an interest in the ‘black art’

”You would naturally like to know whether in my childhood I showed an interest in the ‘black art’. And how! As early as my fourth year the blackened hands of the chimney-sweep made a great impression on me. To have such lovely black hands—and without being scolded for it—that was the truest bliss, and I shortly announced that I too wished to become a chimney-sweep.”

—Hermann Zapf, About Alphabets: Some Marginal Notes on Type Design, 1970.

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