Numbred HAND SIGNED Book RUSSIAN ART BOOKPLATES Exlibris LATVIA PETERIS UPITIS

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Numbred HAND SIGNED Book RUSSIAN ART BOOKPLATES Exlibris LATVIA PETERIS UPITIS:
$99.00

DESCRIPTION : Here for sale is aVERY RARE and RICHLY ILLUSTRATED Russian BOOK beinga choice COLLECTIONof the RUSSIAN BOOKPLATES - EXLIBRIS of the Russian -Latvian graphic ARTIST -PETERIS UPITIS. The most BEAUTIFULbook , With its cloth binding and gilt lettering was publishrd in a NUMBEREDLIMITED EDITION of only 2000 copies in moscow Russia and it is HAND SIGNED andHAND NUMBERED by the ARTIST . The COLORFUL BOOKPLATES are printed from theORIGINAL PLATES and are printed on extremely thick and heavy stock. Text inRussian , English , French and German .25 bookplates . Original cloth bound HC.Gilt embossed headings.6 x 6\". Around60unpaginatedpp. Pristine condition. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS ISimages ). Book will be sent inside a protective rigid envelope .

AUTHENTICITY : ThisisanORIGINAL Russian FIRST and ONLY numbered edition, HAND SIGNED by the ARTIST , HAND NUMBERED 1348/2000 by the ARTIST . It holds a life long GUARANTEE for its AUTHENTICITY and ORIGINALITY. .

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal .SHIPPMENT : Shipp worldwide via registered airmail is $14. Book will be sent inside a protective rigid envelope . Handling within 3-5 days after payment. Estimated duration 14 days.

During October 18-21, 2007, in Vologda there was held the Second All-Russia congress on ex-libris within the framework of which the exhibition of ex-libris and engraving of small forms was opened. During XX century Vologda land acquired popularity in the sphere of fine arts as the major center of development of the engraving of small forms and ex-libris. In 1920s in Vologda graphic artist Nikolay Dmitrevsky was practicing ex-libris, at the end of XX century such book sign artists from Vologda, Cherepovets and Ustyuzhna as Henrietta and Nikolay Burmagin, Leonid Shchetnev, Anatoly Nagovitsyn and Vladislav Sergeev, Eugeny Lebedev showed their works. The collection of ex-librises of the Vologda regional picture gallery is one of the best in the country among art museums. During the last years Vologda draws general attention of book sign artists. In 2004 in the Vologda regional picture gallery there was held the First congress of the Russian association of ex-libris and there was open the First All-Russia exhibition of ex-libris. Three years later the Vologda regional picture gallery receives graphic artists, collectors and researchers of small form engravings once again. During October 18-21, the Second All-Russia congress on ex-libris tооk place in Vologda land. Its organizers are the Russian association of ex-libris and the Vologda regional picture gallery. The main event of the congress was the exhibition of modern book signs (ex-libris) of Russia of XXI century which opened in the museum and artistic center «House of Korbakov» on October, 19, 2007 at 17.00. There it was exhibited more than 1000 of new ex-librises created by 120 artists from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Ufa, Vologda, Yekaterinburg, Nizhni Tagil and other regions of Russia, and also works of graphic-artists from Ukraina, Moldova, Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania. Special exhibitions of objects from the collections of private collectors and authors themselves were organized: «Modern Moscow engraving», «Book graphics of M.M.Verkholantsev (Moscow)», «Engravings by earlier generation artists», «Modern foreign ex-libris», «Russian architecture in the ex-libris», «St.Petersburg ex-libris». The program of the congress of ex-libris in Vologda included reports and messages on topical problems of ex-libris development, presentations of new editions, carrying out of meetings with artists and collectors, visiting museums and memorial places of the Vologda area. Specially by the beginning of the congress a new issue of «Chronograph» the magazine of the Vologda regional picture gallery and the Vologda club of collectors was edited, and catalogues and collections of scientific materials were prepared. The Second congress on ex-libris in Vologda is to present the best achievements of the book sign of XXI century and to evoke interest to the engraving, to the unique and artistically designed book, to the richest creative heritage of Russian fine arts. Department of Culture of Vologda Oblast ******** The golden age of Russian book design in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is associated with artists belonging to the World of Art group /Mir iskusstva in Russian/: A book became a work of art, in which all components, including illustrations, the cover, the title page, headpieces, tail pieces, must correspond to the whole conception by the master. Bookplates and printer\'s marks also played an important role in the development of book culture at that time. These special forms of graphic art, comprehensively represented in Prints Department Collections, were favoured by artists of the World of Art, who embodied their artistic ideals in them. By the end of the nineteenth century the traditional heraldic ex libris had fallen into a decline. A new style of designs had to completely separate from heraldry and express ideas in techniques and methods of symbolic or allegorical graphic miniatures. Among the members of the World of Art group, Yevgeny Lanceray was one of the first to pay attention to the devising of bookplates. His early works show the influence of foreign masters, which reveals itself in the well balanced composition, elaborate vegetal patterns, silhouette images. For instance, English influence obviously affected the bookplate for D.Filosofov. The Ex Libris for the rare book seller V. Klochkov is more original. The free associative form of a bookplate interests not only graphic artists, but painters such as Osip Braz. The bookplate for A.Anichkov, created by him, is designed as the nice combination of silhouettes and lines. It is expressive and laconic. ******** BOOKPLATES, labels, usually inside book covers, indicating the owner of the books. The earliest ex libris with Hebrew wording were made for non-Jews. One of the first bookplates was made by Albrecht Duerer for Willibald Pirkheimer (c. 1504) with an inscription in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin of Psalms 111:10. Hector Pomer of Nuremberg had a woodcut ex libris (1525) that is attributed to Duerer or his disciple, Hans Sebald Beham, with the Hebrew translation of \"Unto the pure all things are pure\" (NT, Titus 1:15). \"A time for everything\" (Eccles. 3:1) in Hebrew is found on the bookplate (1530) by Barthel Beham, of Hieronymus Baumgartner of Nuremberg. Among the Jewish artists in England who engraved bookplates in the 18th century were Benjamin Levi of Portsmouth, Isaac Levi of Portsea, Moses Mordecai of London, Samuel Yates of Liverpool, and Mordecai Moses and Ezekiel Abraham Ezekiel of Exeter. However, they only made a few bookplates for Jews. The first known ex libris of a Jew was made by Benjamin Levi for Isaac Mendes of London in 1746. A number of British Jews in the 18th and 19th centuries had armorial bookplates bearing the family coat of arms, although some of them were spurious. Sir Moses Montefiore had several ex libris which bore his distinctively Jewish coat of arms. Among the few Jewish ex libris made in the latter half of the 18th century in Germany were those for David Friedlaender, engraved by Daniel N. Chodowiecki in 1774; and Bernhardt Friedlaender, by Johann M.S. Lowe in 1790. In the 18th century Dutch members of the Polack (Polak) family were among the early bookplate artists. A.S. Polak engraved a heraldic ex libris for the Jewish baron Aerssen van Sommelsdyk. Isaac de Pinto, a Dutch Sephardi Jew, had a bookplate featuring a huge flower vase with his monogram. The modern Russian-Jewish artist S. Yudovin engraved a number of exquisite woodcut bookplates which are among the relatively few with Yiddish inscriptions. Among other European Jewish artists who have used various graphic media to execute ex libris are Uriel Birnbaum, Lodewijk Lopes Cardozo, Fré Cohen,Alice Garman-Horodisch, Georg Jilovsky, Emil Orlik, and Hugo Steiner-Prag. Marco Birnholz (1885–1965) of Vienna, a foremost collector, had over 300 different ones for his own use that were made by many of the European Jewish graphic artists. Bookplates of three Jews are considered to be among the earliest American ex libris, dating from the first half of the 19th century. The pictorial bookplate of Barrak (Baruch) Hays of New York incorporated a family coat of arms. Benjamin S. Judah had two armorial bookplates, although there is no evidence that he was entitled to bear a coat of arms. Dr. Benjamin I. Raphael also had two ex libris – one showing a hand grasping a surgeon\'s knife and the other a skull and bones, symbols frequently found on medical ex libris. Among the early American college bookplates that have Hebrew words are those of Yale University, inscribed with Urim ve-Thumim, Columbia with Ori El (\"God is my light,\" alluding to Ps. 27:1), and Dartmouth with El Shaddai (\"God Almighty\"). Many of the major universities in the United States have a variety of bookplates for their Judaica collections. American Jewish artists of bookplates include Joseph B. Abrahams, Joanne Bauer-Mayer, Todros Geller, A. Raymond Katz, Reuben Leaf, Solomon S. Levadi, Isaac Lichtenstein, Saul Raskin, and Ilya Schor. Ephraim Moses Lilien, the \"father of Jewish bookplates,\" designed many for early Zionist leaders which revealed national suffering and hopes. He gave the Hebrew rendering of the Latin term ex libris – mi-sifrei (\"from the books of\") for the numerous ex libris, which he created with definitive Jewish significance, and inaugurated a new era in this field that was pursued by other Jewish artists. Hermann Struck drew inspiration from the monuments and landscape of Ereẓ Israel for the ex libris he made. Joseph Budko created more than 50 bookplates in aquatints, woodcuts, etchings, and drawings, mostly in a purely ornamental style, leaning heavily on the decorative value of Hebrew script. His artistic ex libris are considered among the finest Jewish examples. Jakob Steinhardt also executed a number of bookplates. Among the other modern Israel artists who produced ex libris are Aryeh Allweil, David Davidowicz, Ze\'ev Raban, J. Ross, Jacob Stark, and Shelomo Yedidiah. Synagogues, Jewish community centers, and institutions of Jewish learning have their own bookplates on which are imprinted names of the donors of books or names of deceased persons who are thus memorialized. Important collections of ex libris are at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, consisting mainly of the private collections of Israel Solomons and Philip Goodman, and at the Museum of the Printing Arts, Safed, based mainly on the private collection of Abraham Weiss of Tel Aviv. ********* A bookplate, also known as ex-librīs [Latin, \"from the books of...\"], is usually a small print or decorative label pasted into a book, often on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner. Simple typographical bookplates are termed \'booklabels\'. Bookplates typically bear a name, motto, device, coat-of-arms, crest, badge, or any motif that relates to the owner of the book, or is requested by him from the artist or designer. The name of the owner usually follows an inscription such as \"from the books of . . . \" or \"from the library of . . . \", or in Latin, ex libris .... Bookplates are important evidence for the provenance of books. In the United States, bookplates replaced book rhymes after the 19th century. History Early examples The earliest known marks of ownership of books or documents date from the reign of Amenophis III in Egypt (1391-1353). However, in their modern form, they evolved from simple inscriptions in books which were common in Europe in the Middle Ages, when various other forms of \"librarianship\" became widespread (such as the use of class-marks, call-numbers, or shelfmarks). The earliest known examples of printed bookplates are German, and date from the 15th century. One of the best known is a small hand-coloured woodcut representing a shield of arms supported by an angel, which was pasted into books presented to the Carthusian monastery of Buxheim by Brother Hildebrand Brandenburg of Biberach, about the year 1480—the date being fixed by that of the recorded gift. The woodcut, in imitation of similar devices in old manuscripts, is hand-painted. An example of this bookplate can be found in the Farber Archives of Brandeis University[1] . In France the most ancient ex-libris as yet discovered is that of one Jean Bertaud de la Tour-Blanche, the date of which is 1529. Holland comes next with the plate of Anna van der Aa, in 1597; then Italy with one attributed to the year 1622. The earliest known American example is the plain printed label of John Williams, 1679. A sketch of the history of the bookplate, as a symbolical and decorative print used to mark ownership of books, begins in Germany. The earliest examples known are German, but also they are found in great numbers long before the fashion spread to other countries, and are often of the highest artistic interest. Albrecht Dürer is known to have engraved at least six plates (some quite large) between 1503 and 1516, and to have supplied designs for several others. Notable plates are ascribed to Lucas Cranach and to Hans Holbein, and to the so-called Little Masters, (Masters of the small format - the Behams, Virgil Solis, Matthias Zundt, Jost Amman, Saldorfer, Georg Hupschmann and others. The influence of these draughtsmen over the decorative styles of Germany has been felt through subsequent centuries down to the present day, notwithstanding the invasion of successive Italian and French fashions during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the marked effort at originality of composition observable among modern designers. The ornate and elaborate German style does not seem to have affected neighbouring countries; but as it was undoubtedly from Germany that the fashion for ornamental bookplates spread, the history of German ex-libris remains of great interest to all those who are interested in their development. It was not before the 17th century that printed ex-libris became common in France. Up to that time, the more luxurious habit of blind- or gold-stamping the book\'s binding with a personal device had been more widespread. From the middle of the century, however, the ex-libris proper became quite popular; examples of that period are numerous, and, as a rule, very handsome. It may be here pointed out that the term \"ex-libris,\" used as a substantive (Bucheignerzeichen in German, and sometimes written \'Exlibris\' in one word) found its origin in France. England In many ways the consideration of the English bookplate, in its numerous styles, from the late Elizabethan to the late Victorian period, is particularly interesting. In all its varieties it reflects with great fidelity the prevailing taste in decorative art at different epochs - as bookplates do in all countries. Of English examples, none thus far seems to have been discovered of older date than the gift plate of Sir Nicholas Bacon; for the celebrated, gorgeous, hand-painted armorial device attached to a folio that once belonged to Henry VIII, and now is located in the King\'s library, British Museum, does not fall in the category of bookplates in its modern sense. The next is that of Sir Thomas Tresham, dated 1585. Until the last quarter of the 17th century the number of authentic English plates is very limited. Their composition is always remarkably simple, and displays nothing of the German elaborateness. They are as a rule very plainly armorial, and the decoration is usually limited to a symmetrical arrangement of mantling, with an occasional display of palms or wreaths. Soon after the Restoration, however, a bookplate seems to have suddenly become an established accessory to most well-ordered libraries. The first recorded use of the phrase book plate was in 1791 by John Ireland in Hogarth Illustrated. Bookplates of that period offer very distinctive characteristics. In the simplicity of their heraldic arrangements they recall those of the previous age; but their physiognomy is totally different. In the first place, they invariably display the tincture lines and dots, after the method originally devised in the middle of the century by Petra Sancta, the author of Tesserae Genlilitiae, which by this time had become adopted throughout Europe. In the second, the mantling assumes a much more elaborate appearance—one that irresistibly recalls that of the periwig of the period surrounding the face of the shield. This style was undoubtedly imported from France, but it assumed a character of its own in England. As a matter of fact, from then until the dawn of the French Revolution, English modes of decoration in bookplates, as in most other chattels, follow at some years\' distance the ruling French taste. The main characteristics of the style which prevailed during the Queen Anne and early Georgian periods are: ornamental frames suggestive of carved oak, a frequent use of fish-scales, trellis or diapered patterns, for the decoration of plain surfaces; and, in the armorial display, a marked reduction in the importance of the mantling. The introduction of the scallop-shell as an almost constant element of ornamentation gives already a foretaste of the Rocaille-Coquille, the so-called Chippendale fashions of the next reign. As a matter of fact, during the middle third of the century this rococo style (of which the Convers plate gives a typical sample) affects the bookplate as universally as all other decorative objects. Its chief element is a fanciful arrangement of scroll and shell work with curveting acanthus-like sprays — an arrangement which in the examples of the best period is generally made asymmetrical in order to give freer scope for a variety of countercurves. Straight or concentric lines and all appearances of flat surface are studiously avoided; the helmet and its symmetrical mantling tends to disappear, and is replaced by the plain crest on a fillet. The earlier examples of this manner are tolerably ponderous and simple. Later, however, the composition becomes exceedingly light and complicated; every conceivable and often incongruous element of decoration is introduced, from cupids to dragons, from flowerets to Chinese pagodas. During the early part of George III.\'s reign there is a return to greater sobriety of ornamentation, and a style more truly national, which may be called the urn style, makes its appearance. Bookplates of this period have invariably a physiognomy which at once recalls the decorative manner made popular by architects and designers such as Chambers, the Adams, Josiah Wedgwood, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. The shield shows a plain spade-like outline, manifestly based upon that of the pseudo-classic urn then very alive. The ornamental accessories are symmetrical palms and sprays, wreaths and ribands. The architectural boss is also an important factor. In many plates, indeed, the shield of arms takes quite a subsidiary position by the side of the predominantly architectural urn. From the beginning of the 19th century, no special style of decoration seems to have established itself. The immense majority of examples display a plain shield of arms with motto on a scroll, and crest on a fillet. At the turn of the 20th century, however, a rapid impetus appears to have been given to the designing of ex-libris; a new era, in fact, had begun for the bookplate, one of great interest. The main styles of decoration (and these, other data being absent, must always in the case of old examples remain the criteria to date) have already been noticed. It is, however, necessary to point out that certain styles of composition were also prevalent at certain periods. Although the majority of the older plates were armorial, there were always pictorial examples as well, and these are the quasi-totality of modern ones. Of this kind the best-defined English genre may be recalled: the library interior—a term which explains itself—and book-piles, exemplified by the ex-libris of W. Hewer, Samuel Pepys\'s secretary. We have also many portrait-plates, of which, perhaps, the most notable are those of Samuel Pepys himself and of John Gibbs, the architect; allegories, such as were engraved by Hogarth, Bartolozzi, John Pine and George Vertue; landscape-plates, by wood-engravers of the Bewick school, &c. In most of these the armorial element plays but a secondary part. Art Until the advent of bookplate collectors and their frenzy for exchange, the devising of bookplates was almost invariably left to the routine skill of the heraldic-stationery salesman. Near the turn of the 20th century, the composition of personal book tokens became recognized as a minor branch of a higher art, and there has come into fashion an entirely new class of designs which, for all their wonderful variety, bear as unmistakable a character as that of the most definite styles of bygone days. Broadly speaking, it may be said that the purely heraldic element tends to become subsidiary and the allegorical or symbolic to assert itself more strongly. Among early 20th-century English artists who have more specially paid attention to the devising of bookplates, may be mentioned C. W. Sherborn, G. W. Eve, Robert Anning Bell, J. D. Batten, Erat Harrison, J. Forbes Nixon, Charles Ricketts, John Vinycomb, John Leighton and Warrington Hogg and Frank C. Papé. The development in various directions of process work, by facilitating and cheapening the reproduction of beautiful and elaborate designs, has no doubt helped much to popularize the bookplate — a thing which in older days was almost invariably restricted to ancestral libraries or to collections otherwise important. Thus the great majority of plates of the period 1880-1920 plates were reproduced by process. Some artists continued to work with the graver. Some of the work they produce challenges comparison with the finest productions of bygone engravers. Of these the best-known are C. W. Sherborn (see Plate) and G. W. Eve in England, and in America J. W. Spenceley of Boston, Mass., K. W. F. Hopson of New Haven, Conn., and E. D. French of New York City. Study and collection Bookplates are very often of high interest (and of a value often far greater than the odd volume in which they are found affixed), either as specimens of bygone decorative fashion or as personal relics of well-known people. However the value attached to book plates, otherwise than as an object of purely personal interest, is comparatively modern. The study of and the taste for collecting bookplates hardly date farther back than the year 1860. The first real impetus was given by the appearance of A Guide to the Study of Book-Plates (Ex-Libris), by Lord de Tabley (then the Hon. J. Leicester Warren M.A.) in 1880 (published in London by John Pearson of 46 Pall Mall). This work, highly interesting from many points of view, established what is now accepted as the general classification of styles of British ex-libris: early armorial (i.e., previous to Restoration, exemplified by the Nicholas Bacon plate); Jacobean, a somewhat misleading term, but distinctly understood to include the heavy decorative manner of the Restoration, Queen Anne and early Georgian days (the Lansanor plate is Jacobean); Chippendale (the style above described as rococo, tolerably well represented by the French plate of Convers); wreath and ribbon, belonging to the period described as that of the urn, &c. Since then the literature on the subject has grown considerably. Societies of collectors were founded, first in England in 1891, then in Germany and France, and later in the United States, most of them issuing a journal or archives: The Journal of the Ex-libris Society (London), the Archives de la Société française de collectionneurs d\'ex-libris (Paris), both of these monthlies; the Ex-libris Zeitschrift (Berlin), a quarterly. In 1901-1903 the British Museum published the catalog of the 35,000 bookplates collected by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-97). Bookplates, of which there are probably far more than a million extant examples worldwide, have become objects of collection. One of the first known English collectors was a Miss Maria Jenkins of Clifton, Bristol, who was active in the field during the second quarter of the 19th century. Her bookplates were later incorporated into the collection of Joseph Jackson Howard. Some collectors attempt to acquire plates of all kinds (for example, the collection of Irene Dwen Andrews Pace, now at Yale University, comprising 250,000 items). Other collectors prefer to concentrate on bookplates in special fields—for example, coats of arms, pictures of ships, erotic plates, chess pieces, legal symbols, scientific instruments, signed plates, proof-plates, dated plates, plates of celebrities, or designs by certain artists. Contemporary bookplates and their collection Since the 1950s, there has been a renewed interest in the collection of bookplates and in many ways a reorientation of this interest. There are still substantial numbers of collectors for whom the study of bookplates spanning 500 years is a fascinating source of historical, artistic and socio-cultural interest. They have however been joined by a now dominant group of new collectors whose interest is more than anything the constitution - at quite reasonable cost - of a miniature, personalized art-print collection. In this miniature art museum, they gather together the works of their favorite artists. They commission numbered and signed editions of bookplates to their name which are never pasted into books but only serve for exchange purposes. More than 50 \'national\' societies of ex-libris collectors exist, grouped into an International Federation of Ex-libris Societies (FISAE) which organizes worldwide congresses every two years. Bibliography Allen, Charles D., American Book-Plates (Arno 1968). Arellanes, Audrey S., ed., Bookplates (Gale Res. 1971). Arellanes, Audrey S., Bookplates in the News (Gale Res. 1986). Faber, Bookplates in Britain (1984).Johnson, Fridolf, A Treasury of Bookplates from the Renaissance to the Present (Dover 1978). Jones, Louise S., Human Side of Bookplates (Ward Ritchie Press 1959). Lee, Brian N., British Bookplates - A Pictorial History (David & Charles, 1979). Shickell, Edward H., Bookplates for Libraries: Contemporary Designs for School, Public, College and University Libraries (Beacham 1968). Sibbett, Ed, Children\'s Bookplates and Labels (Dover 1977). ******* The ex libris - a special form of graphic art combining the function of indicating the name of the owner of a book with a decorative aspect - appeared back in the Middle Ages as book owners began applying distinctive labels to what were extremely valuable possessions. Gradually such bookplates came to feature designs with figurative and heraldic elements alluding in some way to the character of a particular library or the personality of its owner. Bookplates were produced from woodcuts or copper engravings. The printed sheet would be pasted to the inside front cover. Common use was once also made of super ex libris - a coat-of-arms worked in gold tooling on the leather cover or spine of a book. But this method greatly reduced the possibilities for design. Leading artists of the Renaissance period turned their hands to the creation of ex libris, among them Dürer, Lucas Cranach and Hans Holbein the Younger. By the early twentieth century, however, bookplates were rarely used for their original intended purpose and had become collector\'s items with a value in their own right among bibliophiles, artists and art historians. Apart from the traditional engraving methods, ex libris designers began to use a wide variety of graphic techniques and print-runs were greatly increased through the application of zincography and other methods of reproduction. For some of the twentieth century\'s finest artists the ex libris became a field of activity as serious as book illustration or pure graphic art. Because of this, as well as being of indisputable historical and cultural significance, collections of such labels contain no small number of splendid examples of graphic art and the occasional genuine miniature masterpiece. The National Library\'s stock of bookplates was formed primarily from several large collections belonging to members of the Leningrad Society of Ex-Librists which existed between 1921 and 1930. Closely linked to the ex libris collection is the library\'s stock of Russian publishers\' colophons, a related form of graphic art that was extremely popular in the 1900s-1920s. The Prints Department\'s bookplate collection continues to grow through the regular influx of examples by contemporary artists, especially those based in St Petersburg. In recent years a fair number of interesting items have been acquired - works by both those loyal to traditional ideas of the ex libris and former \"underground\" artists who boldly experiment with forms and techniques. At times such creations demonstrate better than anything else the distinctive traits present in graphic art today. The Prints Department\'s bookplate holdings consist of a number of named collections: the Briliant collection; the Lermant collection; the Leningrad Society of Ex-Librists collection; the Savon\'ko collection; ******* Latvian graphic arts developed from book and newspaper design. In 1904, a group of writers and artists founded a publishing house Zalktis that paid much attention to the visual qualities of books that featured drawings and letters in the art nouveau style complemented with graphic ornaments and flowing lines. The founders of Latvian graphics also used to draw for the popular humour periodicals. In 1907 in St Petersburg the magazine Periens, Speriens, Keriens replaced the earlier Zvargula Zobgala kalendars. Graphic vignettes for literary magazines have been drawn by most Latvian artists who also considered it an honour to provide illustrations for original works in poetry and prose by Latvian authors. Rihards Zarinš, Olgerts Abelite, Peteris Upitis, Aleksandrs Junkers, Arturs Apinis are all regarded classics of the genre. The first exhibition of graphic arts, with the participation of thirteen authors with 104 works, took place shortly before World War I. Since then, Latvians have particularly excelled in wood etching that is considered one of the most difficult techniques. Latvians are avid readers who also take care to preserve their books. In 1897, Rihards Zarinš created the first book plate for his wife Eva and since that time ex libris has been a very popular genre in Latvian graphic arts. A good graphic design is based on perfect drawing. Uga Skulme with his series The Poor Man’s Bible (1920s), Sigismunds Vidbergs and Karlis Padegs are still unsurpassed masters of the line. Indrikis Zeberinš, Oskars Noritis, Gunars Krollis, Aleksandrs Stankevics, Valdis Villerušs, Gunars Cilitis have all made a significant contribution to the development of book design. The versatility of technique is hardly an end in itself: it is just a means for conveying an image. Perhaps it is not the Word but Line that was in the beginning. It is with an expressive line alone that a good graphic artist can reveal the philosophical dimension of a landscape. Ilmars Blumbergs is a master of line par excellence. Aleksandrs Dembo, Heinrihs Vorkals, Lilija Dinere, Juris Petraškevics, Guntars Sietinš, Maris Subacs, Vita Lenerte-Grasa, Aivars Vilipsons and Roberts Kolcovs represent various techniques, philosophies and generations, but all put out artistically powerful and interesting work. In the late 1980s Gunars Kirke, Gunars Lusis, Laimonis Šenbergs, Georgs Smelters, and Juris Dimiters instituted a shift in the poster art that became more socially engaged. The same period was the beginning of the triumph of the new media, with Andris Breže, Juris Putrams, Indulis Gailans, Olegs Tilbergs, and Kristaps Gelzis launching a new direction for the artistic process.