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06798_Field_TCUM T363.txt
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1996-04-10
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930b
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16 lines
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