copy on two-line great primer size cut by punchcutter Pedro Disses in c. 1686, which remained in use until the late eighteenth century, especially in Andalusia.[56][57]
Digital fonts
Digital font designers who have designed interpretations of van den Keere's roman type include Frank E. Blokland whose company Dutch Type Library (DTL) has published revivals of his roman types under the names DTL Vandenkeere and DTL Gros Canon for a display size; DTL Vandenkeere is used in signage at the Plantin-Moretus Museum.[59][60][61] DTL has also published Flamande by Matthew Carter, a revival of his textura.[58][62] In 2016 Blokland received a doctorate on the spacing and proportions of early metal type, including van den Keere's, from Leiden University.[63][64]
Fred Smeijers, whose TEFF Renard typeface is based on his work, felt that basing a typeface on his work produced a "solid and sturdy variant of the Garamond style"[68] and that he was "one of the first to make roman display types that were explicitly conceived as such."[69][70][71]
Notes
References
- ^ a b Devroye, Luc. "Hendrik van den Keere". Type Design Information. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-300-21929-6.
- ^ a b Middendorp 2004, p. 18.
- ISBN 9789060043233.
- ^ Laveant, Katell (10 March 2018). "Imprimeur, libraire, éditeur, traducteur, auteur : Hendrik van den Keere, polymathe du livre à la Renaissance". Société bibliographique de France. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- .
- ^ ISBN 9070386585.
- ^ Hoefler, Jonathan. "His Name Was Almost Legion". Hoefler & Co. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
- ISBN 978-94-017-4814-8.
- ^ a b c d e Lane 2004, p. 41.
- ISBN 978-90-04-25655-2.
- ^ a b c Carter 2002, p. 97.
- ^ Carter 2002, p. 12.
- Museum Plantin-Moretus. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ Vervliet 2008, p. 466.
- ^ Vervliet & Carter 1972, pp. 6–11.
- ^ Lane 2004, pp. 191–193.
- ^ [Specimen characterum]. Christophe Plantin. c. 1585. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
- ^ Vervliet & Carter 1972, pp. 7–8.
- ^ a b c d Vervliet & Carter 1972, p. 8.
- ^ Vervliet & Carter 1972, p. 11.
- ^ Mosley, James. "Type and its Uses, 1455-1830" (PDF). Institute of English Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 October 2016. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
Although types on the 'Aldine' model were widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries, a new variant that was often slightly more condensed in its proportions, and darker and larger on its body, became sufficiently widespread, at least in Northern Europe, to be worth defining as a distinct style and examining separately. Adopting a term used by Fournier le jeune, the style is sometimes called the 'Dutch taste', and sometimes, especially in Germany, 'baroque'. Some names associated with the style are those of Van den Keere, Granjon, Briot, Van Dijck, Kis (maker of the so-called 'Janson' types), and Caslon.
- ^ de Jong, Feike. "The Briot project. Part I". PampaType. TYPO, republished by PampaType. Retrieved 10 June 2018.
- ISBN 978-1-85669-437-7.
- ^ a b "Introducing Quarto". Hoefler & Co. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ a b "Quarto Fonts - Design Notes". Hoefler & Co. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ISBN 978-0-521-30801-4.
- ^ Vervliet 1968, p. 230.
- ^ a b Sowersby, Kris. "Heldane design information". Klim Type Foundry. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ a b c Smeijers 1999, p. 54.
- ^ a b c Lane 2004, p. 42.
- ^ Voet, Leon. The Golden Compasses.
- ^ Vervliet 1968, p. 64.
- ^ Carter 2002.
- ^ Vervliet 1968, pp. 65–66.
- ^ Smeijers 1999, pp. 54–57.
- ^ Vervliet 1968, pp. 178–179.
- ^ .
- ^ a b Enschedé 1978, p. 56.
- ^ Vervliet 1968, p. 74.
- ^ Enschedé 1978, p. 34.
- ^ Vervliet 2008, p. 230.
- ^ Smeijers 1999, p. 57.
- ^ Vervliet 2008, p. 346.
- ^ Mosley, James. "Garamond or Garamont". Type Foundry blog. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
- ^ .
- ^ Middendorp 2004, p. 19.
- ^ Rooses, Max (1878). "Une lettre de Henri du Tour, le Jeune". Messager des sciences historiques, ou, Archives des arts et de la bibliographie de Belgique: 449–462. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9781409439707.
- ^ Leslie Stephen; Sir Sidney Lee (1891). DNB. Smith, Elder, & Company. p. 242.
- ^ Cust, Lionel (1905). "Foreign Artists of the Reformed Religion Working in London from about 1560 to 1660". Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London: 52. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- ^ Hind, Arthur (1952). Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Part I. Cambridge University Press. pp. 203–204.
- ISBN 9781108431828.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Vervliet 1968, p. 67.
- ^ Cruickshank, Don W. (1982). "The Types of Pedro Disses, Punchcutter". Journal of the Printing Historical Society. 17: 72–91.
- ^ Cruickshank, D. W. (29 July 2015). "Comedias sueltas: An Introduction". Comedias sueltas. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
- ^ a b "DTL Flamande". Dutch Type Library. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ "DTL Van den Keere". Dutch Type Library. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ "DTL Gros Canon". Dutch Type Library. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ Blokland, Frank E. [@ExquisiteFonts] (11 August 2022). "In the illustrious Museum Plantin-Moretus, DTL VandenKeere has been used as a house-style typeface since the mid-1990s. The revival is based on the Reale Romaine by Hendrik van den Keere and the Ascendonica Cursive by François Guyot. One will find it applied throughout the MP-M" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ Twardoch, Adam; Carter, Matthew (2005). "Typo Interview: Matthew Carter" (PDF). Typo (18): 27, 31.
- Blokland, F. E. "On the origin of patterning in movable Latin type: Renaissance standardisation, systematisation, and unitisation of textura and roman type". Leiden University. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
- . Retrieved 6 October 2019.
- ^ Vervliet 2008, p. 6.
- ^ Buchanan, Matthew. "Quarto". Typographica. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ Soskolne, Sara (11 December 2015). "An H&Co Double Bill with Sara Soskolne". Vimeo. Retrieved 14 September 2019.
- ^ Smeijers 1999, p. 59.
- ^ Smeijers 1999, p. 56.
- ^ "TEFF Renard". The Enschede Font Foundry. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- ^ Burke, Christopher. "Typeface Review: TEFF Renard". Bulletin of the Printing Historical Society: 8–9.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-907259-21-3.
- Enschedé, Charles (1978). ISBN 9789070024130.
- ISBN 9781584561392.
- Middendorp, Jan (2004). Dutch Type. 010 Publishers. pp. 18–19, 243. ISBN 978-90-6450-460-0.
- .
- ISBN 9789061948599.
- Vervliet, Hendrik D. L.; Carter, Harry, eds. (1972). Type Specimen Facsimiles II. University of Toronto Press. pp. 7–11.
- ISBN 978-90-04-16982-1.