Nakladatelé, umělci a styly : nakladatelské vazby jako předmět uměleckohistorického zájmu?

Publisher bindings, the type of binding used for a complete print run of a book, was and still often is looked on as just an industrial product, not as something on par with a free work of art. Publisher bindings have however as yet received little attention in art history in the Czech Republic, compared to hand-made or historical bindings. More in-depth research, however, shows that this type of binding, which was produced in large publishing houses in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is an important source of information about intellectual, artistic, cultural, industrial and social history. From the perspective of the art historian, publisher bindings are an interesting and, given the great diversity of forms, a rich area of interest and provide evidence of the transformation of bindings over time and essentially the competition that took place between hand-made and artistically decorated books on the one hand and manufactured production on the other. Industrial publisher bindings capture the birth of modern design and provide evidence of the artistry and the cooperation between bookmakers and publishers behind what represented a merging of a traditional craft and modern artistic approaches to the book. The article presents preliminary research findings and uses concrete examples as illustrations.