The same feeling for the letters of the alphabet as 
engraved icons has returned in our own day in the graphic arts 
and in advertising display. Perhaps the reader will have 
encountered the sense of this coming change in Rimbaud’s 
sonnet on the vowels, or in some of Braque’s paintings. But 
ordinary newspaper headline style tends to push letters toward 
the iconic form, a form that is very near to auditory resonance, 
as it is also to tactile and sculptural quality.

     Perhaps the supreme quality of the print is one that is 
lost on us, since it has so casual and obvious an existence. It is 
simply that it is a pictorial statement that can be repeated 
precisely and indefinitely—at least as long as the printing 
surface lasts. Repeat-ability is the core of the mechanical 
principle that has dominated our world, especially since the 
Gutenberg technology. The message of the print and of