Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, Insel Verlag
I came across the title page of an edition of Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra. I stared at it for a few moments and, along with the undeniable Art Nouveau tone, what caught my eye was the typeface used, which I already knew, but couldn’t remember the name of, but which was all too obvious: Zarathustra, drawn by Georges Lemmen.
I then discovered that the typeface was in fact named after the book project for which it was commissioned.
In the copy I found digitized, there is the following colophon on the summary page at the end of the book (see image no. 6; translated from the German):
The typeface for this edition of “Zarathustra” was drawn by G. Lemmen in 1900 and cut with the help of Harry Graf Kessler. Henry van de Velde designed the title, pre-title, ornaments and binding and supervised the printing. 530 copies were printed in the Offizin W. Drugulin in leipzig, of which numbers 1–100 were bound in leather and numbers 101–530 in vellum. — This is number 471
It’s not explicitly written, but it’s quite likely that Van der Velde was also responsible for the design of the book’s interior, since he designed the title page. Moreover, we must admit that only a painter, a designer with a taste for ornament, would have decided to highlight the internal chapters in this way (see image no. 4).
The page has a format close to that of the golden ratio; the text box, however, looks like an architectural column: narrow and with capitals at the top, notably a mark of the artist’s architectural conception and which contributes, with the golden ornaments, to an expression of the work’s vernacular tone. If the rigorous master Tschichold were to leaf through the book, he would say there were numerous typographical errors. But I think it’s a case of typography, not taking a back seat, but becoming more flexible in favor of the idea of “total art” in the object. Just as a chair can be both expression and function.
Here’s a short article about the artist, from britannica.com:
Henry van de Velde (born April 3, 1863, Antwerp, Belg.—died Oct. 25, 1957, Zürich, Switz.) was a Belgian architect and teacher who ranks with his compatriot Victor Horta as an originator of the Art Nouveau style, characterized by long sinuous lines derived from naturalistic forms. By designing furniture and interiors for the Paris art galleries of Samuel Bing in 1896, van de Velde was responsible for bringing the Art Nouveau style to Paris. Van de Velde’s most vital contributions to modern design were made as a teacher in Germany, where his name became known through the exhibition of furnished interiors at Dresden in 1897. In 1902 he went to Weimar as artistic adviser to the grand duke of Saxe-Weimar. There, influenced by the philosophy of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, he reorganized the Kunstgewerbeschule (Arts-and-Crafts School) and the academy of fine art and thus laid the foundations for Walter Gropius’ amalgamation of the two bodies into the Bauhaus in 1919. Like the progressive German designers at the time, van de Velde was connected with the Deutscher Werkbund, and he designed the theatre for the Werkbund Exposition in Cologne in 1914. Despite official appointments in Belgium, van de Velde after 1918 made no further contributions to architecture or design. A valuable extract from his Memoirs (1891–1901) was published in the Architectural Review, 112:143–148 (September 1952).
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3 Comments on “Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, Insel Verlag”
Thank you for this contribution, Robert!
That’s an impressive book. I once had the chance to look at a copy at the TU Darmstadt library, thanks to a rare book tour organized by Dan Reynolds.
As we mention on the typeface page, Lorène Picard started a revival in 2012 in the type design class at La Cambre, Brussels. Her digitization is based on the metal sorts found in the school’s letterpress workshop, as well as on a copy of Van der Velde’s Also sprach Zarathustra. A first version (v0.1) was released in 2016. There’s also Or Lemmen by GUNMAD (Guðmundur Úlfarsson and Mads Freund Brunse), which is a less direct interpretation of Lemmen’s design. According to Or Type, the original typeface went by the name “Antiqua” and is available in 10 and 12pt sizes at La Cambre. Their version is loosely based on printed specimens of the smaller size. First released in 2018, it was extended over the years to three subfamilies, Or Lemmen with Condensed and Mono, each in five weights in roman and italic styles.
Compared to other private press typefaces from the same period, Lemmen’s typeface looks pretty modern, with a large x-height, wide and harmonious proportions, and a relatively light weight. It’s distinguished by the single-story forms for a and g. There’s an alternate descending h. What gives away its age in the shown book typography is the use of the long s (ſ) and the ligatures – for fi, ff, fl, ſi, ſſ, ſt, tz and possibly more. If there are ligatures for ch and ck, then those were designed to be non-touching. Picard’s digital Zarathustra v0.1 has the alternate h, some ligatures as well as the ornaments used in the book, but not the ſ or its respective ligatures.
There’s one thing that’s not quite clear to me. The colophon makes it sound as if Lemmen drew the typeface specifically for this edition, in 1900. The book was printed only in 1908. If both dates are correct, does that mean the type was sitting around for eight years before it was put to use? Was it used for other books before? Did Lemmen start the design in 1900, and the type was only cut much later? Or did finalizing this edition drag on for years? Did Lemmen refer to it as “Zarathustra”, or did he simply name it “Antiqua” (“Roman”), as suggested by GUNMAD? If anyone has more insights, please leave a comment.
In 1928, Lemmen’s typeface was used for a limited edition of Les Sorciers de Borght by Georges Eekhoud, published as N° 1 des Editions des Amis de l’Institut supérieur des Arts Décoratifs (La Cambre). In the colophon, it’s referred to as “antiqua”.
In 2021, designer Alexandre Liziard visited the workshop at Le Cambre and kindly shared pics of the original sorts as well as of a proof with a glyph set.
Van de Velde wasn’t the only prominent Jugendstil artist to design an edition of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Peter Behrens – who would later co-found the Deutscher Werkbund together with Van de Velde and others – designed a cover for the book, too. It’s reproduced in the October 1902 issue of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration. The design is spectacular, but the lettering is not the most interesting part.
Ole W. Fischer wrote about the fascination for Nietzsche and his Übermensch, see his article “Bauen für den Übermenschen? Peter Behrens, Henry van de Velde und der Nietzsche-Kult” published in 2017 in Eine Stadt müssen wir erbauen, eine ganze Stadt!