efforts of these pioneers failed - although in many respects their ideas
were right - because the true needs of the time could not yet be exactly
grasped, and because of the mistaken borrowing of art forms from nature.
The main aim was seen too simply as new forms, a new line (van de Velde:
La ligne, c'est une force - a line is power) , in other words. an aesthetic
renewal, a change in outward shape. instead of the construction of objects
in obedience to their purpose. their materials, and their methods of manu
facture. The ideas of these artists were too much in the future, were by and
large, imprecise, and because of lack of opportunities at that time could not
be realized. After a few years the movement lost itself in a Jugendstil
influenced new Biedermeier, in other words another repetition of an earlier
style.
The school of Morris and Jugendstil had a beneficial effect on the quality of
this latest imitation-style. Eckmann, an exceptionally able exponent of
Jugendstil, who sadly died young, gave the printing trade his Eckmann-type,
a kind of combination of fraktur and roman, whose line seems to have been
influenced by brush lettering and plant forms. Soon after that, Behrens pro
duced his gothic type for Klingspor. The early Wieynck types - his bold
poster-cursive, and Trianon - were typographic expressions of the new
Biedermeier. The designing of a book as a whole followed the path of gen
eral development from the revolutionary shapes of Jugendstil to the mod
ernized Biedermeier style. and from these step by step by way of the work
of such men as Rudolph Koch and Ehmcke to the complete acceptance of
the classical style by such personalities as Tiemann and Weiss. The tight,
squared-up style of typographic arrangement adopted by Jugendstil was
replaced shortly before the war by a fashion for the so-called "free" style of
setting, in tune with the general change towards a renewed preference for
the classical style. Its most important representative was Carl Ernst
Poeschel of Leipzig. Squared-up setting ("Kastensatz") as such was really a
new idea, without historical precedent. But it was based too closely on pre
conceived ideas of form, which nearly always does violence to the contents.
The "free" style of setting resulted from a new and extremely thorough study
of the last classical period, the early 19th century. The classical types were
rediscovered by Carl Ernst Poeschel.• The publisher lnsel, with Otto Julius
- Long before the war. Mendelsohn was wrong to say that Jacob Hegner was the father of thiS
rediSCovery. No one used older ty pes so exclusively as Hegner. but he d1d not beg•n pnntmg unt1l
after the war. The return to the class1cal faces such as Unger-fra ktur. Walbaum-Antiqua.
Bre1tkopf-fraktur. dates to around 191 1.