M-V* ,
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN,
 
 " Here, work enough to watch 
 The master work, and catch 
 
 Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play." 
 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra. 
 
 « « 
 
 'Jlic copyrip^ht of Ihr i/lustratiotis in this hook arc s/nVi'/y irscn'cd 
 
 hv llifii lYxpectiTC owi.rrs. 
 
 :5os
 
 " The noblest thing that is said now, or shall be said hereafter, is, that 
 what is profitable is honourable and what is hurtful is base." 
 
 Plato. 
 
 " And only the master shall praise us, and only the master shall blame, 
 And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame. 
 But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star. 
 Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are ! " 
 
 Ri DVAR]) Kipling. 
 
 " Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should 
 rejoice in his own works ; for that is his portion." 
 
 ECCLESIASTF.S. 
 
 C I t t t ( 
 
 
 ( t * * 
 
 » . . « t
 
 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 HE following little book is the outcome of a series 
 of articles I contributed to The Art Journal on 
 "Art Crafts and Craftsmen." My object then 
 was to bring to the notice of the reader, through the medium 
 of illustrations, the work of some few representative crafts- 
 men, with a few personal notes, the result of conversations 
 with the craftsmen themselves, and also a general survey of 
 the work being done to-day in some of the leading crafts. 
 
 In the pages of The Art Journal for the last five years 
 were many illustrations bearing upon the subject, and I have 
 made a selection of these to add to the others, because 
 illustrations in a work like this are its most valuable features, 
 and as these, with the exception of the Nature Notes in the 
 first chapter, are taken from the work of some of our 
 leading craftsmen, this book should, o;/ that ground, have a 
 
 >H value, as the student can see at a glance the trend of 
 o 
 ,bJO present-day craftsmanship and be stimulated and helped 
 
 cj thereby. 
 
 With a few unavoidable exceptions only modern work is 
 
 »2 illustrated, as that wrought by our contemporaries has an 
 S interest for us which old work, however excellent, cannot 
 ^ have, not being the outcome of the Time spirit {/Zeitgeist). 
 
 • 
 
 P. 
 
 a 
 O
 
 VI TO THE READER. 
 
 Now that it is realised that the craftsman can be an artist 
 whether carving a pew-end or beating a finger-plate just as 
 much as if he were engaged in painting a picture, the work 
 of to-day is more virile, vehement, and veracious than it has 
 been any time within this century, and to detach it, therefore, 
 from all other work seemed to me the best way to give the 
 present book value and distinction. 
 
 Though I address myself mainly to the student, I venture 
 to hope that this work may find its way into the hands of 
 some few patrons, for nothing is so crushing to the earnest 
 craftsman as to find that, though he stand in the market- 
 place waiting to be hired, no one comes by him to engage 
 his services, and he is forced in consequence to remain 
 dumb because no one will enable him to give his ego 
 utterance. As much responsibility rests with the patron as 
 the craftsman in the production of good work, and to see 
 that which is not of good report preferred is a serious 
 hindrance to progress in the art crafts. It needs nearly as 
 much training to be an intelligent appreciator as it does to 
 be a producer, though to be as accomplished as the latter 
 requires a very real and long apprenticeship. 
 
 To the patron I say, Search out for yourself a craftsman 
 
 to do the particular work you require, and having found 
 
 him trust him, and ask him to give you of his best; and to 
 
 the craftsman I say. Before all else be faithful to the best 
 
 traditions of your craft, and put yourself thoroughly into 
 
 all you do. 
 
 Fred Miller.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAP. VAC.V. 
 
 J. The Craftsman and Nature . . . x 
 
 II. Design and Craftsmanship . . . -24 
 
 III. Metal Work. Repousse and Fine Metal- 
 Work. Wrought Iron .... 36 
 
 IV. Jewellery 67 
 
 V. Enamelling on Metal 82 
 
 VI. Potters and Painters 91 
 
 VII. Glass Painters 112 
 
 VIII. Wood Carvers 131 
 
 IX. Bookbinders 150 
 
 X. Women Workers in the Art Crafis . 177 
 
 XI. Surface Decoration ..... 192 
 
 XII. Decoration in Relief 206 
 
 XI II. Wall-Papers and Textiles .... 214 
 
 XIV. The Craftsman up -to -Date and his 
 
 Outlook 2^;^
 
 LIST OF ARTISTS 
 
 WHOSE DESIGNS ARE REPRODUCED IN THIS BOOK. 
 
 The numbers given are those tmder the Illustrations. 
 
 ASHBEE, C. R , 30, 44, 49 to 54. 
 
 Aspen, W. V., 154. 
 
 AlJMONIER, W., 91, 92, 99. 
 
 Baker, A. J., is7. 
 Bassett, Miss, 118. 
 BfRDSALL, Mr., 112. 
 
 BiRKENRUTH, MiSS, \y.. 
 
 Birmingham Guild of Handi- 
 
 CR.\FT, II, 100. 
 
 Bookbinders, Co-oper.\tive, 103, 
 
 106. 
 Browne, Col. Jemmitt, 133. 
 BuRNE- Jones, Sir E., 78, 134. 
 
 Cattfrson-Smith, R., 28. 
 Chiswick School of Arts and 
 Crafts, 31. 
 
 CoBDEN-SaUNDERSON, 104 to III. 
 
 Copkland, 67. 
 
 Crane, Walter, A.R.W.S., 86, 
 87, 89, 149. 
 
 Davis, Louis, 79, 80, 81. 
 Daws(jn, Nelso.v, 24. 
 
 Dean, W. C, 71. 
 
 De Morgan, 58, 59, 61, 62. 
 
 Dent S^ Co., i 17. 
 
 Doulton & Co., Lambeth, (>o, 
 
 64, 70. 
 Doulton & Co., Burslem, 68. 
 
 Fazakerlk.y, 115. 
 Fisher, Alex., 25,26, 43, 55. 
 Fletcher, Edavin, 40. 
 Frampton, G., A.R.A., 18 to 21, 
 n^ 56, 57, 143 to 147, 161. 
 
 Grimwood, W. II., 93. 
 Guthrik, Messrs ,77. 
 GwATKiN, Arthur, 160. 
 
 Haite, G. C, R.B..\., 90, 151. 
 IIakdman, Powell & Co., 38. 
 Hems, H.\rry, 96. 
 Hunter, E. A., 148, 150. 
 Hussev, Miss .\f.. 131. 
 
 Jack, George, 94, 95.
 
 X 
 
 LIST OF ARTISTS. 
 
 Keswick School of Industrial 
 
 Art, 32. 
 Knox, J. E., 97. 
 
 Lowndes, Mary, 124, 125. 
 
 McCoLi., Miss, 120, 121, 122, 
 
 ■23- 
 Marks, Gilbert, 27. 
 Mawsom, S. G., 159. 
 Miller, Fred, i to 15, 17, 141. 
 
 Binding design, end papers, 
 
 and title page. 
 Minton, 65. 
 Moore, Miss Esther M., 127, 
 
 128. 
 
 Nevill, Miss Mary, 126. 
 OspovAT, H., 88. 
 
 PiLKINGON, 72. 
 
 Reeks, Miss M. E., 130. 
 Reynolds, W. Bainbridge, 36, 37 
 RicHTER, H. D., 102. 
 Rogers, Mark, 9*^. 
 Roots, Miss, 69. 
 
 "Roger de Coverley," 113, 
 
 114. 
 Ryland, Henry, 85. 
 
 Shepherd, P., 155. 
 Silver, A., 152. 
 
 Southwold School of Handi- 
 craft, lOI. 
 .Steele, Miss Florence, 129. 
 s i'romquist, 34, 
 Sumner, Heywood, 139. 
 
 TiNWORTH, Geo., R.B.A., 66. 
 Turner, Thackeray, 63, 73. 
 
 VoYSEY, C. F. A., 153, 156, 158. 
 
 Wakeford, a., 22. 
 Waldram, B. a., 119. 
 Walker, Arthur G., 29. 
 Watson, J. D., 76. 
 Watson, M., 136. 
 Webb, Stephhn, 97. 
 Whall, C, 75, 82, 83, 84. 
 Whistler, J. McNeill, 135. 
 Whitefriars Glass Co., 74. 
 Wilson, H , 35. 
 
 and others.
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 
 
 ''j^ rS^ HE idea that designing can be taught as 
 a youth can be turned out a carpenter 
 after so many years' apprenticeship is 
 one of those fallacies which die hard. 
 Designing is a purely mental process, 
 and may be defined as imagination 
 ])laying over and arranging forms and 
 lines into pleasing combinations, and is, 
 in all essentials, the same quality that 
 gives us musicians, and painters, and 
 poets, and the last we know are born, not made. 
 It may be said too, in passing, that Rhythm in 
 music and poetry is what distribution and balance arc in 
 design, but such an inquiry would take us outside our 
 immediate subject, which is "The Training of a Craftsman." 
 Design cannot be taught, though much may be learned 
 from the study of the methods of those who have worked 
 before us. A teacher may therefore perform some service 
 by bringing b'='fore the student's attention that which he
 
 2 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 considers of good report — a method Ruskin followed at 
 Oxford. The drawback to this is that the student verv 
 
 Fig. I. 
 possibly does not see the merit in the particular example 
 you put before him. Your critical faculty is sharper than 
 his, and it may be some years before the student is capable
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 3 
 
 of appreciating what begets your approbation. Looking 
 back to student days, I must admit that I was incapable of 
 seeing the merit in a good many works which were put 
 before me as examples worthy my respect and veneration, 
 and which I have only slowly learned to appreciate. They 
 
 were dumb for many years, though now tliey speak. In 
 one's art education one begins by indiscriminately admiring 
 the rococco, the (Lunboyant, the bizarre. Tlie mesh ot 
 one's mind in time adj'ists itself unlil it tlirows away thr 
 cliaff and retains tlie grain, and the I)est art training is the 
 one that enables the student the more quickly to rea( h this
 
 4 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 mental state. It is certain that no student can afford to 
 ignore the work of other days and peoples, not for imitation, 
 but to widen his sympathies and to cultivate the critical 
 faculty, which as a student he is probably wholly without. 
 The reason why you reject one class of work and accept 
 another can only come with time. In youth one admires 
 fervently and hates blindly. One was such a bundle of 
 prejudices too in those days, for when one is young one 
 cannot see the good in everytliing ; such catholicity is only 
 reached after much mental warfare and the breaking down 
 of many prejudices. Youth is vehement and antagonistic 
 because it is wildly enthusiastic. It should be so. The 
 fever will get out of your bload quite quickly enough : love 
 and hate strongly until you can do so with judgment and 
 without bias. 
 
 I am inclined to think that old work has hitherto been 
 thrust too prominently before the student to the exclusion 
 of all else, with the result that he wearies of it, and would 
 consign it to its fitting burial place, the gloomy recesses of 
 a museum. The same old casts which for years have hung 
 up in schools of art have bred contempt because of one's 
 familiarity with them. The work that is being wrought by 
 our contemporaries is, as it should be, of a more stimulat-ng 
 and vi\id interest to a student than any eff"orts of a bygone 
 age, and I have therefore excluded old examples in this 
 work, save in a few instances, so that the reader may 
 learn, if he will, of h's contemporaries by seeing what 
 they are doing. 
 
 But whether the student ^tudy old woik or niodern he 
 must remember that nature is, after all, the fountain head of 
 inspiration and the source of all strength ; all other teaching
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 5 
 
 and training should be considered at best as second-liaiul 
 knowledge. Just as reading should not take the place of 
 
 F'g- 3. 
 observation, so craftsmen's work shouUl be considered as a 
 commentary on Nature ; and whatever else an art teacher 
 may do for the student he should always lead him bm k to
 
 6 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 nature, though he may assist him by showing the student 
 how other craftsmen have utihsed the suggestions and 
 hints received from nature. Nature is the raw material 
 wherewith you garme;nt your ego, and " old clothes," though 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 they may serve as guides, are not what you should dress 
 yourself in. The world is wanting to see what freshness of 
 invention, what new combinations you are waiting to give 
 it. It requires your personality to be stamped vehemently 
 on all vou do.
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 7 
 
 Every student has to ask himself " How am I going to 
 gain the necessary knowledge, and how use it when it is 
 gained ? " I can here only speak from my own experience, 
 and that I place at the service of my readers. 
 
 It is now more than twelve years since I wrote four of 
 the handbooks in Wyman's technical series,* which were in 
 the main illustrated by me. and those twelve years have 
 changed my point of view a good deal, and I hope widened 
 my sympathies. Looking back I can see, I think, in what 
 
 tLDEIR 
 
 I was deficient in those days, for when I was a pupil, over 
 twenty years ago, the art crafts were denied the position 
 now given them. The individual was lost sight of in the 
 "firm," and as I \vas a " hand " in a firm of glass painteis 
 I merely acquired a certain amount of technique or h;ind 
 skill, for we were put to carry out work originated by the 
 draughtsman kept on the i)remiscs to do the liesigniiii^. Our 
 training was merely a mechanical one, antl what efforts in 
 the direction of original work I made was in the nature of 
 
 • Those on Interior Dccoiation, Glass I'aintin<;, Wooii ('rii\inf;, and 
 Pottery l^aintin^-
 
 8 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 copying or imitating the work I was put to trace. Glass- 
 painting itself at the time of which I am speaking was 
 governed by precedent. It was purely a conventional art 
 following a path in which the same old ruts had deepened 
 year by year; and the idea of developing the indivi- 
 duality of the craftsmen, so that a touch of originality was 
 seen in what was produced, was an idea too antagonistic 
 to the established order of things for the '-firm '" to enter- 
 tain. The art crafts were then carried on so much as 
 trades that the art was crushed out by the combined weight 
 of the ledger and the mechanical routine of the establish- 
 ment. 
 
 By the light of my experience I consider that craftsmen 
 have now a very fair prospect before them. In the days of 
 my apprenticeship the work was made so mechanical that 
 the "hands" became machines, and the main interest in 
 their work turned upon Saturday's wages. Now, any man 
 of ideas and personality has the opportunity of getting a 
 hearing and giving his ego utterance. 
 
 The trainmg I obtained at the West London School of 
 Art was of a very rule-of-thumb character — drawing from 
 uninteresting casts in a heated, fetid underground cellar, 
 where the tuition, meagre as it was, was of as mechanical 
 a character as the work during the day, and so deadening 
 was it that alter awhile I dropped going to the school. 
 During my pupilage I developed a certain amount of 
 technical facility, but I was sadly deficient in knowledge ot 
 form. I used to trace glass quarries from patterns supplied 
 by one of the firm who was clever at originating quaint 
 birds, animals, &c., and combining them with convention- 
 alised foliage, but over and over again I was called upon
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 9 
 
 to do work greatly in advance of my knowledge. It was 
 like reciting in a language one did not understand. 
 
 When I gained more leisure, which was only after I 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 started on my own account working for the trade, I worked 
 constantly from nature, making drawings of plants when I 
 could get away from London, or in the Botanic Gardens, for 
 which place I obtained a student's ticket, and of aniina'
 
 lO 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 life in the Zoo, for which I have, on and off, had a student's 
 ticket for twenty years. The result of this study of nature 
 upon me was curious. I had while in the glass-painter's 
 employ been trained to see things in a conventional way, 
 suggested partly by Japanese and partly by Gothic work — 
 a blend which the leading designer had discovered for 
 himself and employed with considerable effect. But the 
 study of nature made me revolt against the conventions 
 I had hitherto accepted as the neressary conditions of 
 
 decorative art, and 
 I went to the other 
 extreme of naturalism. 
 I drew a plant as 
 faithfully as I could, 
 and to adapt it to 
 the decoration of a 
 tile, or vase, or glass 
 quarry, was to use 
 it pretty much as 1 
 sketched it. The 
 method of designing as taught in schools of art and 
 inculcated in certain works on plant form as applied to 
 design got little further than arranging plants on a geo- 
 metrical basis, and this direction given to one's studies 
 added to my own tendencies led me, I consider, astray for 
 some years. There is nothing loses so much time or is 
 so disheartening as having to retrace one's steps owing 
 to being wrongly directed, and I am led to make these 
 personal statements to try and help others by showing 
 them what to avoid. 
 
 At this time, too, I worked for a designer whose style
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. ti 
 
 captivated me, and I became a weak reflection of him when I 
 attempted original work. It is as natural as it is common 
 that a young man should become enamoured of the work ot 
 a particular artist, and consciously or ui^consciously copy it : 
 no harm follows this if the tendency is kept in check by 
 other influences at work, but to become the pupil of one 
 man, however clever he may be, is harmful. It checks 
 originality, the development of the ego ; and the positive 
 good that the study of another man's work brings is nullified 
 
 Fig. 8. 
 
 by the mannerism one falls into. Were I advising a pupil 
 I should recommend him to study all classes of work which 
 had a marked individuality and strongly imbued with the 
 artist's self, making notes of their several characteristics and 
 even working on the suggestions received. Stevenson tells 
 us that to acquire the style which has made him one of the 
 forces in literature he turned over in his mind any sentence 
 he came across which he considered excellent, and he even 
 tried to write a sentence with the same cadence in it or 
 turn of expression. This gave him both facility and an
 
 12 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 ear for the music of words — that haunting quality which his 
 choice of words and phrasing give his best writings. The 
 designer can apply the same method to his work that 
 Stevenson did to his, but let your models be many, and so 
 far as your self criticism allows, be certain that the examples 
 you select to study are possessed of lasting qualities, and 
 have not a merely meretricious attraction. 
 
 It will be gathered that training the student in what is 
 termed a particular " style" of design (Louis XV., for example) 
 is to put him entirely on the wrong scent, or, to use my 
 former simile, is teaching him to speak in a language he 
 does not understand, as a parrot is taught to chatter. 
 Style is individuality, and all training should be m the 
 direction of developing the ego ; but simple as this reads, it 
 was many years before such knowledge became part of my 
 equipment, and therefore of any use to me. I fell first of 
 all under glass-painters' Gothic ; then under Japanese ; 
 after that German Renaissance, largely because my early 
 training had not taught me that individuality was what is 
 demanded of one, and that these so-called styles are merely 
 the crystallising into rigid forms of the work of some strong 
 personality which weak natures force upon one as the 
 decalogue was upon the Jews ; whereas every worker should 
 think and act for himself, and be taught that there are, as 
 Kipling says of tribal lays, nine-and-sixty ways of writing 
 them. Rules and canons of art are at best only aphorisms, 
 and not dogmas, which to disobey is to be artistically lost. 
 
 Nothing so corrects the tendency to become the slave of 
 some man's work as a study of nature. It takes one back 
 to first principles, it pulls against the bias another's person- 
 ality exerts upon one, it refreshes the mind and keeps one's
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 
 
 '3 
 
 work vigorous and veracious. Nothing gives one so much 
 facility as drawing plant foim, both in designing and work- 
 ing, and my impression is that every craftsman would 
 find it pay him to give a day a week to making studies for 
 certainly half the year. One settles down to one's work, 
 gets busy, and then one is tempted to work from the same 
 old studies time after time ; whereas if we constantly 
 made fresh studies, our minds would be always on the 
 
 ' HONtySt'CKLL- 
 
 altrt, receiving fresh hints and suggestions instead of 
 becoming jaded and falling back upon one's own or 
 anrther's comentions. 
 
 In (Irawii g plant foim my expeiienre of twenty years tells 
 me that the less you know botanically about plants the 
 better. The artist woiks from observation rather than 
 knowledge. To paint a field oi grass does not depend upon 
 a knowledge of what goes to make the tout ensemble, but on 
 an eye trained to appreciate the subtleties of colour ami tlic
 
 M 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 power of rendering surfaces. I consider I wasted much 
 valuable time in making sections of plants, drawing the 
 internal parts of flowers, and troubling about the physiology 
 of the herbs I studied. I am speaking here as an artist, 
 for, of course, botany is an interesting study in itself, but 
 has nothing to do with design, though some designers, I 
 
 I3^^lToNl^ 
 
 doubt not, have received suggestions from botanical sections. 
 I made the outline studies accompanying these notes during 
 the intervals of putting this chapter into shape, just to 
 show ray readers the sort of nature-notes I find useful, as 
 well as to illustrate some of the ideas I have put down 
 here, and I made them as they grew in the garden. 
 Tliere is a great gain in this, for you study the general
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 
 
 growth of the plant itself, and the most valuable suggestions 
 come to one of lines and angles and curves by drawing from 
 the growing plant. If you pick off a spray and put it in a 
 vase and draw it, you may miss the very thing that is of 
 
 Cl/P » Saucer. 
 
 AQ 
 
 \alue as a decorative suggestion. Besides, while making 
 your drawing you are led to observe the i)lant much more 
 attentively, and your eye is directed to its "points," which is 
 not the ( asc if you merely lake it in generally. In fact, you
 
 1 6 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 never can say you begin to know a plant until you have 
 drawn it, and you may draw it many times before the sug- 
 gestion which is of value comes to you. A study you 
 make yourself is consequently of far more value than one 
 ot another's, because you dwell upon that in a plant which 
 touches your bias, and your own drawing, therefore, speaks 
 to you in a way that one obtained second hand never can. 
 
 The four studies of thistle, meadow-sweet, cow-parsley, 
 and figwort were portions of the illustrations accompanying 
 an article I contributed to The Art Journal some years ago 
 on " Hedgerow Decoration." They are literal transcripts 
 of nature of plants which it seems to me to have special 
 significance to a designer, and they also emphasise what I 
 said just now about drawing by observation instead of 
 botanically. 
 
 Many books on plant form have been issued, and I do 
 not deny their use, but the plant itself is only a means to 
 the end, and not the end itself, and therefore nothing 
 takes the place of original observation. A design is not 
 necessarily the conventional rendering of a particular plant, 
 but the ideas of line, mass, and distribution which the plant 
 suggests. 
 
 The form of leaf known as '• Acanthus " err ps up again 
 and again, for craftsmen, from Greek times until now, have 
 seen the beauty in a long deeply serrated leaf curving out- 
 wards, and partially wrapped around the main stem, Init 
 instead of woiking on an old suggestion, wouhl it not l.e 
 more profitable to go out and make a study of the opium 
 j)oppy, and try and import a touch of originality into the 
 design you base upon it ? 
 
 The oriental poppy, again, is full of decorative hints.
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 17 
 
 The cup-like form of the leaves around the main stem I 
 
 
 
 fit "^"^ 
 
 I'iK'. 12. 
 
 could conceive being a fruitful suggestion to a worker in 
 
 c
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 19 
 
 metal or wrought iron. Particular attention should always 
 
 1M-. 14. 
 
 be paid to the angle the leaf uuikes with the stem. The
 
 Aveakness of a design is 
 more often manifest in 
 this than in any other 
 thing, and the infinite 
 variety in nature in the 
 angle made by the Jeaf 
 with the stem leaves a 
 designer no excuse for 
 such weakness. 
 
 The study of curves is 
 one that a designer should 
 specially direct his atten- 
 tion to. Tendrils, as those 
 of the vine, afford a won- 
 derful play of line, and 
 might be studied Avith 
 advantage. Their eccen- 
 tricity teaches one how 
 dependent on nature one 
 is, for, try and invent an 
 eccentric line, and you 
 will be astonished at the 
 limited range of your 
 fancy. The nasturtium, 
 again, is in this respect 
 interesting, and the habit 
 the leaves have of curling 
 themselves around the 
 stems might be often 
 worked upon. 
 
 'J'ruth to nature is not 
 
 l-"ig- '5-
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND NATURE. 
 
 21 
 
 fidelity to the characteristics of a particular plant, but the 
 doing of nothing that is contrary to the principles of plant 
 growth. A design may be so sublimated as to suggest no 
 plant in particular, and yet be perfectly true in the relation of 
 its parts ; and this truthfulness can only come by saturating 
 yourself with knowledge derived by observation. 
 
 It is not necessary to write anything specially about each 
 of these plant studies. 
 It is enough to say that 
 I believe in drawing each 
 plant with scrupulous 
 exactitude and just as it 
 appears, rather than a 
 conventional rendering 
 of it. More subtlety of 
 line and crispness of 
 touch is likely to be seen 
 in work where a reveren- 
 tial truthfulness charac- 
 terises the nature notes. 
 Exercise your power of 
 selection not only in the 
 plants you study, but also 
 in the portions sketched, ^''«- "' 
 and be sure to endeavour 
 to catch the characteristics of each plant. The two studies 
 by Rissho and Hokusai will direct the student's attention to 
 Japanese work, especially the masterly yet simple way 
 Japanese artists draw from nature. No craftsman can 
 afford to neglect Japanese art. 
 
 Go for at least one thing in each study — the twist of a 
 
 Drawip}^ of I, ilium Aiiratuni. 
 Bv Kifii Rissho.
 
 22 
 
 IHE TRAINIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 tendril, the curve of a stem, the growth of leaf from stem, 
 or whatever it may be which strikes you as material worth 
 ])reserving for future work ; and it is not sufficient to 
 make a batch of studies and think you have enough to 
 last you all your days. 
 
 tig- 17 —Great Atlas Moth. 
 The ornamental borders A and R are derived from the Aving^-: of this moth. 
 
 Drawing from nature should be an important part of 
 the training of a craftsman, and he should constantly 
 study her, for you never can say you have learnt a plant. 
 Fresh suggestions may come to you, and that after you 
 think you ha\ e got to know the plant by heart. Nothing
 
 THE CRAFTSMAy A. YD XATURE. 23 
 
 SO refreshes the mind, and prevents that jaded mechanical 
 look work is apt to get when one works on year after 
 year without seeking fresh impulses from nature, as studying 
 nature. 
 
 Plant form, though the most important source of inspira- 
 tion to the craftsman, is not the only one. A bird's wing, 
 a feather, the marking on the wings of a butterfly, as in 
 Fig. 17, may supply valuable hints; in fact, it is hard to say 
 when the mind is on the alert what does not stimulate it. 
 
 I have avoided attempting to show how any of the 
 plants I have sketched may be adapted, though many 
 writers have done so, as I hold that each woiker has to 
 do this for himself There is no one way, and I dont 
 wish to thrust my point of view upon the student. 
 
 Fig. 1 7A.— Study of Lily. By Hokusai
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 DESIGN AND CRAFTSMANSHIP. 
 
 HE two are one, and should be indivisible, for no 
 craftsman can be full statured who is not an 
 artist, and no designer can succeed in applied 
 art who is not something of a craftsman, and for this reason. 
 You must know what are the particular qualities to be 
 brought out in each craft before you can design for it. We 
 will assume that you are going to use the Oriental poppy as 
 the motif, and it has to be adapted to three different purposes 
 — a repousse cup, a painted tile, and a piece of embroidery. 
 Now, it might be imagined that to make one design would 
 be sufhcient, and that it could be used with slight modi- 
 fications for the three crafts. As a matter of fact, that is 
 what would have been done in my apprenticeship days, 
 for anything was good enough i]ien for decorative art ; 
 but now that the art crafts have been recognised as taking 
 quite as high a place in man's handiwork as any other 
 art (so-called fine), a more reasonable practice is followed, 
 and the student beating a cup would seize upon certain 
 characteristics of the poppy because the beaten metal will 
 render some feature of the poppy better than could be 
 obtained by a painted tile, while the embroiderer, again, 
 would develop some other characteristic of the plant to
 
 DESIGN AND CRAFTSMANSHIP. 25 
 
 suit the requirements of his work. The first thing, there- 
 fore, is to study the requirements of your craft, so that you 
 may develop them to the utmost, and your design is 
 therefore conditioned by the necessity of bringing out the 
 qualities of the material you work in. 
 
 Let us look at the matter a little closer. In repousse 
 work your effect is produced by beating some parts of the 
 metal in high relief, and throwing others back, and this 
 breaking up of the surface to produce light and shade is 
 the first and chief point to be aimed at. Now, an oriental 
 poppy has a hairy surface, but this is a peculiarity which 
 the metal-worker can hardly, if at all, take into account, 
 because beaten metal would not be helped by having the 
 surface broken up minutely to give the etTect of hair : it is 
 a feature of the plant he can afford to ignore. But the tile 
 painter might easily hint at the hairy surface if he chose to, 
 because he is using a much more flexible material than the 
 metal-worker — one in which greater delicacy of manipula- 
 tion is possible. The embroiderer, again, has a much less 
 flexible material to deal with than the tile-painter. To 
 obtain the effect of roundness or relief is almost an impos- 
 sibility, or, at all events, would be a matter of excessive 
 labour, out of all proportion to the eff'ect produced, and 
 further, embroidery does not depend for its eff'ect upon the 
 quality we find in repousse work, but upon a pleasing dis- 
 l)osition of lines where form is only hinted at and not 
 simulated. 
 
 It will be noticed that I have been assuming that one 
 man is called upon to make designs for three different 
 crafts, not necessarily for himself to carry out ; on the con- 
 trary, the work is split up between two classes of workers,
 
 26 THE TKAJXIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 the design being the work of one and the execution of 
 another. This is making the worker a mere finger machine, 
 and the designer the so-called thinking machine, and is 
 just what we want to avoid. The craftsman should be his 
 own designer ; in fact, design should be developed out of 
 finger dexterity. To show his skill as a metal-worker, and 
 his appreciation of the quality of the material he works in, 
 should suggest the design. The relationship is so iiiiime 
 between the material and the design wrought upon it that 
 the two are, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, one, 
 and should be indissoluble. It is practically impossible to 
 make a design on paper, say, for a repousse cup, which shall 
 bear any close relationship to the cup when beaten, and 
 even a design for embroidery bears only a slight affinity to 
 the same when wrought with the needle, for a line on paper 
 has none of the value of the same made up of stitches on a 
 woven surface ; and unless this is borne in mind, the appa- 
 rent poverty of a working design induces the designer to 
 endeavour to obtain richness by elaborating the design on 
 paper, with the result that, when carried out, the work is 
 wanting in simplicity, doesn't seem to fit the material or the 
 material fit the design, and this because the design is made 
 independent of the method of reproduction, instead of being 
 developed out of it. 
 
 A student should train himself as a designer at the 
 same time that he is acquiring the tcchne of his craft, and 
 there should never be a time when the one is thought more 
 of than the other, for the reason I have given that the two 
 play into each other and do not exist separately. This is 
 no arbitrary statement, for if we consider the matter, the 
 tyro hai; so limited an amount of skill that only a very simple
 
 DESIGX AA'D CRAFTSMAXSH/P. 27 
 
 design can be attempted by him, but as his hand cunning 
 increases, his desire for more elaborate work will manifest 
 itself; and though it may take a wrong direction at times 
 and lead him to do what should never be attempted, he 
 will by degrees learn the class of effect his material most 
 adequately renders, and within the conditions imposed upon 
 him by his cra'"t work to the best tnd. 
 
 It is some time before the student sets the full value 
 upon his material and directs his energies to developing its 
 particular qualities. In this connection I may mention that 
 in my early days as a glass painter I was shown on one 
 occasion a highly naturalesque piece of glass-painting. It 
 was a head after Guido, and looked not unlike an indiffer- 
 ent oleograph. I had hitherto only seen glass painted in 
 the severe manner of the fourteenth century, and this 
 rococco piece of glass painting delighted me because it 
 looked so much like a picture. No reason was given me 
 why this highly enamelled glass picture was not worthy the 
 praise I bestowed on it. I was merely snubbed and laughed 
 at for admiring it, whereas, had it been pointed out to me 
 that to attempt to paint a picture on glass was putting the 
 material to the worst possible use, and was not developing 
 Its resources, but, on the contrary, was doing quite the 
 opposite, it would have saved me some misdirected energy 
 later on. It is the duty of the teacher to direct the student's 
 attention cpiite as much to what is most worth doing as it 
 is how best to do it, and this should be done by appealing 
 to the student's reason rather than by sneering at his 
 prejudices. The student can be helped, too, by being 
 shown good examples of old ami modern work in which 
 the resouices of the particular craft arc developed on right
 
 28 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 lines. As to what these right lines are the following chapters 
 will make some attempt at showing. 
 
 How entirely design is controlled by method of repro- 
 duction is seen in the economy of means to end. Human 
 labour is a valuable thing, and should be highly prized and 
 reverently and economically employed. To use it inade- 
 quately by misdirecting it or undervaluing it is thriftlessness 
 or worse. A designer unacquainted with the technique of 
 the craft he essays to work for is almost certaia to fall into 
 one or both errors. I hold strongly that the maximum of 
 effect should be produced with the minimum of effort. 
 Craftsmanship is the result of a series of well-directed single 
 efforts, each representing so much physical and mental 
 power. Each of these efforts, therefore, should be valued, 
 so that no waste takes place, and the beauty of hand labour 
 is seen largely in the " trick of the tool's true play." Ma- 
 chine work cannot have this, as a machine can only fac- 
 simile a particular piece of work the required number of 
 times. It can therefore secure you great accuracy, and give 
 you work which is " faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly 
 null." It were surely wrong, therefore, to try to make 
 machinery give you the nervous irregularity of the hand as 
 to put the hand to do what a machine so unerringly accom- 
 plishes. These remarks are truisms I know, and yet how 
 constantly we see them disregarded. It is only c,uite 
 recently that the beauty of beaten silver in spoons, for 
 instance, has been recognised, simply because our eyes had 
 grown accustomed to the highly polished surface which we 
 grew to think indispensable to plate. Habit and custom 
 largely govern taste, because so few of us think indepen- 
 dently and act for ourselves. Yet it is in the breaking
 
 DESIGN AND CRAFTSMANSHIP. 
 
 29 
 
 away from the established order of things that our per- 
 sonality finds expression, and an original turn is given to 
 work. You use tradition and are guided by precedent, but 
 are not bounded by it. You must avail yourself of the past 
 or you get no further than the painted mask outside a wig- 
 
 Fig. 18. 
 
 warn, but from what is known and has been accomplished 
 you stretch out to the unknown and reach forward to that 
 which is waiting for you to do. 
 
 Mr. George Frampton put this to me very graphi- 
 cally by roughly sketching on the back of a letter the two 
 
 
 ro ^ o u o<.">i.itj is^iJtJijLiCuttjLiijMjtJijtj 
 
 Fig. 19. 
 
 diagrams I have redrawn, as they better explain what one 
 means than many words. You have a long narrow space 
 to decorate, let us say. One very familiar plan is to have 
 an undulating line with scrolls springing from it, and flowers 
 and leaves to fill up (Fig. 18). The man who first hit upon this 
 certainly succeeded in filling his space in a very adn^irable
 
 30 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 way ; so admirable, indeed, that many of us have not 
 troubled to think out any other way, but content ourselves 
 with small modifications of it. But a craftsman might 
 
 Fig. 20. — Portion of Mitchell Memorial. By G. Frampton, A.R.A. 
 
 come along who, disregarding this scrolly arrangement, 
 took two such well-known forms as the cabbage and daisy, 
 and, arranging them something as in Fig. 19, broke away at
 
 DESIGN AND CRAFTSMANSHIP. 31 
 
 once from tradition, and showed us that there was one 
 other way at least of decorating a long narrow space. 
 
 The same sculptor, referring to a memorial to Mitchell, 
 the shipbuilder, which he was working at the last time I 
 was in his aU;lier, told me that people have grown so accus- 
 
 
 
 ^^^^^^M "' ^ g> sfii'^ftl^^^^^^^^BB 
 
 ""^^^"^"^^B 
 
 'Him--^- 1 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 SSPf^ 
 
 1 
 
 \}M 
 
 I'l^. Ji.- (J.ii\nl W'ooil (..i|)il<il aiul Cro/.icr in Metal. 
 By G. Pramplon, A.R.A. 
 
 tomcd to pillars and capitals in architecture, that when he 
 divided his panels with conventionalised tree trunks and 
 foliage, they felt almost outraged, a;-.d one architect expos- 
 tulated with him on the enormity of his proceeding. Vet 
 because pillars have been used for so many centuiiLS, it
 
 32 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 does not follow that there is no other way of supporting an 
 arch or dividing a series of architectural spaces or niches, 
 and yet the man who breaks away from tradition is certain 
 to bring down a storm of criticism upon him from those 
 who cannot open their minds to a new impression. 
 
 The very original treatment of a wooden capital to a 
 pillar in the handsome fire-place exhibited at the "Arts and 
 Crafts " in 1896 was condemned by some architects, because 
 it did not follow custom or conform to rule — was not a 
 " capital " in their sense, in fact ! 
 
 The one thing craftsmen have to fight for is liberty to 
 express themselves in their own way. It will take time to 
 effect, but events hasten at certain periods in the world's 
 history, and I foresee that as the public is much more ready 
 to accept new departures than it was in the days of my 
 pupilage, it will before long demand originality, or, at all 
 events, personality, in all work : the crafts will have to be 
 steeped in the ego of those who wrought them, instead of 
 being cut out to some pattern which custom has termed the 
 style of so and so. Style will not then mean some arbitrary 
 arrangement, and the craftsman treated as a piece of cloth 
 pinned to a paper pattern by which to shape him, but will 
 be recognised as individuality, the expression of a trained 
 mind and skilled fingers rejoicing in its work. 
 
 That division of art into " Fine " and that which is not 
 fine is of course a wholly misleading one, and shows a 
 great lack of appreciation as to what constitutes art on the 
 part of those who make such a division. No such distinc- 
 tion can be made, for the same impulses are stirred, whether 
 you paint a portrait or carve a pew end. Thought, imagi- 
 nation, an eye for proportion, hand cunning, the result of
 
 DESIGN AXD CRAFTSMANSHIP. 33 
 
 long training, are required wherever art is produced. The 
 artist should throw himself just as strongly into his work, 
 whether he choose to carve, work in metal, or paint on 
 canvas. The idea that anything will do because the work 
 is not bounded by a gilt frame is happily dying out. There 
 is no higher or lower art ; it is all to be judged from 
 the same platform. As Ruskin says, " The only essential 
 distinction between decorative and other art is the being 
 fitted for a fixed place ; and in that place, related, either 
 in subordination or in command, to the effect of other 
 pieces of art. And all the greatest art which the world has 
 produced is thus fitted for a place, and subordinated to a 
 purpose. There is no existing highest order art but is 
 decorative. The best sculpture yet produced has been the 
 decoration of a temple front — the best painting the decora- 
 tion of a room." 
 
 The tendency to specialisation which comes of the sub- 
 division of work in these days is very detrimental to the 
 development of a craftsman. Physically, change of work is 
 rest, and an artist tired of one work can by change of labour 
 achieve what idleness cannot. The great men of the past 
 did everything in their calling, and some of the marked 
 personalities in the present day are all-round workers. 
 Witness, Alfred Gilbert, George Frampton, and Alex. 
 Fisher, to take three names occurring to me, and the repro- 
 ductions of the work of the last two in these pages. 
 
 Before taking up some of the more prominent art crafts 
 individually, I wish to make it clear to the reader that what 
 follows is not a series of "lessons" on these crafts, but an 
 examination of the principles underlying the successful 
 practice of them, witli special reference to the work of 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 
 •*X'*5..<^ 
 
 
 Fig. 22. — Nature Study, modelled in Low Relief by A. Wakeford. 
 (Prize \vork, South Kensington.)
 
 DESIGN AND CRAFTSMANSHIP. 35 
 
 modern craftsmen. The only training worth anything is 
 working under a practical man, for technique cannot be 
 imparted successfully by written directions, and training in 
 the art crafts can be obtained much more easily now than 
 it could a few years since. At the end of the book will be 
 found a few of the schools in London where instruction is 
 given in the crafts, with some of the teachers engaged ; but 
 instruction in hand-cunning, however thorough it be, is not 
 the only teaching necessary. Work must exhibit taste as 
 well as skill, and harmony between means and end, by which 
 I mean that every craftsman should so work that the utmost 
 is made of the particular quality inherent in each craft. 
 Wood should not be carved as though it were stone, or glass 
 painted as though i-t were a canvas ; and it will be my 
 endeavour to point out what is the direction one's work 
 should take to secure the best results — best, that is, from the 
 point of view of the craft itself, for on the question of 
 '•design" dogmatism is i/c trop ; besides, what little of a 
 definite nature I have had to say on that subject has 
 already been said. 
 
 In the former chapter I have dwelt on the necessity of 
 drawing much from nature. Modelling is also very helpful 
 — in some respects even more helpful. The modelled 
 panel by A. Wakeford is an excellent specimen of work 
 direct from nature, the character of the plant being caught 
 with artistic sympathy. 
 
 The chapters which follow will deal with some of the 
 important art crafts, and, being illustrated from the works 
 of some of the best craftsmen of the day, ought, on that 
 ground, to be of use to the student, who can see at a glance 
 in what direction the Art of the day is moving.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REPOUSSE AND FINE METAL-WORK. 
 '•He who blows thro' bronze, may breathe thro' silver." 
 
 |0 bring out the beauty of metal it is necessary that 
 some portions should catch the light and others 
 be thrown into shadow, and the more we break 
 up tlie surface judiciously the more beautiful will be the 
 effect, as we can see by comparing a machine-polished piece 
 of brass and one hammered out, so that each hammer mark 
 shows. And yet for years the public was under the spell of 
 highly polished metal, whether it were ordinary brass work 
 or silver plate. There is a beauty of its own in a piece of 
 beaten silver or copper, and if we add to this a design, no 
 matter how simple it may be, produced by beating up the 
 metal from the back, we have within our reach a beautiful 
 craft, and, in the hands of an artist, one capable of great 
 things. Beaten metal, by reason of this variety of surface 
 (a series of facets, one might say) which comes of hammer- 
 ing, seems "to live," while the machine-polished surface by 
 its very perfection acts icily on the senses, and has a dead 
 perfection about it which leaves us untouched. Where we 
 can follow the hand cunning and see the marks of the tool, 
 metal is then made human — we associate it with an indivi- 
 dual and are drawn to it. 
 
 I put Repousse in the first place as a surface decoration
 
 REPOUSSE AND FIXE METAL-WORK. 37 
 
 for metal. So great value does the mere beaten metal give 
 a design, that there is a danger of letting anything do instead 
 of paying the greatest heed to the design you elect to beat 
 up, for if a poor design is enhanced by the method of 
 production, a really beautiful and suitable one is made 
 precious by it, — and metal should always have this quality of 
 preciousness, and this quite apart from the value of the 
 metal itself — a finely worked piece of repousse' steel can 
 certainly possess it as much as silver or gold. Some metals 
 are more beautiful than others, but the value of metal-work 
 should be in the design and workmanship. We see this in 
 old silver, which will, for choice examples, fetch some pounds 
 per oz., though its value as metal is about 2s. id. Where 
 expensive metals such as gold or platinum are used, it is 
 obvious that the work must be confined within a limited 
 space, which, therefore, "conditions" the design. Much 
 more delicacy of manipulation can and should be given to 
 a piece of jewellery than would be effective on a dish, say 
 18 inches in diameter, for it is a truism to say that it is 
 always necessary to keep a due relationship between design 
 and area to be decorated, though it is not always observed. 
 Seeing that repousse is finished from the front as well as 
 beaten up at the back, a considerable amount of detail can 
 be wrought in the design, but the effectiveness of repousse 
 does not depend upon minuteness of manipulation so much 
 as upon a judicious discriminating number of accents or 
 sharp lines, just to help the beaten-up parts. There should 
 be the feeling of a wave — the ebb and flow of the sea — about 
 repousse. The design should swell up and recede and die 
 away into the metal, and no one part, to my thinking, should 
 be in excessive relief. The plane of the surface should not 
 
 133508
 
 38 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 be destroyed by the decoration, and then there is always the 
 danger of breaking through the metal in the more highly 
 beaten parts, and this Avith all the care that may be 
 exercised. If this happens, then the part has to be soldered. 
 A beginner should choose such an article as a door-plate, 
 and confine himself to beating up a few simple forms in low- 
 relief, and depend largely upon producing the effect by the 
 
 Y\'g. 23. — Silver Casket desijjjned by G. Frampton, A.R.A., 
 for the Skinners' Company. 
 
 beating up from the back. Avoid imitating nature. Think 
 of treating metal effectively rather than rendering objects. 
 Silver and copper are the metals most usually employed. 
 Silver beats well and has a beautiful frosted appearance, 
 quite different to the highly polished metal we call plate. 
 It was a revelation to many people at the Arts and Crafts 
 Exhibitions to see beaten silver spoons and dishes, for the
 
 REPOUSSE AND FINE METAL-WORK. 39 
 
 metal looks infinitely more valuable than polished silver. 
 For jewellery, too, silver is very appropriate, and specimens 
 of repousse jewellery are given in the chapter on that 
 subject. 
 
 Copper for all general purposes is the best metal to beat, 
 being tough and elastic. Brass 
 is more brittle and is little 
 used. 
 
 Steel is used for small work, 
 and Mr. Alex. Fisher has worked 
 in this metal with beautiful 
 results. So, too, has Mr. Nelson 
 Dawson. 
 
 Pewter is sometimes used, 
 and I have seen it effectively 
 employed in some electric light 
 fittings by Mr. Ashbee. 
 
 I cannot do better, for the 
 
 encouragement of those who 
 
 have yet to "find" themselves, 
 
 than give a few personal notes 
 
 about some of tlie craftsmen 
 
 whose work is figured in these 
 
 Fi<;. 24 — Emu's E<,'<; Centie- 
 P^»^^- piece, with Beaten and Cast 
 
 The experiencesof Mr.Nelson Metal Su]ipoits. By Nelson 
 Dawson and Mr. Catterson- 
 
 Smith ]» )int to the conclusion that if one art calling will not 
 receive tlie earnest worker, another may oft'er him the 
 opportunity he desires of giving his aspirations utterance. 
 Mr. (iilbcTt Marks again, who was, when I wrote about him 
 in The Art Journal, only devoting his leisure to metal-
 
 40 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 work, has received sufficient encouragement to throAv up 
 the commercial bird in the hand for the artistic two in the 
 bush. 
 
 Mr. Nelson Dawson is an instance of a man who has 
 experimented for some time before he finds out what it 
 would appear he can best do. From architecture he turned 
 his attention to painting, and his water-colour studies of 
 the sea evince observation, selection, and high technical 
 skill, as those who have seen his work in the Royal Academy 
 and British Artists, and other galleries, know. But Mr. 
 Dawson experienced what so many painters have done, or 
 are doing, that the patronage extended to the painter of 
 pictures is meagre in the extreme. The world, apparently, 
 can. all too easily for artists, do without pictures ; and what 
 is more degrading than to spend half your energy in fruit- 
 lessly trying to secure purchasers for your handiwoik? 
 There is a story told of Flateau, the eminent picture dealer 
 of the forties and fifties, who met Dickens at dinner. After 
 hearing every one talking about tiie novelist's cleverness for 
 some time, he turned to his neighbour and said, " I dare say 
 he's a good writer, but / call it clever to make a man buy a 
 picture as doesn't want to." Mr. Dawson began hammer- 
 ing metal as a pastime, and finding that he could express 
 himself in this way, took it up more seriously, until com- 
 missions began to come in, and now he has, in addition to 
 Lis own atelier, workshops for more distinctly commercial 
 work, like hinges and door-plates. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Mr. Nelson Dawson's metal- 
 work were some hammered door-plates he did for a few 
 of his artist neighbours at Chelsea. It was impossible to 
 a\oid noticing them because they were so fresh and dis-
 
 REPOUSSE AND FINE METAL- WORK. 41 
 
 tinctive. One did not realise what could be made of a 
 
 Fij;. 25. SUculi ol (_ cull cjnccc 111 Sil\ci ami 'nil, |i.ni-- l-.n,iiiielk'il. 
 
 Designed and Executed by Alex. Pisher, and exhibited in 
 
 the Royal Academy, 1897. 
 
 door-plate until one saw what Mr. Dawson made of them,
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 and having seen we wondered how it was that it had been 
 left to one man to point out the more excellent way. 
 
 Mr. Nelson Dawson, whose studio is in Manresa Road, 
 Chelsea, told me that he found his training as an architect 
 useful to him now that he had become an Art craftsman, 
 
 but the greatest help he received 
 was from his wife. " If it were not 
 for Mrs. Dawson it would have 
 been impossible for me to have 
 taken up enamelling as I have 
 done. In fact, it is more her woik 
 than mine," he said. 
 
 Mr. Dawson, like Mr. Fisher, 
 who taught the former enamelling, 
 uses enamels a good deal in his 
 metal -work. 
 
 Though beaten metal-work first 
 engaged his attention, he does not 
 confine himself to copper or silver, 
 for I saw some highly ornamental 
 hinges made for a hanging cabinet 
 of beaten steel, but I am unable to 
 give a drawing of them here, as 
 Y\a. 26. — Hand - Minor Mr. Dawson finds that in the 
 ^''''; i^tr'i-f"'^ commercial work turned out under 
 
 executed by Alex, r ishei. 
 
 his direction — he has a regular 
 workshop in which his designs are carried out under his 
 supervision — his designs get copied (always very badly) by 
 " the Firms." A memorial tablet of repousse copper gave 
 me some idea of how taste and thought can give value to 
 a work otherwise of no special interest.
 
 REPOUSSE AND FL\E METAL-JVORK. 
 
 43 
 
 Mr. Alexander Fisher was a National scholar some ten 
 years ago, having come from Torquay to London on 
 obtaining his scholarship. The student, following in his 
 
 Fiy. 27. — Cuj). By (lill)cil .Marks. 
 
 father's footsteps ;it that time, was an enameller on pottery, 
 but Avhile at Kensington, having taken up enamelling on 
 metal, his attention was naturally turned to metal-work
 
 44 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 itself. To an artist-craftsman it would seem an unneces- 
 sary subdivision of labour for one to do the metal- work 
 and another enamel it. The fact that Mr. Fisher has 
 won a name as an enameller has tended to obscure 
 his work in line metal ; but the two sketches he has 
 allowed me to reproduce, as well as the mirror, is ample 
 evidence, were that necassary, that we have here an artist 
 whose ambition it is to express himself in his own way, and, 
 what is more, he has something to say as well as the skill 
 to say it. Like that old master Cellini, enamelling comes 
 largely into play in Mr. Fisher's metal-woik, and a very 
 beautiful adjunct it is. I shall have more to say about Mr. 
 Fisher in the chapter on enamelling. The Royal Academy 
 has recognised his ability as a craftsman by giving pro- 
 minence to his work for some years past. 
 
 In Mr. Gilbert Marks' case his talent would appear to be 
 hereditary, for he is the grandson of a working goldsmith 
 as well as the nephew of the late Fred Walker and H. S. 
 Marks, R.A. His metal-work, which is chiefly beaten 
 silver, was the work of his leisure (helped by two assistants), 
 for Mr. Marks was " something in the City," though now 
 Art wholly claims him for her own. A bold free treatment 
 of plant form characterises Mr. Marks' design, the metal 
 and the method of hammering it entirely governing this 
 part of his work. The breaking up of the surface so as to 
 get lights and darks is the first consideration in repousse, 
 and I am glad to see that Mr. Marks understands the value 
 of breadth in his designs, and avoids producing his effect 
 by the aggregation of "small" motifs, but keeps his work 
 large and simple. The silver casket, Fig. 23, designed by 
 Mr. G. Frampton, was executed by Mr. Marks.
 
 REPOUSSE AND FINE METAL-WORK. 
 
 45 
 
 Mr. Catterson-Smith came from Dublin in 1874 to be 
 under Foley, but the Royal Academician dying soon after, 
 Mr. Smith took up painting, and it was not until 1892 that 
 he turned his attention to metal-work. He said to me, " I 
 
 Y'x"^. 28. — Dish of Beaten Silver. By R. Catterson-Smilli. 
 
 only wisli some good angel had advised me to adopt the 
 metal craft twenty years ago. I believe the salvation of 
 Art and artists lies in the Art crafts." 
 
 What instruction in craftsmanship he received was at the 
 Bedford Park School of Art, which is close to his house.
 
 46 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 and what proficiency he has attained is the result of 
 his own endeavour. I am able to give, in Fig. 28, 
 a repousse silver salver beaten out of the flat by Mr. 
 Catterson-Smith, which is an excellent specimen of plant 
 form adapted to decorative purposes. A London firm, 
 
 Fig. 29. — Alms-Dish of Cast and Chased Silver. 
 By Arthur G. Walker. 
 
 who sold some of Mr. Smith's work, tried to get their own 
 workmen to reproduce this particular salver, but without 
 success; for the men, being trained as mechanics, could 
 not give the work that freedom and spontaneity which gives 
 beaten metal its "preciousness." They tried to copy
 
 REPOUSSE AND FIXE METAL- WORK. 
 
 47 
 
 piinstakingly what was largely the result of accident, and, 
 as one may imagine, only failure was the result. 
 
 The silver alms-dish, by Mr. Arthur Walker, was bought 
 
 u 
 
 M 
 
 Q 
 
 ■o 
 
 D 
 
 
 O 
 
 by Mr. Thompson Yates from the Academy some three years 
 ago. It is cast and chased, but the details are much lost in 
 the reproduction, though it is an excellent piece of work.
 
 48 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 The purchaser has recently presented it to a church near 
 Liverpool. 
 
 Mr. Ashbee's name is linked with the work carried on 
 at Essex House, Mile End, where everything from a coal- 
 scuttle to a mantelpiece is made. His object is to supply a 
 house with all the furniture — using this word in its widest 
 
 ^^smr~-^'mm 
 
 '^Sirs 
 
 
 1 :, ^ i»« 
 
 IJrtftit 
 
 
 
 ^^i.'^f^^ 
 
 JH^^^H 
 
 ■T" 
 
 u. -^gsg^ 
 
 I'ig- 31 • — Jardiniere in Repousse Copper. (Chiswick School ot 
 Arts and Craits.) 
 
 sense — that is required in it. The beaten copper coal 
 vase is a good example of what such work should be. 
 
 Mr. Ashbee has given some attention to jewellery and 
 silver work, specimens of which will be given in the chapter 
 on jewellery. 
 
 Mr. George Frampton, A.R.A., has allowed me to repro- 
 produce a silver ca«;ket which he designed for the Skinneis'
 
 REPOUSSE AND FIXE METAL- WORK. 
 
 49 
 
 Company. It is an entirely frank piece of work, as the 
 rivets show. Why cannot those who have the frivin'^ of 
 prizes, which take tlie form of plate, patronise an artist 
 instead of a manufacturer? I know men who have l)een 
 successful sportsmen who have innumerable cups won in 
 
 Fig. 32. — Altar Canulcsticks in O.ik and (iuii .Metal, and 1 lot-WalcT 
 Jug in Repousse Copper. (Keswick .School of Industrial Arts.) 
 
 competitions, which are neither useful nor ornannntal. 
 They stow them away in cases, and, except for their \ alue as 
 metal, are worthless. There is any amount of talent waiting 
 to be employed in mctal-woik, and it rests therefore with 
 the patron if something better than the ordinary cuj) or vase 
 is not competed for.
 
 so 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 The Birmingham Guild of Handicraft is an association 
 of craftsmen working in all departments of skilled labour. 
 The finger-plates, handles, and other articles of everyday 
 
 « 
 o 
 '3 
 
 a 
 
 pq 
 
 ^' 
 3 
 
 r^ 
 
 /^ 
 'p 
 
 s 
 s 
 
 o 
 U 
 
 
 Utility show that this guild is grappling with the difficulty 
 of bringing Art into common life, for it is useless holding 
 abstract, academic views on what should be : the thing is
 
 REPOUSSi AND FINE METAL-WORK. 51 
 
 to do something which will soon lead to the more excellent 
 way, and this the Guild of Handicraft is doing. It is by 
 taking in hand the ordinary "furniture" of life, and making 
 that of interest and beauty, that commercial success at all 
 events is to be reached. The word " Brummagem " has 
 been so long a term of reproach where anything like 
 artistic work is concerned, that it is pleasant to be able 
 to bring into notice this Birmingham guild, for though 
 in "Brum," they are not of it in 
 spirit, their endeavour being to give 
 as much Art for the money as 
 Caleb Plummerdid to his toy-horses 
 for sixpence. 
 
 The Birmingham School of Art 
 is in the front rank as a teaching 
 institution, and very excellent and 
 "up-to-date" artistic work emanates 
 from it. The students seem more 
 anxious to become art workers than ^.-j^ 34.— Design tor a 
 
 painteis of second or third rate Lock Plate. By H. .S. 
 
 Stromquist. 
 pictures, and I should say that 
 
 many of them will have no cause to regret this decision. 
 
 I can hear it said that we cannot all have coal-boxes of 
 hammered copper, or spoons of beaten silver, but then it i-s 
 not my purpose to do more than direct the reader's atten- 
 tion to what is being done here and there in craftsmanship, 
 and not what is generally possible. Art has nothing to do 
 with economies; besides, the dealer in Tottenham Court 
 Road is touched by the ebb and How of tendency in due
 
 52 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 course, and will, because one man invests a coal-box with 
 "artistic merit," offer to the oi poUoi a daintier coal-box 
 than he thought of doing aforetime. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL METAL- WORK. 
 
 When Solomon built the Temple we are told that he sent 
 to the King of Tyre for " a man cunning to work in gold, 
 and in silver, and in brass, and in iron," and Hiram sent 
 Solomon a cunning man, "endued with understanding, who 
 could grave any manner of graving, and could find out 
 every device that was put to him." It cannot be said 
 that those who build Temples in this land take the 
 trouble to search out the cunning workers, or we should not 
 see such lamentable waste of money in our religious 
 buildings that so often makes the judicious grieve. 
 
 It is a great pleasure, therefore, to be able to give 
 examples of the ecclesiastical metal-work of two men who 
 are doing their best to raise the standard of church work. 
 It is a poor commentary on the Art education of the clergy 
 that so little support is given to artists who are waiting 
 to be hired to devote their energies and taltnts to the 
 decoration of our churches. The "firm" and manu- 
 facturer is constantly chosen, and the individual left 
 to eat his heart out with disappointment for lack of en- 
 couragement. 
 
 A glance at the w^ork of H. Wilson and W. Bainbridge 
 Reynolds shows how excellent is the effect obtainable by 
 treating metal either as a surface to be beaten up, hammered, 
 and made to lose and find itself as in the example by the 
 former, Fig. 35, or where metal is twisted and pulled into a
 
 REPOUSSE AND FINE METAL-IVORK. 53 
 
 succession of geometrically planned motifs, the whole form- 
 
 ■nycm^K^m. wt im i^ i w ^am^immmmK^mmtmm '-t 
 
 f.f.-^XJ. ^-i.*!***.! 
 
 ■^'^k'- 35' — ^tJ^^i"- *•> •'• Wilson. 
 
 ing a coherent, logically built-up design, as in Mr. Reynolds'
 
 54 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 screen, Fig. 36, here illustrated. Mr. Wilson would appear 
 to be less influenced by tradition than Mr. Reynolds, for 
 while the latter works in the Gothic spirit, Mr, Wilson may 
 be said to be expressing his ego regardless of what the crafts- 
 men of the middle ages have done. I am not in any way 
 instituting a comparison between these two nineteenth- 
 century craftsmen. I merely desire to see each man's work 
 from his own point of view, for the woik speaks for itself. 
 The craftsmen shall speak for themselves. 
 
 Mr. Wilson's work in metal, for he, like Mr. Reynolds, 
 is an architect as well as craftsman, has so far been mostly 
 confined to repousse copper and brass in the form of door 
 sheathing, panels for fireplaces and chimney breasts, 
 though he has in hand some candelabra and other 
 work. Mr. Wilson said to me that he wished to avoid 
 altogether any reminiscence of traditional habits or manners 
 of design, and he therefore goes direct to nature ard 
 endeavours to realise in his work that spirit which the study 
 of natural form suggests, and in his designs to suggest the 
 spring and growth of natural forms instead of those con- 
 ventions which, like precedents in law, so many designers 
 are content to abide by. If men worked in this spirit we 
 should hear no more about the style of Louis XIV. or ai y 
 other peiiod, but the expression of the individual. 
 
 It is evident that Mr. Wilson feels very strongly on this 
 jjoint, for he says : — " I can never understand that attitude 
 of mind which makes men content to reproduce variations 
 of other men's woik, even though the men whose Avoik is 
 copied lived in the heroic ages. To accept another's 
 convention is the worst foim of intelleclual towaidice. 
 
 " If we ha\e any vision at all, one's view of tilings must
 
 REPOUSSE AXD FINE METAL-JVORK. 
 
 Si? 
 
 Jrifj. 36.— Screen. By \V Baiiibi id j,'e Reynolds.
 
 56 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 be different from (and to that extent interesting, because 
 it gives us a new conception) all others ; whereas, any copy 
 of another man's idea is, at the best, the shadow of a shade, 
 weaker by one remove at least from that nature which gives 
 strength to all the best work." 
 
 Several examples of Mr. Wilson's work were in the last 
 Arts and Crafts, among them the brass door of which an 
 illustration is given. 
 
 ^V. Bainbridge Reynolds was an articled pupil of INIr. 
 J. D. Seddon, the well-known architect. Soon after he 
 had completed his articles he worked under the late G. E. 
 Street, K.A., and it was whilst working on the details 
 of the iron-work of the new Law Courts that he became 
 interested in architectural metal-work. He felt, however, 
 that, although the meduxival tradition in stone and wood- 
 Avork had at that time been admirably revived in English 
 architecture, metal-wcrk was on the whole below the aitistic 
 standard of the best existing examples of old woik. He 
 therefore devoted himself for some years to the study, not 
 only of mediaeval iron-work, but of metal-work in its many 
 applications, of later periods and of various countries. 
 Eventually he started, a few years ago, forges and woikshops, 
 where architects' designs in metal, and his own, have been 
 since executed under his direction. 
 
 Mr. Reynolds' principal aim is to consider the forms in 
 his designs with reference to the particular methods by 
 Avhich each metal can be worked, and in execution to allow 
 to be apparent the hnmaii element, an element which is lost 
 where the tiist consideration is a mechanical perfection of 
 surface. In these days it is all too easy to attain this geo- 
 metrical precision of form and surface, while to preserve
 
 REPOUSSE AND EINE METAL-WORK. 57 
 
 the " individuality " both of the metal and of the craftsman 
 
 Fig. 37.— Lcclcin. By W. Bainbikl-jc RoynoUls. 
 requires an artist's guidance as well as an artist s hand.
 
 58 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 The large candelabra was exhibited at the Arts and 
 Crafts in 1886, and, apart from its size, was a noble 
 piece of work. The riveting together of beaten - out 
 copper, which form the arms, is a new and effective 
 departure. 
 
 WROUGHT IRON. 
 
 I do not know any craft in which it is truer to say that 
 the method of work suggests the design than in wrought 
 iron. Heat a bar or rod of iron to redness, and it can be 
 easily bent and twisted into beautiful spirals and scrolls. 
 Beat out the end, and the form of a leaf or flower can 
 be given to it. The leaves growing around an oriental 
 poppy stem suggest a motif which has been used with 
 various modifications in wrought iron through three 
 centuries. This can be seen by reference to Fig. 2 in 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Iron itself suggests a certain severity of treatment which 
 we find in the best work. It can be elegant in construction 
 and graceful and delicate in its details, but the whole work 
 should hint at strength, for iron suggests strength, and 
 therefore in the details I think it is a mistake to encrust the 
 work with very delicately beaten-out forms suggesting paper 
 festoons. The backbone of the design should be the 
 twisted rods and bars, and the utmost effect should be 
 obtained by this simple twisting and hammering. 
 
 The supports of old inn signs made by the village smith, 
 which still may be seen in country places, simple as they are, 
 are on quite the right lines, for the smith twisted his iron 
 while it was hot, making it take forms which could be most
 
 REPOUSSE AXD FINE METAL-U'ORA'. 
 
 59 
 
 ensily produced : it VA'as design springing out of craftsman- 
 ship, than which nothing can be more appropriate. Tie 
 basis of wrought-iron designs would seem to be the opp si- 
 
 F'S- 3^- — Wrought Iron Siaii Railing'. Hardnian, Powell & Co. 
 
 tion of curves to straight hues, for the straight bar is 
 inseparable to wrought-iron work; besides affoiding a capital 
 foil to the curves and scrolls.
 
 6o THE TRAINING OF A CRAITSMAN. 
 
 The gradual tapering of the end of a rod, or the splitting 
 of it into two, three, or more smaller rods, suggests the 
 form the design should take. There is a tendency to be 
 guarded against of making the detads too naturalistic; 
 imitating roses, for instance, seems to be overstepping the 
 modesty of nature : it certainly is putting beaten iron to a 
 false use, beside a simpler treatment is more effective. If the 
 design springs out of the craftsmanship we should have less 
 of this imitation. A detail which takes an immense trouble 
 to make is invariably on the wrong lines. Carving cherry 
 stones may display skill and ingenuity, but it does not atone 
 for the grievously misdirected energy which makes the 
 judicious grieve. 
 
 Many of the wrought-iron balustrades of the last century 
 are excellent specimens of craftsmanship, for, being under 
 cover, a more delicate and fanciful treatment was permissible 
 than would be the case were the work exposed to the 
 elements. The skill of the smith is seen in the beaten-out 
 leaves enwrapping the main lines of the design, and also in 
 the beauty of the curves. The appreciation of the subtleties 
 of a curve showii in the 17th and iSth century iron-work 
 tells one that the men who wrought them were artists. 
 
 An amateur taking up wrought iron should get a gocd 
 blacksmith to instruct him in the methods of hammering, 
 twisting and shaping iron while hot. His instruction will 
 probably end there, for unfortunately country blacksmiths 
 have lor so long not been asked to do anything needing a 
 sense of beauty, that thiy \AOuld require instruction in the 
 possibilities of tlieir craft before they could do anything 
 themselves. 
 
 The two Italian tiipods, Figs. 39 and 41, are in the Lir-
 
 I^EPOUSS£ AXD FINE METAL-IVOR K. 
 
 6i 
 
 mingham Museum, where other good specimens of wrought 
 iron may be seen, and at South Kensington Museum is an 
 excellent collection of many periods and peoples. " ' • 
 
 The elaborate old hinges on church doors are excellent 
 instances of what can be done with simple means, for 
 nothing elaborate in workmanship is attempted, the whole 
 effect being the result of curved 
 lines. 
 
 The 17th century sword-rests in 
 many of the City churches are beau- 
 tiful specimens of workmanship. 
 I give illustrations of two which I 
 drew some time since for an article 
 in The Art yoiinial, on " Art in 
 the City Churches," Fig. 42. 
 
 I extract the following from an 
 article on " Decoratively Wrought 
 Iron," by J. M. O'Fallon, which 
 appeared in the same pa])er. 
 
 '•At the present hour charcoal 
 iron is much i)refcrred for these 
 purposes. Great quantities of it 
 come from Sweden in huge lumps 
 called ' blooms,' which are afterwards reduced, rolled 
 into sheets of varying thicknesses, or drawn out into 
 different-si/cd rods, rountl or Sfpiare-shaped. The sheets 
 are selected for cuiting or sj litting up and working into 
 all kinds of things, besides certain makes of leaves, petals, 
 and imitations of similar natural growths. The rods in th.e 
 process of smithing are thinned as wanted for stems, tendrils, 
 and other jiarts of patterns; or they may be beaten out into 
 
 iron, Italian, 1600.
 
 G2 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFISMAN. 
 
 leaves; or, when desired, thickened up at the ends, shaped 
 into buds, and in many ways made into more or less tasteful 
 adjuncts of ornamental iron-work. 
 
 " We now enter m^re fully into our subject. The struc- 
 tural arrangement of a design being decided upon and 
 built up in the bar iron (this is occasionally sivagcd in part 
 — that is, beaten and shaped while hot betwixt two mouUls 
 or swages), the ironsmith turns his attention to making the 
 ornamental filling for it; which may be a gate, a spandril, 
 or other heavy object, or a light object. Minor panellings 
 can seldom be welded into the principal framing, so, as a 
 rule, are attached by collars, screws, or rivets ; even scroll- 
 work and leaves and husks may be so attached, but not 
 generally by the true craftsman — when you find him and he 
 is allowed to have his way. The principle that may be said 
 to actuate him when circumstances favour his carrying out 
 his own conceptions to completion, is that at least the 
 properly ornamental part of his work shall be founded on 
 natural forms, as in the best Gothic and Renaissance. 
 Unfortunately, the present competitive system under which 
 labour is conducted, and the consequent subdivision of 
 labour, has the workman its slave ; and ironsmithing, like 
 other originally eiuiobling handicrafts, is carried on in 
 sei)arate departments. Forging and welding, even of leaves 
 and flowers, in most shops now form a distinct trade from 
 that of the beating out to a finish of the leaves or flowers ; 
 and both are occasionally the mere work of the stamper or 
 of the girl at the press. With stamping or pressed work 
 we do not concern ourselves now, but proceed to give a 
 short description of how a leaf is made from forging to 
 finish. This will, we hope, help the uninitiated to a fair
 
 REPOUSSE AND FINE METAL-WORK. 
 
 f>3 
 
 5 
 
 u 
 
 ^ 'u 
 
 
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 v. di 
 
 
 J-. O 
 
 
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 O
 
 6t 
 
 THE TRAINIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 comprehension of the ins and outs of an ordinary specimen 
 of ornament of wrought iron in which such leaf is hkely to 
 be present. The smith gives it something of a rudimentary 
 shape, usually leaving the stem attached in the rough. The 
 stem may be primary or secondary : as a rule it is secondary 
 for reducing in length or thickness, and welding on to the 
 primary, according to the run of the pattern. The btaling 
 
 towards finish is done at the 
 vice. The rough forging is 
 held in the left hand on a 
 punch- shaped piece of steel, 
 V-grooved at the tcp, which 
 appears just over the grip of 
 the vice; in the right hand a 
 hammer— elongated from the 
 'pene,' or striking end, to 
 what in an ordinary hammer 
 would be called the face, but 
 which is in reality another 
 pene — with the proper 'hang' 
 is brought down unerringly 
 on the rough, which is moved 
 
 Fig. 4 1. -Tripod, Wrought Iron along a little with each 
 .Sjjiral and Scroll Work, stroke until the centre vein has 
 Italian, i6co. . , t^ • 
 
 traversed its length. Durmg 
 
 this operation the leaf is kept from sinking too much in the 
 
 middle by an occasional hit on either side of the vein. 
 
 The shorter veins, usually simple, but at times reticulate, 
 
 are produced with a lighter touch ; and the margins may be 
 
 left entire or variously cut or divided. The leaf is bent in 
 
 several ways in imitation of nature, and according to the
 
 
 Tlie crown and lion t()im( J the i'ifj- 42- 
 
 terminal, but owing to lu'ii;ht ol 
 cut liad to be placed at side. K
 
 66 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 position it has to take in the work as a whole. The petals 
 of ilowers seldom require veining, but are bent about much 
 after the same fashion as leaves. For assisting flower forms 
 a ball-ended hammer is used on the thin iron, cut to 
 size wanted, and, while being struck into shape, held over 
 a hoUowed-out or tubular iorm fixed in the vice. Stamens 
 and pistils are added to flowers — when their presence is 
 thought necessary, and the price allows. The chisel or 
 chasing tool and hammer were often in the hands of the 
 MedicCval and Renaissance worker in iron. He sculptured 
 or beat up the cold metal into quaint figures and beautiful 
 floriations and foliations without apparent effort, but with 
 all the pleasure begotten of real love for his work. It is 
 true that he sometimes — as in England so far back as the 
 early part of the thirteenth century, and in the He de France, 
 so famous for its blacksmithing, of which Notre-Dame has 
 so many grand examples — assisted his work, generally while 
 hot, with forms of dies and swages ; but aids of this kind 
 may be quite justifiable when governed by correct taste and 
 discrimination such as were natural to the old ironsmiths ; 
 particularly while seeking to express details of special parts 
 of patterns, and in their diapers and repeats. Love of Art 
 for Art's sake was equivalent in those days to love of work 
 for work's sake. The workman's attention was not absorbed 
 in creating quantity before quality ; nor the master, who 
 was the best artificer, in calculating money profit before 
 everything.''
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 JEWELLERY, 
 
 HERE we have an art which exists 
 entirely for its beauty, and yet how 
 wanting in daintiness and thought 
 is the bulk of the jewellery we see 
 staring at us in the shop windows ! 
 A jewel, I take it, should be unique, 
 for to give such a thing to a friend 
 is a compliment. Why not, there- 
 fore, have it made expressly for the 
 recipient, as our verbal compliments 
 are (or should be), and not some 
 stock article possessed by any one 
 who will put down so much money 
 for it ? To search out some artist working in the precious 
 metals, and give him a commission to fashion some 
 article expressly for the occasion, would seem to me to be 
 a valued privilege, and one I am disposed to covet. No 
 need to fear that the work would be repeated, for an artist 
 hates doing again what he has once well done ; when the 
 work is finished it is put aside, for there are so many other 
 ideas waiting tu lind ;i lo( al liabitalion and a name. 
 
 A jewel, therefore, should always be unitjue. It is an 
 
 Fig. 43.^PciKh\nt in 
 Gold and Enamel, 
 with Pearl. By Alex. 
 Fisher.
 
 68 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 idea, having special reference to the person for whom it is, 
 made definite in metal and helped it may be with gems ; or 
 if the gem itself is of great beauty, then the metal-work 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 J3 
 o 
 
 CI 
 
 1) 
 
 pi I 
 
 ^ i 
 
 ^2 
 
 ^Z- (L) 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 9j 
 
 0) 
 
 a. ^ 
 
 "3 ? 
 
 E « 
 
 rt •- 
 
 .2f c 
 o « 
 
 ^ bo 
 
 
 o g ■•« 
 
 > — > 
 
 cj o 
 
 o o o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 
 must do all it can to lead up to the " precious " stone. The 
 metal then becomes a beautiful framework to the gem. 
 To get out of the mechanical groove into which jewellery
 
 JEWELLERY. ' 69 
 
 has run for so long is the first necessity, and leads up to the 
 second one, originalit}'. As one stands looking at the 
 glitter of a jeweller's shop, how one longs tof an original 
 touch, a personal note, the expression of a mind instead of 
 
 No. I. Huddhist Ornament, the pendant of thin l)rass in relief. 
 
 No. 2. Kabyle Chain and Clasps of white met.il, set with rough coral. 
 
 the output of macliines ! I am happy to say that in the 
 Royal Academy this last few years some few specimens of 
 jewellery have been shown. Mr. Alfred Gilbert. R.A., has 
 devoted much of his time to working in the precious metals, 
 and his " Mayor of Preston's Chain" is one of the most
 
 70 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 beautiful pieces of jewellery produced this century. This fact 
 alone shows how the old lines of demarcation, which 
 separated what used to be called fine art from the crafts, 
 are effaced. Mr. Alex. Fisher and Mr. George Frampton 
 have both exhibited beautiful specimens of fine metal-work, 
 full of fancy and originality — invested indeed with artistic 
 merit. A jeweller should remember that thoughtful human 
 labour is, after all, the most valuable thing in the world, and 
 therefore if, as I have elsewhere said, the value of metal- 
 Avork should be in the workmanship, with how much more 
 force is this in the case of jewellery, the raiscm if eire of 
 whose existence is its beauty ? 
 
 At the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions, too, some excellent 
 jewellery has been displayed, and I believe that people have 
 only to be shown original work to demand it. The responsi- 
 bility does not rest wholly with the craftsman, for the patron 
 should be on the look out whenever he sees the work of an 
 original spirit, so that when opportunity occurs he may help 
 the worker by extending his discriminating patronage to liim ; 
 but an artist, whatever be the medium in which he works, 
 must compel patronage by the force of his genius ; he must 
 do something so excellent that the onlooker cannot resist 
 the appeal all good work makes, viz., to desire it, and if 
 necessary go without something else to possess it. More 
 is expected of the artist than of the public, for the former 
 leads while the latter follows. A good many of us are 
 waiting to have our fancy stirred by the work which is of 
 good report, and therefore the craftsman must not wait 
 until the public moves; he must not only direct the move- 
 ment, but initiate it. 
 
 The revival of enamelling has encouraged artists to
 
 yF.WELLERY. ■■ •• ■ .,.j 
 
 make jewellery as an amusement if not professionally. I 
 am able to give a specimen of the work of Mr. George 
 
 Fi<^. 46. 
 
 No. I. Antique Indian Pendant, gold. «ct with jewels. From Messrs. Procter & Co. 
 No. 2. ICnglish Eifjhteenth-eentury Chain of gilt metal in triple series of link-;. 
 No. 3. Pendant, set witli five large and many small crystals. I'rench work from 
 Lower Normandy. .'Seventeenth century. 
 
 ('I'lie two last from the South Kensington Museum.) 
 
 Fram])ton in this direction,-'" hut as it depends for its effect 
 upon the enamelling, only a bare idea of the jewel itself 
 can be obtained from the illustration. The pendant by 
 
 * 'I'lic ill\i>lr.ilinii will 1)L- fi)iii\(l in (liu clKiplcr- on TMiannlliiiL,'.
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Fig. 47- 
 
 No. I. Silver Brooch, Norwegian. 
 
 No. 2. Neck Ornanu'nt of silver-gilt, seventeenth century, Swedish. 
 
 From the 1 orna district, in the province of Skane. 
 
 (Both in the South Kensington Museum.)
 
 yElVELLEKV, ~ 73 
 
 Mr. Fisher is a skilful piece of scroll weaving, and is 
 reminiscent of Holbein's work in this direction. One of 
 
 
 Fiy. 4«. 
 
 N'o( klaci' of Pearls, I'.ile Coral, and Precious Stonrs. 
 
 (jold liiiif^le, (ieconteii with iol(U]teil enamel and stones. 
 
 Iniiian work. From Messrs. I'roc'HT & Co. 
 
 its chief merits to n-:c is that it gets away— a long way 
 away — from trade jewellery. 
 
 I extract the following from an article, contrilnited to 7'Jir
 
 74 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Art Journal by Aymer Vallance, on Jewellery, some of 
 the illustrations to which are also given, as they point out 
 better than words how utterly worthless as art is the 
 ''jewellery" of the day. 
 
 "During the eighteenth century, in the ornaments of the 
 wealthier classes, the stone-cutter and stone-setter had 
 practically supplanted the artist in precious metals; and, 
 from that date, it is only in such peasant jewellery as has 
 been unaffected by ever- changing and ever-deteriorating 
 fashions, that we may look for any sound traditions of 
 design among so-called civilised nations. The misplaced 
 ingenuity with which diamonds and other precious stones 
 are tortured by us into the inane similitude of a garland of 
 flowers or a spray of maidenhair fern, is in striking contrast 
 to the system which governs the best traditional ornament. 
 One feature, which may almost be said to be common to all 
 artistic jewellery of every period throughout the world, is 
 the simplicity of its ground-plan, or, at any rate, the 
 uncompromising rigour with which a unit — in itself, perhaps-, 
 not so severe — is chosen to form the sum of an ornament 
 by repetition. For example, the pear-shaped pendant (Fig. 
 46, No. i), handsome as it is, consists of an aggregate of its 
 own form on a reduced scale. The pear-shape and the 
 triangle are, it will be seen without much difficulty, the 
 elements on which the two ornaments (Fig. 45, Nos. i and 
 2) are based. The Norwegian and Swedish ornaments 
 (Fig. 47, Nos. I and 2), both circular in plan, are further 
 adorned with circular pendants, in the one case rings, and 
 in the other concave discs. To the last is added a device 
 frequently to be met with in Swedish jewellery. It is con- 
 jectured to be the monogram of the name Maria, or the
 
 JEWELLERY. 
 
 /3 
 
 initials ot the angelic salutation, Ave Maria. Pendant 
 
 drops, whether globules, discs, rings, lozenges, triangles, 
 
 crescents, pear or pine shapes, are extensively used in 
 
 ancient and traditional jewellery of many countries, and 
 
 might, with advantage, be adopted by ourselves. Being 
 
 attached in such a way as to be stirred with the wearer's 
 
 every movement, the scintillations of the play of light upon 
 
 them has won for them among the Easterns a name which 
 
 means, in Arabic, lightning. Even where the impression 
 
 conveyed is that of sumptu- 
 
 ousness, it will generally be 
 
 found on analysis that the 
 
 unit is comparatively simple, 
 
 as in the . Indian necklace 
 
 (Fig. 48). This class of chain, 
 
 consisting of separate plates 
 
 linked or hinged together, 
 
 was known in the England 
 
 of Elizabeth as a carcanet. 
 
 In certain parts of France Fig. 40. — Brooch with pale 
 
 Ameth\Nt set in SjInci 
 size.) 
 
 (Full 
 
 peasant jewellery is still, or 
 was until recently, made of 
 considerable artistic merit, after the manner of the old cross 
 (Fig. 46, No. 3). It will be observed that the lower limb is 
 hinged, a practical convenience which renders it less liable 
 to gel bent or snapped off in wear. Of the same period is 
 the fob chain (Fig. 46, No. 2). It is both workmanlike in 
 execution and admirable for its purpose." 
 
 I agree with the writer that some of the most beautifid 
 jewellery is the aggregation of many simple units. The 
 necklaces found by Schliemann at Troy arc made on this
 
 76 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 plan of linking a number of small pendants on to a chain 
 or chains, so that when on the neck it sways with every 
 movement. 
 
 At South Kensington Museum may be seen some peasant 
 jewellery from various parts of the Continent. It is both 
 artistic and effective and extraordinarily cheap, for the prices 
 given are attached to the labels. The necklace, in Fig. 48, 
 
 Fig. 50. — Carbuncle Brooch in Silver. (Full size.) 
 
 is built up of two simple units repeated a given number of 
 times, and yet how entirely admirable it is ! 
 
 ON THE SETTING OF STONES. 
 
 To crowd a number of more or less valuable stones 
 together into a small space appears to be the ideal of the 
 jeweller, instead of making each gem an accent, a spot of
 
 JEWELLERY. 
 
 V\^. 51. — I'cndant Inji.i/. ami (kiKI .\ii Ivlacc. (Kciluccd size.)
 
 ;8 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 brilliance or colour in the whole scheme. The setting should 
 lead up to the gem, the one helping the other, and in the work 
 of the sixteenth century it was so. Holbein designed some 
 most beautiful jewellery, in which a perfect balance is pre- 
 served between the metal-work and the gems. I cannot do 
 better in this connection than extract the following from an 
 article by Mr. Ashbee on the setting of stones, with some 
 
 of the illustrations from specimens 
 of work executed under his super- 
 vision. 
 
 Mr. C. R. Ashbee, I may remind 
 my readers, has started, in an old 
 Georgian house in Mile End 
 Road, known as Essex House, a 
 Guild of Handicraft, which has 
 developed out of classes he in- 
 augurated while residing at 
 Toynbee Hall. Essex House is 
 a regular workshop, as whatever is of use in a house is 
 made, from a coal box to a necklace. 
 
 "In considering the question as to what one is to do in 
 the setting of stones, I think the safest rule to be observed 
 is that one must not bother much about their setting. The 
 treatment of stones in metals should be a matter of feeling, 
 of personal taste, of character. Apart from the technical, 
 and I think less important, question as to whether a stone 
 
 Fi<j. 52. — Treatment o 
 Small Grey Pearl in 
 hammered Silver. (Full 
 size.) 
 
 should be set in a band turned over 
 
 01 
 
 or in a beaded 
 
 rim a^rW 
 
 I a clip 
 
 or a branched cusping
 
 JEWELLERY. 
 
 79 
 
 , there are a number of matters, more important 
 
 really, which resolve themselves into artistic predilection. 
 That rose topaz goes well with gold, especially grey gold ; 
 that a carbuncle should be polished en cabodwn. antl foiled, 
 not faceted and set a jour ; that amethyst looks vulgar with 
 gold, more, particularly coloured gold ; that rubies should not 
 
 I'iti- 53- — ^'''^'' Sajjpliiic ami Moonstones with (ircy Blue luiamel, set 
 in Silver Wire. (The properly of Mr. R. Ratcl'iffe Whitehead. ^ 
 
 be placed by themselves — these and a number of other 
 matters in the setting of stones are not to be reasoned about. 
 Circumstances may come in which they may be reversed ; 
 all one can do is to shrug one's shoulders and say — so 
 at least think I. jewellery is a personal art in more ways 
 tlian one. 
 
 " In the acconijjanying plates — which of course can give 
 no idea of what is the most important thing of all, colour —
 
 8o 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN
 
 JEWELLERY. 8 1 
 
 I give some experiments of work executed from my designs 
 at Essex House, in these different treatments. 
 
 "As to the arrangement of your setting, you should have 
 your stone or group of stones before you and plan it out. 
 I like to work in one of three ways — either with the pencil, 
 painting curves in plan, section, and elevation, on a piece 
 of paper till I feel the lines I want, the main curves and 
 tlie big central stone shot forward into prominence ; or with 
 a piece of wire shaping curves that fluw from one plane 
 into another, and object to paper renderings ; or with a 
 piece of wax that will let itself be lovably pinched and 
 petted, and holds the stones affectionately as you develop 
 your work." 
 
 A great deal can be done with beaten silver, especially if 
 enamelling comes into play. Simple beaten discs of silver 
 attached to a chain by means of links, and enamelled, would 
 give a most brilliant and varied effect. The jewel by Mr. 
 George Fiampton, given in the next chapter. Fig. 56, is an 
 instance of an excellent and original result obtained by veiy 
 simple means and no great expenditure of labour. The 
 neck la. e (Fig. 54) is another instance of how excellent an 
 effect < an be ohtaincd by comparatively simple means, if 
 only the labour is directed by taste and originality.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ENAMELLING ON METAL. 
 
 GREAT revival has taken place in this very 
 beautiful art within recent years, and work 
 equal technically to any executed in the six- 
 teenth century is being wrought now, while a much 
 more varied palette is successfully employed by artists 
 like Mr. Fisher. Why such an art should have been 
 allowed to drop into desuetude is not understandable, for 
 as a help to metal work it at least was worth practising. 
 The goldsmiths' work of Cellini and his time was greatly 
 helped by being accented with enamels, while we have 
 only to see the collection at South Kensington Museum, or 
 the recent historical one at the Burlington Fine Arts 
 Club, to realise what enamelling can do when in the hands 
 of a master. 
 
 Mr. Alex. Fisher is one of the foremost enamellers of the 
 day, as his work in the last two Academy exhibitions 
 attests, and I am indebted to him for much information 
 embodied in this article. The illustrations of enamels 
 can never suggest the originals, for enamelling is essentially 
 a colour art. That is, like stained glass, colour is its raison 
 (fetre, and nothing must be done that will check the display 
 of this quality 3 even design itself must be sacrificed if
 
 ENAMELLING ON METAL. ^i 
 
 necessary. There must be no attempt at picture or mini- 
 ature painting if it be at a loss of colour, for the enameller 
 must work to display the gem-like quality of his art. Mr. 
 Frampton, who does a little enamelling (two specimens of 
 his work are given, Figs. 56 and 57 :, holds that to attempt 
 too much in the way of figure modelling is not to do the best 
 with the art. He himself goes in for a highly decorative 
 mosaic treatment, as the lid of the casket executed for the 
 Skinners' Company shows. The human figure plays a large 
 part in Mr. Fisher's designs, and he shows skill as a draughts- 
 man and power of decorative composition with no loss of 
 the colour quality. The jewel by Mr. Frampton has only 
 so much design as gives excuse for a display of gem like 
 colour, and certainly so beautiful is the effect of translucent 
 enamels on silver that I can well understand the disposition 
 to make the work a mere palette of gems, so to say. 
 
 Copper and silver are the metals most usually enamelled. 
 In a large work copper would be used, and gold or silver 
 would be introduced as thin plates of metal soldered to the 
 copper and then enamelled over. By this introduction of 
 gold and silver under transparent enamel the most brilliant 
 and varied effects can be obtained. A ruby enamel would 
 have three different tones as it came upon copper, silver, 
 and gold. 
 
 The enamels are of two parts — the colouring matter, 
 usually a metallic oxide, and a flux or fusible material which 
 re([uires heat to melt it and so fix it to the metal. The 
 enamels in their raw state are like lumps of dull-coloured 
 glass, and require to be pounded in a mortar or ground on 
 a slab with a glass muller until they are a coarse 
 powder, and they are then mixed with water and painted
 
 84 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 on the metal more or less thickly. The colour only comes 
 out in the firing, for a ruby may look amber, and blue 
 a dull yellow before firing, so a good deal of judgment 
 is required to know what you are doing. In this respect it 
 is like underglaze pottery painting, for there the colours 
 undergo great changes in the kiln. 
 
 ■'"'g- 55- — Repousse Steel and Euamelled Casket. By Alex. Fisher. 
 
 The enamels are fired in a small muffle heated with gas, 
 and is the work of only a few minutes, but an elaborate 
 enamel, such as the figure on Mr. Fisher's casket, is the 
 result of painting one enamel over another, and is therefore 
 firefl many times. Great care and knowledge is here 
 required to realise the ultimate effect of one colour over 
 another, and to see that the enamels are put to the right 
 heat, for too much heat would irretrievably ruin the whole 
 woik.
 
 ENAMELLING ON METAL. 85 
 
 Then, again, some enamels are transparent, others opaque, 
 and much of the effect is obtained by the opaque enamels 
 playing into the transparent ones. Sometimes an enamel 
 will have transparent colours in the background, while the 
 design is opaque. This is the case in many of the old 
 Limoges pieces where the figures are in white on a deep blue 
 ground. To obtain definition colours similar to those used 
 in china painting are employed and in much the same 
 Avay. As some enamels fuse at a lower temperature than 
 others, these have to be put on last. It does not appear 
 to be a dithcult art at the outset, to one accustomed to 
 underglaze pottery paintiny, but to carry it to perfection 
 needs a long apprenticeship. Mr Fisher was an enameller 
 on pottery before he took up metal-work, and it was 
 while holding a scholarship at South Kensington that he 
 learned metal enamelling of a M. Dalpayrat, a French 
 enameller, who gave a series of demonstrations at Mr. 
 Armstrong's initiative at the schools. " I resolved," he told 
 me, "from the outset to master the whole subject, and 
 commenced to experiment on the making of enamels, so 
 that I might understand completely their capabilities and 
 how best to develop them. This was an arduous under- 
 taking, being more the work of a chemist than an artist : 
 but I now make all my best colours, though where 1 can 
 buy any that are of any use to me I do." 
 
 Enamels were added to gold and silversmiths' work from 
 the fourth to the seventh century. It became of the greatest 
 importance in Byzantine goldsmiths' work, when Christianity 
 became the religion of the State, and has been used by 
 them continually down to our own time. An enameller is 
 of necessity a wurker in metal.
 
 85 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 We Avill now briefly glance at the various processes 
 employed by enamellers. 
 
 Champleve. — This is the simplest, and probably the oldest, 
 form. It consists in cutting out spaces on a thickish plate 
 
 Fig. 56. — Enamelled .Silver Jewel. By Geo. Frampton, A.R.A. 
 
 of metal, and filling these in with powdered enamel. It is 
 then fired and afterwards filed down even with the metal 
 and then polished. The few specimens of Saxon work, 
 such as King .Alfred's jewel, are enriched in this way.
 
 ENAMELLING ON METAL. 87 
 
 [^Niello is the name given to a black composition made of 
 silver, lead, sulphur, and copper, which is laid, in the form 
 of powder, in lines or cavities prepared for it on a surface 
 of silver. It is then passed through the furnace, when it is 
 melted and becomes incorporated with the metal. It is 
 mentioned as early as the beginning of the ninth century.] 
 
 Cloisonne is a similar process, except that the spaces are 
 made by wire of gold, silver, or hard brass soldered on to 
 the metal, usually copper. 
 
 These "enclosures" are filled with enamels applied in 
 the form of a paste. The work is then fired and the 
 surface given to it by rubbing the enamels over with stones 
 until the whole surface is smooth. The best specimens are 
 hand polished, and should have a soft, precious surface 
 like some beautiful fruit. Japanese enamels almost entirely 
 consist of this kind, and they are, without doubt, the 
 greatest masters of this branch of the art, and the skill with 
 which a Japanese solders down the filigree bands to form 
 the enclosures (and the design) must be seen to be 
 appreciated. Japanese Cloisonne' is generally opaque. 
 
 Bdssitaillc. — The space to be enamelled is beaten or cut 
 below the surface of the metal and then carved or beaten in 
 low relief, so that when the transparent enamel is placed 
 Over this the modelling is seen through it, giving an extremely 
 beautiful brilliancy to the enamel, and at the same time a 
 very fine sense of form to the modelling. This enamel had 
 its origin in Italy about the thirteenth century, and some 
 of the most beautiful pieces of goldsmiths' work have parts 
 or points coloured by this method. It was carried to 
 perfection by Cellini and his pupils and contemporaries. 
 One of the finest examples of this method is seen in the
 
 8S 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN, 
 
 cup at the British Museum known as the St. Agnes cup, the 
 en.Tmel being of great splendour on fine gold. 
 
 Plique a 'your. — The pattern is just made in gold or silver 
 wire soldered together, much in the same way as the lead 
 in stained glass, but unlike the glass the enamel is fused 
 
 Fig. 57. — Inside of Lid of Casket, showing enamel. By Geo. 
 Frampton, A.R.A. 
 
 into these spaces without a ground. This work is extremely 
 delicate and fairy-like, and seemed to Mr. Fisher at ore 
 time to present an insuperable difficulty, but he at length 
 overcame it. 
 
 Limoges generally consists in a subject being painted in a 
 semi-opaque white enamel, on a dark ground in which the
 
 ENAMELLING ON METAL. 8q 
 
 thickness and degrees of thinness of the white give the Hght 
 and shade. This is sometimes coloured with transparent 
 enamel. The well-known Battersea enamels of the 
 eighteenth century, many examples of which are to be seen 
 in South Kensington Museum, were done by first covering 
 the metal with opaque white enamel, and then firing it and 
 painting on the vitrified surface in ordinary china colours. 
 
 The qualities which appeal to one most in enamelling of 
 a transparent kind (that is, where the metal ground is 
 distinctly seen through the enamel) are brilliancy and 
 preciousness. This latter quality is almost entirely over- 
 looked, and yet to my mind it is the most exquisite of all. 
 It is almost always found in early work, which is partly due 
 to the love, the reverence, and the humanity of the ancient 
 craftsmen. I mean by this the distinctly human effort as 
 contrasted with the machine work of to-day. The Celtic 
 and Byzantine enamels have all the perfection one can 
 possibly desire in this respect. Mr. Fisher might have 
 used the words of Rabbi Ben Ezra: not "on the vulgar 
 mass called ' work ' must sentence pass, things done, that 
 took the eye and had the price;" but that work the outcome 
 of the desire to express all that is in one which " the world's 
 coarse thumb and finger failed to plumb." 
 
 The historical exhibition of enamels at the Burlington 
 Fine Arts Club, in the summer of 1897, showed what has 
 been done in the past. The sixteenth century enamels 
 are probably some of the finest ever wrought until our 
 own time. The subjects were often taken from prints after 
 pictures by Raphael and his contemporaries, and the cuts 
 and engravings of Dtirer. The old enamellers were very 
 fond of effects en grisaille, and a large number of pieces
 
 <)0 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 made at Limoges are of a dark purplish black or blue, with 
 the design in white slightly tinted. 
 
 EnamelHng, like all vitrified processes, is permanent, and 
 there can be no question as to its suitability as a decoration 
 to metal. For plaques, for furniture too, the most brilliant 
 effects can be obtained which, when set in dark wood, 
 would be particularly handsome as decoration. A realistic 
 treatment is not the idea to go for, but a decorative or 
 ornamental treatment of plant, animal or human form. 
 The copying of pictures is a mistake, as the artist is cramped 
 all the time by the necessity of observing his des'gn, and 
 the quality of his enamel will suffer in consequence. If he, 
 on the other hand, carry out his own design, he has no 
 restrictions of that kind, and can therefore develop his 
 art to its utmost capacity. 
 
 Mr. Fisher teaches enamelling at the School of Arts and 
 Crafts established by the County Council in Regent Street, 
 and also at the Technical School, Finsbury, and from work 
 he showed me executed by pupils at the latter place I should 
 say there is a great future before enamelling. A very simple 
 class of design is very effective, and great value is given to 
 the design by the method of reproduction.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 POTTERS AND PAINTERS. 
 
 " Time's wheel runs back or stops : Potter and clay endure." 
 
 Rahbi Ben Ezra. 
 
 ^|HE life's story of most eminent potters is one ot 
 unending struggle against disheartening difificul- 
 
 ^ ties only partially conquered by persistent hope- 
 fulness and patience. William De Morgan, who may be 
 taken as London's representative potter, has shared, with 
 men like Palissy, many of the trials which make the old 
 French potter's life so stimulating to those struggling towards 
 success ; for if De Morgan did not have to use the house- 
 hold furniture wherewith to kindle his kiln, he, in his early 
 experiments, set fire to the house in Fitzroy Square, where 
 he had fixed up a small muffle. That is now twenty-five 
 years ago, and all this while has our London potter been 
 experimenting and searching for more excellent ways ; and 
 from what one knows of the man, he will continue in his 
 pioneer course, for, like the artist-craftsman he is, there can 
 be nothing finite in his work. De Morgan had taken those 
 lines of Browning's to heart and acted upon them : — 
 
 " So, take and use thy work, 
 Amend what flaws may lurk, 
 ^Vhal strain i' the stuff, what warjjnigs past the aim ! "
 
 92 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 The end is never, but always something to be reached, for 
 achievement is only a halting-place or coign of 'vantage from 
 which to make fresh efforts. Alexander should have been a 
 potter, and then he would not have said there were no more 
 worlds for him to conquer. 
 
 Where Mr. De Morgan lives in a social sense does not 
 concern us, for he is most " at home " at his pottery in 
 Chelsea, and it was my privilege to be taken round the place 
 by the master potter himself. Everything there had been 
 thought out and constructed under De Morgan's own initia- 
 tive, for, as he told me, he never accepted what came to his 
 hand, but has had to reach everything for himself by experi- 
 ment. Even when he stayed in the potteries years ago, 
 expressly to acquire technique, he did not learn what he 
 easily might have been taught through his desire to start de 
 novo, and it is in this spirit he still works. At one time he 
 imported tiles from Stourbridge, and would only paint them 
 at his pottery, but as all the tiles in the potteries are made 
 of compressed dust, they will not stand ex[)0sure to the 
 varying temperatures without breaking, or the surface flaking 
 off, and Mr. De Morgan said that this fact had done more 
 to discourage the use of tiles in decoration than anything. 
 Now he makes his own tiles from clay sent from Stour- 
 bridge mixed with ground firebrick and old seggars. These 
 tiles stand the weather perfectly, as a specimen shown to 
 me testified, which had been in a London window-box for 
 eleven years. 
 
 The painting, too, instead of being done on the tile itself, 
 is done on thin paper, and this is stuck down on the surface 
 of slip which De Morgan always uses to cover the dark 
 body. The glaze is then put over the paper, and in the
 
 POTTERS AXD PAINTERS. 
 
 93 
 
 \ 
 
 e:\^.. 
 
 -- _X* ■..^-'" - •*-'*'^i-***-^- ■ -^ 
 
 
 - '%-<'<&5> 
 
 
 ,'1-. 
 
 me^W' 
 
 .#■ 
 
 -««i*v. 
 
 
 
 LMM 
 
 s 
 
 ■*-l 
 
 o 
 
 p-l 
 
 u 
 
 a; 
 
 o
 
 04 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 firing this entirely disappears. De Morgan has no secrets. 
 His experience, gained at so great a cost, is freely at the 
 disposal of any potter. " Perhaps I know," he said to me, 
 " more chemistry than many potters do, and more art than 
 most chemists." 
 
 His pots are all finished on the wheel, for he does not 
 believe in throwing them rough and then finishing them on 
 the lathe, as is the usual practice. '• It is a most deadly 
 
 Fig. 59. — JDe Morgan Ware. 
 
 occupation for the men, as the dust produced in lathing 
 clay, which must be 'bone dry,' is most injurious to the 
 lungs." 
 
 Mr. De Morgan hopes soon to make articles of house- 
 hold use, and he showed me some teapots in hand with 
 a special kind of strainer contrived with much ingenuity. 
 There are two large kilns and two smaller ones in use ; the 
 largest is capable of holding some thirty thousand six-inch 
 tiles.
 
 POTTERS AND PAINTERS. 
 
 95 
 
 I confess I write sympathetically about potters as I do 
 
 about glass painters, for I was trained in both crafts in 
 
 my youth, and at one time had a kiln of my own. De 
 
 Morgan was led from painting glass to turn his attention 
 
 to pottery, as I did. I mention 
 
 this simply because, to realise a 
 
 potter's difficulties, one needs 
 
 an acquaintance with the craft. 
 
 When one remembers that fire 
 
 is a potter's necessary servant 
 
 (and we know what a bad master 
 
 it is), we at once realise that 
 
 he has difficulties to encounter 
 
 which do not beset the painter, 
 
 Avho has not to submit his efforts 
 
 when he has completed them to 
 
 such a trying ordeal as a kiln, 
 
 even if he have to submit his 
 
 works to the hanging committee 
 of an exhibition. It is an 
 ignorant arrogance, therefore, 
 which makes a quite mediocre 
 painter of pictures look down 
 upon a potter as of coarser clay 
 than himself. 
 
 With the usual lack of patron- 
 age bestowed ujoon the unobtrusive worker, who cannot 
 or will not advertise himself, and on the stimulus supplied 
 by his desire to conquer, De Morgan has slowly overcome 
 the technical difficulties which were before him, and pro- 
 duced work most excellent in its kind. And what are 
 
 V'w. Go.— Lambeth Faience.
 
 96 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 these difficulties ? The body or clay used in the pottery, 
 the colours, the glaze, and the firing ; these are the several 
 arcs of the circle, and the problem is to make them into 
 the " perfect round." 
 
 Mr. l^e Morgan was invited by the Minister of Public 
 
 Instruction at Cairo to 
 draw up a report on the 
 " Feasibility of a Manufac- 
 ture of Glazed Pottery in 
 Egypt." He certainly 
 turned to the country lying 
 east of Egypt for inspira- 
 tion, and took as his 
 samplers the Persian pot- 
 tery of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries (also 
 known as Damascus and 
 Rhodian), which is noted 
 for the richness of its glaze, 
 giving the painted decora- 
 tion (always under the 
 glaze) a soft gem-like biil- 
 liance quite unsurpassed in 
 potteiy. The glaze, as 
 every potter knows, is the 
 most important considera- 
 tion ; and the thick coating 
 of glass De Morgan gives his pottery, mingling with the 
 colours, produces a softness (the colours melting into the glaze 
 softens the edges of the painting) and gem-like transparency 
 which, as a practical pottery painter, I always envied. 
 
 Fig. 6i. — De Morgan Ware.
 
 POTTERS AND PAINTERS. 
 
 ti7 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting woik turned out at the 
 Chelsea Pottery is the celebrated lustre ware. De Morgan's 
 attention was firsc directed to lustre by noticing the irides- 
 cence seen on glass when the yellow stain, due to chloride 
 of silver, is overfired. Copper and silver are the two metals 
 used at Chelsea in the i)roduction of lustre, the former 
 yielding a ruby, and the latter a yellow lustre. The His- 
 pano-Mauresque ware is decorated in lustres, and the old 
 sixteenth-century majjlica is lustrous, but I doubt whether 
 
 
 Fij^. 62. — De Morgan Tiles. 
 
 lustre of old times is superior to the best specimens 
 produced by De Morgan. As a good deal of misconcep- 
 tion exists as to what lustre is, I may state briefly that it is 
 the result of reducing the metals which are painted upon 
 the glazed surface (usually a tin glaze) mixed with some 
 infusible earth, by charging the muffle when at a dull red 
 heat with wood or other vegetable smoke. When cold, the 
 material used with the metals is rubbed off, leaving the 
 lustre beneath. 1 he must exact conditions have to be 
 
 H
 
 gS THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 observed to produce good results, for too much heat and an 
 excess or lack of smoke will cpoil the kiln. The excitement 
 attending the opening of a kiln must be lived through to 
 be realised ; so also must the disappointment when nothing 
 but failure is encountered, and the painter's labour is thrown 
 away. 
 
 De Morgan, in the conclu-«ioa of a lecture on Lustre, 
 delivered before the Society of Arts, said : " I can only 
 say that if anyone sees his way to using the material to good 
 purpose, my experience, which I regard as an entirely 
 chemical and mechanical one, is quite at his disposal." 
 
 Fig. 63. — Amateur's Work. By Thackery Turner. 
 
 Nevertheless, he is largely his own designer, and I shal4 
 leave the specimens given in this article to speak for 
 themselves. The colour beauty, which is always the chitf 
 charm of pottery, cannot be indicated in the illustrations. 
 Martin ware is another production of London. The 
 kilns are in Fulham, and it has been noted for its salt- 
 glazed ware for some years. The master-potter is one of 
 those unobtrusive, non-advertising craftsmen, content to 
 turn out excellent work year after year, trusting to the 
 patronage of the discriminating. The show-rooms used to 
 be (and I believe still are) in Brownlow Street, Holborn,
 
 POTTERS AND PAINTERS. 
 
 9') 
 
 and those collecting modern pottery should exan.ine Martin 
 ware, as it is excellent in its kind. 
 
 In dealing with a firm like Doulton's, the personality 
 which, in De Morgan's case, is so interesting, is wanting. 
 Doulton's is a big concern, a manuflictory carried on on a 
 gigantic scale, and might, with- 
 out much stretch of metaphor, 
 be likened to a sponge, which, 
 seemingly one organism, con- 
 sists in reality of a colon)'. 
 Originally founded in Vaux- 
 hall, in 1815, John Doulton 
 and J. Watts established them- 
 selves later at Lambeth, and 
 in 1.S46 the present head of 
 the firm, and son of the original 
 John Doulton, commenced 
 the manufacture of stoneware 
 drain-pipes and other sanitary 
 pottery, and it was not until 
 1866 that the opportunity was 
 taken to connect Art workman- 
 ship with the previous rough 
 productions. Within the last 
 twenty years the productions 
 of Lambeth pottery have been i)rominently before the public. 
 It deserves to be stated here that the individual has not at 
 Lambeth become merely a sort of cog on the wheel of 
 tlic huge machine, for it has been the custom for Doulton's 
 craftsmen to sign the pieces they are severally responsible 
 for; and in tiiis way the two Miss Barlows' spontaneous 
 
 Fi^. O4. — Lambeth Faience.
 
 lOO 
 
 THE TRAIN IXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 sketches of animal and birds incised in the wet clay are 
 known to those familiar with modern pottery. 
 
 From what I saw dining a visit to the pottery I take it 
 that a fair measure of liberty is allowed all those who rise 
 
 Fig. 65. — Solon Ware. By Minion. 
 
 above the rank of mere " hands," so that, within certain 
 limits, they can give their art instincts proper expression. 
 
 This is as it should be, for it is only in this way that 
 uniqueness can be imparted to the productions of the 
 Lambeth pottery. To feel that you have one of an infinite 
 number of similar vases detracts from the satisfaction of 
 possession, and the mechanical uniformity of manufacture
 
 POTTERS AND PAINTERS, loi 
 
 is avoided if each piece has some individuality attaching to 
 it. Art cannot be manufactured, and the sooner that is 
 recognised the better. Messrs. DouUon have of necessity 
 to cater for a general, and therefore perhaps an uncritical, 
 unresponsive, public ; but the more they seek to develope 
 originality in their craftsmen, so that each piece has a spon- 
 taneous fl )w of life and thought, the expression of some mood 
 or emotion about it, the higher will the productions of the Lam- 
 beth pottery rank. Women have always been largely employed 
 at Doulton's, and it is work certainly well within the faculties 
 of women, for the manipulation of wet clay is one necessi- 
 tating patience, finger dexterity and deftness— qualities 
 associated more with women than men. 
 
 The Lambeth kilns produce two classes of pottery — 
 stoneware, which is salt-glazed ; and painted ware, which is 
 glazed afterwards with a moderately soft glaze. The former 
 is, I should say, that which will gain for Lambeth its distinc- 
 tion, as it was evolved naturally from the ruder drain-pipe. 
 The process of salt-glazing is not applicable to any other 
 kind of ware than stoneware, as the glaze is really formed 
 by tlie partial fusion of the clay itself. During the last stage 
 of firing, when the ware is just on the point of vitrifaction, 
 common salt is thrown into the kiln. The decomposition of 
 the salt fills the kihi with dense fumes of salt vapour, pro- 
 ducing on the wares a gloss or glaze of silicate of soda 
 exceedingly hard and thin, exactly even over all parts of the 
 surface and hiding not the least touch left by the etching or 
 modelling tool. Salt-glazed ware is an ideal pottery, and 
 there is a charm about the surface and colour of salt-gla/ed 
 ware which is unlike any other. " Doulton ware," as it is 
 termed, follows in style of decoration the Grcs de Flan(h\s
 
 o 
 
 (J 
 
 H 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 o 
 c/3 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 tfi
 
 POTTERS AXD PAIXTERS. 
 
 103 
 
 of the seventeenth century, modelled or applied decoration 
 being its leading feature. 
 
 I have a feeling that the fault of a good deal of modern 
 pottery is that it is over-decorated — a fault as bad as a woman 
 being over-dressed. It lacks selection and restraint, and 
 the piece is made an excuse 
 for the employment of decora- 
 tive motifs. The ware, which 
 in itself is beautiful, or should 
 be, is so broken up that a 
 busy rococo effect, rather than 
 dignity and repose, is the result, 
 and the eye gains no satis- 
 faction from the wa-'e itse f 
 As a painter would say, it 
 lacks breadth. 
 
 Stoneware, being fired in an 
 open kiln and to a veiy high 
 temperature, is not adapted 
 for much painting. Blue was 
 the chief colour used in the 
 Flemish ware, but the palette 
 has been extended to include 
 celadon and browns of dif- 
 ferent shades. These have 
 to be painted on with fluxes, which fuse only at the h'gh 
 temperature the ware is put to. 
 
 The painted ware, or " Lambeth Faience," as it is termed, 
 is decorated in the biscuit state, and afterwards glazed and 
 fired. 'I'lie temperature this ware is fired to is much lower 
 than stoneware, and the articles are not exposed to the 
 
 Fig. 67. — " Morning " Vase. 
 By Copeland.
 
 I04 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 flames, but are protected in fire-clay boxes. The palette is 
 much more varied, and the treatment of the decoration is 
 therefore confined to the work of the brush and is chiefly 
 floral, though some excellent figure work is produced. The 
 colouring of this faience, owing to the warm soft glaze, is 
 very harmonious. 
 
 The modelled decoration of George Tinworth, John 
 Broad, and others, is of very high character indeed, and 
 evinces fine technical skill and artistic perception. Some 
 
 of the terra-cotta figure work 
 turned out for the decoration 
 of buildings is very excellent. 
 Sculptors would find it a 
 most pleasant material to 
 work in, and there is no 
 reason why many of them 
 should not turn their attention 
 to architectural modelHng, 
 
 A pottery is certainly one 
 of the most interesting hives of 
 industry to visit, and itw who 
 have watched a "thrower" 
 evolve from a lump of clay with his thumb and finger and 
 revolving wheel a beautiful shape, have not wished to try 
 their hand at such cunning work, in which high manipula- 
 tive skill has to be accompanied by quickness of eye and a 
 rare intuition. 
 
 A {t\v years ago china-painting was the rage, and almost 
 every young lady, whether she piinted on any other 
 material or not, thought she could decorate a china plate. 
 The craze died out, and it is rare now to hear of an amateur 
 
 Fig. 6S. — Holbein Ware. 
 By Doulton & Co., Burslem.
 
 POTTERS AMD PAIXTERS. 
 
 lo; 
 
 painting china. Mr. Thackery Turner told me that lie took 
 up china painting in 1882, when he started in practice as an 
 architect, as an exercise in designing. He got a firm at 
 Burslem to supply him with bisque (unglazed china), and 
 when painted he got them to glaze and fire for him. Mr. 
 Turner at first tried French colours, but gave them up for 
 Staffordshire trade colours. I quite endorse what he says 
 ab nit under-glaze painting having the quality of a wet pebble. 
 
 Fi<^. 69. — Desinn for Majolica Placjiie. By (i. Roots. 
 ( South ivensington.) 
 
 but while it was easy to get work painted in enamels on the 
 glaze fired in London, it was difficult without sending to the 
 potteries to get ware glazed and fired, and amateurs, there- 
 fore, wisely confined their chief attention to overglaze work. 
 Considering what strange crazes the world takes to, china- 
 painting cannot be said to have been the maddest. Indeed, 
 ten years ago some most excellent work was being done by 
 amateurs. 
 
 Speaking from some years of exijerience as a painter ot
 
 io6 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 pottery, I can say that though there are many disappoint- 
 ments through work being spoilt in the kiln, yet there are 
 moments of exaltation when some work comes out par- 
 ticularly successfully. For purely decorative effects, where 
 colour enters largely into play, underglaze work is far before 
 that painted on the glaze and fired in a muffle. Several 
 potteries on a small scale have sprung up since I was a 
 "'prentice han'," in which the "art" is very much eji 
 
 evidence, and some of these 
 efforts at getting indivi- 
 duality into the work will 
 in time bear fruit. But a 
 really fine school of crafts- 
 manship takes long to 
 build up anywhere and at 
 any time, especially in this 
 countiy, where to do every- 
 thing by machinery, or 
 some mechanical piocess, 
 is the direction advance 
 makes for. The painter 
 of potteiy must be the 
 author of the design as well as the executant if the best 
 results are to be reached. That division into " designers " 
 and "painters" is fatal to the best results. The pro- 
 prietors of potteries should keep their eyes upon their 
 apprentices, and give those who evince talent every possible 
 advantage to become artists in their crafts. Theie is much 
 more discrimination abroad than there was fifteen years 
 ago, and manufacturers will find it necessary, on the purely 
 economic grounds of self-defence, "to invest their products 
 
 tig. 70 
 
 — Persian Painted Tile. 
 Doulton &c Co.
 
 rOTTERS AND PAINTERS. 
 
 107 
 
 with artistic merit " if they are to hold their position in the 
 markets of the world. 
 
 l-ja. -I. — TiL- l\.\\A ( olunibines. By W. C. Dean. 
 (South Kensinj,'ton.) 
 
 The majolica pla(]iie by O. Roots, and the painted tiic 
 J and hy W. C. Dean, were prize designs at South Kensing-
 
 io8 
 
 THE TRAINIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 ton. The latter is skilfully contrived so that the square 
 shape of the 6-in. tiles is ingeniously disguised by the 
 pattern. 
 
 Fig. 72, again, is 
 cleverly designed to 
 get a feeling of big- 
 ness, though the 
 
 whole of it is got out 
 of a 6-in. tile. It would 
 appear to have been 
 suggested by a Japanese 
 stencil. 
 One cannot end this chapter without reference to the 
 work of the Staffordshire icotterles, seeing that the bulk of 
 
 o 
 
 C! 
 13 
 
 g 
 

 
 POTTERS AND PAINTERS. 
 
 109 
 
 the ware in general use is made in that district. The illus- 
 trations of work by Minton, Copeland,and Doulton & Co., 
 Burslem, must speak for themselves, but it is fair to say that 
 the charm of pottery, which is largely its colour, is in no 
 way suggested in the illustrations. 
 
 The patc-siir-pate work of Mr. Solon is perhaps the most 
 distinctive pottery of a purely artistic character turned out 
 there. The wonderful skill of this artist ar.d the delicacy of 
 his drawing puts Mr. Solon's \\o\\ far ahead of most other 
 decorated pottery. If I were to give a geneial criticism of 
 much of the Staffordshire art pottery it would be that a certain 
 
 fi^r. jj. — Amateur's Work, i'.y 1 hackery iunicr. 
 
 decorative fitness is wantirg in it. A tendency towards a 
 highly pictorial treatment should, it seems to me, give place 
 to a more ornamental cne. It is a colour art more than any- 
 thing, and therefore the palette should be studied even before 
 drawing, i.e., the potter should become acquainted with his 
 colours and what can be produced with them, what class of 
 effects to strive for, and how he can dexeloj) the resources 
 at his command. Surveying the craft generally, it is 
 apparent that pottery i)ainting lacks distinction by its 
 want of originality in decorating the work of the potter's 
 wheel. An effort is being made in certain directions to 
 produce ])aiiitc(1 pottery of strong individuality and deco-
 
 1 10 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN.
 
 POTTERS AND PAINTERS. iii 
 
 rative fitness — to get away from the ''factory," in fact; 
 and we can only hope that these efforts will be crowned 
 with success. 
 
 The plan in the potteries of taking lads as apprentices 
 for seven years makes excellent workmen of those who are 
 at all bent that way, but the art training is far too much 
 neglected. AVhat they learn in this way is what they 
 pick up in the evening in the school of art, and after a 
 long day in a factory the edge is much taken off for such 
 routine tuition. What would be of much help and stimulus 
 would be instruction by a skilled potter who 7vas an artist, 
 and the painting under his direction of original work. The 
 life of the workmen is almost entirely ignored in factories, 
 and from what I have heard from those who have passed 
 through the "potteries," the factory system kills the art, 
 which, like a delicate plant, withers away under this treat- 
 ment. Then, too, one notices that under such a system 
 craftsmanship always seems divorced from design, instead 
 of the two developing simultaneously, the one helping the 
 other. It shows into what a state our manufactories have 
 fallen, that we have on the one hand a race of mechanics 
 more or less skilful, but with no ideas, and on the other a 
 few selected individuals who are specially engaged to direct 
 this labour.
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 GLASS PAINTERS. 
 
 X these clays of interviewing it is notable 
 that Alt craftsmen have not supplied 
 much copy to that Autolycus of the 
 moment, the journalist. Very mediocre 
 painters of easel pictures, and illustrators 
 with the slenderest cheap talent, have 
 been interviewed, but with a few excep- 
 tions the workers engaged in the Art 
 crafts, such as glass-painting, go on 
 doing their work, and outside a ^mall 
 circle are little known because they 
 are so rarely brought before the public 
 gaze. Not that there would be anything gained by inter- 
 viewing them, in a society sense, to discuss their favourite 
 food and furniture, the decorations in thtir drawing-rooms, 
 and their favourite pipes and pugs. But a peep at a few 
 of the representative Art craftsmen, who are forming the 
 impulses which will move those who come after, with a 
 glance at their work, what are their aims, what their accom- 
 plishments, may help us the better to appreciate thtir 
 etiloits. It may also tend to make our praise discriminating, 
 
 Fig- 75- 
 
 Small AVindrm-. 
 
 By C. Whall.
 
 GLASS PA/XTERS. 113 
 
 and so encourage the artist ; for nothing is so invigorating 
 as intelligent appreciation, just as the applause of the 
 ignorant is the most deadening stimulus he can receive. 
 
 My object, therefore, will be to discuss the recent pro- 
 ductions of a few of the more representative men in this 
 ciaft, at the same time giving, through the medium of 
 illustrations, an idea of what is being done to give dis- 
 tinction to this Alt of our diy; so that we may not pass 
 by what is worthy and of good report when we see it. 
 
 Modern glass-painting came into existence within the 
 last half-century, largely through the efforts of a barrister, 
 Charles Winston. This writer's book on the subject of old 
 glass is a standard work, and should be consulted by those 
 who wish to understand why the glass of the thirteenth to 
 the fifteenth centuries is so much finer than anything which 
 has been done till within our own day ;— for it is a mistake 
 to assume that no modern glass equals the finest old work. 
 With our increased knowledge of chemistry and our modern 
 appliances, as we'l as our power of drawing, we ought to 
 produce better work than was possible in the Middle Ages, 
 and occasionally, il must be admitted, we do. 
 
 What are tlie cliief (jualitics we look for in a painted 
 window? First, colour. The most dazzling and unap- 
 proachable effects of colour are obtained by ])utting 
 together pieces of coloured glass, for the material can, by 
 the use of metallic oxides, be tinted to every rainbow hue. 
 A window, therefore, might be likened to slices of large 
 gems put together as a mosaic is, with bands of lead to 
 hold the pieces together. We might simply lead a 
 number of pieces of coloured glass together as a girl sews 
 patchwork, and thus get a beautiful palette of colour. 
 
 1
 
 yig, 76.— Designed by the late J. D. Watson, for Messrs. Campbell, 
 
 Smith, Sc Co.
 
 GLASS P-4y.V''7':A'S. ii.S 
 
 Some painters tell us that a picture should be a wondrous 
 palette of colour, and that design or idea should be quite 
 subordinate. I think that such a statement holds truer of 
 a window than a picture, for coloured glass can be, from 
 its transparency, more beautiful than any pigments. Now 
 let us look at the average windows we see in churches, and 
 \iewing them merely as colour see how they stand criticism. 
 A large number of sucli windows are too heavy in key, too 
 little white or tinted white glass being employed. This is 
 bad in two ways, bad in itsc-lf and bad for the building, 
 because such heavy windows prevent the proper amount of 
 light entering, producing not a "dim religious light," but 
 darkness, making nothing visible. An interesting church 
 like St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, is spoilt by the heaviness of 
 the windows. They are all coloured, so that on the ordi- 
 nary days of the City very little is clearly discernible , and 
 the beautiful and interesting tombs cannot be properly 
 appreciated in such obscurity. The object of a window is 
 to admit light — there can be no (juestion about that; and 
 though it is a great gain to a church to have the 1 ght modi- 
 fied and warmed h\ passing through tinted glass, with richer- 
 coloured glass to give glow and accent, the primary object 
 of a window must not be lost sight of, namely, to admit light. 
 Not only may a window be too dark from the excess of 
 coloured glass in it, but also from the amount of i)aint upon 
 the glass ; as in the case of the celebrated windows which 
 Reynolds designed for New College, Oxford. Here no 
 coloured glass is used, but the effjct of an oil painting is 
 attempted, all brilHani y being lost in the mistaken effort, 
 and the absence of the gem-like quality, specially acceptable 
 in stained glass, is therefore painfully felt.
 
 ii6 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 This brings us to the next consideration : the design of a 
 window. In church windows symboHsm largely regulates 
 the design, but that aspect of the question is outside my 
 
 41 
 
 \ 
 
 « 
 
 Vi/ 
 
 i''f^- 77- i^iinels of Cila^s !>h()\vinj,' the effect oblaiiit-d h\ use ol 
 Coloured (Hass and l^cads onlv. Bv Messrs. (iuthrie, of Glasgow. 
 
 present purpose. The only point which concerns us here 
 is, how far should the design be regulated by the limitations 
 imposed by the craft itself.? If we have to put our windows
 
 GLASS PAINTERS. 
 
 117 
 
 together like a mosaic by the use of " leads,'' it is obvious 
 that our design should be greatly 
 influenced by the leading, and in 
 all well -schemed windows the 
 design is largely outlined by these 
 leids, as a reference to any of the 
 examples given will demonstrate. 
 There are some leads which are 
 employed merely of necessity, 
 owing to the impossibility of cut- 
 ting glass into very complicated 
 shapes; but these maybe ignored, 
 as they do not interfere with our 
 principle, . namely, that the leads 
 should so far as practicable outline 
 the design. The design should, 
 therefore, be simple and sculptu- 
 resque ; a large style of design 
 should be chosen, and the atten- 
 tion should not be dissipated by a 
 wealth of trivialities. 
 
 A good instance of how skil- 
 fully the leads can be used in a 
 design is seen in the music al sub- 
 ject drawn by the late J. I). 
 Watson (Fig. 76) Here the design 
 is influenced all through by the 
 exigencies of the craft, and yet 
 there is a most successful union 
 between the craft and the design — 
 an ideal marriage ; for the very limitations imposed on the 
 
 J,. 78.--' Charity.' One 
 of the Three Lights of 
 a V\'iiul()\v in (liiist 
 Church, Oxford. De- 
 signed by Sir E. Burne- 
 jones, and executetl by 
 Morris & Co.
 
 ilS 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 designer have been accepted frankly, and turned to 
 account. This window was executed by Messrs. Campbell 
 Smith & Co. 
 
 In the filling of the lights of the window (Fig. 77), Messrs. 
 Ciuthrie, of Glasgow, have shown how much cm be done 
 
 F'R- 79- — P'li'' of '^ Window. By Louis Davis. 
 
 with merely leading and the selection of beautiful glass, no 
 painting being done on the glass itself. By selecting choice 
 specimens of coloured glass for the "accents," and skilful 
 use of leads, much more may be done than most glass 
 stainers are aware of. 
 
 A third consideration in judging a window is that of 
 style ; and here I am likely to tread on many tender places,
 
 GLASS PAINTERS 
 
 "9 
 
 as more modern glass has been spoi't by a slavish adherence 
 to antiquarianism than anything else. A thirteenth-century 
 monk, when he fashioned a window for his monastery 
 chapel, expresseil himself as fully as his means would 
 allow. He probably never drew directly Irom a model, but 
 evolved his figures from his recollection. 
 This monk was a beginner, and he had 
 not museums of examples and photo- 
 graphs of other contemporary wo;k to 
 guide and help him. He was a pioneer 
 journeying alone in an unkrown 
 country, and what wonder, thercfdre, if 
 much that he did was like a learner's 
 woik? His implements also were of 
 the simplest. The use of tlie diamond 
 for cutting glass was unknown in the 
 early days of glass painting, and he had 
 to shape h's piece of glass with a hot 
 iron — a clumsy and ui. certain mediod. 
 Hut when all is said there can be no 
 question that this monkish artist lived up 
 to the knowledge of his time, and his 
 work was only limited by his conditions ; 
 he dill not wilfully impose limits upon 
 himself. What shall we say, then fore, 
 to those among us who ignore the ad- 
 vantages we possess — our facilities, our 
 power of drawing, our ext<.nded palette, and who i)roduce 
 lifeless imitations of old work — the letter without the spiiit 
 of the work they imitate, for those who follow others must 
 always be behind — and then call their manufacture " thir- 
 
 k. 
 
 3lu\ 
 
 i^^^3 
 
 K 
 
 r&^ 
 
 c^3 
 
 %^^K 
 
 rn 
 
 'ail WP^-^^Je^ 
 
 bi.1. 8(). Ijovs 
 Sint;iim. Part 
 of a Window by 
 Louis Davis.
 
 I20 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 teenth or fourteenth century glass," as though so labelled 
 made it good per se / What we do should be nineteenth 
 century, and I honour those men who have refused to pro- 
 duce archaic glass because the architect or donor of the 
 window wished it, but have exhibited in their craft know- 
 ledge, and that individuality or character which is after all, 
 
 as I have elsewhere insisted, "style." 
 \Vhen the art of glass painting was 
 revived, it was not surprising that to 
 reproduce some of the best old win- 
 dows was the only way to learn how 
 to paint glass ; but that is no reason 
 why we should go on after forty 
 years turning out modern old glass. 
 Those acquainted with the glass m 
 Oxford can see in Keble College 
 Chapel windows of the archaic pat- 
 tern ; and in Christ Church glass 
 which is, in the best sense, up-to- 
 date. The former is manufacture, 
 utterly uninteresting and wanting in 
 beauty. In the Cathedral there is 
 glass full of character and beauty, 
 excellent in craftsmanship and design. 
 I give a small reproduction of " Charity," Fig. 78, one of 
 three-light windows designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones 
 and executed by Morris & Co., whose glass gives the Cathe- 
 dral great distinction. 
 
 All the Art crafts have suffered from manufacture. The 
 individual is lost sight of in the "firm," just as though Art 
 could be produced by a Co. ! The men who do the work 
 
 Fig. 8 r. — Study. 
 By Louis Davis.
 
 GLASS PAL\7ERS. 
 
 121 
 
 Ki},'. 82. — Life Study for Cartoon 
 of a Window. By C. Wiiall. 
 
 Fig. 83. — Finished Cartoon 
 for a Window. By C. 
 Whall.
 
 122 
 
 THE TR A LYING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 are "hands," and the designers "cartoonists,"' who have 
 just sufficient knowledge to draw conventional figures of 
 saints after well-recognised patterns. It not infrequendy 
 happens that the "firm" does not have a fresh cartoon 
 
 made for each window 
 executed, but a head is 
 taken, say, from St. Mark 
 and put on the body of 
 St. Luke; and by "fakes" 
 of this nature a new design 
 is the result, thereby savirg 
 money to the " firm," an 
 ever-important considera- 
 tion. The colouring of 
 the window is either done 
 in a purely arbitrary man- 
 ner, or is left to the glazier, 
 who, I am bound to admit, 
 does not always do it as 
 badly as might be. 
 
 Mr. C. Whall showed 
 me a plan he adopts of 
 making a small test win- 
 dow by sticking small 
 pieces of the glass he 
 thinks of using in his 
 actual window on to a 
 
 Fig. {'4. — Part of Window, 
 iiv C. Whall. 
 
 sheet of plate-glass, so that some idea of the colour effect 
 can be obtained. But then Mr. Whall is an "artist" in 
 stained glass, and net only draws his own cartoons, but 
 chooses all the glass, and does much of the painting
 
 GLASS PAINTERS. 123 
 
 himself. Here art is not divorced from craftsmanship, ai d 
 made into a manufacture ; and no good work can ever 
 be produced where the Art is lost sight of, and individuality 
 merged in a company. 
 
 Fig. <S5. — Window lor a Library. By Henry Ryland. 
 
 The drawing of a figure for a window should he as good 
 as though it were f()r a picture ; and as has already been 
 said, only to wilfully reproduce the ignorance of a meiliiuval 
 m^nk is to exhibit a shallow, misplaced veneration. But
 
 \i- ,. *w 
 
 the effects which a 
 painter might legiti- 
 mately strive for are 
 not necessarily those 
 which exhibit the art 
 of the glass painter to 
 the greatest advantage. 
 He must realise that 
 glass is not canvas, 
 and that nothing must 
 be attempted which 
 destroys the brilliancy 
 of his material. The 
 less paint that is put 
 on the glass the better 
 (by paint I, of course, 
 mean vitreous colours 
 which require to be 
 burnt on to the glass 
 to make them perma- 
 nent), and complicated 
 actions necessitating 
 subtle foreshortening 
 should not be at- 
 tempted, for this de- 
 mands complicated 
 chiaroscuro. An arm, 
 for instance, held out 
 towards one could not 
 be adequately rendered 
 in glass. A certain 
 
 Fig. 86. — From the Cartoon by Walter 
 Crane.
 
 GLASS PAINTERS. 125 
 
 severity and restraint must keep the glass painter in check ; 
 in other words, his work must be conditioned by his 
 opportunities. 
 
 The figure of "Charity" (Fig. 78) is, as I have said, one 
 of three in a window at the north end of the north aisle of 
 the cathedral at Oxford. The window is richly coloured, 
 as light was not specially wanted from this window. The 
 background is composed of foliage, and throws into relief 
 the figures, but much is lost in the reproduction. 
 
 The large windows by the same artists in the east end of 
 the building have much white glass, which is very skilfully 
 employed, so that a due amount of light is admitted. 
 
 The name of Mr. Louis Davis is familiar to those who 
 follow the progress of decorative art in this country, and 
 the portions of three windows executed by him (Figs. 79, 
 80, and 81) here given speak for his ability as a designer 
 for stained glass. Mr. Davis is particularly happy in his 
 rendering of children, and the window of boys singing 
 praises is as beautiful as anything executed in any age or 
 country. The drawing is refined and scholarly, and is 
 withal restrained, to fit it for its particular interpretation. 
 
 The reproduction of a cartoon for a window recently 
 executed by Mr. C. ^Vhall (Fig. 83), as well as the study 
 from life for the same ( Fig. 82), show that in his hands the 
 craftsman and the artist are one. Mr. Whall takes great 
 trouble in selecting his glass, and he adopts the excellent 
 plan of making " jjalettes" of colour, as I have before men- 
 tioned, to gauge the effect of the window before it is carried 
 out — a very different order of things to that which existed 
 when I became a glass painter. 
 
 A good cartoon should be "glassy" from its first incci)-
 
 i:6 
 
 THE -JRAIXIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 I-ig. ^7. — From the Glass by Walter Crane. 
 EKecuted by Mr. Sjjarrow.
 
 GLASS PAINTERS. 127 
 
 tion. It is quite wrong to draw a window as you would an 
 illustration, and then put the lead lines round it. The lead 
 lines should largely condition the design, Madox Brown 
 was the first artist in this century to realise this. 
 
 Mr. Henry Ryland is better known for his black-and- 
 white work than for his purely decorative designing, but his 
 window for a library (Fig. 85) exhibits his feeling for stained 
 glass and his recognition of the necessities demanded by the 
 craft. No strong colour is used, tinted whites and pale 
 tones alone being employed. 
 
 Two illustrations are given of windows designed by Walter 
 Crane and executed by Mr. Sparrow, for I hold that the 
 student cannot have too many examples before him, pro- 
 vided they be good, as by this means he escapes the liability 
 of falling into mannerism by being too much influenced by the 
 work of one man. The cartoon by H. Ospovat (Fig. 88) is 
 one which took a prize at South Kensington in 1896. It shows 
 that the author has realised the necessities to be observed. 
 
 In the chapter on "Women's \\'ork " I have drawn 
 attention to a particular make of glass which gives great 
 "value "to a window owing to its thickness. This thick 
 glass prevents a window looking poor or papery where 
 much white or light glass is employed, and unless a window 
 has a fair proportion of light glass in it, it not only keeps 
 out light, but the requisite foil to the coloured glass is 
 wanting. There is as much skill shown in the use of light 
 and white glass in a window as there is in selecting tlic 
 coloured portions. If glass is very thin it has a poor 
 appearance when up, especially in the light parts, for the 
 coloured ])orlions are then in too strong opposition to the 
 rest of the window. Some very beautilul glass is now
 
 128 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 made, for much attention has been devoted to this part of 
 the work during the last ten years, and a glass painter 
 should bestow the greatest attention upon getting the best 
 
 material, for this is more than 
 half the battle in a successful 
 window. I am told that some 
 American firms have bestowed 
 even more attention to the make 
 of glass than we have, notably 
 Messrs. Tiffany, of New York, 
 for they have had pieces made 
 specially for particular portions 
 of a window. The result, if 
 artistically done, ought to be 
 veiy fine. 
 
 If any impression is left upon 
 the mind by a glance at the work 
 it has been my privilege to bring 
 before my readers, it is that a 
 new spirit is abroad which is 
 stimulating the men of to-day to 
 put into their work Art in place 
 of tradition, and thought in 
 place of convention ; that in 
 their hands such a craft as that 
 of glass-painting is likely to be 
 carried further than we have 
 seen, and that windows will be 
 painted which, for their beauty, will be a joy for ever. And 
 I would urge the clergy and all those who have the influence 
 in these matters to look round, take note of those men 
 
 Fig. 88. — Cartoon for (ilass. 
 By H. O^povat.
 
 J3 
 
 &4 
 
 o 
 
 tJt) 
 
 
 tJO 
 
 rt 
 1) 
 
 ^ rt 
 
 o 
 
 ^ 
 
 "u 
 
 K
 
 i;o 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 working as artists and not mechanics, and bestow upon 
 
 them the patronage good work 
 deserves. Fa'.main qui viennt 
 feraf, which means thnt the 
 patron should look out for the 
 capable men when thty are 
 spending money on a stained- 
 glass window, for instance, 
 and see that what they are 
 instrumental in putting into 
 the church is worthy and of 
 good report. Nothing is so 
 discouraging as for the earnest 
 worker to be left idle while 
 the charlatan or mechanic is 
 well employed. Many men 
 will give from ^500 to ^1,000 
 for a portrait of themselves, 
 and think that ;^ioo quite 
 enough to provide a painted 
 window, though the cost of 
 
 production in the latter case is many, many times what the 
 
 painter has to ?pend on canvas and colours. 
 
 Fig. 90.— Stained Glass Fauel 
 
 in Door of Main Cabin. 
 
 By G. C. Haite, R.B.A.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WOOD CARVERS. 
 
 " Lcam of sculptor, painter, poet, 
 Take this lesson to thy heart : 
 That is best which lieth nearest, 
 Carve from that thy work of art." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 AN is a tool-using animal "^" Sartor Resartus." 
 That being so, it is natural that wood-carving 
 has always been a popular craft with amateurs, 
 and one that played an important rule among the Art crafts 
 of the Middle Ages, those glorious days for the "cunning" 
 worker in wood, metal, and stone. But it is weariness and 
 weakness to whimper over the days that are no more, so let 
 us take a brief survey of this craft of wood-carving as it 
 exhibits itself to us now. Nor is it any use going back to 
 the thirteenth century for our inspiration, and become slavish 
 reproducers of the work of that and the following century. 
 I hold strongly that what we have to do is to make the best 
 use of each moment as it goes by, for any attempt to return 
 to the past, and so lose touch of the present, is in the 
 long rim putting the hands of the clock back. Much as I 
 respect Morris and acknowledge the influence he so benefi- 
 cially exerted on the crafts of the day, 1 cannot but help 
 feeling that in his printed books he ma'le the initial mistake
 
 132 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 of ignoring the zcilgeist. Had he brought his genius to 
 bear upon the foniiat of books, he might have levelled 
 up the art of printing so that all woulH have benefited, 
 whereas by reproducing books in the style of the fifteenth 
 century we can only view h's efforts as interesting exj^eri- 
 nients lying quite outside the march of mankind. 
 
 Wood carving suffers much from the heavy hand of the 
 past, which presses upon the work of to-day and robs it of 
 vitality. This is especially true of ecclesi^tStical carving, 
 which always has to be in some " st)le." originality being 
 the last (quality desired. In the carving in a church how 
 much more interesting would be the result if, say, a dozen 
 craftsmen were turned loose, each to work out his artistic 
 salvation, so to say, there ; instead of some " Master " or 
 church furnisher taking on the job and employing a 
 designer to make the drawings and so many "hands " at so 
 much an hour to do the work, the profit and the kudos going 
 to the firm. 
 
 If those who spend money on churches would try to be 
 as artistic as they are pious, and see that their money is 
 spent to some worthy end in securing original work by 
 capable craftsmen, how much gain would accrue ! Our 
 churches might then be living temples instead of crystallisa- 
 tions of the past or receptacles of " furniture " art. 
 
 I was much struck, at the last Arts and Crafts Exhibition, 
 at some carved pew ends in low relief by Mr. H. A\'ilson. 
 They were in perfect harmony and yet distinctly of to-day, 
 the work of a man who had his own outlook, who could 
 learn of the past and yet be of the present. 
 
 It is the dead uniformity of modern church work — " the 
 No, 6, page 99 of 'our' catalogue" — which so dulls the
 
 WOOD CARVERS. 
 
 133
 
 '34 
 
 THE IRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 senses of the beholder and makes him pass by unheeding 
 instead of enjoying the "joy of the working." Consideiing 
 what an important patron the church still is, it grieves 
 one to see the lamentable waste of money in purchasing 
 work which, as art, is valueless. Ecclesiastical correctness 
 (Avhatever that may mean) is thought more of than imagina- 
 tion and skilful originality. 'J'he late J. D. Sedding set a 
 good example by seeking out clever painters and sculptors 
 and craftsmen to enrich the fabric he designed. 
 
 Lei us hear what wood-carvers have to say touching their 
 
 •^'i(^t?'*f'-:5iftii.<'->J,: 
 
 
 ' ,.^ 
 
 I . ."■• 'I 
 
 Fi^. 92. — Carved Panel. By W. Aumonier. 
 
 work, and the patr^iage extended to them, and I think I 
 cannot do better than turn to a symposium of craftsmen 
 who addressed a meeting of tlie Royal Institute of British 
 Architects early this year, and give the gist of what Messrs. 
 Romaine- Walker, W. Aumonier, J. E. Knox, and W. S. 
 Erith had to tell their audience of architects, who are, of 
 necessity, brought much in contact with w^ood-carvers. 
 
 Mr. Romaine-Walker represented the architect-patron, 
 and he touched the keynote when he said : " Woodcarving, 
 being an art, the very nature of which brings it within 
 the reach of the million, and, as it were, into their daily
 
 WOOD CARVERS. 
 
 135 
 
 life, has been, perhaps, the first to suffer from over-produc- 
 tion, and consequent decline. The mind of the public has 
 
 V i-»0- S -jm 
 
 ^. 
 
 > 
 
 ^*<S»*.-« 
 
 a* 
 
 
 Z^. '"=i^.' 
 
 >;^^. 
 
 
 y^r. 
 
 X 7-i 
 
 St;, 
 
 •>*^'- 
 
 
 
 ?lr^ 
 
 rA - 
 
 ■/- 
 
 1^ ' ' ^ ' 
 
 '»* ' 
 
 U- 
 
 ]-"ig. 93. — Panel (loi^iud and carved li\ W. 1!. ( ii iinwood, Instructor 
 to the- Scliool of Art \\'ood-carving. 
 
 become vitiated by the vulgar and unmeaning mass of 
 bastard enrichment overloading the so-called Art fiu-niture,
 
 136 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 only too often exposed for sale in shops, and praised by the 
 employe's, who affect a critical faculty entirely foreign to 
 their nature and bringing-up. To the vast majority of 
 mankind these vacuous salesmen are the oracles of public 
 taste ; it therefore follows that much of the delicacy of 
 perception which our forefathers possessed has been lost." 
 And when the speaker had to refer to the relations which 
 should exist between architect and carver, he laid it down 
 as a principle that, while directing and supervising the 
 work, he should, like the playwtight, after having painted 
 in words the lesson or impression he wishes to convey, 
 leave the exponent of his thoughts certain liberty of action, 
 else will he take from the executed work its soul, and 
 leave it but a lifeless production. Under the influence of 
 the Gothic architects wood-carving was the handmaid of 
 architecture. 
 
 It is a pity that this just principle should not influence 
 architects more than it does in their treatment of their 
 "handmaids." There is such a slavish adherence to prece- 
 dent on the part of many architects, which makes them tie 
 down the craftsman until his ego is squeezed out of him. 
 I am reminded that I walked into Keble College chapel the 
 other day, to look again at the decoration, and if the 
 architect takes the responsibility for the hideous painted 
 windows and mosaic panels, he has taken upon himself an 
 Atlas load indeed ! 
 
 Mr. Aumonier, the next speaker, referred to the way the 
 wood-carver in the past was evolved out of the village 
 carpenter, as is seen in the " choppy, vigorous cut of the 
 Chester and Ambrosio work at Milan, the carver having 
 only just emerged from the use of the chisel proper to take
 
 JIOGD CARVERS. 
 
 m 
 
 up the carver's gouge." Wood-carving should not be made 
 to represent marble, bronze, silver, or any other material, 
 for, by the very individuality of its treatment, it may attain 
 a charm and beauty equal to that of almost any substance 
 the hand of man can fashion. " To this end we want it cut 
 by a strong man fully alive to the capabilities and suscepti- 
 bilities of his material. If he is a good workman, he will 
 combine freshness and grace ; freshness because the work 
 grows under his own hand, showing the cuts and gouge- 
 
 Fig. 94. — Carved Panel. By George Jack 
 
 maiks in it freely and fearlessly to the last, to mark for ever 
 the secret of its birth like the last strokes of the painter's 
 brush ; grace, because there is no form the artistic mind can 
 conceive but may be obtained in wood, if honestly sought 
 after." 
 
 'I'his carver's word to architects is " to treat their carver 
 as a brother artist or craftsman, in sympathy with the work 
 in hand, called in to give artistic finish to new buildings, 
 and not as a person out of whom is to be screwed as much
 
 138 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFISMAN. 
 
 work a,s possible, for as small an amount of money as the 
 carver will allow his patrons to give him." 
 
 Mr. W. Aumonier was apprenticed to a firm of furniture 
 manufacturers and general decorators, the foreman of the 
 wood-carvers being Mr. Mark Rogers, '-one of the most 
 skilful and artistic carvers we have had in modern times." 
 Then he worked with a Belgian sculptor settled in 
 
 r.'i 
 
 
 if 
 
 rf i 
 
 ■ t 
 
 ,T ! 
 
 ilf 
 
 ,'! ■■- 
 
 
 A '• 
 
 i 
 
 \ ■• . 
 ! < f 
 
 >- * 
 * 
 
 / 
 
 ^>, 
 
 Fi<^. 95. — Central Panel in Italian \\'aliiut. By CTeor<;e Jack. 
 
 Westminster, and after that in Paris, woiking in both wood 
 and stone, and for six months on the restoration of Amiens 
 Cathedral, under M. Viollet le Due. This gave our crafts- 
 man a decided penchant for architectural work, as distinct 
 from mere cabinet carving, and the stone carving of such 
 buildings as the new municipal offices at Oxford is as 
 important a part of this craftsman's work as the wood- 
 carving he executed for St. Paul's Cathedral. Mr. Aumonier
 
 WOOD CARVERS. 
 
 «39 
 
 roughs out the designs in charcoal for his craftsmen, leaving 
 the interpretation to them, and he much deprecates not 
 only the waste of money caused by modellinj:; the designs 
 previous to carving them 
 in wood, but the tendency 
 to make the carver me- 
 chanical, a mere imitating 
 machine instead of an 
 artist. His method of 
 study has been to go 
 direct to old work, sketch- 
 ing it for himself so as to 
 feel the spirit of the old 
 craftsman, and not to rely 
 upon books of examples 
 drawn by other men ; 
 very sensible advice, I 
 take it, and equivalent to 
 the drawing from nature 
 instead of from copies. 
 
 Mr. J. E. Knox said 
 that his craft had been 
 stri\ing during the last 
 thirty years to raise itself 
 above the cabinet and 
 upholstery incubus under 
 which it had fallen for 
 many generations, and 
 efforts have been made by the establishment of the British 
 Wood-Carvers' Society — a body of craftsmen far too little 
 known by kindred societies — to regain the position wood- 
 
 I'ig. y6. — Uui Lady ol the Kuod. 
 By HariT Hems.
 
 MO THE TRAIXIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 carving held in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 " Wood-carving is an absorbing, fascinating, but a time- 
 taking occupation, and the results of his labour are, as a 
 rule, gratifying to the executant, whatever his architect or 
 client may subsequently think of his work." 
 
 The speaker went on to say that it was by studying the 
 work in some of our cathedrals and old churches that he 
 liberated himself from a certain petty egotism from which 
 he suffered at the outset of his career. "I carved birds, 
 flowers, miniature figures and many pretty things besides, 
 and although greatly admired, no one wanted to buy them.'' 
 
 The choppiness of late fifteenth-century work, Mr. Knox 
 said, was a powerful influence in his development, for he 
 admired the gee in this style of carving, and the apparent 
 fact that the carveis knew when they had done enough to 
 their work. As examples for the wood-carver to study, this 
 craftsman gives the following : — 
 
 Xonnan Zigzag, Rocliester Cathedral. 
 
 Early English, nth and I2lh Centuries, Choir, Westminster 
 
 Abbey. 
 Decorated, f3th and 14th Centuries, Lady Chapel, Ely, and 
 
 Choir, York Minster. 
 Perpendicular, 14th and 15th Centuries, King's College, 
 
 Cambridge. 
 Tudor, 1550 to 1600, Thornbury Castle, Gloucester. 
 Jacobean, 1600 to 1650, Longleat House, Wilts. 
 
 Mr. Knox is one instance, out of many, of a craftsman 
 of deservedly high reputation, who woiked into art for 
 himself and in spite of most adverse circumstances, for 
 being left an orphan, when 1 arely nine years old, he 
 obtained a berth at a West-end cabinet fiim to glasspaper 
 up carvings and run errands. The hours were from seven
 
 WOOD CARVERS. 
 
 141 
 
 till seven, but in spite of this the young enthusiast took 
 possession of a disused attic, got a few tools, and rigged up 
 
 ^^ri 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 <■.. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^.'; 
 
 t 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 o 
 
 Sic 
 
 o 
 
 -a 
 
 > 
 
 u 
 
 o 
 
 g 
 
 
 I ON 
 
 _tJO 
 
 a bench in ordtr to attain his anibiiion of beconiirg a wood- 
 carver. He became sufficiently proficient to be taken, at
 
 142 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 the age of fourteen, by the master carver as an apprentice 
 without premium and with the wages he was receiving as 
 errand boy; and when out of his time worked for seven 
 years for Mr. Thomas Earp, the architectural sculptor, and 
 it is Mr. Knox's advice to would-be carvers to be apprenticed 
 to an architectural carver rather than to a cabinet firm. 
 
 Fig. 98. — Cluclv Case iu Clicsliiul Woud. By Mark Rogers. 
 
 Having worked for some of the leading architects, Mr. 
 Knox attributes the progress in decorative art during the 
 last thirty years to that brilliant band of young architects 
 who, when he was a young man, struggled so manfully to 
 elevate public taste in matters architectural.
 
 WOOD CARVERS. 
 
 M3 
 
 Mr. W. S. Frith also laments the want of discriminating 
 patronage denied the wood carver. "It is a Httle difficult 
 to understand in these days," he says, " that there seems 
 
 Vvg. 99. — Panel al back of the Bishop's Tliione, St. Paul's C'athcdial. 
 Carved hv \V. Aiimoiiiei'. 
 
 little demand for choice wood-carving beyond the folinge 
 order ; no doubt this is in great part due to the fact that 
 wood sculpture does not conveniently lend itself to produc-
 
 144 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 tion from the clay modelling point of view, from which 
 most sculptors, both here and abroad, are trained." 
 
 All the speakers were agreed that wood-carving should 
 never be a copy of a modelled design, for there is required 
 an essential treatment of the wood, which riiakes wooil- 
 carving differ from other crafts. " While oak is the princi- 
 pal wood for carving, others have to be considered ; and if 
 the treatment of oak were, for instance, applied to satin- 
 wood, the result would be to make the satin-wood look very 
 much like pine. In this case the work looks most precious 
 when it is so designed and carved as to permit the opalescent 
 quality of the wood to sing through the carving." 
 
 All the speakers again were agreed as to marks of the 
 tool showing, and that to get the finish of carton-pierrc was 
 destructive of the finest qualities in wood-carving. In Mr. 
 Frith's words, " the question of how far the cutting of the 
 wood should be evident — as a general rule, figure form is 
 most satisfactory with the tool marks invisible; since the 
 form is the essential, not the manner of producing it : and 
 this rule necessarily applies wherever exact form is desired. 
 The clear cut, however, best displays the quaUty of the 
 material, the mastery of the craftsman, and his delight in 
 his work, and makes that in which the dexterous use of the 
 tool can be traced one of the most charming phases of 
 wood-carving." 
 
 In these remarks of eminent craftsmen may be gleaned 
 the Sophia as opposed to the Moria, as Ruskin would say, 
 of the art. On that crucial question of style it seems to 
 me that, both from their words and works, wood-carvers are 
 too much afraid of expressing their ego. Mr. Frith says 
 that the yearning to invent something new is particularly
 
 HOOD CARVERS. 
 
 rj: 
 
 X. 
 
 fascinating to the mind of youthful cast, and seemed to 
 question whether, "with so great a mass of past experience 
 influencing us," this 
 novelty was attainable. 
 Yet, when wood-carvers 
 speakof our great Grinling 
 Gibbons, it is always as 
 scholars towards an 
 honoured master, and 
 Gibbons's work stands 
 the test of centuries for 
 its individuality, as much 
 as for its technical ex- 
 cellence. No repetition 
 of past work eiiher in- 
 vigorates (jr develops our 
 present efforts. Mr. Mark 
 Rogers, Jun., received 
 his first instruction from 
 his father, and for ten 
 years was in the life class 
 at Lamlieih, and before 
 beginning woik on his 
 own account spent a year 
 in the South Kensington 
 Museum School. The 
 human figure enters 
 largely into his designs, 
 as it did in that of 
 
 Grinling Gibbons (as witness his screen in the chapel 
 of Trinity College, Oxford) ; and though 1 have heard 

 
 146 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 it said that wood is not a good material to use for 
 figure carving, the human form, when well drawn and 
 composed, adds greatly to the interest of the craft. The 
 supporting figures for the chimney-pieces at Ashridge (and 
 which were exhibited in the Royal Academy in i8S6, 1887, 
 and 1890) were carved by Mr. Rogers. Many of our 
 younger sculptors are turning their attention to decorative 
 work, and it would seem that the dividing line which has 
 hitherto kept apart sculptors and carvers is being rubbed 
 away. It is time this was so. Alfred Stevens did not 
 disdain to carve mantelpieces, and a sculptor's energies 
 might be better applied to the decoration of a room or 
 building than carving busts of middle-aged gentlemen with 
 bald heads and nicely brushed whiskers. 
 
 The work of Mr. George Jack I first saw at the " Arts 
 and Crafts." He represents the newer influences which 
 have stimulated our craftsmen and taken them out of the 
 rut of precedent. Professional wood-carvers allude to much 
 of the work there exhibited as the "rabbit-hutch" school, 
 and the striving for originality has a tendency to produce 
 eccentricity, but the endeavour on the part of the committee 
 to give the first place to original work is a right one, though 
 they cannot be too eclectic in choosing the works to exhibit, 
 and so avoid an impression of monotony which is slightly 
 observable in certain crafts. 
 
 The School of Art Wood-carving has shifted its (juarters 
 from the Albert Hall to the Central Technical College, 
 Exhibition Road. It has the advantage of being a teaching 
 body as well as a society of workers. The example of 
 their work given is by W. H. Grimwood, one of the 
 instructors to the school. The fees vary from ^5 a ([uarter
 
 IJOOD CA RISERS. 
 
 147 
 
 for day tuition, to jQ2 for evening tuition, the students 
 providing their own tools and materials. 
 
 The Birmingham School of Handicraft is a young society, 
 and, from the examples of their work, I should say has 
 vitality and earnestness to stimulate it, and keep it on the 
 stretch. Why is it, by the way, that Brummagen is used as 
 
 Fij;. loi. — Carved Oak Sclllc. (Stiuthwold School of Haiidiciat't.) 
 
 a term of reproach? Is it because mechanical finish, the 
 result of the factory system, has become so hateful in our 
 eyes? The town has shown considerable activity in the 
 matter of art to remove the reproach, but art cannot thrive 
 in factories, where the in(li\idual is merely the cog to a 
 wheel in the huire n)uclune.
 
 148 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 I fancy that carvers do not sufficienily realise that hand 
 cunning does not make a piece of work a work of art. 
 Manipulative skill must be directed to some worthy end, 
 and be kept within bounds by selection and appreciation of 
 line and mass. So much wood-carving lacks distinction : 
 it is no better than high-class manufacture through wanting 
 the charm of personality. I would sooner have less hand- 
 cunning and more 
 personality, though 
 there is no reason 
 why the one should 
 not be added to the 
 other. Amateurs 
 find wood- carving a 
 craft peculiarly 
 suited to them be- 
 cause it employs the 
 fingers, and they can 
 watch their work 
 grow under their 
 hands, and they soon 
 get a sense of power 
 over their material. 
 One friend, an en- 
 gineer, has carved a complete set of dining-room furniture, 
 including a very massive sideboard. He gets his designs 
 from bits of old carving he lakes rubbings of, and fits them 
 together into some sort of " whole." Could he but import a 
 little touch of originality into his work how much it would 
 gain ! If he, instead of going into a church for his inspira- 
 tion, went out to nature, drew let us say some familiar form 
 
 Fig. I02. — Working Design for Cabinet. 
 
 H. D. Kichter. 
 
 (Prize Design, .South Kensington.)
 
 IFOOD CARJ'ERS. 149 
 
 like the bramble, and then adapted it to his requirements, 
 he would be giving us himself as well as his finger dexterity. 
 He, like many others, thinks too little of the design and too 
 much of the carving. A certain ruggedness, a vigorous 
 spontaneity would be better than the impersonal refinement 
 which many amateurs appear to think is the only quality to 
 go for. It is something like the man who gave so much 
 attention as to how to speak and use his voice that he quite 
 forgot how little he had to say when he was ready to say it. 
 I am glad to be able to give an example of work done 
 under the influence of the Society for the Encouragement of 
 Village Industries and Craftsmanship. The settle (Fig. 
 loi), which was shown last year at the annual exhibition 
 at the Albert Hall, is a straightforward piece of work 
 evidently modelled after the old oak chests which have the 
 last few years been so prized by those who love that which 
 is of good report.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 i#' 
 
 'v ' 
 
 
 4" 
 
 X ; iB9s lA 
 
 CRAFT of book- 
 binding has dur- 
 ing the last dozen 
 years been in- 
 vaded, or perhaps 
 I had better say 
 followed, by 
 several amateurs, 
 who have gained 
 for themselves 
 some distinction 
 as binders, as well 
 as calling the at- 
 tention of book- 
 lovers to the de- 
 sirability of invest- 
 ing the designs of bookbindings with individuality, instead 
 of repeating those 7/iof//s which have been used time after 
 time until all interest in them has departed. Women have 
 taken to the craft with much success, as these pages can 
 testify, and it certainly is a calling well within the compass 
 of many women who, having taste and some skill in 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 :h. 
 
 "» ■■- -. :~ 
 
 
 Fig. lo^ 
 
 Design for Binding. By the 
 Co-operative Bookbinders.
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 1 5 1 
 
 designing, will go through the apprenticeship necessary to 
 acquire the technique. 
 
 Bindings have occupied a prominent place in the shows 
 of the " Arts and Crafts " in former exhibitions, though 
 less so in the last one, and many an old binder must 
 have rubbed his eyes to assure himself that the daring 
 manner of the "tooling," as well as the prices asked for 
 " such eccentricities," were really what he saw before 
 him. " rd be an artistic bookbinder if I got such prices," 
 I think I can hear him say. Perhaps if the old binder 
 had given Ids bindings that spice of originality which 
 so staggered him in the work of the exhibitors at the 
 " Arts and Crafts," he too might have obtained increased 
 prices for his work, for people are prepared to pay for 
 originality ; it is mediocrity that comes off so poorly. 
 
 In selecting the illustrations to accompany this chapter 
 I have given representative bindings of n\ hat may be, 
 for the sake of distinction, called the old school, from 
 the library of Mr. S. A. Thompson Yates, who was kind 
 enough to lend me the books here figured, and a series of 
 bindings by Mr. Cobden-Saunderson, who is thoroughly 
 representative of the modern spirit, as well as a few others ; 
 and I have also shown the work of a local handicraft 
 class started by a lady some four years or so since, to show 
 how much may be done by reviving the art instincts 
 dormant throughout the country, and diverting this activity 
 brought into play so that it does not dissipate itself in 
 unworthy works. Other examples of the work wrought 
 under the stimulus of the Home Arts and Industries 
 Association will be found in this work. 
 
 Mr. Cobden-Saunderson's atelier is opposite the Kelm-
 
 '52 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 scott Press, where William Morris set up his printing-press 
 and produced those books, such as " Chaucer," that he 
 evidently hoped would stem the tide which, from his point 
 
 Fig. 104. 
 
 J-'Il'. iOv 
 
 Fig. 106 Fig. 107. 
 
 Fig. 104. — Impressions of Tools. Figs. 105, 106, 107. — Bindings. 
 By Mv. C. J. ColKlen-Saundeison. 
 
 of view, swept away all distinction in modern printing. It 
 is a delightful bit of old London, the Upper Mall, and a 
 refreshing contrast to that feverishly-active and blatant part
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 153 
 
 of Hammersmith adjoining, where so much effort is 
 expended in the attempt to make the pubUc beUeve they can 
 purchase two penny buns for three-ha'pence. 
 
 I take Mr. Cobden Saunderson as a representative binder 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 r>? / ^> 'v* ^ * 
 
 *^* 
 
 i-iil. loS. 
 
 l-"i^. 109. 
 
 
 l-i<'. no. 
 
 1-lL'. 111. 
 
 Figs. 108, 109, no, III. — Bin(lin<js. By Mi. C. J. Cohdcn- 
 
 .Saunderson. 
 
 because he has stepped out of the groove of tradition, has 
 impressed his individuahty upon his work in the way 
 that old Roger Payne (Hd over a century ago, and has
 
 ^54 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 brought thought and love to the craft he has chosen to 
 follow, so that the work turned out by him is the very best 
 of its kind. 
 
 Mr. Ctjbden-Saunderson's life story, so far as it concerns 
 
 
 yw«»«««g»»-i««»»»»»»M»rxx 
 
 Fi^'. 112. — Jjiiidmy. By Mr. BiiiUall, ot Xotiiii<,'lKtni. 
 
 US here, is briefly told. After being a barrister for some 
 years, he left the Bar and went for six months with Roger 
 De Coverley to learn " forwarding," working as an ordinary 
 " hand " the while. After that he opened a workshop over
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 155 
 
 Messrs. Williams and Norgate in Maiden Lane. The next 
 move was to convert his own drawing-room into an ateUer, 
 and for seven years he worked at binding books and decora- 
 ting their covers with patterns, his wife doing the sewing. 
 
 Fi^'. 113.— Biiulinj,'. By " Roger de Coverley." 
 
 In those days Cobden-Saunderson and his wife did every 
 part of the work, but some two years ago he rented 
 a house at Hammersmith, took into his employ three or 
 four workmen and a girl to do the sewing, and so established 
 the " Doves Bindery."
 
 IS6 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Bookbinding divides itself into three departments : one, 
 the sewing of the pages together securely and in such a way 
 that the book can be opened with comfort ; two, the putting 
 of the book between protective boards or covers ; and 
 three, the ornamenting of these covers with patterns. A 
 well-bound book should be practically indestructible, and 
 the sewing is, therefore, done by hand, whereas books as 
 they are issued to the public (save in a few exceptional 
 instances) are sewed by machinery, and frequently now with 
 wire instead of string. 
 
 Mr. Cobden-Saunderson is as particular about this part 
 of the work as the ornamenting of the covers, for while the 
 " tooling " is a matter entirely optional, the sewing and 
 " forwarding " is one of necessity, and a bookbinder would 
 first of all look at the " back" of a book and see how it 
 opened before he would examine its ornamentation. In 
 the days when books were {q'n they were such highly 
 cherished possessions that great attention was paid to the 
 binding and the decoration of the covers, as a glance at the 
 cases in the King's Library in the British Museum testifies. 
 These bindings must have been very costly, and it is in this 
 spirit of veneration lor books that some few among us 
 spend, what seems to those content with shilling editions 
 of the classics, an outrageous sum for binding a few of 
 their literary treasures. Such were the examples Cobden- 
 Saunderson, like other bookbinders, had before him when 
 he began. But just as the vitality of peoples dies out 
 through lack of iresh blood, so schools of design, living 
 always upon themselves, soon lack vitality, and die 
 finally of inanition ; tradition, therefore, ceases to be a 
 teaching influence.
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 157 
 
 I asked Mr. Cobden-Saunderson how he learnt design- 
 ing, and he repHed that the faculty was gradually deve- 
 loped, that he began by dividing the surface to be orna- 
 mented into spaces, and filling each space with some 
 simple motif like a trefoil. "When I got one foot planted 
 I put the other down, and so began my journey." It was 
 useless, he felt, working on old lines ; he must tread out 
 a path for himself, and that he has done so a glance 
 at this binder's work proves. All designs should have 
 a geometrical basis and should follow a well-ordered 
 plan, and that method of treating a book-cover as a 
 Japanese does a fan, does not commend itself to this mas- 
 ter binder ; for, as Mr. Cobden-Saunderson said to me, it 
 was his desire " to set himself in symmetrical harmony with, 
 the things around him." 
 
 All designs should be merely a development of the 
 simple use of the tools used, and a glance at the im- 
 pressions made by the tools on the cover (Fig. 104) will 
 explain what is meant better than many words. With 
 just these few tools endless combinations are possible, and 
 they may be considered in the same relation to book-cover 
 decoration as the notes in the scale are in music. Mr. 
 Saunderson holds that the fewer the tools used in book- 
 cover decoration the better. The skill should be exhibited 
 in the pleasing antl infinite combinations of a few motifs, 
 and if the examples of his bindings be examined, it 
 will be found that though great richness of effect is 
 obtained, the resources are few, as in the binding of the 
 book, "The Sayings of the Lord Jesus Christ '' (Fig. 105). 
 
 Some bibliophiles urge that there should be some relation 
 between the cost of the binding and the value of the book
 
 15S 
 
 THE TRAIN I XG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 itself. My friend Mr. Thompson Yates objects to binding 
 a 6s. edition of Tennyson in a jPfi binding, but in the case 
 of a rare or unique copy of a book such an expenditure on 
 the binding may be justified. Mr. Saunderson, when I 
 put this to him, said that this is a fallacy, for the value of a 
 book does not depend upon the cost of its paper and the 
 machine-printing, but upon its value as a work of genius. 
 
 mm 
 
 
 
 Fig. 1 14. - Inlaid Bindinjj. By " Roger de Coverley." 
 
 He binds a book, the best of its kind procurable, and 
 though the poems of Keats may be purchased for a few 
 shillings, there is no reason why you should not honour 
 the |)oet by binding his works at a cost of many pounds. 
 The further question of the cost of his bindings touches a 
 delicate topic, for Mr. Cobden-Saunderson"s bindings have 
 mil to as much as from J^,2q t j ^£40 per volume. Few can
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 '59 
 
 pay this price, but then few ran buy pictures or any other 
 supreme work of men's hands ; but if they who, out of 
 the margin of their incomes, hke to bind books they 
 greatly value absolutely as well as they can be bound, the 
 world is certainly the gainer, for man being, as Carlyle 
 says, a tool-using animal, nothing interests him mure than 
 
 Fi<^. 115. — l-Jiiuiing. By Fazakerley. 
 
 to see skilful craftsmanship — the perfection of hand- 
 cunning. 
 
 It seems to me worth while here 10 (juote a {fvi sentences 
 from what I may call the master binder's decalogue, for in 
 the papers contributed by Mr. Cobden-Saunderson to pjc- 
 sent-day literature are some very luminous thoughts on Art 
 crafts generally, binding in particular. 
 
 I. "A half-bound book is an tconomy, and economy is 
 in( ompatible with decoration."
 
 i6o 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 2. " We should not enshrine in a beautiful binding the 
 ephemeral productions of the moment." 
 
 3. " The beautiful book, the work of genius, the immor- 
 tal in literature, should be the exclusive object of the binder's 
 craft when heightened by the art of the decorator. The 
 
 l*i". 116.— Hair-bouiid Book. By the Co-opeiaiive Bookbinders. 
 
 decoration should be done in honour of him whose genius 
 it should be a delight to honour." 
 
 4. " Shall I ever attain to such skill, to such conscious- 
 ness of power, that I shall not even know lunu to fail?" 
 
 5. " Wholly to achieve victory in the binder's craft, to 
 forget no end in the prosecution of the means, to exaggerate 
 no feature from long practice and perfect skill, to permit
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 If) I 
 
 no craft of hand to overcome the judgment of the head, is 
 in this, as in all crafts, an exceedingly difficult task." 
 
 6. " He can ' tool,' but he cannot design ; and he has so 
 
 W€ 
 
 l-ig. 1 17. — Dc>ij,'ii for Bindiiij,'. By Mc.s-,i.s. Dent & Co. 
 
 magnified execution that when completely successful, when 
 completely triumphant, he is then most conspicuously a 
 failure ! " 
 
 M
 
 102 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 7. " What an education the prosecution of a craft is 
 for the soul of a man ! The silent matter which is the 
 craftsman's material is wholly in his hands ; it hears and 
 makes no reproaches, but it never forgives and it has no 
 mercy." 
 
 8. " Design is invention and development, and when 
 development has reached a certain point the invention is 
 exhausted, and some new departure must be taken. No 
 new departure has been taken since the three historic schools 
 closed." 
 
 9. "In the first place there must be in every design a 
 scheme or framework of distribution; the area to bs 
 covered must be covered according to some symmetrical 
 plan. The scheme or framework of distribution must 
 itself be covered by the orderly repetition and, if need be, 
 modification and development of some primary element of 
 decoration, which we may call a motif. All patterns to be 
 good must be orgmic in the relation of their details, and 
 organic in the method of their development." 
 
 10. " It is in the intention of the harmony of the universe 
 that the ideal of the work of the hand resides. It is in 
 itself an adjustment at once beautiful and serviceable. It 
 is a dedication of man's powers to an end not beyond 
 man's reach. It is in this wise that I commend to you all 
 the life of the workman, of the workman working in little 
 in the spirit of the whole." 
 
 I leave Mr. Cobden-Saunderson's work to speak for itself. 
 That he is faithful to his creed is evident by the examples 
 given, though the beauty of the tooling cannot be .shown in 
 the illustrations, only the plan of the design, 
 
 A book design may be made symbolical of the contents,
 
 BOOKBIXDERS. 163 
 
 as in the example of Mr. Birdsall of Nottingham, Fig. 1 1 2, 
 the Gothic character of the design harmonizing with Street's 
 " Gothic Architecture in Spain." 
 
 This and the examples of " Roger de Coverley " and 
 Fazakerley of Liverpool are from Mr. Thompson Yates' 
 library, and are all excellent examples of tooling, and in 
 some cases inlaying ; Fig. r 14, i.e., where parts of the design 
 have small pieces of other coloured leather let in, such inlays 
 being glued down to the covers, and tooled so as to incor- 
 porate them into the general design. But the beauty of 
 these, as of all bindings, must ho. felt to be appreciated. 
 
 The design, Fig. 117, of Messrs. Dent & Co., reminds me 
 that Mr. Dent, who kindly took me over his workshops, pro- 
 duces commercial bindings which have some distinction, as 
 the binder who tools them works out his own ideas in each 
 cover, so that no two are quite alike. The super-superior 
 person may sneer at this and carp at the result, but he 
 might remember that the majority of us cannot often 
 indulge in a ten-shilling binding, and to make the a\erage 
 binder an artist is after all the direction all effort should 
 take. By the side of this binder of Mr. Dent's was a 
 machine stitching his shilling edition of the plays of 
 Shakespeare, the covers of which are, of course, wholly 
 the product of a machine, the on'y hand-work being the 
 gluing of the covers on to each play. 
 
 Miss Bassett has kindly supplied me with examples. Fig. 
 1 18, of the leather work done by the Leighton Buzzard handi 
 craft class, which she was instrumental in starting some four 
 or five years ago. " My class was started originally with the 
 object of giving employment to a crippled child in the town. 
 There are now some s-x or seven cripples who work regu-
 
 i64 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 larly at binding and leather work. And these are paid by 
 
 Fig. ii8. — Bindings. By Miss Bassett. 
 
 the hour according to the excellence of their work. Our 
 method of tooling the leather is much the same as that
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 ■ 165 
 
 adopted in the German bindings, but our speciality is that 
 of tinting and gilding the leather after it is embossed." 
 
 From the work I have seen I judge it to be good of its 
 kind, especially as workmanship. Embossed or beaten-up 
 leather is a favourite method with Miss Bassett's craftsmen, 
 and very beautiful effects can be obtained by this means. 
 This beaten leather work, almost identical in method with 
 repousse metal-work, is being more and more employed by 
 
 Fi<j. I [9. — Printed Book-Co\er Design. Adapt, ition of natural pliin 
 form. By B. A. W'akhain. 
 
 contemporary binders, and with excellent results in many 
 cases. 
 
 A word may be said with regard to the designs for 
 ordinary cloth bindings, seeing that some of our best 
 decorative artists work for the trade binders ; for nothmg 
 is more cheering than to find it worth the while of com- 
 merce to engage the services of artists. " We have got on," 
 as Mr. Egerton IJompas said in Mr. I'inero's comedy, when 
 this is to be noted, as it may be by any one who looks at
 
 1 66 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 the bindings of books issued by our leading publishers, 
 and compares them with those of half-a-dozen years since. 
 
 The design by B. A. Waldram, Fig. 119, is one which 
 gained a prize at South Kensington, and shows consider- 
 able ingenuity in the management of intricate lines. 
 
 I may here say that I am responsible for the design of 
 the cover of this book, I aimed at a severe simplicity, for 
 the method of producing these bindings seems to suggest 
 that, but at the same time I wanted to get a direct reference 
 to nature in the design, which is suggested, as the reader 
 can see, by the Columbine (A. Crysantha). I know of few 
 things that exercise one's taste and ingenuity more than a 
 cloth-cover design. You get none of the choiceness which 
 comes of tooling, and therefore your effect must be obtained 
 in quite a different way to that of the binder, and it is better 
 therefore to steer quite away from such effects. 
 
 I cannot do better than close this chapter by giving some 
 extracts from an article on "A New Technique in Tooling," 
 contributed by Mr. D. S. MacColl to The Art Journal. 
 The writer's remarks are a distinct contribution to the 
 subject, for they not only advocate what I insist upon ^my 
 readers will say ad nauseam) —the development of the indivi- 
 duality and the breaking up of new ground instead of going 
 on tilling soil which has become sterile by over-cropping, 
 but they point with definiteness to a fresh treatment of 
 tooling, as can be seen by the specimens of the bindings 
 executed by Miss MacColl under her brother's tutelage. 
 
 " The designing of the first books led me to speculate on 
 the curious limits under which tooling has been done for 
 hundreds of years. What these limits are must be familiar 
 to many people from a number of recent books and articles
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 167 
 
 on tha subject, so that it will ba unnecessary to go into the 
 matter at length. The early type of cover decoration was 
 of a different sort. Blocks, running from a small to a 
 considerable size, and in character like the dies used to 
 stamp medals or seals, were employed to stamp a whole 
 device at one blow in a press, and to render it in raised 
 relief. The devices were symbolic, heraldic, or illustrative. 
 In the later type, surviving with many changes of style 
 to our day, instead of freely designing a block in one piece 
 to decorate his cover, the binder builds a design for each 
 book out of a number of hand tools which can be 
 re-combined. These tools impress themst^lves in sunk relief, 
 and the impression is frequently gilded. They divide up 
 into four sorts : — 
 
 1. The Wheels or 'Fillets.'' — These wheels are employed 
 to draw the straight lines bounding the cover or framing 
 smaller panels. 
 
 2. Ilie Curves or ' Gouges^ — For every curved line, on 
 the other hand, and for every separate length of curved 
 line, as well as for short straight lines, an individual tool 
 is cut out. 
 
 3. Tlie Stamps. — These are small tools cut into the form 
 of spirals, leaves, flowers, dots, stars, and any other shapes 
 required in addition to curved and straight lines. 
 
 4. Rolls and Pallets are wheels and segments on which is 
 impressed a running recurring pattern. 
 
 The different styles of the bookbinders have differed 
 considerably in the importance of the part assigned to each 
 class of tool. Some have preferred lines straight and 
 curved, others have mingled lines and stamps in elaborate 
 design, others have "powdered" their surfaces with stamps
 
 ir,8 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 or grouped them in tiny lace-work patterning, The old 
 
 Fig. 120.— MacColl binding for '■ Grass of Parnassus." 
 By Andrew Lang. 
 
 press-blocks or "plaques" have frctiuently been revived in
 
 BOOA'B/XDERS. 
 
 169 
 
 combination \v\t\\ the new tooling. The only accepted 
 technique permitting some freedom of drawing with the 
 stock tools has been the marking out of forms witli a dot. 
 
 I*"ig. 121.— MacColl binding' to a cojiy of W. ]I. I'alci's " The 
 
 Renaissance." 
 
 It is sometimes argued that this technical tradition in the 
 matter of tools imposes a valuable check on the laste
 
 I70 THE 7 RAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 with which designs are made — affects them with a certain 
 restraint and control. The argument, I fear, is doubly- 
 fallacious. A man without taste can produce results as 
 horrible with a few lines and curves as if he had all the 
 forms in the world to choose from. But the supposed check 
 is really no check at all. The only limit is the number of 
 curves and stamps that a binder chooses or can afford to 
 have cut for each book, and a survey of modern binding 
 will show how absolutely without influence on style is this 
 tradition of technique. It is true, of course, that there is 
 something amusing in the attempt to obtain numerous 
 combinations out of an arbitrarily limited set of forms : 
 this ingenious and acrobatic side of design has its fascina- 
 tion. But where taste and ingenuity are wanting, nothing 
 will come of a negative check but a geometrical re-shuffling : 
 where these qualities are present they can be safely left to 
 determine their own limits, and will determine them with 
 an inherent severity much stricter than any arbitrarily im- 
 posed. 
 
 Is there, then, any point at which this tradition of tool- 
 making might be relaxed with advantage, so as to allow the 
 decorator to arrive more easily at results he already makes 
 shift to reach in spite of it ? There is surely one such very 
 obvious modification. Already, in drawing straight lines, 
 the binder employs a tool, namely, the wheel, which might 
 with eq'ial reason be employed in drawing curves. This 
 tool is in the binder's hands ; there would appear to be 
 something superstitious in objecting to its extended use. 
 The advantages of its use may be summarised as economy 
 of means with variety of effect. Thus : — 
 
 I. All the curves already produced by rigid tools can be
 
 BOOKDIXDERS. 171 
 
 executed by a wheel, and even many of the smaller forms 
 for which stamps are commonly cut. 
 
 2. In practice, when a binder does not have tools 
 specially cut to carry out a design, but re-combines a set of 
 stock tools, the curves he employs are the simpler and 
 stricter curves, chiefly segments of circles of various radii. 
 To get anything near the play and delicacy of curvature 
 that a draughtsman would naturally introduce into a line 
 design, the stock of segment curves would have to be 
 enormous, both in variety of length and of radius ; nor 
 would there appear to be any reason in the nature of things 
 why the curves on a book-cover must be of this segmentary 
 character. The wheel, a single tool, displaces all this 
 apparatus, and allows of delicacies of inflection beyond 
 what the largest stock of fixed curves could execute. In 
 fact, it puts a pencil into the hand of the book-decorator, 
 a natural counterpart of the tool used by the designer. 
 The economy of means may be illustrated from Fig. 121, the 
 design for Mr. Pater's "Renaissance," The curved stem- 
 lines in these instances, simple as they are, do not fall 
 among the segmental curves usually supplied to the 
 bDokbinder, and had, therefore, to 1)2 expressly cut for the 
 purpose. With the wheel th-^se lines can be readily drawn. 
 An examination of the remaining designs will show how 
 much ease and freedom of curvature are possible in this 
 new technique. Thus the lines of the peacock's tail could 
 be readily reproduced without any anxious fitting of stock 
 curves to the lines, or the making of new tools expressly to 
 render them. The wheels, it should be explained, which 
 are employed in straight-line drawing have a diameter of 
 several inches, a convenience when a long line has to be
 
 172 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 drawn, and also because equable pressure comes more easily 
 with a heavier tool, and heat is retained longer by a larger 
 tool. But these large wheels could not turn within a small 
 angle, and our innovation consisted in having a small wheel 
 constructed with a diameter less than that of a threepenny 
 piece. With this all but very sharp turns are possible, and 
 these can be managed with the additional resource of 
 few links and joints. With this apparatus, as a reference 
 to the designs will show, it is possible to execute forms of 
 considerable intricacy, though we have not, in these illus- 
 trations, by any means pressed its powers to their limits. 
 The use of the wheel, it should be added, calls for a 
 certain power of drawing in its handler, in the sense of 
 being able to follow a line, freehand, with swing and 
 nicety. 
 
 The tradition of design in bookbinding is only at certain 
 l^oints respectable, the amount of original talent devoted 
 to it having been small. Now, the governing considerations 
 that make a design fundamentally good or bad are, in 
 binding as in other arts, not the elegance of this or that 
 detail, but the plan and scale of the whole design and 
 the logical beauty with which the parts are compacted or 
 grow from one another. The plan of having a number of 
 stock tools mechanically re-combined frequently defeats the 
 operation of such a sense, since a series of curves and of 
 details cut for one size of cover will seldom fit another. 
 The real " limits " of design for bindings are severe enough. 
 The planning should be governed by the fact that not only 
 the spaces of the two sides must be considered, but also 
 the six panels into which the back is divided by its bands, 
 or, if there are no bands, the single slim panel of the
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 Fig. 122. — MacColl binding of Catalogue of the Aits ami Cial'ls 
 Exhibition, 18.S9. Peacock and Fountain. 
 
 back. The breadth of the back should affect throiigliout 
 the scale of ornament.
 
 174 THE TRAINING OF A CRAF2SMAN. 
 
 A further complication enters with the title. If a title is 
 put on the back, the scale of lettering adopted in it deter- 
 mines the scale of ornament throughout. This is the real 
 crux of bookbinders' designing, and it is obvious how often 
 designers evade it by attempting no relation between the 
 scale of ornament on the back and on the sides. But if 
 there are bands on the back, as must inevitably be the case 
 in the best flexible work, design is still more strictly condi- 
 tioned. The panels thus formed at once become the 
 necessary unit of scale in breaking up the sides. More 
 strictly the unit is an im<igined common measure of back- 
 panel and sides. The designer does not, of course, 
 geometrically woik this out, but it is the sense of this 
 relation that determines him in the proportion and placing 
 of his masses and details, and a lettered panel limits the 
 design very completely indeed. 
 
 Starting from this fact of the panels on the back, the 
 designer may actually carry the lines of the bands across 
 the sides, as in " Grass of Parnassus," or he may not ; 
 but he must throughout give to these lines an imaginary 
 extension in placing the design upon the sides, and if he 
 puts a title on the cover, this must be considered in its 
 scale and place together with that on the back. 
 
 Many treatments of the covers are possible. Each may 
 be considered as one large panel — " Catalogue of the Arts 
 and Crafts Exhibition," Fig. 122, or broken up in various 
 ways into smaller panels^" Grass of Parnassus," Fig. 120, 
 or both taken together as one panel crossed by the back — 
 "The Golden Hind," Fig. 123. In this last case a design 
 may be thrown across the two covers, but each part must be 
 to some extent self-sufficient, since the whole is rarely seen
 
 BOOKBINDERS. 
 
 '/3 
 
 at one time. In connection with this particular application, 
 it may be added that the treatment of book designs will 
 
 
 o 
 
 differ a good deal according to the way in which a book is 
 regarded — whether as put on a shelf with other books and
 
 175 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 exposing its back, or laid on a table and exposing its side, 
 or most reasonably, perhaps, as something turned about in 
 the hands. 
 
 A favourite plan in designing for book-covers, as for the 
 decoration of the printed page, is to plan a border with 
 a design that runs round. It is a plan seldom satisfactorily- 
 carried out, not only from the difficulty of turning the 
 corner — a difficulty more often cut mechanically than 
 solved — but because a design that turns a second corner is 
 almost necessarily broken -backed in effect. An ideal law 
 of growth or motion controls ramified or wave design even 
 when least naturalistic in its forms. A design returning 
 into itself is more satisfactory on a circular plan than on 
 one that is right-angled. 
 
 It may be added, in this connection, that when a highly 
 abstract or conventionalised ramification is introduced, a 
 displeasing effect will result from giving those branches 
 naturalistic leaves or flowers. It is for this reason we feel 
 uncomfortable when in certain designs attributed to the 
 Eves, and much imitated, we find little leaves tied on at 
 intervals to a rigid segmental form. It is better to follow 
 in the path of the best Gothic designers, who gave a pillar- 
 tr( e pillar-leaves that the ingenious have in vain tried to 
 identify with any one plant. So should the book-tree ha\e 
 book-lea\es and flowers at an equal remove from nature 
 with its stem.''
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WOMEN WORKERS IN THE ART CRAFTS. 
 
 AN for the field and woman for the hearth, Man 
 for the sword and for the needle she," requires, 
 so far as the last statement is concerned, a 
 very liberal interpretation, the word " needle " having to 
 symbolise tools in general. For women are doing most 
 excellent work in the Art crafts ; so excellent, indeed, that 
 it occurs to me it would be wiser if many who are now 
 trying to win positions as painters and sculptors were to 
 direct their energies and abilities into the less ambitious 
 groove of applied art ; success of a quite satisfactory kind 
 might be theirs. 
 
 When I was trained as a glass painter, I do not remember 
 any woman who had won a reputation as a painter of 
 church windows, though some few were employed as 
 " tracers." Miss Mary Lowndes, who has a studio at 
 Chelsea, is doing some excellent glass, and I was glad of 
 the opportunity which a visit to her, at Messrs. 15ritten and 
 Gilson's, where she paints her windows, aft'orded me of 
 seeing the glass she uses in her work. This make of glass 
 was the suggestion of Mr. Edward Prior. It is dull on one 
 side, and, instead of being rolled or blown, is nioulded in
 
 178 THE TRAJXIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 small pieces, and varies considerably in thickness, from 
 half-inch to one-eighth. The glass has somewhat the effect 
 that cutting gives a gem, and is exceedingly brilliant ; while, 
 at the same time, it cannot be seen throusrh. This thickness 
 
 l"i<;. 12^. — Window. B}- Mary Lowndes. 
 
 gives a Avindow made up of it a substance and quality not 
 obtainable when the ordinary thin glass is employed. It is 
 obvious that glass of great beauty in itself should have as 
 little painting put upon it as possible, for all paint applied 
 to glass tends to destroy its brilliance. 
 
 Miss Lowndts, in fact, keeps her painting almost entirely
 
 TVOJ/E.V WORKERS IN THE ART CRAFTS. 179 
 
 \l 
 
 1" ij,'. 125. — Lhuicli ot Uio Holy Innocents, Laniarsh. 
 By Mary l.owndcs. 
 
 [Owinjf to length of block it has h;ij to bo divided.]
 
 i8o THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 to the subject portions of her window, and gets much of her 
 effect by the distribution of the leads and the selection and 
 arrangement of tlie colour. The glass itself is much more 
 costly than the ordinary makes, and the leading of it again 
 is troublesome, so cheap work is not possible. But in a 
 Avindow which, unless accident befalls it, may live through 
 the ages to come, cheapness should surely not be the first 
 consideration. People will willingly give hundreds for a 
 canvas painted by a popular artist, and yet the same folk 
 expect a window, much more costly to produce than a 
 picture, to be made for a few pounds. 
 
 Miss Lowndes worked for some little time with Mr, Holi- 
 day at cartoon-making; but as regards the technique of 
 glass painting, she is self-taught, Mr. Christopher Whall 
 has not been without his influence upon Miss Lowndes, 
 and she speaks with the enthusiasm of a pupil about him. 
 Miss Lowndes relies upon her drawings from the model in 
 her cartoons, but as the actual painting of the glass is done 
 by her, the necessity of making elaborate cartoons does not 
 exist. Nothing is left to the glazier but the cutting and 
 leading, as the artist selects each piece of glass used in 
 making a window ; and this ought always to be the case 
 in the flesh and important parts of the drapery. Flesh 
 painting on glass is too often of the most ignorant kind, 
 the work of mechanics with neither feeling nor knowledge 
 to give charm or quality to their work. How many women 
 with a considerable amount of academic knowledge, which 
 comes of good training, might take up glass painting and 
 achieve success, that is denied them in the more am- 
 bitious fields of painting and sculpture ! Some technical 
 training would be necessary, but this would soon be
 
 WOMEN WORKERS IN THE ART CRAFTS. i.Si 
 
 acquired by one with the training of an art student to start 
 with. 
 
 Miss Mary Nevill, who works at Edgbaston, Birmingham, 
 is also winning a reputation as a designer of painted glass. 
 From the design reproduced (Fig. 126), Miss Nevill is evi- 
 dently influenced by Burne- Jones and Morris. We are all 
 conscious or unconscious imitators, for what is more natural 
 than to seek to get into our own work the qualities we admire 
 in others ? We must first be level with the knowledge of 
 our time, and then we can march forward into the unknown, 
 where only our perception is our guide. Glass painting 
 owes much to Burne-Jones and Morris, just as they owed 
 much to Madox Browne, but I must say here, as I have 
 said before, that the student's personality must make its 
 way through all influences, as the pupa does through its 
 cocoon, if you would soar into the world of Art. So much 
 Art, especially of a decorative nature, is just now too much 
 a reflection, instead of a lamp shining forth with what 
 strength it may to lighten our darkness. The Birmingham 
 Guild of Handicraft I have elsewhere alluded to, but it is 
 a healthy sign that such a purely manufacturing town 
 as Birmmgham is doing something to get a little other 
 influence than the purely commercial into what is being 
 done there in the way of craftsmanship. 
 
 There is a growing demand for artistic metal-work. 
 People are no longer satisfied with the stock patterns in 
 gas-fittings, electric-light holders, and lamps, but desire 
 something which is not to be seen in every house in the 
 neighbourhood. Miss Esther Moore, whose studio is at 
 Bedford Park, has turned her attention to applied design, and 
 her electric-light holder (Fig. 127) is a specimen of her work
 
 I»2 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 in this direction. The panel in low relief (Fig. i28\ one of 
 three for a pianoforte front, has a tender gracefulness suital:)le 
 to the purpose. Miss Moore has in it given play to her 
 
 fancy, and the dispo- 
 sition of curves filling 
 out the panel and 
 supporting the figure 
 are skilfully and 
 pleasantly studied. 
 She roughly models 
 the work in wax, then 
 has it cast in plaster, 
 which is then tooled 
 up and finished : an 
 excellent plan where 
 delicacy is required, as 
 plaster can be carved 
 and brought to a high 
 degree of finish. A 
 mould is then made 
 from the plaster, and 
 a casting taken in sil- 
 ver or bronze. 
 
 What a field there 
 is before the student 
 who has had a train- 
 
 l-ig. 120. — Window. By Mary JNeviil. 
 
 ing 
 
 in modelling! 
 
 Instead of waiting for 
 
 the elderly gentleman to come along, with nicely trimmed 
 whiskers or curling beard (and probably retreating hair), to 
 have his bust modelled, let the student do some original work
 
 I 
 
 WOMEN WORKERS IX THE ART CRAFTS. 
 
 ^H 
 
 in metal, if it be only a lock plate, like that of Miss Florence 
 Steel's (Fig. 129), and I feel sure there is a world ready to 
 patronise her. For the last few years excellent metal-work, 
 
 Fig. 127. — Electric- Litjht Holder. V>\ Kstlur .\r. Moore. 
 
 as these pages attest, has been produced in many directions, 
 and there is a large public capable antl ready to patronise 
 an original worker in metal.
 
 184 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 At the Arts and Crafts Exliibitions some good book- 
 binding has been shown, the work of women. As the 
 sewing of books is always done by them, there is no reason 
 why the " forwarding " should be left to men. Leather 
 work would appear to be a craft in which women might do 
 
 very excellent work. 
 
 I am able to give an 
 example of one of Miss 
 Birkenruth's bindings 
 (Fig. 132); and in an- 
 other chapter may be 
 seen specimens of bind- 
 ings by Miss MacColI. 
 
 Repousse leather 
 might be more exten- 
 sively employed on 
 book-covers than it is, 
 for the effects obtain- 
 able are rich and not 
 out of place, provided 
 that too much relief is 
 not given to any portion 
 
 / 
 
 ^># 
 
 h*'**^. 
 
 of the design. Some 
 
 Fij^. [2.S. — I'aiKl 111 J las-relief. 
 Ksther M. Moore. 
 
 specimens of work of 
 this character of the 
 fifteenth century I have seen show what can be done with 
 repousse' leather when skilful hands are directed by a 
 trained imagination. 
 
 The School of Wood-carving has a woman for its mana- 
 ger, and has two assistant teachers — a book-cover by one 
 of them (Fig. 130), Miss M. E Reeks, being given. A great
 
 WOMEN WORKERS IN THE ART CRAFTS. 185 
 
 many of the pupils who go to the school for instruction are 
 women, and wood-carving appears to be popular with lady 
 amateurs. Miss M. Hussey, of Salisbury, who has exhibited 
 some quite original carved frames at the Arts and Crafts, 
 has allowed me to reproduce a specimen of her work (Fig. 
 131). It has the great merit of gaining distinction by its 
 original treatment, which is more than can be said of a good 
 deal of the wood-carving that one sees ; and it is this indi- 
 viduality — I must apologise for having to use the word so 
 often — which is such an encouraging sign among the younger 
 craftsmen whose work I have been privileged to inspect 
 during the writing of this book. 
 
 Women's work is accused of its want of character and its 
 tendency to pettiness, which comes of smallness of vision. 
 I am not here posing as the superior critic, but I question 
 whether, considering the disadvantages so many women 
 workers in Art labour under, and how much less thorough 
 is the training so many of them receive compared to men, 
 their work is so far below the male standard as some critics 
 infer. I do think, however, that if women are to do them- 
 selves justice, they should try to obtain a more thorough 
 training than they are inclined to be content with, for if 
 they take a craft up as the business of their life, they mu:-t 
 not fall back upon their sex as an excuse for technical 
 deficiencies. From some experience, I can say that women 
 think too often that a course of lessons is going to enable 
 them to rush full-blown into workers, yet when it comes to 
 it women are more patient, painstaking, and even drudging 
 than men ; and these qualities ought to carry them far in 
 the crafts. 
 
 The carving and decorating of frames might receive
 
 1 86 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 much more attention at the hands of craftswomen than has 
 
 been the case. Many painters 
 would, I feel sure, be willing to 
 fay for original frames, if they 
 knew where to go for them, 
 instead of putting up with the 
 composition ones which are so 
 generally used. But 
 a woman would have 
 to be prepared to 
 work for a time with 
 some want of patron- 
 age until she had won 
 for herself a clientele 
 by the excellence of 
 her craftsmanship and 
 the originality of her 
 designs. From some experience 
 I am led to say that women 
 expect too much at the outset. I 
 have known amateurs who expect 
 in half-a-dozen lessons to become 
 fully equipped to follow a craft, 
 and make a good living out of it ; 
 whereas a moments reflection 
 ought to convince them that 
 much practice, as well as study, 
 goes to the making of a crafts- 
 Fiy 129.— Lock Plate. man, and distinction, and with it 
 
 florcncc Steele • 
 
 monetaiy success, is only won 
 after a considerable output of energy, the exhibition of much
 
 U'OMEX WORKERS IN THE ART CRAFTS. 187 
 
 patience, and a considerable belief in one's self. One's 
 hopes are high, I know, at the outset, and waiting is 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 V 
 
 i f 
 
 
 '•''V I if^iiLls ^.il-l^'^'l; 
 
 
 
 
 ^'.n^ 
 
 •>^! 
 
 II 
 
 i ■! 
 
 Fig. I jo. — A Presentation Book-Cover. Designed and Carved 
 
 M. E. Reeks. 
 
 weary work ; but 1, Avho have gone through all this, can tell 
 you that you should only be " baffled to fight harder," nor 
 " dream that right, though worsted, wrong will triumph."
 
 i88 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Then, again, one cannot ignore what is known as the 
 business side of Art, especially in Art that is applied, say, 
 to the furnishing of a house ; and here I fear that women 
 allow themselves to be beaten by an unthinking disregard 
 
 J"'U- '3'' — Carved Frame. By M. Hus.sey. 
 
 of such small considerations as punctuality, price, and pur- 
 pose. It has been said that there is no sentiment in busi- 
 ness, and craftswomen would do well to remember this, 
 especially in dealing with firms who only view the crafts as 
 
 V
 
 WOMEN WORKERS IN THE ART CRAFTS. 1S9 
 
 they would any other commodity. The experience of all 
 women workers I have spoken to points to this, that, 
 
 ;f ,♦:;■»' -. mt^. 
 
 ,Vi 
 
 
 ,:Mmx ■ 
 
 
 wmm^^>^ ^' 
 
 m^. 
 
 W". 
 
 "i-^ J 
 
 m^'^ 
 
 f:W:-:::w. .^^'"..y- 
 
 ^^/^ 
 
 '(/ W'AM 
 
 
 /•- // 
 
 Fi<,'. 132.— Binding. By Miss Birkenruth. 
 
 granting an ordinary School of Art training, it is necessary 
 to build your craftsmanship upon that in order to acquire
 
 I90 THE TRAIN I XG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 the necessary technique, and during this second probation 
 
 
 o 
 
 1) 
 C 
 
 p 
 
 
 J) 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 
 
 you must keep a li^ht as well as a stout heart. Those who 
 have from the outset only trained themselves in the practice
 
 WOMEN WORKERS IX THE ART CRAETS. igr 
 
 of a particular craft, must remember that if they are only 
 finger machines a corresponding small measure of success is 
 for tliem : they can never inherit the land that might be theirs 
 were they more fully equipped. Drawing from nature, both 
 from plants and the figure, should run parallel with technical 
 instruction, for you cannot have too varied a training ; and 
 change of work as well as study keeps the mind [)]iant and 
 fresh, and your hands will do things undreamed of by the 
 mechanic, and astonishing to yourself. 
 
 I shall finish this chapter with a word of praise for the 
 excellent way women have organized classes in craftsmanship 
 in country places. This movemeat, with its small begin- 
 nings, is, I believe, the one that will restore Art to our 
 industries and make our ];eople once again cunning workers. 
 The annual exhibition at the Albert Hall of the Home Arts 
 and Industries Association enables us to measure what is 
 being done, and I am glad lo be able to give in this book 
 two or three specimens of work \vi ought under the siimulus 
 of this association.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 SURFACE DECORATION. 
 
 N the brief survey we have taken of some of the 
 prominent Art crafts, I have not had occasion to 
 say much about design in the abstract, partly 
 because, as I hold, that design and craftsmanship are in- 
 separable, and partly because design cannot be taught. 
 But it would appear an oversight to ignore altogether Sur- 
 face Decoration, so this chapter will consist in the main of 
 notes written to accompany some examples of surface decora- 
 tion I have selected from the pages of The Art Journal. 
 
 The screen, Fig. 134, by Sir E. Burne-Jones, is a good 
 example of the painter's method as applied to decoration. 
 One can see the influence of glass painting in the way the 
 forms are shaped, as though a lead line had to come around 
 them — indeed, I believe this screen is adapted from a 
 design made originally for glass. The painter of a picture 
 has to study "values" and surfaces as well as how to 
 brush on the colour, but the decorator has to think of 
 every part of his design as an agreeable shape, fitting in 
 each portion with ingenuity and, at the same time, with 
 an eye to the whole effect. The flames, for instance, 
 are not the representation of a particular flash of light, 
 but are evolved from the painter's inner consciousness,
 
 SURFACE DECORATION, 
 
 \q: 
 
 tlie forms being conditioned to a large extent by tlie 
 spaces occupied by them. The painter deals with repre- 
 
 Fig. 134.— Screen. By Sir K. Burne- Jones. 
 
 sentation, the designer with construction; yet there must be 
 truthfulness so that the work may be convincing, and this 
 can only come of the study of actual flames, so that the 
 
 o
 
 194 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 lines of his design may be suggested by the hues actual 
 flames give — the result of observation. A decoration 
 should be just as truthful, so far as observation and know- 
 ledge goes, as a picture, but it cannot be independent of 
 all else as the work within a frame can. 
 
 Burne-Jones is described by a certain class of critics as 
 a decorative painter, but the term is a question-begging 
 -phrase at best. How far painting can be carried in an 
 imitative or deceive the-eye direction is one I shall make no 
 effort to decide. There are they who hold that all pictures 
 are merely decorations, and that it is better to make no 
 attempt at imitating surfaces or objects, seeing that " the 
 best of these are but shadows." 
 
 The decorator is generally called upon to do a good deal 
 of work for the money expended — to cover a much larger 
 surface for much less money than the painter of pictures, 
 and it behoves him, therefore, to study economy of means ; 
 but this does not excuse bad work — bad, that is, in drawing 
 and colouring, in adaptation or arrangement. A decoration 
 should be just as good on its own lines as a picture, whereas 
 the idea seems to be held that a bad picture may be a good 
 decoration : the work the art gallery rejects may become 
 the success of the workshop ; a wholly false belief, of 
 course. 
 
 The shutter, Fig. 135, by Mr. Whistler, is a portion of the 
 celebrated peacock room decorated for the late Mr. Leyland. 
 It is a most admirable example of painted decoration because 
 there is no false attempt made at giving a realistic rendering 
 of the birds, such as a skilful handler of the brush like 
 Mr. Whistler could have given, but a constructed design in 
 which the lines are most skilfully and gracefully placed.
 
 ^■'«- 1J5— ''iHiUcr. ijy J. McXcill Whi.ilcr,
 
 196 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Mr. Whistler owes something to his study of Japanese art, 
 as he would be the tirst to acknowledge, and the student 
 could put himself under no better influence for a while than 
 the best Japanese art. A study of their Kakemonos, or 
 hanging wall pictures, is specially to be commended. Their 
 knowledge of plant and animal form is what a constant and 
 faithful study of naiure alone can give, and the refinement 
 of their rendering of natural forms, the power of selection, 
 their skill in placing and occupying the space gives Japanese 
 work an iini(]iieness, which made decoration, a few years 
 
 
 Fig. 13b. — Ship Frieze. For Mural Decoration. By ^I. A\'atson. 
 (South Kensington Schools.) 
 
 ago, take a Japanese turn ; and the good that a study of 
 their work would have done English designers was to a 
 great extent nullified by an attempt at copying their work, 
 a proceeding as foolish as it was impossible. 
 
 The question of how far surface decoration may be 
 naturalesque depends upon the method of reproduction, and 
 the purpose to which the decoration is to be put as well as 
 the time that can be given to it. 
 
 A design to be inlaid would obviously have to be simpler 
 in treatment than if it were to be painted, and then again 
 were the painting on the panel, say of a cabinet, it might be
 
 SURFACE DECORATIOX. jc)7 
 
 carried much further than if you were decorating, say, a 
 pianoforte top, an excellent specimen of which I remember 
 seeing years ago, by Morris, in which the wood was painted 
 white, and an all-over arrangement of foliage was disposed 
 in quiet, low-toned colours. It has always seemed to me 
 better to be frankly decorative than weakly naturalistic: 
 say the forms emphasised by an outline and complicated 
 foreshortening, and light and shade avoided. Not that there 
 is any necessity why decoration should be outlined, as at 
 one time was the vogue (decorative work ///efi always 
 implied an outline), but it is better to do this if by so doing 
 you bring your work within the limits of the price to be 
 paid for it. It should be (juite excellent within the limits 
 imposed upon it, whereas if a more subtle or pictorial class of 
 work were attempted the fulfilment might then do no more 
 than suggest how insufficient it is, because the standard set 
 is outside the reach either of the worker or his opportunities. 
 A good piece of simple decoration in which the conditions, 
 whatever they may be, are frankly accepted, is of more 
 value artistically and commercially than an inadequate 
 picture. Ai)ait from these considerations a decoration 
 should possess a certain ingenuity of construction or arrange- 
 ment — design, in other words, which is not demanded of 
 the painter of easel ])ictures. Not that a picture does not 
 need arrangement, Init it is of a less obvious nature than a 
 decoration which has to make much of the main lines 
 of the design, for good decoration should always suggest 
 " the being fitted for a place and subordinated to a pur- 
 pose." 
 
 Tlie ship frieze, Fig. 136, is a good instance of what 
 is termed decorative adaptation. The artist does not
 
 198 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 trespass upon the painter's ground, 
 
 Fig. 137. — ivakcinunu. .St)»cn. 
 
 but is content to find a 
 foothold for himself in 
 another field. 
 
 The Japanese have 
 
 been termed born 
 
 decorators, though this 
 
 is another misleading 
 
 or question - begging 
 
 phrase. What is meant 
 
 presumably is that they 
 
 do not attempt realistic 
 
 representations of 
 
 nature, which, to some 
 
 extent, deceive the 
 
 eye, as the bunch of 
 
 grapes in the Greek 
 
 story which even took 
 
 in the birds, they 
 
 were so " real." The 
 
 lacquered box. Fig. 
 
 138, is "decorated " 
 
 in the best sense. A 
 
 Jap is very dexterous 
 
 in pencilling what he 
 
 sees — witness their 
 
 plant and bird studies 
 
 in water-colour — but 
 
 he is, when he comes 
 
 to occupy a space, as 
 
 much concerned with 
 
 an agreeable disposal
 
 SURFACE DECORA! lOX. 
 
 109 
 
 of his olijects as in rendering tlie objects themselves. This 
 is well illustrated in Fig. 737, where there is a lot of space 
 lefc plain, and yet the whole panel satisfies the eye, so skil- 
 fully are the monkeys and foliage dispos-d. A space may 
 be occupied as in this Kakemono, or filled or covered, and 
 it is in the former treatment that the Japs excel. 
 
 A brush in the hands of a J^ip is a most sensitive and 
 
 Fig. 138. — Lacquered Box. Mitklle Period of Ivorin. 
 
 expressive tool. Ey starting with the tip and ])utt'ng 
 gradual pressure upon it so that it swells out, a Jap makes 
 it discharge its colour^ at the same time jfUtting in a leaf or 
 petal or whatever the object is he is rendering. This power 
 of brush work stands him in excellent stead when it c;omes 
 to decorating a screen or wall picture, as he is able to woik 
 effectively as well as rapid))-. Tlie student would do well to
 
 200 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 get into the way of putting in forms from nature by the use 
 of skiluil brush work as a Jap does. Rapid work, which 
 comes of skill and knowlediie. is always more admirable 
 than laboured, painstaking effects, and the decorator should 
 cultivate skill in brush work a la Japonaisc. 
 
 A Japanese designer delights in angles, and is most skilful 
 in the disposal of them in a design. The lines taken by 
 the trunk, stems, and sprays have a nervjiis quality about 
 them which escapes analysis, yet they are always suggested 
 by nature. Thi good a study of Japanese painting vv'ould 
 do a student is teaching him what to look for in nature. 
 Half the training of an artist is to the end to teach him io 
 see, and this is where the study of other men's work may be 
 so beneficial. 
 
 Mr. Heywood Sumner has, one might say, made "sgraf- 
 fito" his own. It is a method of covering a dark cemented 
 surface with a light one, the design being produced by 
 scraping away the upper surface while wet so as to reveal the 
 under one. It is both a permanent and effective form of out- 
 side decorati')n. A certain simplicity is necessary where all 
 forms have to be rendered with a hard definite outline. 
 The example of "The Adoration of the Magi," Fig. 139, 
 gives a good idea of how and what can be done, the utmost 
 use being maile of the means at command, with no foolish 
 attempt to strive for too much, or step outside the limits 
 of the craft. To fit the design to the page the block has 
 liad to be cut and the centre portion placed below the two 
 side panels. 
 
 In needL'work we have two good examples, shown 
 recently at the Exhibition of the Home Arts and Industries 
 Association at the Albert Hall : Hasleiiicre, by Mrs. God-
 
 3 
 
 r. 
 
 re 
 
 f r JiK---«g^
 
 202 THE TRAIMKG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 frey Blount, Fig. 140, and the Portiere by Messrs. T. Hanis 
 & Sons (Fig. 142). 
 
 Applique is always effective in needlework, and when bold 
 in treatment, as in the present example, is both a quick and 
 telling way of decorating a textile. Great restraint must be 
 observed by the worker to avoid the disposition of attempt- 
 ing too much instead of frankly recognising and accepting 
 the conditions the craft imposes on one. This is admirably 
 observed in the example, and at a casual glance appears 
 simple enough to effect, but from some experience I can 
 vouch to the contrary. To keep one's work elemental and 
 independent of what is merely adventitious requires genius, 
 so rare is it. 
 
 The portiere was embroidered in flax on linen woven at 
 the Cockermouth Mills. Flax is a most lustrous material to 
 use with the needle, and for bold work and large designs is 
 to be preferred to silk. I have seen exhibited at the 
 Donegal Industrial Fund, some excellent embroideries in 
 flax on serge of Keltic design made by the Donegal peasan- 
 try in which bold patterns in outline, almost coarsely 
 worked, were employed with considerable effect for such 
 articles as curtains — so much needlework has only the 
 merit of enormous labour to give it value. It is like the 
 weight of metal making plate valuable, and is, therefoie, 
 not doing the best with the craft. 
 
 Those who are called upon to design for needlework 
 would do well to study good old work. The revival in this 
 ait some years ago produced an immense output, but little 
 of it will be handed on to a future generation because of its 
 Art value. I plead guilty, like many another designer, to 
 giving transcripts of nature instead of designs founded upon
 
 SURFA CE DE CORA TION. 
 
 203 
 
 a study of nature, in which an original, skilful, and agreeable 
 disposition of the main lines of the design was the first con- 
 sideration, and the clothing of these lines appropriately the 
 next. There is a long remove between a study of a par- 
 
 Fi<,'. 140. — The Purple Shi]-). F.xamplc of Ap|)li(iuc Tai)estiy 
 
 (Haslemere). 
 
 ticular portion of a particular plant and a design founded 
 upon the same. 
 
 A certain severe simplicity should, I think, be seen in 
 needlework, and 1 would say that ([uaintness is to be i^re- 
 ferred to r aturalness, as the tuither you get away from the
 
 20 t 
 
 HIE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Fig. 141. — One of the Painted Panels from the Screen in 
 Ranworth Chmcli, Norfolk.
 
 5 L 'R FA CE DE COR A TION. 
 
 205 
 
 mere transcript of nature the more you ha\e to depenrl 
 upon yourself, and the more chance is there, therefore, of 
 expressing your indi\-iduaHty. A design is a work of the 
 imagination as much as a poem or theme in music i>. and 
 
 ,• f^ 
 
 
 ^^>M^-pWd 
 
 
 
 j;2^Jj^ 
 
 Fig. 142. — Portiere in Ilariis Line. Embroidered in Fla\. 
 
 that being so, nature is ordy the stimulus— the A. B. C. It 
 is you who have to do the rest ; put the A, B, C. into 
 words, and the words into sentences which shall fall with an 
 agreeable cadence on the ear and .'■peak at the same time to 
 the heart. 
 
 I am glad to be able to give a sketch (Fig. 141) of one 
 of the panels in the screen in Ranworth Church, which 1 
 made some few years since when on the Ih'oatls. it is an 
 excellent specimen of decoration, being full of "design."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DECORATION IN RELIEF. 
 
 ESSO and modelled plaster are very useful adjuncts 
 to painted decoration. All decoration is the skilful 
 and appropriate breaking up of a surface, and 
 modelled work breaks up decoration by giving accent and 
 focussing the interest at certain well-chosen intervals. Gesso 
 might be termed modelled painting, for the whitening and 
 glue which really constitutes gesso can be applied to the 
 wood by brushes, for it is to give an impasto effect to painted 
 decoration, and not to imitate modelling that gesso should 
 be employed. I remember seeing a grand pianoforte case of 
 painted wood which was decorated with an all-over foliage 
 design painted on in simple tones ; some of the leaves and 
 the berries were in gesso, and the effect was most pleasing. 
 The slight accent given to the painted decoration by the 
 portions in relief was of great help to the general effect. 
 
 Decoration in modelled plaster occupied a prominent 
 place in the last Arts and Ciafts show, and no one has car- 
 ried this style of work further than Mr. George Frampton, 
 A.R.A. His refined style and originality are shown to 
 great advantage in his work in low relief, whether it be in 
 the silver panels he executed for Mr. Astor, or in the
 
 DECORATION IN RELIEF. 207 
 
 decoration of the frieze in his own drawing-room, which he 
 
 Fig. 143. — Portion of I)ra\vin<^ Kooni desiigned by George 
 P'rampton, A.R.A. 
 
 has allowed me to reproduce. He is a great ad\ocate of
 
 208 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTS'MAN. 
 
 Fig. 144. — Sketch Design for proposed Leightcn ^Memorial. 
 By Geo. Frampton, A.R.A.
 
 DECORATION IN RELIEF. 209 
 
 painted sculpture provided, he said to me, that the colourist 
 is an artist. Of course in his own work he paints it himself. 
 Certainly some of his tinted plaster panels are quite 
 delightful. They are so fresh in treatment, so emphatic of 
 himself, so removed from any suggestion of manufacture, 
 that it makes them a more than pleasant possession. They 
 are choice, a quality that seems rapidly vanishing in the ait 
 work around us, where quantity has tali en the place of 
 cpality, a large output being a manufacturer's desideratum. 
 Mr. Frampton does not always want to thrust his knowledge 
 of the figure before the public. A modelled frieze I greatly 
 admired consisted of a constructed arrangement of the 
 seeds of the plant Honesty set at regular intervals, and 
 tinted in simple light tones of green, and he pays as much 
 attention to designing and modelling this Honesty as he 
 would to a figure, studying the plant from nature for himself. 
 As a matter of fact I saw the very spray of dried seed 
 vessels in his atelier from which he built up his design. 
 
 What keeps Mr. Frampton's work so fresh is that he is 
 always going to the fountain-head, nature. At my request 
 he allowed me to reproduce three of his studies from the 
 model which he made for some of his work in low relief. 
 The two fitted into architectural panels were designed for a 
 bank in Scotland, and were afterwards carved on a large 
 scale in freestone. Considerable skill is shown in the way 
 the figures are accommodated to the eccentric-sha[)ed space 
 which they had to occupy. The seated figure is a study for 
 one of the silver panels before referred to. The figures are 
 drawn from the nude, and the drapery is studied apart and the 
 figures are then clothed. This gives the finished work a 
 sharpness and virility which is to art what the breath of life 
 
 p
 
 2IO 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 ^'g- 145.— Life Study for One of a Series of Small Panels in Low 
 Relief, Cast in Silver. By Geo. Frampton, A.R.A.
 
 DECORATION IN RELIEF. 
 
 211 
 
 ^\ \ 
 
 
 %_ 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 f- v.: 
 
 % 
 
 J/ 
 
 
 l-ig. 146. — Life Study for Decoration in Low Relief of an Over Door. 
 By Geo. Frami)ton, A.R.A.
 
 212 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 
 '^. 
 
 -W \ .^*- i,. J- 
 
 Fig. 147. — Life Studv for Decuialion in Low Relief of au Over Door. 
 By Geo. Frampton, A.R.A.
 
 DECORATION IN RELIEF. 2\i 
 
 is to man. The usual figure work in relief offered to the 
 public as decoration by "firms" who do this sort of thing 
 rarely rises above the level of the plaster cornices in a 
 suburban villa. Why don't manufacturers try to get good 
 originals? No one would then blame them for reproducing 
 an unlimited number of a good work, for the multiplica- 
 tion of a thing does not necessarily lessen its art worth. 
 Any reasonable price should be paid for the original, as the 
 co5t when spread over thousands of reproductions is hardly 
 worth consideration. 
 
 I am glad to be able to give a sketch in clay of another 
 of Mr. Frampton's " Decorations " in relief, the proposed 
 Leighton memorial. As a design it follows exactly the same 
 laws as any other work of art. You have the " lumps " of 
 dark and the " masses " of light, with here and there small 
 ascents, but, looked at with half-closed eyes, the memorial 
 might be a masterly black-and-white study, so broad in 
 treatment is it. The darks, instead of breaking up the 
 lights all over the design, are concentrated in masses, so 
 that the simple rule of keeping the darks out of the lights 
 and lights out of the darks is obeyed.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTILE DESIGN IXG. 
 
 jHE student who elects to design for wall-papers 
 and textiles must acquire the technique of manu- 
 facture, for hoiu the design is reproduced tells us 
 to a great extent hnv the designer has to set about his part 
 of the business : his design is conditioned by the method of 
 reproduction, and his labour will be thrown away if he pay 
 insufficient heed to such technical matters. 
 
 In a wall- paper the design has to repeat itself in two 
 ways. It must be continuous, so that a constantly re- 
 volving cylinder (if it be machine-printed) produces the 
 design, and it must be so arranged as to repeat itself when 
 the pieces are hung side by side. The "repeat," therefore, 
 is of the first importance, and as there are several ways of 
 effecting this some special instruction is necessary, and I 
 should say some practical tuition under a designer the best 
 means of acquiring the tecluie. Schools of Art are sup- 
 posed to give this instruction, and at some of the large 
 ones, such as South Kensington, the teaching is, I daresay, 
 fairly efficient now, though a few years ago this certainly 
 could not be said. In those days the authorities appeared
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTLLE DESIGNING. 
 
 2\ ■ 
 
 m^. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ].-i<r. 1^8.— The Inchkeilli Wiill-P.ipei. Desijjned by E. A. Hunter. 
 Mlsms. W. Woollams li' Co. 
 
 This desifjn mijjhl he analyzed as a conceit in tlie stiuctuial line-, 
 with li]lin<is of conventionalised lilies. It is certainly skilfully planned, 
 and llu)U},di its " repeat" is emphatic, it would, on a lar^'e surface, be a 
 decorative wall covering.
 
 2l6 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Y\'g. 149.— Wall-Paper, by Jeffrey & Co. Designed by W. Crane. 
 
 This is a famil'Pr example of Mr. Crane's decorative adaptation of 
 natuial foims tc, sudi productions as a wall-paper. The difticully heie 
 is chieliy in getting the " lines " of the design to flow agreeably, so that 
 when repeated it shall cover the wall of a loom pleasantly, without 
 worr\ing the eye. As to how naturalcsque a prper should be is a 
 (|uesiion not of rule, but taste. 'J here are they who dogmatise in this 
 matter, because they want to force their own views upon the world. 
 I-et them. A paper-stainer has to cater for the world, and is geneially 
 free of bias.
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTILE DESIGNING, 217 
 
 to have the utterly mistaken idea that design itself could be 
 taught, and there was a period when a certain kind of floral 
 conventionality was looked upon as the way. It consisted 
 to a great extent in drawing the plant symmetrically and 
 planning it geometrically, but as for develop'ng the origi- 
 nality of the student, nothing further was from the minds 
 of the authorities. Happily, owing to the pressure from 
 outside, a better system now obtains, and in the judging of 
 works sent in for competition a great advance has been 
 made, for practical men with a recognised position in the 
 crafts are called in to award the prizes, and so a much 
 higher standard has been set. It might be thought that, as 
 wall-papers are " manufactured," the opportunity of express- 
 ing your ego is small, and yet originality is the one 
 thing necessary and the only quality that will gain you 
 attention. The personality of some designers in this field 
 is very marked, and the result is their designs have true 
 " s'yle." Some few, perhaps, err in the direction of eccen- 
 tricity ; but I am prepared to forgive originality much, 
 though I fear the manufacturer is not so sympathetic. He 
 has to look at what sells, and his practical knowledge 
 should be worth a good deal to a designer. He should be 
 the designer's " editor," as it were, and most literary men 
 are none the worse for being edited. The tyro., however, 
 is a conceited person, and looks upon himst-lf as all- 
 sufficient, and kicks against this editing until hard ex- 
 perience herself edits him. 
 
 All the large firms are ever on the look-out for originality, 
 and a student who possesses this quality need not be afraitl 
 of submitting his views to any of them. If there is any- 
 thing in them he will (|iii(kly be encouraged, and any
 
 Fig. 150. -Ihe Biicnnc Wall-i-'apcr. D^'si-ncd by K. A. HuiUcr. 
 Messrs. W. Woollanis 8c Co. 
 
 In the " Inchkeith" desi^Mi the pattern resolved itself into emphatic 
 structural lines, which were pure (<rnainent and decorative Horal littinj^s. 
 Here the desif^n is what is termed an all-over patttrn, the •' repeal " 
 being to a large extent hidden, so that the surface is broken up 
 a.;reeahly, and thoup;h the design would, when hung, form diagonal 
 lines, the planning of the pattern is homogeneous, no opposing motif 
 being introduced. I should call it, too, a well-drawn design, the artist 
 cxhii)iting a nice appreciation of shapes and curves.
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTILE DESLGNLNG. 
 
 219 
 
 technical deficiencies in his designs will be pointed out to 
 him, so that he will quickly drop into the groove. 
 
 While writing this I had a chat with the managing 
 
 Fig. I ^ I. —The Westmeath Wall-Paper. Designed by G. C 
 Haile, R.B.A., for Messrs. W. AVoollams & Co. 
 
 designer of one of our best known firms, and he tells me 
 that designs of a very marked character — the most dis- 
 tinctly original ones, in fact ^ are found not to sell so well
 
 220 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 as those one is more or less accustomed to, partly because 
 people are like sheep and follow one another, and therefore 
 dread innovation, and partly because these strikingly original 
 wall-papers seem to upset the balance of tlie room and 
 make ordinary furniture look terribly commonplace. The 
 student, therefore, may take warning from this and keep 
 within recognised boundaries, and be not too original, but 
 just original enough, until he become a force and gain a 
 following ; than he can compel attention and so secure 
 patronage. 
 
 I can remember how thrown back I was when I started 
 on my own account, at having my work refused all round, 
 but the fact is it takes one some time to view one's work 
 critically, which is what the buyer you submit it to does. 
 The tyro is blindly hopeful, and rates himself altogether too 
 high. What you think strikingly original is probably the 
 commonplace of the craft you are working for. The student 
 who will trouble to master the technique of wall-paper 
 designing, which may be summarised as, how the design is 
 to repeat, the lines the design makes when seen en masse on 
 the walls (this is very important, as many an otherwise good 
 design forms ugly lines or spots when hung), and how many 
 colours it is necessary to use to print it. 
 
 Use as few colours as possible is a good general rule, for 
 as each colour requires a separate printing it adds to the 
 cost of the paper to introduce many colours. A clever 
 designer can get all the variety he wants with about four 
 colours, and it would astonish a beginner to see what can 
 be done with o?ie colour. 
 
 Designing for Textiles is subject to much the same con- 
 ditions as wall-papers. In fact, many wall-paper designs
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTILE DESIGNING. 221 
 
 are adapted to Textiles by the designer himself. The 
 special conditions the work imposes upon you must be 
 observed, and it is necessary, therefore, to find out what 
 these are before bestowing your labour there. 
 
 The beginner is apt to be discouraged by the want of 
 
 fW^WJWM 
 
 
 l-'iii 
 
 152. — The Westminster W'all-l'aiiei- and I'"iie/e. Designed by 
 Mr. A. Silver, for Messrs. \V. W'ooUams Sc Co. 
 
 patronage at the outset. He makes a design, and is in- 
 clined to overrate its merits because of the interest he has 
 taken in it and the trouble it has given him; but I may 
 remind such an one that the firm to whom he submits his 
 effort have brought to them many dozens of designs every
 
 222 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 month, and out of this number there must be some of more 
 than ordinary merit, while yours may not be of that number. 
 The doors of success open but in very rare instances at the 
 first knock. You must have the courage which comes of 
 
 
 
 
 t^m-^:^fT:^^A 
 
 
 
 » 
 
 Fig. 153. —The " Rosebery " Wall-Paper. Designed by Mr. C. ¥. A. 
 Voysey, for Messrs. A\'. ^Voollams & Co. 
 
 belief in yourself to keep on in spite of the want of 
 encouragement at the outset. Be yourself; put yourself 
 wholly into what you do ; for notliing is more likely to 
 obtain for you the patronage you desire than an original
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTILE DESIGNING. 223 
 
 Fi^;. 154. — Tlic ••Tewkesbury" \\'all-l'a]Kr. De^ij^iied b\ Mr. W. \'. 
 Aspen, for Messrs. W. \\'(j()!lanis (Sc Co. 
 
 "note." Yet at the outset the chances are you will be a 
 reflection of the woik around you, or of some one crafts- 
 nian whose ego holds you, and ii is not until \ou ha\c
 
 224 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 worked for some time that you will begin to speak in yonr 
 own language. 
 
 Fig. 155. — Prize Design for Wall-Paper. By P. Shepherd. 
 (South Kensington .Schools.) 
 
 A wall-paper design seems to divide itself into two parts. 
 1 here is the ornamental constructive part of the design (the
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTLLE DESIGKLXG. 225 
 
 scaffolding, as it were, of the edifice), the important feature, 
 in fact, and the one to which the first and chief attention 
 
 !>' \f/ W \f/ ^J 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^KO. 
 
 ^ 
 
 :i 
 
 1 
 
 l^'i«. i5(>. Wall- Paper Desif^n. By C. b. A. Vo>>c> . 
 (Messrs. Essex & Co ) 
 
 nuist l)c jKiid, as the " Hnc " this makes must be studied, so 
 that it will repeat itself agreeably. The filling out of these
 
 2 26 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 constructive lines is a far simpler affair, and should only be 
 considered after they are satisfactorily placed upon the 
 paper. 
 
 A knowledge of plmt form is essential, and, indeed, the 
 designer should always be on the look-out and try and look 
 at nature as though she were a series of wall-papers, for this 
 idea of making d'^signs should be at the "back of the 
 head " of all students who are bending their talent in this 
 direction. The drawing of plant form should, therefore, be 
 done deliberately towards this end of making designs. This 
 amount of subjectiveness on the part of the student is 
 necessary, because he will then more likely seize upon those 
 features in the plant which are ornamental and suggest new 
 combinations, than if he merely sat down and sketched any 
 plant which came across him. 
 
 All designs one may say are at least suggested by plant 
 form, if not founded upon some one or more particular 
 plants, for the more abstract a design is, that is, the further 
 it is ren.'oved from the particular, and only the principles of 
 plant growth observed, and not the peculiarities of some one 
 ])lant, the more ornamental it becomes. 
 
 Let me here again remind you that a design is not 
 necessarily the conventional rendering of plants, the sim- 
 plifying and adapting of them to a particular purpose, but a 
 combination of lines and forms agreeably disposed and 
 suitably arranged for a particular purpose. The natural 
 form, whether it be a plant, insect's wing, feather, frost on a 
 window pane, flame of a candle, wave of the sea, which 
 gives the suggestion, is not the eiui, but the means. You 
 are designing, which implies, I take it, that by a pure effort 
 of the minil you are evolving shapes from your inner con-
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTILE DESIGNING. 
 
 F'&- '57- — Mimosa Filliiifj and Bulirnuli 1-rieze. 
 % A. J. ]5.il>cr. (Essex Si Co.)
 
 2 28 THE TRAIXING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 J'i,^- 150. — Wall-Paper Design. By C. F. A. Voysey. (Essex & Co.) 
 
 The introduction of such emphatic forms like birds in a wall-paper 
 requires to be done with great discrimination and judgment. There is 
 a tendency to get them very naturalistic ; but this Mr. Voysey has 
 avoided, and the birds thus become an integral part of the general 
 scheme.
 
 WALL-PAPER AND TEXTILE DESIGNING. 229 
 
 sciousness and not drawing things already existing, though 
 in carrying out the idea at the back of your head you use 
 forms of things existing just as a writer uses the letters of 
 the alphabet. 
 
 William Morris, who gave wall-paper and textile designing 
 a fresh impetus, kept fairly close to nature, that is, you could 
 see often what was the particular plant he had drawn before 
 making his designs. He owed much to Rossetti, who in 
 the backgrounds to his pictures had a happy way of intro- 
 ducing plants, treated not so much in a realistic as a 
 decorative manner. I remember in one picture the painter 
 introduced an espalier apple-tree in what we now should 
 call a " wall-paper " manner, though it was Rossetti 's manner 
 of drawing the apple-tree that made it "wall -papery." 
 
 Morris, it is said, owed much to Gerarde's " Herbah" 
 The illustrations in this fine work are woodcuts of the 
 seventeenth century, and the plants are drawn in a very 
 simple way, so that the growth is shown in much the same 
 way as is seen in a pressed specimen. I can quite think it 
 likely that Morris did find these woodcuts of English plants 
 very useful, for they were already ornamented to some 
 extent in Gerarde, and all he had to do was to interpret 
 them in his own way and for the purpose he required them. 
 
 Think of line and mass before all else, and I have found 
 that a big brush and colour is a better way to rough out a 
 design, after the few ])reliminary charcoal markings, than 
 any other medium. A brush is so pliant, and you can get 
 a sweep so much more fluently than with a stiff, inflexible 
 point. By using a brush and colour you are more likely to 
 get "breadth" into your work than you are by the use of 
 a point, which is apt to induce niggle and littleness. You
 
 2,-,0 
 
 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 work with freedom, too, and can soon alter and blot out 
 with Chinese white, and this is very important in blocking 
 
 ^'K- 159-— Cretonne, by Waidle & Co. Designed by S. G. Mawson. 
 
 out a design, for you work then at high pressure, and want 
 a medium, therefore, that is quickly expressive. When the 
 design has been knocked about and studied from every
 
 ■> <^ 
 
 
 d - 
 
 O ;- 
 
 
 o
 
 232 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 ])oint of view, then you can make a careful tracing of it and 
 transfer it to a clean sheet of paper, so that when it comes 
 to drawing it in carefully you can do it with certainty. 
 This method of tracing is useful in this way, that in going 
 over your own work a second time you refine it and leave 
 out what is redundant ; you pare it down to its elements, 
 and so bring about that simplicity which is the foundation 
 of all good art. 
 
 It may be worth your while to make a tracing from your 
 tracing, and still further refine it. But before you finally 
 colour it be sure that the design repeats agreeably, and 
 does not fall into disagreeable lines or spots, for many a 
 good idea is spoilt as a wall-paper by repeating in an 
 ugly manner. 
 
 The few examples of papers given must not be considered 
 representative : they were to hand, and so far are useful to 
 the student as showing him what some few designers are 
 doing. A whole book might be devoted to this one branch 
 of art, but my object in this work is to take a general survey 
 of craftsmanship. 
 
 I may just say that the work of Mr. Voysey and Mr. 
 Gwatkin in wall-paper designing is strong in the ego of 
 these two craftsmen. The former's severe restrained style 
 is seen in Figs. 156 and 158, while the very bold ornamental 
 frieze. Fig. 1 60, by Mr. Gwatkin is a very admirable example 
 of the adaptation of plant form to design. In Mr. Baker's 
 mimosa filling, Fig. 157, nature is more closely followed, 
 the skill being shown in the play of curve and distribution 
 of the masses.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE CRAFTSMAN UP-TO-DATE AND HIS OUTLOOK. 
 
 " Others mistrust and say, '• But time escapes : 
 Live now or never ! " 
 He said, " Whafs time ? leave Now for dogs and apes ! 
 Man has For ever." — A Grammarian s Funeral. 
 
 JHERE are periods in the world's history when 
 progress is very slow, and the man who desires 
 to push ahead grows impatient, and then hope- 
 less, at the stagnation around him ; the time seems not 
 with him, and he is left to eat his heart out with neglect. 
 These periods are very deadening to the craftsman, as I 
 realise when I look back twenty years. But I can also tell 
 my readers that the world, out of joint as it may seem to 
 the youthful enthusiast now, doesn't want as much setting 
 right as it did when I was serving an apprenticeship in the 
 crafts. The amount of public recognition given to an 
 original worker now is greater than anything dreamed of 
 in my apprentice days, and it shows me that the world has 
 moved on quickly since then, and progress, measured both 
 by results and time, has been as rapid as before it was 
 slow. 
 
 It is agreed on all hanfls that the art of the early \'ic-
 
 234 THE TRAINIXG OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 torian days had reached a very low ebb. It ran in the 
 same groove — " the same old rut would deepen year by 
 year." Personality, originality, were wanting. The crafts 
 were followed in a machine-like way, and a dead level of 
 mediocrity was reached that astounds us when we look 
 back forty years. Recognition was given to the firm, 
 never to the individual. People bought certain things 
 because a shopkeeper sold them. None asked themselves 
 why. The age was mechanical, and folk lived mechanically 
 because they did not think. A craftsman now, with any 
 skill and personality, stands a good chance of a hearing, and 
 as much (if not more) attention is given to the crafts as to 
 pictures and statuary. We realise that what surrounds us 
 on every hand should be interesting, the work of an original 
 mind instead of the output of machines. The craftsman 
 has come into his heritage. The land is his to possess if 
 he will. 
 
 This happier and lovelier state has been brought about by 
 here and there the man of strong personality, through good 
 and evil report, in spite of neglect and the " ignorance of 
 office," lifting up his voice and showing that he would not 
 let circumstances crush him. In the slavery of convention 
 in which the craftsman in the old days was brought up he 
 might easily have had his ego crushed out of him, but he 
 persisted in expressing himself in his own way, and would 
 not allow his voice to be drowned in the jargon of his 
 time. 
 
 All new impulses have to stand the test of ridicule. 
 They have to outlive the opposition of the ignorant and the 
 sneers of the prejudiced. One remembers the first exhibition 
 of the "Arts and Crafts," and what a source of merriment it
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND HIS OUTLOOK. 235 
 
 was to those who had not the eyes to see the new order of 
 thincrs. Of course in all new movements there are excres- 
 cences which time has to wear away : a tendency towards 
 exaggeration and the setting up of the eccentric and bizarre 
 to supplant the commonplace. The humourist is rignt 
 in fastening upon these and laughing them out of existence. 
 That which is permanent in tlie movement will be all the 
 better for the bracing it receives by this criticism, unkind 
 and unjust as it may seem to a few enthusiasts to whom 
 ridicule is so paralyzing. But no really good thing was 
 ever laughed out of the world. " Though much is taken, 
 much abides," and that which time leaves us is of real 
 worth. The world does not willingly let go cunning 
 work. 
 
 The Arts and Crafts Exhibitions were the outcome of the 
 Art Workers' Guild, and this solidarity of interests which 
 this Guild symbolizes has given a great impetus to crafts- 
 manship. Some of the older workers have thought that the 
 " Arts and Crafts" are narrow in their sympathies, and only 
 bring to the front the work of a particular school. Cer- 
 tainly some ungenerosity of treatment has been meted out 
 to a few well-known craftsmen, and one professional wood- 
 carver told me that the committee seemed to him to prefer 
 the "rabbit-hutch" school (as he termed the somewhat 
 unskilful wood -work shown) to the technical skill of highly 
 trained wood-carvers. The society would not, 1 imagine, 
 deny that they, in their selection and rejection, have not 
 shown impartiality. Absolute justice doesn't exist, and the 
 critics of the " Arts and- Crafts " should remember that in 
 bringing before the public certain work which seems to 
 them of good report they may liave turned away work
 
 236 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 excellent in every way, but wanting, perhaps, this personal 
 quality, which is another word for originality. When you 
 turn aside from the work you find around you to search for 
 that which is the outcome of other impulses, it must appear 
 to those minds which have become hardened by habit and 
 therefore disinclined to take in new ideas that eccentricity 
 rather than real merit obtains recognition, to the exclusion 
 of the work to which we have grown more or less ac- 
 customed. Any distinctly new departure will beget the 
 disapprobation of the average man, and that is why the 
 Avork of some of the world's geniuses has, when it first 
 appeared, had nothing but scorn and ridicule hurled 
 at it. 
 
 On the other hand, I sympathize with the older worker 
 whose labours receive no recognition at the hands of the 
 new society, and that because it lacks a certain up-to- 
 dateness or modernity. " Man should delight in his work, 
 for that is his portion," and a society which exists to submit 
 craftsmanship to the world cannot be too broad in their 
 sympathies. It should be ready to see the merit in all 
 work which is done lovingly and skilfully. The way the 
 thing is done, finger dexterity, hand cunning, the triumph 
 of mind over matter — whatever you choose to call it, does 
 and should appeal to man, who is " a tool-using animal." 
 The public is the only critic, after all, whose verdict is of 
 any practical use ; and I think that the less a society 
 assumes the function of critic towards the work sent for 
 display the better. Who is to judge what is of good report? 
 We all know what is termed manufacture — work that takes 
 the eye and has its price, which is the outcome of a machine 
 (human though it may be), and not that of the earnest
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND HIS OUTLOOK. zy, 
 
 worker who puts himself into his work. Such we can and 
 should exclude; but when it is a question of judgment as to 
 the position of a paiticular work in Art, then I think we 
 should remember Kipling's dictum that there are 7uiie and 
 sixty ivays, and that the one which appeals to us is after 
 all only onr. 
 
 Throughout this book it has seemed no part of my duty 
 to offer criticism on the illustrations. The fact that I have 
 selected them implies that in some way or the other they 
 help the subject in hand by illustrating some phase of 
 craftsmanship. That I have my preferences I will not 
 deny, but there is no necessity why I should put them down 
 in writing unless my subject would be helped thereby, and 
 I cannot see that it would. I would have included other 
 examples had it been possible, but the pages were filled 
 and I had to stop, not because I was wholly satisfied 
 with all that are here, but because in this practical world 
 you have to do your " best at a venture," and not wait for 
 perfection. 
 
 The Arts and Crafts Exhibitions ought to mark progress, 
 and should be thoroughly representative of all the virile 
 work of the day. They have done immense good, because 
 these shows educate the public and make them interested in 
 craftsmanship. One solicitor friend when he came to fur- 
 nish his house, tried, as far as was possible, to have things 
 made for him. He desired to be brought into contact witli 
 the worker instead of going to some big emporium. Think 
 how iiuu h more valuable, because of their personality, our 
 surroundings would be to us if they vividly brought before 
 us the egos of so many workers instead of No. So-and-so in 
 the pages of a store catalogue! Human association, I
 
 238 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 take it, is what makes everything in this world interesting 
 to man, seeing that man is his chiefest study, and therefore 
 what man produces has some likeness of himself in it. 
 Those who are in the fortunate position of being able to 
 spend money on the furnishing of their houses should look 
 upon it as a privilege which their wealth gives them of being 
 able to seek out cunning workers to supply them with their 
 necessities, and so build up an environment which "use 
 cannot wither nor custom stale." I have said elsewhere, 
 and I repeat here, that great responsibility rests with the 
 patron, for he can greatly help the worker by discriminating 
 praise and patronage. I believe Ruskin says somewhere 
 that there is more genius in spending money wisely than in 
 getting it. 
 
 The craftsman must be practical, and not drive patronage 
 from him either by his obstinacy in refusing to heed the 
 wishes of his client, or by being regardless of his pocket. 
 Possible patrons are frightened off by the idea that work is 
 going to be so much more costly if he search out for a 
 worker himself than if he go to a shop for the article. The 
 craftsman must fix no false standard of price, but be pre- 
 pared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. He 
 must not think of, here and there, the artist raking in his 
 thousands a year by painting commonplace people in a 
 commonplace way, but of the rank and file, the average 
 worker's guerdon. Were he a clerk he could tell by the 
 law of average what his income is likely to be. Why, 
 therefore, because he is a craftsman, should he not be pre- 
 pared to strike an average and go in for the " living wage" ? 
 There is a "joy in the working " which transcends all other 
 payment; and so long as one can enjoy such comfort as
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND HIS OUTLOOK. 239 
 
 is necessary to do one's work in, little more should be 
 expected. 
 
 There is a great field before the worker in the crafts now, 
 and if he will only gather his harvest in the right way he 
 will not have to remain idle ; but he must not look upon 
 himself as a specially gifted individual upon whom wealth 
 ought to be showered, but as an art worker who, in return 
 for being allowed to live in reasonable comfort, such as the 
 society around him enjoys, is prepared to give the world of 
 his best, and so make his work a joy to himself and to his 
 patrons. To use Ibsen's luminous phrase : " He must 
 bring himself into harmony with the attainable." 
 
 When Keats wrote " Beauty is truth, truth beauty," he 
 was probably thinking of some Grecian urn or other beau- 
 tiful product of man's skill, and he felt that beauty in work 
 is the result of love and reverence — trudi, as he termed it. 
 It comes of a belief in ourselves which makes us put our- 
 selves vehemently into what we do. This gives work 
 strength. We must labour patiently, diligently, lovingly, 
 and to do this implies reverence. We do not love a liar 
 or a deceitful person, and we cannot reverence work that 
 is a pretence. If we expand what Keats meant by truth 
 we see that it can be split into love and reverence, and 
 still further subdivided were we on a metaphysical quest. 
 Plato expands goodness into beauty, symmetry, and 
 tnilh. 
 
 Beauty is truth. Ikauty being a moral quality, we can 
 understand that untruthfulness is opposed to it. We cannot 
 love a person who lies to us. Ho has lost moral beauty. 
 Why a tradesman's wares are wanting ia beauty is that we 
 see no love in their |)ro(lu<tion, " no tricks of the tools' true
 
 240 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 play," no striving of a soul for utterance, but so much 
 weight of work for so much weight of money. They are 
 too largely a sham, an affectation and pretence, wanting in 
 truth and therefore in beauty. But even " the firm " is forced 
 by the growing interest taken in craftsmanship to move on ; 
 so now we have " art fabrics," " art papers," " art furniture." 
 The aesthetes were laughed at in " Punch " some years ago: 
 now we see that it is to a tradesman's advantage to tack 
 "Art " on to his business. We have moved on a good deal 
 these last twelve years, and we ought to make still more 
 progress if our craftsmen are true to themselves and avoid 
 " fashion," — the pandering to a mere whim. 
 
 All artists, whatever be the medium in which they work, 
 experience disappointment at the outset, and invariably 
 have their efforts refused all round. It is the experience of 
 most of the 7iow successful writers, and so it is of craftsmen 
 when passing from the state of pupilage into that of 
 workers. Always have a clear outlook on life, and there- 
 fore 1 put these warnings here, so that the student may, 
 like a good mariner in stormy weather, keep a sharp look- 
 out. 1 remember when I started working on my own 
 account how I would go out in the morning with my wares 
 (whatever they happened to be) under my arm, filled with 
 an ambition quite high enough to overleap itself, apart from 
 the value, or the want of it, of my wares. Not only was 
 everything possible, but probable too ! A few hours among 
 the firms I offered the output of my brains to sent me back 
 dejected and disheartened. I went out an optimist; I 
 returned a pessimist : for a while the sun had set in the 
 heavens. But that utterly cast-down attitude passes away, 
 and you return to the fight with more staying power each
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND HIS OUTLOOK. 241 
 
 time y)u receive a repulse. How cheered I was when 
 I read for the first time those noble lines of Browning : 
 
 " Never one who turned his back but marched breast forward, 
 Never doubted clouds would break ; 
 Never dreamed though right were worsted, wrong would triumph. 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight harder, 
 Sleep to wake." 
 
 After a time, if you don't " welcome each rebuff," you are 
 not surprised at receiving them, because you are on the 
 look out for failure and are prepared to have your work 
 returned on your hands. When it does find a home, then is 
 the moment supreme. To feel that you have the privilege 
 of speaking your mind to the world — for you can do that \\\ 
 a wall-paper or a finger-plate as much as in a story — is a 
 privilege worth going through a good deal to obtain. 
 
 Have an infinite belief in possibility, but be prepared for 
 failure, for it must come to every one some time or other. 
 As Cromwell is reported to have said, " Trust in God, but 
 keep your powder dry." 
 
 Many an earnest worker, in the solitude of his atelier, 
 grows dismayed at times because he does not "get on," and 
 sees charlatanism preferred to honesty. The short cut to 
 success (whether you mean artistic or mercantile) doesn't 
 pay. Truth must be the foundation upon which a crafts- 
 man has to build. He must work out all that is in him, 
 and, so far as the exigencies of life will allow, be faithful to 
 his highest aspirations, for his " reach will always exceed 
 his grasp" under the most favourable conditions. He nnut 
 go on working quietly, doing what comes to him with the 
 utmost of his power, leaving the future to take care of itselt. 
 for happily it is hidden from him. I wish such simple 
 
 R
 
 242 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 counsel had been put before me at the outset of my career. 
 It would have saved me much loss of tune later on. Good 
 work tells in the long run, quicker than the beginner is apt 
 to imagine. Keats, when he said a thing of beauty is a joy 
 for ever, might have also said that there is always one eye 
 at least on the look out for it ; and therefore to throw 
 yourself fully into a'l you do is the surest way to reach, what 
 every worker requires, recognition. You are apt to think 
 that your voice is drowned by the noise of the crowd, and 
 that to make yourself heard you must mount the tub and 
 thump the drum. Is it not the still small voice that 
 governs our actions potent before all else ? 
 
 I don't wish this to be a " counsel of perfection," but the 
 experience of a worker after twenty years placed at the 
 disposal of those who are coming after. 
 
 There are no divine tips the knowledge of which will 
 enable you to push ahead quickly, and those who profess 
 to have discovered them you may take for charlatans. Art 
 admits of no rules : it refuses to be circumscribed by such 
 arbitrary bonds. Bacon said truly art is accomplished by a 
 happy felicity and not by rule, and ihe so-called canons of 
 art are not to be found except by pedants on the prowl. 
 
 Knowledge is gained by observation and reflection, and 
 each worker has to make his own rules. I remember how, 
 years ago, Avhen I consulted what were considered the text- 
 books on design, how entirely I was led away from the 
 proper study by their aphorisms and canons and principles. 
 These guides obscured one's sight and took one off terra 
 firma, to leave one floating in nebulosity as unsatisfactory as 
 it was unsubstantial. The amount of time, too, one wastes 
 in studying the art of various epochs and peoples ! Theory
 
 THE- CRAFTSMAN AND HIS' OUTLOOK'. 243 
 
 is developed out of practice, and should not be thrust so 
 entirely to the front as has been the case, any more than is 
 grammar in the modern method of teaching a foreign 
 language.' • ■ 
 
 And remember, too, that all these aids are only means, 
 not the end. In all questions relating to aesthetics much 
 must escape analysis. The true artist, as Ruskin has re- 
 minded us, knows less about method than anyone ; how he 
 does it is a matter he has never inquired into, and when 
 Reynolds did inquire into it he got no further (if as far) 
 than the most mediocre dauber might have done. Still, 
 what is called " shop," the comjiaring of notes among 
 workers, is useful as it is pleasant; only one must not take 
 the further step which leads to making what are pious 
 opinions or views absolute; fixed beliefs necessary to artistic 
 salvation. 1 have endeavoured to avoid dogmatism in this 
 work, and I can only hope I have succeeded. 
 
 You must always remember, too, that in all your studies, 
 whether from life or wliat other masters have done, it is 
 left to you to show u-; what jw/ can do ; and what the world 
 demands of you is that you put yourself wholly into all you 
 do. Could the contemplation of the work around us, 
 whether new or old, the studying of so-called text-books, 
 and the knowledge of the "principles" they are supposed 
 to inculcate make artists of us, how many masters there would 
 be ! But all these aids are only of use to the student who 
 has an artistic ego, for when you come to make an original 
 effort the mind has to be cleared of these principles before 
 it begins to work. In writing, for instance, one would 
 never get a sentence down if one had nothing but grammar 
 and syntax before one's e\ es.
 
 244 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 In all really good work there is a quality which is 
 personal to the author and which cannot be reduced to a 
 principle, for it escapes analysis ; just as in mediocre work 
 it is the absence of '• t/uf,'^ as some one termed the quality 
 which makes a work live. One only learns by the practice 
 of one's calling, and those moments of inspiration when 
 one is lifted up quite above one's ordinary level for the 
 while to soar in the empyrean, come oftenest to him who 
 gives the strictest attention to his business. Don't wait for 
 these moments ; work on in all sincerity and they will visit 
 you like angels unawares. 
 
 The one idea I have strenuously brought forward in this 
 work is the necessity for originality. All art work seems to 
 me an excuse for the expression of your ego, and this is 
 developed by the practice of your calling. The student 
 may be conscious that he lacks ideas and doesn't feel that 
 he has much to say, but before that question can be de- 
 cided I would remind him that ideas develop as one obtains 
 a firmer grip over one's work. I have found in my own 
 experience that you may start with a meagre idea, and in 
 pursuing it other ideas are evolved, often of more worth 
 than tlie initiatory one. No man can gauge his capacity ; 
 it is an unknown quantity. Some great men have been 
 dunces, apparently, at school, but this was only apparent, 
 simply because they had not then been caught up into tl:e 
 frenzy of the work that was to make them famous. Those 
 who score in schools, whether of art or otherwise, and gain 
 prizes and medals, are not always those who go from 
 strength to strength. Many plants will flower pro.usely 
 and yet not fruit well. 
 
 Dj not easily be discouraged. There are many difh-.
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AXD HIS OUTLOOK. 
 
 MS 
 
 culties to be surmounted, however lowly your aims may be, 
 but the artist lives, I take it, to triumph over material. It 
 is what the world enjoys in all artistic productions — man's 
 power to shape his thoughts by compelling the material, 
 whatever it be he works in, to obey ; as Abt Vogler said 
 of his art, " bidding my organ obey, calling the keys to 
 their work," and to quote again from this stimulating poem 
 of Browning's : 
 
 "And God has a few of us whom He wliispers in the ear : 
 The rest may reason and welcome, 'tis we musicians know." 
 
 Fig. lOi.-. Silver Tanels in l.uw Relid. J'.y deo. iMamplon, A.R.A.
 
 ?4f) " THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 Schools of Aut and Places of Tun ion. 
 
 / The schools of art in the various important towns, 
 drawing their inspiration from the central institution at 
 South Kensington, are the most accessible places through- 
 out the country where some sort of att tuition may be 
 obtained. " The South Kensington System " has been 
 severely criticised and largely condemned by some writers 
 for its inefficiency and the misdirection of the stucknt, and 
 has been charged with being a deadening influence, owing 
 to a hard-and-fast administiation of a cast-iron system. 
 Such a criticism as this last is true to a great e.xtcnt of all 
 systems. We must remember that the South Kensington 
 system was a creation in the first instance, a laudable 
 attempt to give some art training to our oiivricrs. A S( hool 
 of art, in any true sense, is a growth staiting from a strong 
 central individuality, attracting the more imitative natures 
 around it to carry on the influences emanating from the 
 initiatory mind. South Kensington was to art very much 
 what a paper constitution is to a people, and it is not until 
 l)0th have been well buffeted about and almost pulled to 
 ];ieces that the good in them is apjiarent. South Ken- 
 sington, as a late national scholar told me, has never 
 professed to icach design, only to give Iraihing in drawing. 
 What it has done to encourage art as applied to manufac- 
 tures is to offer prizes for designs of various works, such as 
 metal and wall-papers, and in these pages will be foimd a 
 {^w reproductions of some of thtse priz^ designs. Whnt 
 the severest critic can truthfully say is, that either from 
 without or within South Kensington has ad\anccd with the
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND HIS OUTLOOK. 247 
 
 times, and, looking back as I can upon what it was twenty- 
 three years ago, I can mark the advance made all round. 
 The earnest student rises superior to the most adverse 
 conditions ; for the lazy scholar may gain no benefit from a 
 good school, while the worker, while he will gain enor- 
 mously by good tuition, will not be utterly thwarted by 
 inefficient or bad. The fact that the later judges at these 
 annual competitions have been men from without, of the 
 standing of the late William Morris, is positive evidence 
 that South Kensington has moved on. 
 
 One grows tolerant with time, and I, who ten years ago 
 would have been a wholly adverse critic of Scuth Ken- 
 sington and its ways, am conscious that it is easier to con- 
 demn an institution trying to do something to leaven the 
 lump of solid ignorance than to set up anything better to 
 take its place ; and I would therefore do what little lays in 
 my power to make it a more potent influence for good than 
 it is than advocate the root-and-branch cure. 
 
 Some of the large towns have developed excellent schools, 
 and I can point to no more flourishing one than that at 
 ISinningham, where most excellent work is turned out. A 
 desire to get clean away from the art of the manufacturer is 
 the healthiest sign about this Birmingham guild of handi- 
 craft. 
 
 "The Central School of Arts and Crafts" founded by 
 the London County Council has its ateliers at 316, 
 Regent Street, opposite the old Polytechnic. The Directors 
 are George Frampton, yV.R.A , and W. R. Lethaby. A 
 staff of teachers in the various crafts is engaged ; among 
 them I may mention Mr. Christopher ^Vhall for stained 
 glass, and Mr. Alexander Fisher for enamelling. This is
 
 248 THE TRAINING OF A CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 quite a new institution, and I can do no more than call 
 attention to it. 
 
 At the old West London School of Art, in Great Titchfield 
 Street, technical classes are held in wood carving, brick and 
 stone carving, and other subjects, under the patronage of the 
 Carpenters' Company. 
 
 The School of Art Wood-Carving has'shif:ed from the 
 Albert Hall to the Central Technical College, Exhibition 
 Road, South Kensington. Instruction is given to both 
 professional and amateur students. 
 
 The City and Guilds South London Art Schools are at 
 122 and 124, Kennington Park Road, S. E., and also at 
 Finsbur\'. Technical instruction under various masters in 
 the art crafts is given, as well as in drawing and modelling. 
 
 At several of the schools of art special attention is given 
 to certain of the art crafts. At Lambeth, for instance, 
 many of Messrs. Doulton's pottery painters were, I know, 
 at one time drawn from the local school of art. At 
 Chiswick, again, the art crafts receive much attention. 
 Mr. Catterson Smith told me that he received his pre- 
 liminary training in metal work there. 
 
 At Es-ex House, Mile End Road, Mr. Ashbee organizes 
 classes through the winter in woodwork and metal ham- 
 mering. 
 
 '1 he Royal School of Art Needlework is in Exhibition 
 Road, South Kensington. Instruction can be obtained by 
 female students for certain fees. 
 
 The Royal Female School of Art, 43, Queen's Square, 
 Bloomsbury. The training here is on similar lines to that 
 at South Kensington, but I believe special attention is paid
 
 THE CRAFTSMAN AND HIS OUTLOOK. 249 
 
 to obtaining an outlet for the workers ; chromolithography, 
 I believe, being a speciality with them. 
 
 The Art Workers' Guild hoKls its meetings in the hall at 
 Clifford's Inn, E.G. Papers are read on pertinent subjects 
 by various members, and a discussion follows. Member- 
 ship is obtained by nomination and election, but the appli- 
 cant must be a bona-fide worker, though he may be a 
 painter or a craftsman or sculptor. 
 
 The triennial exhibitions of the Arts and Grafts Society 
 have hitherto been held at the New Gallery in the autumn. 
 This society is not connected with the guild, but many 
 members belong to both. It is a most interesting resume 
 of the work of each three years, and these shows have 
 done much to stimulate public interest in craftsmanship. 
 
 The Home Arts and Industries Association, for the 
 revival and encouragement of the art crafts in villages, 
 hold their annual exhibition of such of the work executed 
 during the past year each summer at the Albert Hall. 
 This is another show that " marks time," and very encou- 
 raging have the results been so far. 
 
 The Glergy and Artists' Association, 6, Victoria Tower 
 Ghambers, Westminster, has recently been founded by a 
 few well-known art-workeis, and at their rooms may be 
 seen photographs as well as specimens of work specially 
 relating to church decoration. 
 
 Fuller information can be obtained in '"The Year's Art." 
 
 I'K1,\11-.L» bV J. S. VlKlUi; AND CO., I.I.MIlliU, CIIY KO.VIi, LONDON.
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below