They won’t get me into the paper marbling guild, but they’re my first succesful paper marbling efforts and they’re all one-of-a-kind so they’re wonderful just the same.
One of my first succesful paper marbling efforts. I used Strathmore’s 300 Series Printmaking paper (120 gsm, acid free, medium surface).
As an object, a separate entity, as art, I don’t think marbled paper quite cuts it. I am not sure why this is, I just know that it feels like it’s somehow … hanging in the air … waiting to fulfill its potential. It’s when it’s used for the cover of a book, or for end papers, that it truly comes into its own. And when it does, such a delightful glory it can be! What happens is that the marbled paper and the book aggrandize each other, nurture each other with mystery, soul and warm magic.
This is my 1941 Heritage Press edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination. The pamphlet that came with the book (Sandglass) describes the marbled paper used on the book: “The sides of the binding are covered with French-made Putois marbled paper (M. Putois declares himself to be a manufacturer of ‘papiers de fantaisie“—what more fitting for Poe?). The dominant color is a dark blue which suggests the atmosphere of ‘mystery and imagination’ within.”I like to fantasize about what type of book would have this marbled paper — which I marbled — as the end paper … “In the evening a heavy snowstorm raged; it blinded us and froze the blood in our veins, as we struggled to the next village. But, notwithstanding the storm, about fifty watchmakers, chiefly old people, came from the neighboring towns and villages — some of them as far as seven miles distant — to join a small informal meeting that was called for that evening.” (Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin) … or what type of book would have this … “He had long been a connoisseur in the sincerities and evasions of color-tones. In the days when he had entertained women at his home, he had created a boudoir where, amid daintily carved furniture of pale, Japanese camphor-wood, under a sort of pavillion of Indian rose-tinted satin, the flesh would color delicately in the borrowed lights of the silken hangings.” (À Rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans)… or what type of book would have this … “It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.” (Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley) … or this. “She was like a forest, like the dark interlacing of the oakwood, humming inaudibly with myriad unfolding buds. Meanwhile the birds of desire were asleep in the vast interlaced intricacy of her body.” (Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence)
Bibliography
Poe, Edgar A, Vincent Starrett, and William Sharp. Tales of Mystery & Imagination. New York: Heritage Press, 1941.
Woolnough, Charles W. The whole art of marbling as applied to paper, bookedges, etc.: containing a full description of the nature and properties of the materials used, the method of preparing them, and of executing every kind of marbling in use at the present time, with numerous illustrations and examples. London: George Bell and Sons, 1881.
