A reappraisal of Baskerville's Greek types
- Submitting institution
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The University of Reading
: B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory : B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Output identifier
- 55092
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- John Baskerville: art and industry in the Enlightenment
- Publisher
- The University of Liverpool Press
- ISBN
- 9781786940643
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- John Baskerville, one of the most important figures in typeface history, cut only one Greek typeface that was used in a New Testament in 1763. The chapter analyses the typeface along two axes. First, it examines the letterforms in the context of the gradual simplification of the Greek typographic script (a process which had been underway for several decades) and juxtaposes their forms with those of the much more widely referenced types by Alexander Wilson for the Foulis Press. Second, it reviews the reception of the typeface through the commentary of print historians and typographers, and specifically Robert Proctor and Victor Scholderer. The article repositions Baskerville's Greek typeface within the broader historical narrative, and reveals a profound bias by commentators that hampered significantly the consideration of the typeface. This is the only academic text focusing exclusively on Baskerville’s Greek types. It is one of very few texts that combine formal analysis and research into the secondary texts on the type.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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