January 4, 2013 |
Everything starts with the hand, the gesture, the mark made by finger or an instrument of stone or wood, steel or iron – all on a virgin surface, be it rock, mud, papyrus, paper or canvas. Answering man’s deepest urges to make something uniquely his and unique for that moment; to record; to demonstrate; to show existence at a precise moment, the mark on a surface was – and is (think of small children and their crayons) – the first intellectual step in life, organising the realities around you by controlling and ordering the image.
The chubby little hand scribbling with chalk on a board is not just drawing Mummy, but also taking control of her image and surroundings, just as Neanderthal man did in his cave drawings of herds of bison. Both are about the power and control that comes from making an image.
The image is what civilisation is built on: the craft and artistic creativity that includes script, drawing and, above all, the making of things by hand – the hand that makes each piece different and unique. The hand of the artisan.
When the industrial revolution that swept the Western world in the 19th century opened up previously undreamed-of possibilities for mass production, not least that things made by a machine cost a fraction of the handmade object, the world of mass consumerism was created. Everyone could have things for which they had previously had to wait and frequently save; new materials superseded the old. Quantity was more important than quality, as centuries-old skills and knowledge were deemed unimportant and irrelevant to modern life. Most of the world bought into the fallacy that the machine was not only quicker but better than the hand, and that the skilled hand was actually not really important enough to beat the vital new trading element, which was price. In a strange way it was believed that only the automaton’s hand or the unskilled grafter’s strength were needed in the vast factories that had taken over from the small workshops by the end of the 19th century, as the laboratory and design studio began to take over the traditional craftsman’s role.
Most of the world, led by Britain and America, with Europe not far behind, bought in, but not everyone. Ruskin, William Morris and others realised that the long-term cultural future was being jeopardised for a short-term gain – and in the history of civilisation, a century or so is a short time, as we now realise, even if it doesn’t seem so to people living at that time.
We have to move forward, wheels come full circle, new trajectories develop. But we can only do so successfully if we take the past by the hand and keep it at our side as we create our exciting new contemporary paths. If we do that, then civilisation survives. So, what is it that we should be saving, building on and adapting at this point of our contemporary creative worlds? To explain, let us go back to the beginning, to the caveman and the primitive civilisations that followed him, and ask.
It is all about the commitment of the unique gesture, the mark that only the individual can make. It is about the individual’s belief in the importance of quality and, after a period when it seemed terminally undermined by technological advances, this commitment is coming back, on the awareness that we have perhaps sacrificed too much. To give it concrete form, let us look at the simple task of saying “thank you”. It has never been easier – and it has never been so impersonal.
Text messages, tweets, blogs, emails, answering machines make it the matter of a few seconds to convey our thanks. But what does the thanks actually mean? What do we most appreciate in our hectic and – despite all the communication aids – impersonal world? I would say that it is the care, love, consideration – call it what you wish – that causes us to make an effort. And that is what we are beginning to do. And when we say thank you and mean it, we go back to the 18th century and write by hand our note of thanks. Holding our pen in our hand, we communicate with paper and card – and thus through them.
This handwritten thank you is one of the most encouraging signs that the fast-moving, exciting times in which we live and work have not entirely turned us into automatons yet. But it was coming close. We were in danger of losing the ability to differentiate between the quality and pleasure of writing and receiving a handwritten note and an impersonal technological communication – even more, a handwritten note where the vital marks are made not by the eminently useful but soulless ballpoint pen but by a handcrafted fountain pen and real ink.
Have you ever noticed the difference we display when we are writing with either?
The ballpoint pen is as useful and utilitarian as the hankie in our bag or pocket. Out of sight and out of mind, it serves a purpose (very well compared with a sleeve or shirt cuff) and that is all it normally gives us, as it loses its aesthetic appeal the moment it has been used. A ballpoint is slightly different but equally utilitarian. We use one to doodle, make lists, scribble with whilst on the phone, but it never gives us an aesthetic experience. But a fountain pen is a different thing. The very name is evocative. The fountain is something special and gracious in a garden, and that aura is part of the aesthetic of the pen. Notice how people take out a Mont Blanc or Cartier pen to write with. It is not exactly with deference, but it is with pride.
Where does the pride come from? Well, it must be admitted that some of it is the fact that we have in our hands a true status symbol that tells people about our taste and financial levels. But it is more than that. We want society to know that we are able to rise above the sordid scramble for survival in the modern world. To know that, although we are sensitive enough to know that there are other, very much cheaper ways of writing, this is the instrument for writing that really matters to us and the recipient. No chewed ballpoint ever signed the register in a marriage ceremony. The Queen does not use a felt tip to sign a decree into law. No allies in war ever signed a declaration or a peace treaty with anything but a fountain pen.
With the grand, so with us. I have always thanked people for things that merit more acknowledgement than a quick phone call by a short note, often on one side only of a stiff, plain card, and always written with a fountain pen. I do so not to impress but because that was how I was taught to. The effect is often amazing. So many times people remind me months, even years, later that my card was so appreciated that it is still in the recipient’s possession.
So, as we face the collapse of so many things, small in themselves but big in their significance, my advice is to eschew emails, forget the supermarket flowers, switch off your mobile and start writing as if you really meant it. With a fountain pen. Even the slightest gift is elevated by a handwritten card. And you will be joining a slow-burning but very definite movement within the ranks of discerning people who wish to return to the quality of life, and the pleasures of an age when the individual’s hand made the artistic and artisanal statements.
It hasn’t all gone yet. Nor has the desire for quality in our lives. That is why we love the look of a Bentley and delight in the first-class seating section of long-haul planes; prefer bone-china cups to cardboard mugs, and fresh orange juice squeezed not hours earlier but especially when we make our order. And why this can be done instantly in even backstreet bars around the world and not in London’s luxury hotels is simply because we do not care enough about the erosion of the quality of our lives to insist upon it.
We should not let our standards slip in the name of modernity and efficiency. We know that most of the things we accept – paper napkins in expensive restaurants, for example – are merely exercises to save money on us so that the provider can make more profit. We also know it is wrong, and now is the moment to change it. Start by throwing away the ballpoint and buying a good pen.
Life can only get better.
By Colin McDowell
