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ARTS AND CRAFTS ESSAYS
<^rts and Crafts Sssays
By
Members of the Arts and Crafts
Exhibition Society
With a Preface
By WilHam Morris
iLontron
RIVINGTON, PERCIVAL, & CO.
1893
PREFACE
npHE papers that follow this need no
^ explanation, since they are directed
towards special sides of the Arts and
Crafts. Mr. Crane has put forward the
aims of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society as an Exhibition Society, there-
fore I need not enlarge upon that phase
of this book. But I will write a few
words on the way in which it seems
to me we ought to face the present
position of that revival in decorative art
of which our Society is one of the
tokens.
And, in the first place, the very fact
n ^OiQ
Preface, that there is a " revival " shows that the
arts aforesaid have been sick unto death.
In all such changes the first of the new
does not appear till there is little or no
life left in the old, and yet the old, even
when it is all but dead, goes on living in
corruption, and refuses to get itself put
quietly out of the way and decently
buried. So that while the revival
advances and does some good work, the
period of corruption goes on from worse
to worse, till it arrives at the point when
it can no longer be borne, and disappears.
To give a concrete example : in these
last days there are many buildings
erected which (in spite of our eclecticism,
our lack of a traditional style) are at
least well designed and give pleasure
to the eye ; nevertheless, so hopelessly
hideous and vulgar is general building
that persons of taste find themselves
regretting the brown brick box with its
VI
feeble and trumpery attempts at orna- Preface.
ment, which characterises the style of
building current at the end of the last
and beginning of this century, because
there is some style about it, and even
some merit of design, if only negative.
The position which we have to face
then is this : the lack of beauty in
modern life (of decoration in the best
sense of the word), which in the earlier
part of the century was unnoticed, is now
recognised by a part of the public as an
evil to be remedied if possible ; but by
far the larger part of civilised mankind '
does not feel that lack in the least, so
that no general sense of beauty is extant
which would force us into the creation of
a feeling for art which in its turn would
force us into taking up the dropped links
of tradition, and once more producing
genuine organic art. Such art as we
have is not the work of the mass of
vii
Preface, craftsmen unconscious of any definite
style, but producing beauty instinctively ;
conscious rather of the desire to turn out
a creditable piece of work than of any
aim towards positive beauty. That is
the essential motive power towards art
in past ages ; but our art is the work of
a small minority composed of educated
persons, fully conscious of their aim
of producing beauty, and distinguished
from the great body of workmen by the
possession of that aim.
I do not, indeed, ignore the fact
that there is a school of artists belonging
to this decade who set forth that beauty
is not an essential part of art ; which
they consider rather as an instrument for
the statement of fact, or an exhibition of
the artist's intellectual observation and
skill of hand. Such a school would seem
at first sight to have an interest of its own
as a genuine traditional development
Vm
of the art of the eighteenth century, Preface,
which, like all intellectual movements
in that century, was negative and de-
structive ; and this all the more as
the above-mentioned school is connected
with science rather than art. But on
looking closer into the matter it will be
seen that this school cannot claim any
special interest on the score of tradition.
For the eighteenth century art was quite
unconscious of its tendency towards ugli-
ness and nullity, whereas the modern
" Impressionists " loudly proclaim their
enmity to beauty, and are no more un-
conscious of their aim than the artists of
the revival are of their longing to link
themselves to the traditional art of the
past.
Here we have then, on the one hand,
a school which is pushing rather than
drifting into the domain of the empirical
science of to-day, and another which can
ix
Preface, only work through its observation of an
art which was once organic, but which
died centuries ago, leaving us what by
this time has become but the wreckage
of its brilliant and eager life, while at the
same time the great mass of civilisation
lives on content to forgo art almost
altogether. Nevertheless the artists of
both the schools spoken of are un-
doubtedly honest and eager in pursuit
of art under the conditions of modern
civilisation ; that is to say, that they have
this much in common with the schools of
tradition, that they do what they are im-
pelled to do, and that the public would
be quite wrong in supposing them to be
swayed by mere affectation.
Now it seems to me that this impulse
in men of certain minds and moods
towards certain forms of art, this genuine
eclecticism, is all that we can expect
under modern civilisation ; that we can
expect no general impulse towards the Preface,
fine arts till civilisation has been trans-
formed into some other condition of life,
the details of which we cannot foresee.
Let us then make the best of it, and
admit that those who practise art must
nowadays be conscious of that practice ;
conscious I mean that they are either
adding a certain amount of artistic beauty
and interest to a piece of goods which
would, if produced in the ordinary way,
have no beauty or artistic interest, or that
they are producing something which has
no other reason for existence than its
beauty and artistic interest. But having
made the admission let us accept the con-
sequences of it, and understand that it
is our business as artists, since we desire
to produce works of art, to supply the
lack of tradition by diligently cultivating
in ourselves the sense of beauty {pace
the Impressionists), skill of hand, and
XI
Preface, nlceness of observation, without which
only a makeshift of art can be got ; and
also, so far as we can, to call the attention
of the public to the fact that there are a
few persons who are doing this, and even
earning a livelihood by so doing, and that
therefore, in spite of the destructive
tradition of our immediate past, in spite
of the great revolution in the production
of wares, which this century only has
seen on the road to completion, and
which on the face of it, and perhaps
essentially, is hostile to art, in spite of
all difficulties which the evolution of the
later days of society has thrown in the
way of that side of human pleasure which
is called art, there is still a minority
with a good deal of life in it which is
not content with what is called utilitarian-
ism, which, being interpreted, means the
reckless waste of life in the pursuit of
the means of life,
xii
It is this conscious cultivation of art Preface,
and the attempt to interest the public in
it which the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society has set itself to help, by calling
special attention to that really most
important side of art, the decoration of
utilities by furnishing them with genuine
artistic finish in place of trade finish.
WILLIAM MORRIS.
Jtih 1893.
Xlll
CONTENTS
Of the Revival of Design and Handi-
craft : with Notes on the Work of the
Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society-
Walter Crane ....
Textiles. William Morris
Of Decorative Painting and Design
Walter Crane . . .
Of Wall Papers. Walter Crane
FiCTiLEs. G. T. Robinson
Metal Work. W. A. S. Benson
Stone and Wood Carving. Somers Clarke
Furniture. Stephen Webb
Stained Glass. Somers Clarke
Table Glass. Somers Clarke ,
Printing. William Morris and Emery-
Walker . . . .
XV
I
22
39
52
62
68
81
89
98
106
Contents. Bookbinding. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson . 1 34
Of Mural Painting. F. Madox Brown . 149
Of Sgraffito Work. Heywood Sumner . 161
Of Stucco and Gesso. G. T. Robinson . 172
Of Cast Iron. W. R. Lethaby . .184
Of Dyeing as an Art. William Morris . 196
Of Embroidery. May Morris . .212
Of Lace. Alan S. Cole .... 224
Of Book Illustration and Book Decora-
tion. Reginald Blomfield . . •237
Of Designs and Working Drawings.
Lewis F. Day ..... 249
Furniture AND THE Room. Edward S. Prior 261
Of the Room and Furniture. Halsey
Ricardo ...... 274
The English Tradition. Reginald Blom-
field 289
Carpenters' Furniture. W. R. Lethaby 302
Of Decorated Furniture. J. H. Pollen . 310
Of Carving. Stephen Webb . . .322
Intarsia and Inlaid Wood-Work. T. G.
Jackson . . . . . '330
Woods and other Materials. Stephen
Webb 345
Of Modern Embroidery. Mary E,
Turner 355
xvi
Of Materials. May Morris ,
Colour. May Morris
Stitches and Mechanism. Alan S. Cole
Design. John D. Sedding
On Designing for the Art of Embroidery,
Selwyn Image ....
365
376
387
405
414
Contents
xvii
OF THE REVIVAL OF DESIGN AND
HANDICRAFT: WITH NOTES ON
THE WORK OF THE ARTS AND
CRAFTS EXHIBITION SOCIETY
np HE decorative artist and the
^ handicraftsman have hitherto had
but little opportunity of displaying
their work in the public eye, or
rather of appealing to it upon strictly
artistic grounds in the same sense as
the pictorial artist ; and it is a some-
what singular state of things that at a
time when the Arts are perhaps more
looked after, and certainly more talked
about, than they have ever been before,
Of the and the beautifying of houses, to those
evival of ^Q whom it is possible, has become in some
Design and ^ ^
Handicraft, cases almost a religion, so little is known
._ . , of the actual designer and maker (as
•^ " '•" *' '■■': distinct from the proprietary manu-
facturer or middleman) of those familiar
things which contribute so much to the
comfort and refinement of life — of our
chairs and cabinets, our chintzes and
wall-papers, our lamps and pitchers —
the Lares and Penates of our house-
holds, which with the touch of time and
association often come to be regarded
with so peculiar an affection.
Nor is this condition of affairs in
regard to applied Art without an ex-
planation, since it is undeniable that
under the modern industrial system that
personal element, which is so important
in all forms of Art, has been thrust
farther and farther into the background,
until the production of what are called
ornamental objects, and the supply of Of the
ornamental additions generally, instead ^^vwal of
. . . Design and
of growmg out of organic necessities, Handicraft.
have become, under a misapplication of
machinery, driven by the keen com-
petition of trade, purely commercial
affairs — questions of the supply and
demand of the market artificially stimu-
lated and controlled by the arts of the
advertiser and the salesman bidding
against each other for the favour of a
capricious and passing fashion, which too
often takes the place of a real love of t
Art in our days.
Of late years, however, a kind of
revival has been going on, as a protest
against the conviction that, with all
our modern mechanical achievements,
comforts, and luxuries, life is growing
" uglier every day," as Mr. Morris
puts it. Even our painters are driven
to rely rather on the accidental beauty
3
Of the which, like a struggling ray through
Revival of ^ London fog, sometimes illumes and
Handicraft, transfigures the sordid commonplace of
everyday life. We cannot, however,
live on sensational effects without im-
pairing our sense of form and balance —
of beauty, in short. We cannot con-
centrate our attention on pictorial and
graphic art, and come to regard it as the
one form worth pursuing, without losing
our sense of construction and power of
adaptation in design to all kinds of very
different materials and purposes — that
sense of relation — that architectonic
sense which built up the great monu-
ments of the past.
The true root and basis of all Art
lies in the handicrafts. If there is no
room or chance of recognition for really
artistic power and feeling in design and
craftsmanship — if Art is not recognised
in the humblest object and material, and
4
felt to be as valuable in its own way as Of the
the more highly rewarded pictorial skill Revival of
1 . J Design and
— the arts cannot be in a sound con- Handicraft.
dition ; and if artists cease to be found
among the crafts there is great danger
that they will vanish from the arts also,
and become manufacturers and salesmen
instead.
It was with the object of giving some
visible expression to these views that
the Exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts
Society were organised.
As was to be expected, many diffi-
culties had to be encountered. In the
endeavour to assign due credit to the
responsible designer and workman, it
was found sometimes difficult to do so
amid the very numerous artificers (in
some cases) who under our industrial
conditions contribute to the production
of a work.
It will readily be understood that the
5
Of the organisation of exhibitions of this char-
Revival of acter, and with such objects as have been
Handicraft stated, is a far less simple matter than
an ordinary picture exhibition. Instead
of having an array of artists whose
names and addresses are in every cata-
logue, our constituency, as it were,
outside the personal knowledge of the
Committee, had to be discovered.
Under the designation of So-and-so and
Co. many a skilful designer and crafts-
man may be concealed ; and individual
and independent artists in design and
handicraft are as yet few and far
between.
However, in the belief, as elsewhere
expressed, that it is little good nourish-
ing the tree at the head if it is dying
at the root, and that, living or dying,
the desirability of an accurate diagnosis
while there is any doubt of our artistic
health will at once be admitted, the
6
Society determined to try the experiment Of the
and so opened their first Exhibition. ^^^/^^^ ""[
. . Design and
The reception given to it having so Handicraft.
far justified our plea for the due recog-
nition of the arts and crafts of design,
and our belief in their fundamental
importance — the amount of public in-
terest and support accorded to the
Exhibition having, in fact, far exceeded
our anticipations, it was determined to
hold a second on the same lines, and to
endeavour to carry out, with more com-
pleteness than was at first found possible,
those principles of work, ideas, and aims
in art for which we contended, and to
make the Exhibition a rallying point, as
it were, for all sympathetic workers.
Regarding design as a species of
language capable of very varied ex-
pression through the medium of different
methods and materials, it naturally
follows that there is all the difference
7
Of the in the world between one treatment and
Revival of another, both of design and material ;
Design and ....
Handicraft. ^^^^ moreover, every material has its
own proper capacity and appropriate
range of expression, so that it becomes
the business of the sympathetic work-
man to discover this and give it due
expansion.
For the absence of this discriminating
sense no amount of mechanical smooth-
ness or imitative skill can compensate ;
and it is obvious that any attempt to
imitate or render the qualities peculiar
to one material in another leads the
workman on a false track.
Now, we have only to consider how
much of the work commonly produced,
which comes under the head of what is
called " industrial art," depends upon
this very false quality of imitation
(whether as to design or material) to
show how far we have departed in the
ordinary processes of manufacture and Of the
standards of trade from primitive and Revival of
. . . • rr^-i J 1 Design and
true artistic instincts. The demand, Handicraft.
artificially stimulated, is less for thought
or beauty than for novelty, and all sorts
of mechanical invention are applied,
chiefly with the view of increasing the
rate of production and diminishing its
cost, regardless of the fact that anything
in the nature of bad or false art is dear
at any price.
Plain materials and surfaces are in-
finitely preferable to inorganic and in-
appropriate ornament ; yet there is not
the simplest article of common use made
by the hand of man that is not capable
of receiving some touch of art — whether
it lies in the planning and proportions,
or in the final decorative adornment ;
whether in the work of the smith, the
carpenter, the carver, the weaver, or the
potter, and the other indispensable crafts.
9
Of the With the organisation of industry on
Revival of ^j^^ grand scale, and the enormous ap-
Design and ° • , • r
Handicraft, p^ication ot machinery m the interests or
competitive production for profit, when
both art and industry are forced to make
their appeal to the unreal and impersonal
average^ rather than to the real and
personal you and me, it is not wonder-
ful that beauty should have become
divorced from use, and that attempts to
concede its demands, and the desire for
it, should too often mean the ill-
considered bedizenment of meaningless
and unrelated ornament.
The very producer, the designer, and
craftsman, too, has been lost sight of,
and his personality submerged in that
of a business firm, so that we have
reached the reductio ad ahsurdum of an
impersonal artist or craftsman trying
to produce things of beauty for an
impersonal and unknown public — a
lO
purely conjectural matter from first to Of the
last. ^^^/^^^ °^
Under such conditions it is hardly Handicraft,
surprising that the arts of design should
have declined, and that the idea of art
should have become limited to pictorial
work (where, at least, the artist may be
known, in some relation to his public,
and comparatively free).
Partly as a protest against this state
of things, and partly to concentrate the
awakened feeling for beauty in the
accessories of life, the Arts and Crafts
Exhibition Society commenced their
work.
The movement, however, towards a
revival of design and handicraft, the
effort to unite — or rather to re-unite —
the artist and the craftsman, so sundered
by the industrial conditions of our
century, has been growing and gather-
ing force for some time past. It reflects
II
Of the in art the intellectual movement of
evival of inquiry into fundamental principles and
Design and . . , . ^ ,
Handicraft, necessities, and is a practical expression
of the philosophy of the conditioned. It
is true it has many different sides and
manifestations, and is under many differ-
ent influences and impelled by different
aims. With some the question is
closely connected with the commercial
prosperity of England, and her prowess
in the competitive race for wealth ;
with others it is enough if the social
well-being and happiness of her people
is advanced, and that the touch of art
should lighten the toil of joyless lives.
The movement, indeed, represents in
some sense a revolt against the hard
mechanical conventional life and its in-
sensibility to beauty (quite another thing
to ornament). It is a protest against
that so-called industrial progress which
produces shoddy wares, the cheapness
of which is paid for by the lives of their Of the
producers and the degradation of their Revival of
^ . Design and
users. It is a protest against the turning Handicraft.
of men into machines, against artificial
distinctions in art, and against making
the immediate market value, or possi-
bility of profit, the chief test of artistic
merit. It also advances the claim of all
and each to the common possession of
beauty in things common and familiar,
and would awaken the sense of this
beauty, deadened and depressed as it
now too often is, either on the one hand
by luxurious superfluities, or on the
other by the absence of the commonest
necessities and the gnawing anxiety for
the means of livelihood ; not to speak
of the everyday uglinesses to which we
have accustomed our eyes, confiised by
the flood of false taste, or darkened by
the hurried life of modern towns in
which huge aggregations of humanity
13
Of the exist, equally removed from both art and
Revival of ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^j^^-^. j^.^^^i ^^^ refining
Design and °
Handicraft, influences.
It asserts, moreover, the value of the
practice of handicraft as a good training
for the faculties, and as a most valuable
counteraction to that overstraining of
purely mental eifort under the fierce
competitive conditions of the day ;
apart from the very wholesome and real
pleasure in the fashioning of a thing
• with claims to art and beauty, the
struggle with and triumph over the
stubborn technical necessities which re-
fuse to be gainsaid. And, finally, thus
claiming for man this primitive and
common delight in common things made
beautifiil, it makes, through art, the great
socialiser for a common and kindred life,
for sympathetic and helpfiil fellowship,
and demands conditions under which
your artist and craftsman shall be free.
14
" See how great a matter a little fire Of the
kindleth." Some may think this is an Revival of
. J Design and
extensive programme — a remote ideal Handicraft
for a purely artistic movement to touch.
Yet if the revival of art and handicraft
is not a mere theatric and imitative im-
pulse ; if it is not merely to gratify a
passing whim of fashion, or demand of
commerce ; if it has reality and roots of
its own ; if it is not merely a delicate
luxury — a little glow of colour at the
end of a sombre day — it can hardly
mean less than what I have written.
It must mean either the sunset or the
dawn.
The success which had hitherto at-
tended the efforts of our Society, the
sympathy and response elicited by the
claims which had been advanced by us on
behalf of the Arts and Crafts of Design,
and (despite difficulties and imper-
fections) I think it may be said the
15
Of the character of our exhibitions, and last,
Revival of j^^^ ^^^ |g^3^^ ^j^^ public interest and
Design and .
Handicraft, support, manifested in various ways,
and from different parts of the country,
went far to prove both their necessity
and importance.
We were therefore encouraged to
open a third Exhibition in the autumn
of 1 890. In this last it was the Society's
object to make in it leading features of
two crafts in which good design and
handicraft are of the utmost importance,
namely. Furniture and Embroidery ; and
endeavours were made to get together
good examples of each.
It may be noted that while some
/ well-known firms, who had hitherto
held aloof, now exhibited with us, the
old difficulty about the names of the
responsible executants continued ; but
while some evaded the question, others
were models of exactitude in this
16
respect, proving that in this as in Of the
other questions where there is a will ^^^^^^^ °^
^ Design and
there is a way. Handicraft.
The Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society, while at first, of necessity, de-
pending on the work of a comparatively
limited circle, had no wish to be narrower
than the recognition of certain funda-
mental principles in design will allow,
and, indeed, desired but to receive and
to show the best after its kind in con-
temporary design and handicraft. Judg-
ment is not always infallible, and the
best is not always forthcoming, and in
a mixed exhibition it is difficult to
maintain an unvarying standard. At
present, indeed, an exhibition may be
said to be but a necessary evil ; but it
is the only means of obtaining a standard,
and giving publicity to the works of
Designer and Craftsman ; but it must
be more or less of a compromise, and of
c 17
Of the course no more can be done than to
Revival of niake an exhibition of contemporary
Design and , • r • j i
Handicraft ^^^^ representative or current ideas and
skill, since it is impossible to get outside
our own time.
In some quarters it appears to have
been supposed that our Exhibitions are
intended to appeal, by the exhibition of
cheap and saleable articles, to what are
rudely termed " the masses " ; we appeal
to all certainly, but it should be re-
membered that cheapness in art and
handicraft is well-nigh impossible, save
in some forms of more or less mechanical
reproduction. In fact, cheapness as a
rule, in the sense of low-priced produc-
tion, can only be obtained at the cost
of cheapness — that is, the cheapening of
human life and labour ; surely, in reality,
a most wasteful and extravagant cheap-
ness ! It is difficult to see how, under
present economic conditions, it can be
i8
otherwise. Art is, in its true sense, Of the
after all, the crown and flowering of life ^^^/^"^ °^'
° Design and
and labour, and we cannot reasonably Handicraft,
expect to gain that crown except at the
true value of the human life and labour
of which it is the result.
Of course there is the difl^erence of
cost between materials to be taken into
account : a table may be of oak or of
deal ; a cloth may be of silk or of
linen ; but the labour, skill, taste, intelli-
gence, thought, and fancy, which give
the sense of art to the work, are much
the same, and, being bound up with
human lives, need the means of life in its
completion for their proper sustenance.
At all events, I think it may be said
that the principle of the essential unity
and interdependence of the arts has
been again asserted — the brotherhood
of designer and craftsman ; that goes for
something, with whatever imperfections
19
Of the or disadvantages its acknowledgment
Revival of j^^^g ^ggj^ obscured.
Design and
Handicraft. ^^ putting this principle before the
public, the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society has availed itself from the first
of both lecture and essay, as well as
the display of examples. Lectures and
demonstrations were given during the
progress of the Exhibitions, and essays
written by well-known workers in the
crafts of which they treated have ac-
companied the catalogues. These papers
have now been collected together, and
revised by their authors, and appear in
book form under the editorship of Mr.
William Morris, whose name has been
practically associated with the revival of
beauty in the arts and crafts of design
in many ways before our Society came
into existence, and who with his co-
workers may be said to have been the
pioneer of our English Renascence, which
it is our earnest desire to foster and Of the
perpetuate. J^^"^'' °^
Design and
Every movement which has any sub- Handicraft.
stance and vitality must expect to encounter
misrepresentation, and even abuse, as well
as sympathy and support. In its work, so
far, the Society to which I have the honour
to belong has had its share of both, perhaps.
Those pledged to the support of
existing conditions, whether in art or
social life, are always sensitive to attacks
upon their weak points, and it is not
possible to avoid touching them to any
man who ventures to look an inch or
two beyond the immediate present. But
the hostility of some is as much a mark
of vitality and progress as the sympathy
of others. The sun strikes hottest as
the traveller climbs the hill ; and we
must be content to leave the value of
our work to the unfailing test of time.
Walter Crane.
21
TEXTILES
I HERE are several ways of orna-
menting a woven cloth : (i) real
tapestry, ( 2 ) carpet-weaving, ( 3 ) mechani-
cal weaving, (4) printing or painting,
and (5) embroidery. There has been
no improvement (indeed, as to the main
processes, no change) in the manufac-
ture of the wares in all these branches
since the fourteenth century, as far as
the wares themselves are concerned ;
whatever improvements have been in-
troduced have been purely commercial,
and have had to do merely with reduc-
ing the cost of production ; nay, more,
22
the commercial improvements have on Textiles,
the whole been decidedly injurious to
the quality of the wares themselves.
The noblest of the weaving arts is
Tapestry, in which there is nothing
mechanical : it may be looked upon as a
mosaic of pieces of colour made up of
dyed threads, and is capable of produc-
ing wall ornament of any degree of
elaboration within the proper limits of
duly considered decorative work.
As in all wall-decoration, the first
thing to be considered in the designing
of Tapestry is the force, purity, and
elegance of the silhouette of the objects
represented, and nothing vague or in-
determinate is admissible. But special
excellences can be expected from it.
Depth of tone, richness of colour, and
exquisite gradation of tints are easily to
be obtained in Tapestry ; and it also
demands that crispness and abundance
23
Textiles, of beautiful detail which was the especial
characteristic of fully developed Mediaeval
Art. The style of even the best period
of the Renaissance is wholly unfit for
Tapestry: accordingly we find that
Tapestry retained its Gothic character
longer than any other of the pictorial
arts. A comparison of the wall-hangings
in the Great Hall at Hampton Court
with those in the Solar or Drawing-
room, will make this superiority of the
earlier design for its purpose clear to
any one not lacking in artistic percep-
tion: and the comparison is all the
fairer, as both the Gothic tapestries of
the Solar and the post-Gothic hangings
of the Hall are pre-eminently good of
their kinds. Not to go into a descrip-
tion of the process of weaving tapestry,
which would be futile without illustra-
tions, I may say that in contradistinction
to mechanical weaving, the warp is quite
24
hidden, with the result that the colours Textiles,
are as solid as they can be made in
painting.
Carpet-weaving is somewhat of the
nature of Tapestry: it also is wholly
unmechanical, but its use as a floor-
cloth somewhat degrades it, especially
in our northern or western countries,
where people come out of the muddy
streets into rooms without taking off
their shoes. Carpet-weaving undoubt-
edly arose among peoples living a tent
life, and for such a dwelling as a tent,
carpets are the best possible ornaments.
Carpets form a mosaic of small
squares of worsted, or hair, or silk
threads, tied into a coarse canvas, which
is made as the work progresses. Owing
to the comparative coarseness of the
work, the designs should always be
very elementary in form, and suggestive
merely of forms of leafage^ flowers,
25
Textiles, beasts and birds, etc. The soft grada-
tions of tint to which Tapestry lends
itself are unfit for Carpet-weaving ;
beauty and variety of colour must be
attained by harmonious juxtaposition of
tints, bounded by judiciously chosen
outlines; and the pattern should lie
absolutely flat upon the ground. On
the whole, in designing carpets the
method of contrast is the best one to
employ, and blue and red, quite frankly
used, with white or very light out-
lines on a dark ground, and black or
some very dark colour on a light ground,
are the main colours on which the
designer should depend.
In making the above remarks I have
been thinking only of the genuine or
hand-made carpets. The mechanically-
made carpets of to-day must be looked
upon as makeshifts for cheapness' sake.
Of these, the velvet pile and Brussels
26
are simply coarse worsted velvets woven Textiles,
over wires like other velvet, and cut, in
the case of the velvet pile ; and Kidder-
minster carpets are stout cloths, in which
abundance of warp (a warp to each
weft) is used for the sake of wear and
tear. The velvet carpets need the same
kind of design as to colour and quality
as the real carpets ; only, as the colours
are necessarily limited in number, and
the pattern must repeat at certain
distances, the design should be simpler
and smaller than in a real carpet. A
Kidderminster carpet calls for a small
design in which the different planes, or
plies, as they are called, are well inter-
locked.
Mechanical weaving has to repeat the
pattern on the cloth within compara-
tively narrow limits ; the number of
colours also is limited in most cases to
four or five. In most cloths so woven,
27
Textiles, therefore, the best plan seems to be to
choose a pleasant ground colour and to
superimpose a pattern mainly composed
of either a lighter shade of that colour,
or a colour in no very strong contrast
to the ground; and then, if you are
using several colours, to light up this
general arrangement either with a more
forcible outline, or by spots of stronger
colour carefilly disposed. Often the
lighter shade on the darker suffices, and
hardly calls for anything else: some
very beautiful cloths are merely damasks,
in which the warp and weft are of the
same colour, but a different tone is
obtained by the figure and the ground
being woven with a longer or shorter
twill : the tahhy being tied by the warp
very often, the satin much more rarely.
In any case, the patterned webs pro-
duced by mechanical weaving, if the
ornament is to be effective and worth
28
the doing, require that same Gothic Textiles.
crispness and clearness of detail which
has been spoken of before: the geo-
metrical structure of the pattern, which
is a necessity in all recurring patterns,
should be boldly insisted upon, so as to
draw the eye from accidental figures,
which the recurrence of the pattern is
apt to produce.
The meaningless stripes and spots
and other tormentings of the simple
twill of the web, which are so common
in the woven ornament of the eighteenth
century and in our own times, should
be carefully avoided : all these things
are the last resource of a jaded invention
and a contempt of the simple and fi-esh
beauty that comes of a sympathetic
suggestion of natural forms: if the
pattern be vigorously and firmly drawn
with a true feeling for the beauty of
line and silhouette, the play of light and
29
Textiles, shade on the material of the simple
twill will give all the necessary variety.
I invite my readers to make another
comparison : to go to the South Kensing-
ton Museum and study the invaluable
fragments of the stuffs of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries of Syrian and
Sicilian manufacture, or the almost
equally beautiful webs of Persian design,
which are later in date, but instinct with
the purest and best Eastern feeling ;
they may also note the splendid stuffs
produced mostly in Italy in the later
Middle Ages, which are unsurpassed for
richness and effect of design, and when
they have impressed their minds with
the productions of this great historic
school, let them contrast with them the
work of the vile Pompadour period,
passing by the early seventeenth century
as a period of transition into corruption.
They will then (if, once more, they
30
have real artistic perception) see at once Textiles,
the difference between the results of
irrepressible imagination and love of
beauty, on the one hand, and, on the
other, of restless and weary vacuity of
mind, forced by the exigencies of fashion
to do something or other to the innocent
surface of the cloth in order to distin-
guish it in the market from other cloths ;
between the handiwork of the free
craftsman doing as he pleased with his
work, and the drudgery of the " opera-
tive " set to his task by the tradesman
competing for the custom of a frivolous
public, which had forgotten that there
was such a thing as art.
The next method of ornamenting
cloth is by painting it or printing on it
with dyes. As to the painting of cloths
with dyes by hand, which is no doubt
a very old and widely practised art,
it has now quite disappeared (modern
31
Textiles, society not being rich enough to pay
the necessary price for such work),
and its place has now been taken by
printing by block or cylinder-machine.
The remarks made on the design for
mechanically woven cloths apply pretty
much to these printed stuffs: only, in
the first place, more play of delicate and
pretty colour is possible, and more
variety of colour also ; and in the
second, much more use can be made of
hatching and dotting, which are obvi-
ously suitable to the method of block-
printing. In the many-coloured printed
cloths, frank red and blue are again the
mainstays of the colour arrangement;
these colours, softened by the paler
shades of red, outlined with black and
made more tender by the addition of
yellow in small quantities, mostly form-
ing part of brightish greens, make up
the colouring of the old Persian prints,
32
which carry the art as far as it can be Textiles,
carried.
It must be added that no textile orna-
ment has suiFered so much as cloth-
printing from those above-mentioned
commercial inventions. A hundred
years ago the processes for printing on
cloth differed little from those used by
the Indians and Persians ; and even up
to within forty years ago they produced
colours that were in themselves good
enough, however inartistically they might
be used. Then came one of the most
wonderflzl and most useless of the in-
ventions of modern Chemistry, that of
the dyes made from coal-tar, producing
a series of hideous colours, crude, livid —
and cheap, — which every person of taste
loathes, but which nevertheless we can by
no means get rid of until we are able to
struggle successfully against the doom of
cheap and nasty which has overtaken us.
D 33
Textiles. Last o£ the methods of ornamenting
cloth comes Embroidery : of the design
for which it must be said that one
of its aims should be the exhibition of
beautiflil material. Furthermore, it is
not worth doing unless it is either very
copious and rich, or very delicate — or
both. For such an art nothing patchy
or scrappy, or half-starved, should be
done : there is no excuse for doing any-
thing which is not strikingly beautiful ;
and that more especially as the exuber-
ance of beauty of the work of the East
and of Mediaeval Europe, and even of
the time of the Renaissance, is at hand
to reproach us. It may be well here to
warn those occupied in Embroidery
against the feeble imitations of Japanese
art which are so disastrously common
amongst us. The Japanese are admir-
able naturalists, wonderfully skilful
draughtsmen, deft: beyond all others in
34
mere execution of whatever they take Textiles.
in hand ; and also great masters of style
within certain narrow limitations. But
with all this, a Japanese design is ab-
solutely worthless unless it is executed
with Japanese skill. In truth, with all
their brilliant qualities as handicraftsmen,
which have so dazzled us, the Japanese
have no architectural, and therefore no
decorative, instinct. Their works of
art are isolated and blankly individual-
istic, and in consequence, unless where
they rise, as they sometimes do, to the
dignity of a suggestion for a picture
(always devoid of human interest), they
remain mere wonderful toys, things
quite outside the pale of the evolution
of art, which, I repeat, cannot be carried
on without the architectural sense that
connects it with the history of mankind.
To conclude with some general re-
marks about designing for textiles : the
35
Textiles, aim should be to combine clearness of
form and firmness of structure with the
mystery which comes of abundance and
richness of detail ; and this is easier of
attainment in woven goods than in flat
painted decoration and paper-hangings ;
because in the former the stuffs usually
hang in folds and the pattern is broken
more or less, while in the latter it is
spread out flat against the wall. Do
not introduce any lines or objects which
cannot be explained by the structure of
the pattern; it is just this logical
sequence of form, this growth which
looks as if, under the circumstances, it
could not have been otherwise, which
prevents the eye wearying of the re-
petition of the pattern.
Never introduce any shading for the
purpose of making an object look
round ; whatever shading you use should
be used for explanation only, to show
36
what you mean by such and such a Textiles,
piece of drawing ; and even that you
had better be sparing of.
Do not be afraid of large patterns;
if properly designed they are more rest-
ful to the eye than small ones : on the
whole, a pattern where the structure is
large and the details much broken up is
the most useful. Large patterns are not
necessarily startling ; this comes more
of violent relief of the figure from
the ground, or inharmonious colouring :
beautiful and logical form relieved from
the ground by well-managed contrast or
gradation, and lying flat on the ground,
will never weary the eye. Very small
rooms, as well as very large ones, look
best ornamented with large patterns,
whatever you do with the middling-
sized ones.
As final maxims : never forget the
material you are working with, and try
37
Textiles, always to use it for doing what it can do
best : if you feel yourself hampered by
the material in which you are working,
instead of being helped by it, you have
so far not learned your business, any
more than a would-be poet has, who
complains of the hardship of writing
in measure and rhyme. The special
limitations of the material should be
a pleasure to you, not a hindrance :
a designer, therefore, should always
thoroughly understand the processes of
the special manufacture he is dealing
with, or the result will be a mere tour de
force. On the other hand, it is the
pleasure in understanding the capabi-
lities of a special material, and using
them for suggesting (not imitating)
natural beauty and incident, that gives
the raison d'etre of decorative art.
William Morris.
38
OF DECORATIVE PAINTING
AND DESIGN
npHE term Decorative painting im-
^ plies the existence of painting
which is not decorative : a strange state
of things for an art which primarily and
pre-eminently appeals to the eye. If we
look back to the times when the arts
and crafts were in their most flourishing
and vigorous condition, and dwelt to-
gether, like brethren, in unity — say to
the fifteenth century — such a distinction
did not exist. Painting only differed in
its application, and in degree, not in
kind. In the painting of a MS., of
39
Of Decora- the panels of a cojfFer, of a ceiling, a
tivePainting ^^^^ ^^ ^^ altar-piece, the painter
and Design. . .
was alike — however different his theme
and conception — possessed with a para-
mount impulse to decorate, to make the
space or surface he dealt with as lovely
to the eye in design and colour as he
had skill to do.
The art of painting has, however,
become considerably differentiated since
those days. We are here in the nine-
teenth century encumbered with many
distinctions in the art. There is obvi-
ously much painting which is not decora-
tive, or ornamental in any sense, which
has indeed quite other objects. It may
be the presentment of the more super-
ficial natural facts, phases, or accidents
of light; the pictorial dramatising of
life or past history ; the pointing of a
moral ; or the embodiment of romance
and poetic thought or symbol. Not
40
but what It is quite possible for a painter Of Decora-
to deal with such things and yet to tive Painting
and Design,
produce a work that shall be decorative.
A picture, of course, may be a piece
of decorative art of the most beautiful
kind ; but to begin with, if it is an easel
picture, it is not necessarily related to
anything but itself: its painter is not
bound to consider anything outside its
own dimensions ; and, indeed, the
practice of holding large and mixed
picture-shows has taught him the use-
lessness of so doing.
Then, too, the demand for literal
presentment of the superficial facts or
phases of nature often removes the
painter and his picture still farther from
the architectural, decorative, and con-
structive artist and the handicraftsman,
who are bound to think of plan, and
design, and materials — of the adaptation
of their work, in short — while the painter
41
Of Decora- seeks only to be an unbiassed recorder
tive Painting ^f ^|| accidents and sensational conditions
and Design.
of nature and life, — and so we get our
illustrated newspapers on a grand scale.
An illustrated newspaper, however, in
spite of the skill and enterprise it may
absorb, is not somehow a joy for ever ;
and, after all, if literalism and instant-
aneous appearances are the only things
worth striving for in painting, the
photograph beats any painter at that.
If truth is the object of the modern
painter of pictures — truth as distinct from
or opposed to beauty — beauty is certainly
the object of the decorative painter,
but beauty not necessarily severed from
truth. Without beauty, however, decor-
ation has no reason for existence ; indeed
it can hardly be said to exist.
Next to beauty, the first essential of
a decoration is that it shall be related to
its environment, that it shall express or
42
acknowledge the conditions under which Of Decora-
it exists. If a fresco on a wall, for tive Painting
, , ,, . 1 and Design,
instance, it adorns the wall without
attempting to look like a hole cut in it
through which something is accidentally
seen ; if a painting on a vase, it acknow-
ledges the convexity of the shape, and
helps to express instead of contradicting
it ; if on a panel in a cabinet or door,
it spreads itself in an appropriate filling
on an organic plan to cover it ; being,
in short, ornamental by its very nature,
its first business is to ornament.
There exist, therefore, certain definite
tests for the work of the decorative artist.
Does the design fit its place and material ?
Is it in scale with its surroundings and
in harmony with itself? Is it fair and
lovely in colour? Has it beauty and
invention? Has it thought and poetic
feeling? These are the demands a
decorator has to answer, and by his
43
Of Decora- answer he must stand or fall ; but such
tive Painting questions show that the scope of decora-
and Design. .
tion IS no mean one.
It must be acknowledged that a
mixed exhibition does not easily afford
the fairest or completest tests of such
qualities. An exhibition is at best a
compromise, a convenience, a means of
comparison, and to enable work to be
shown to the public; but of course is,
after all, only really and properly exhi-
bited when it is in the place and position
and light for which it was destined.
The tests by which to judge a designer's
work are only complete then.
As the stem and branches to the
leaves, flowers, and fruit of a tree, so
is design to painting. In decoration
one cannot exist without the other, as
the beauty of a figure depends upon
the well-built and well-proportioned
skeleton and its mechanism. You cannot
44
separate a house from its plan and Of Decora-
foundations. So it is in decoration ; tivePainting
r 1- 1 1 1 • ^^^ Design,
often thought of hghtly as something
trivial and superficial, a merely aimless
combination of curves and colours, or a
mere rechauffe of the dead languages
of art, but really demanding the best
thought and capacity of a man ; and in
the range of its application it is not less
comprehensive.
The mural painter is not only a
painter, but a poet, historian, drama-
tist, philosopher. What should we
know, how much should we realise, of
the ancient world and its life without
him, and his brother the architectural
sculptor? How would ancient Egypt
live without her wall paintings — or
Rome, or Pompeii, or Mediaeval Italy ^
How much of beauty as well as of
history is contained in the illuminated
pages of the books of the Middle Ages !
45
Of Decora- Some modern essays in mural painting
tive Painting s^ow that the habit of mind and method
and Design.
of work fostered by the production of
trifles for the picture market is not
favourable to monumental painting.
Neither the mood nor the skill, indeed,
can be grown like a mushroom ; such
works as the Sistine Chapel, the Stanzi
of Raphael, or the Apartimenti Borgia,
are the result of long practice through
many centuries, and intimate relation-
ship and harmony in the arts, as well as
a certain unity of public sentiment.
The true soil for the growth of the
painter in this higher sense is a rich
and varied external life : familiarity
from early youth with the uses of
materials and methods, and the hand
facility which comes of close and constant
acquaintanceship with the tools of the
artist, who sums up and includes in
himself other crafts, such as modelling,
46
carving, and the hammering of metal, Of Decora-
architectural design, and a knowledge tive Painting
of all the ways man has used to beautify
and deck the surroundings and acces-
sories of life to satisfy his delight in
beauty.
We know that painting was strictly
an applied art in its earlier history, and
all through the Middle Ages painters
were in close alliance with the other
crafts of design, and their work in
one craft no doubt reacted on and
influenced that in another, while each
was kept distinct. At all events, painters
like Albert Diirer and Holbein were
also masters of design in all ways.
Through the various arts and crafts
of the Greek, Mediaeval, or Early Re-
naissance periods, there is evident, from
the examples which have come down to
us, a certain unity and common char-
acter in design, asserting itself through
47
Of Decora- all diverse individualities : each art is kept
tive Painting (distinct, with a complete recognition ot
the capacity and advantages of its own
particular method and purpose.
In our age, for various reasons (social,
commercial, economic), the specialised
and purely pictorial painter is dominant.
His aims and methods influence other
arts and crafts, but by no means advan-
tageously as a rule ; since, unchecked by
judicious ideas of design, attempts are
made in unsuitable materials to produce
so-called realistic force, and superficial
and accidental appearances dependent
on peculiar qualities of lighting and
atmosphere, quite out of place in any
other method than painting, or in any
place but an easel picture.
From such tendencies, such influ-
ences as these, in the matter of applied
art and design, we are striving to
recover. One of the first results is,
48
perhaps, this apparently artificial dis- OfDecora-
tinction between decorative and other tive Painting
_, 1 • 1 1 • 1 ^^<i Design,
painting. But along with this we have
painters whose easel pictures are in
feeling and treatment quite adaptable as
wall and panel decorations, and they are
painters who, as a rule, have studied
other methods in art, and drawn their
inspiration from the mode of Mediaeval
or Early Renaissance times.
Much might be said of different
methods and materials of work in de-
corative painting, but I have hardly
space here. The decorative painter
prefers a certain flatness of effect, and
therefore such methods as fresco, in
which the colours are laid on while the
plaster ground is wet, and tempera
naturally appeal to him. In the latter
the colours ground in water and used
with size, or white and yolk of egg, or
prepared with starch, worked on a dry
E 49
Of Decora- ground, drying lighter than when they
tive Painting ^j.^ p^^ ^^^ h2LyQ a peculiar luminous
quality, while the surface is free from
any gloss. Both these methods need
direct painting and finishing as the
work proceeds.
By a method of working in ordinary
oil colours on a ground of fibrous plaster,
using rectified spirit of turpentine or
benzine as a medium, much of the
quality of fi*esco or tempera may be
obtained, with the advantage that the
plaster ground may be a movable panel.
There are, however, other fields for
the decorative painter than wall paint-
ing ; as, for instance, domestic furniture,
which may vary in degree of elaboration
from the highly ornate cassone or
marriage coffer of Mediaeval Italy to
the wreaths and sprays which decked
chairs and bed-posts even within our
century. There has been of late some
50
revival of painting as applied chiefly to Of Decora-
the panels of cabinets, or the decoration "^e Painting
f and Design,
of piano fronts and cases.
The same causes produce the same
results. With the search after, and
desire for, beauty in life, we are again
driven to study the laws of beauty in
design and painting ; and in so doing
painters will find again the lost thread,
the golden link of connection and inti-
mate association with the sister arts and
handicrafts, whereof none is before or
after another, none is greater or less ■
than the other.
Walter Crane.
51
OF WALL PAPERS
\ A iTHILE the tradition and practice
^ ^ of mural painting as applied to
interior walls and ceilings of houses still
linger in Italy, in the form of often
skilflil if not always tasteful tempera
work, in more western countries, like
England, France, and America, under
the economic conditions and customs of
commercial civilisation, with its smoky
cities, and its houses built by the hundred
to one pattern, perhaps, and let on short
terms, as regards domestic decoration —
except in the case of a few wealthy
freeholders — mural painting has ceased
52
to exist. Its place has been taken by Of Wall
what after all is but a substitute for it, Papers,
namely, wall paper.
I am not aware that any specimen of
wall paper has been discovered that has
claims to any higher antiquity than the
sixteenth century, and it only came
much into use in the last, increasing in
the present, until it has become well-
nigh a universal covering for domestic
walls, and at the same time has shown
a remarkable development in design,
varying from very unpretending patterns
and printings in one colour to elaborate
block-printed designs in many colours,
besides cheap machine-printed papers,
where all the tints are printed from the
design on a roller at once.
Since Mr. William Morris has shown
what beauty and character in pattern,
and good and delicate choice of tint can
do for us, giving in short a new impulse
53
Of Wall in design, a great amount of ingenuity
Papers. ^^^ enterprise has been spent on wall
papers in England, and in the better
kinds a very distinct advance has been
made upon the patterns of inconceivable
hideousness, often of French origin, of
the period of the Second Empire — a
period which perhaps represents the
most degraded level of taste in decoration
generally.
The designer of patterns for wall
papers heretofore has been content to
imitate other materials, and adapt the
characteristics of the patterns found, say,
in silk damask hangings or tapestry, or
even imitate the veining of wood, or
marble, or tiles ; but since the revival
of interest in art, the study of its history,
and knowledge of style, a new impulse
has been given, and patterns are con-
structed with more direct reference to
their beauty, and interest as such, while
54
strictly adapted to the methods of manu- Of Wall
facture. Great pains are often taken by ^^pers.
our principal makers to secure good
designs and harmonious colourings, and
though a manufacturer and director of
works is always more or less controlled
by the exigencies of the market and the
demands of the tentative salesman —
considerations which have no natural
connection with art, though highly im-
portant as economic conditions affecting
its welfare — very remarkable results
have been produced, and a special de-
velopment of applied design may almost
be said to have come into existence with
the modern use of wall papers. The
manufacture suffers like most others
from the keenness and unscrupulousness
of commercial competition, which leads
to the production of specious imitations
of bond fide designs, and unauthorised
use of designs originally intended for
55
Of Wall Other purposes, and this of course presses
apers. unfairly upon the more conscientious
maker, so long as the public do not
decline to be deceived.
English wall papers are made in
lengths 21 inches wide. French wall
papers are i8 inches wide. This has
probably been found most convenient in
working in block-printing : it is obvious
to any one who has seen the printers at
work that a wider block than 2 1 inches
would be unwieldy, since the block is
printed by hand, being suspended from
above by a cord, and guided by the
workman's hand from the well of colour,
into which it is dipped, to the paper flat
on a table before him.
The designer must work to the given
width, and though his design may vary in
depth, must never exceed 2 1 inches square,
except where double blocks are used.
His main business is to devise his pattern
56
so that it will repeat satisfactorily over Of Wall
an indefinite wall space without running Papers,
into awkward holes or lines. It may be
easy enough to draw a spray or two of
leaves or flowers which will stand by
themselves, but to combine them in an
organic pattern which shall repeat
pleasantly over a wall surface requires
much ingenuity and a knowledge of the
conditions of the manufacture, apart
from play of fancy and artistic skill.
One way of concealing the joints of
the repeat of the pattern is by contriving
what is called a drop-repeat, so that, in
hanging, the paper-hanger, instead of
placing each repeat of pattern side by
side, is enabled to join the pattern at a
point its own depth below, which varies
the effect, and arranges the chief features
or masses on an alternating plan.
The modern habit of regarding the
walls of a room chiefly as a background
57
Of Wall to pictures, furniture, or people, and
^P^^^* perhaps the smallness of the average
room, has brought rather small, thickly-
dispersed, leafy patterns into vogue,
' retiring in colour for the most part.
While, however, we used to see rotund
and accidental bunches of roses (the
pictorial or sketchy treatment of which
contrasted awkwardly with their formal
repetition), we now get a certain sense
of adaptation, and the necessity of a
certain flatness of treatment ; and most
of us who have given much thought to
the subject feel that when natural forms
are dealt with, under such conditions,
suggestion is better than any attempt
at realisation, or naturalistic or pictorial
treatment, and that a design must be
constructed upon some systematic plan,
if not absolutely controlled by a geo-
metric basis.
Wall papers are printed from blocks
58
prepared from designs, the outlines of Of Wall
which are reproduced by means of flat Papers,
brass wire driven edgeways into the
wood block. One block for each tint is
used. First one colour is printed on a
length of paper, a piece of 1 2 yards long
and 2 1 inches wide, which is passed over
sticks suspended across the workshop.
When the first colour is dry the next is
printed, and so on ; the colours being
mixed with size and put in shallow
trays or wells, into which the blocks are
dipped.
A cheaper kind is printed by steam
power from rollers on which the design
has been reproduced in the same way by
brass wire, which holds the colour ; but
in the case of machine-printed papers
all the tints are printed at once. Thus
the pattern is often imperfect and
blurred.
A more elaborate and costly kind of
59
Of Wall wall paper is that which is stamped and
Papers, gilded, in emulation of stamped and gilded
leather, which it resembles in effect and
quality of surface. For this method the
design is reproduced in relief as a
repoussee brass plate, and from this a
mould or matrix is made, and the paper
being damped is stamped in a press into
the matrix, and so takes the pattern in
relief, which is generally covered with
white metal and lacquered to a gold hue,
and this again may be rubbed in with
black, which by filling the interstices
gives emphasis to the design and darkens
the gold to bronze ; or the gilded sur-
face may be treated in any variety of
colour by means of painting or lacquer,
or simply relieved by colouring the
ground.
But few of us own our own walls, or
the ground they stand upon : but few
of us can afford to employ ourselves or
60
skilled artists and craftsmen in painting Of Wall
our rooms with beautiful fancies : but if ^^P^^s.
we can gQt well - designed repeating
patterns by the yard, in agreeable tints,
with a pleasant flavour perchance of
nature or antiquity, for a few shillings
or pounds, ought we not to be happy ?
At all events, wall-paper makers should
naturally think so.
Walter Crane.
6i
FICTILES
CARLIEST amongst the inventions
^^ of man and his endeavour to unite
Art with Craft is the Fictile Art. His
first needs in domestic life, his first
utensils, his first efforts at civilisation,
came from the Mother Earth, whose
son he believed himself to be, and his
ashes or his bones returned to Earth
enshrined in the fictile vases he created
from their common clay. And these
Fictiles tell the story of his first Art-
instincts, and of his yearnings to unite
beauty with use. They tell, too, more
of his history than is enshrined and
62
preserved by any other art ; for almost all Fictiles.
we know of many a people and many a
tongue is learned from the fictile record,
the sole relic of past civilisations which
the Destroyer Time has left us.
Begun in the simplest fashion, fash-
ioned by the simplest means, created
from the commonest materials, Fictile
Art grew with man's intellectual growth,
and Fictile Craft grew with his know-
ledge ; the latter conquering, in this our
day, when the craftsman strangles the
artist alike in this as in all other arts.
To truly foster and forward the art, the
craftsman and the artist should, where
possible, be united, or at least should
work in common, as was the case when,
in each civilisation, the Potter's Art
flourished most, and when the scientific
base was of less account than was the
art employed upon it. In its earliest
stages the local clay sufficed for the
63
Fictiles. formative portion of the work, and the
faiences of most European countries
offer more artistic results to us than
do the more scientifically compounded
porcelains. In the former case the
native clay seemed more easily to ally
itself with native art, to record more of
current history, to create artistic genius
rather than to be content with attempt-
ing to copy misunderstood efforts of
other peoples and other times. But
when science ransacked the earth for
foreign bodies and ingredients, foreign
decorative ideas came with them and
Fictile Art was no more a vernacular
one. It attempted to disguise itself, to
show the craftsman superior to the
artist ; and then came the Manufacturer
and the reign of quantity over quality,
the casting in moulds by the gross and
the printing by the thousands. Be it
understood these remarks only apply to
64
the introduction of porcelain into Europe. Fictiles.
In the East where the clay is native, the
art is native ; the potter's hand and the
wheel yet maintain the power of giving
the potter his individuality as the creator
and the artist, and save him from being
but the servant and the slave of a
machine.
Between faience and porcelain comes,
midway. Stoneware, in which many
wonderfully, and some fearfully, made
things have been done of late, but
which possesses the combined qualities -
of faience and porcelain — the ease of
manipulation of the former, and the
hardness and durability of the latter ;
but the tendency to over-elaborate the
detail of its decoration, and rely less on
the beauty of its semi-glossy surface
than on meretricious ornament, has
rather spoiled a very hopeful movement
in Ceramic Art. Probably the wisest
F 65
Fictiles. course to pursue at the present would
be to pay more attention to faiences
decorated with simple glazes or with
" slip " decoration, and this especially in
modelled work. A continuation of
the artistic career of the Delia Robbia
family is yet an unfulfilled desideratum,
notwithstanding that glazed faiences
have never since their time ceased to be
made, and that glazed figure work of
large scale prevailed in the eighteenth
century. Unglazed terra cotta, an
artistic product eminently suited to our
climate and to our urban architecture,
has but partially developed itself, and
this more in the direction of moulded
and cast work than that of really
plastic art ; and albeit that from its
dawn to this present the Fictile Art has
been exercised abundantly, its role is
by no means exhausted. The artist and
the craftsman have yet a wide field
66
before them, but it would be well that Fictiles.
the former should, for some while to
come, take the lead. Science has too
long reigned supreme in a domain
wherein she should have been not more
than equal sovereign. She has had her
triumphs, great triumphs too, triumphs
which have been fraught with good in an
utilitarian sense, but she has tyrannised
too rigidly over the realm of Art. Let
us now try to equalise the dual rule.
G. T. Robinson.
67
METAL WORK
TN discussing the artistic aspect of
^ metal work, we have to take into
account the physical properties and
appropriate treatment of the following
metals : the precious metals, gold and
silver ; copper, both pure and alloyed
with other metals, especially tin and
zinc in various proportions to form the
many kinds of brass and bronze ; lead,
with a group of alloys of which pewter
is typical ; and iron, in the three forms
of cast iron, wrought iron, and steel.
All these have been made to serve the
purpose of the artist, and the manipula-
68
tion of them, while presenting many IVietal Work,
differences in detail, presents certain
broad characteristics in common which
distinguish them from the raw material
of other crafts. Whether they are
found native in the metallic state as is
usual in the case of gold, or combined
with many other minerals in the form of
ore as is more common with other
metals, fire is the primal agency by
which they are made available for our
needs. The first stage in their manipu-
lation is to melt and cast them into •
ingots of a size convenient to the
purpose intended. Secondly, all these
metals when pure, and many alloys, are
in varying degree malleable and ductile,
are, in fact, if sufficient force be applied,
plastic. Hence arises the first broad
division in the treatment of metals.
The fluid metal may, by the use of
suitable moulds, be cast at once to the
69
Metal Wc»k. shape required, or the casting may be
treated merely as the starting-point for
a whole series of operations — forging,
rolling, chipping, chasing, wire-drawing,
and many more. Another property of
the metals which must be noticed is,
that not only can separate masses of
metals be melted down and fused into
one, but it is possible, under various
conditions, of which the one invariably
necessary is perfectly clean surfaces of
contact, to unite separate portions of the
same or different metals without fusion
of the mass. For our present purpose
the most important instance of this is
the process of soldering, by which two
surfaces are united by the application of
sufficient heat to melt more flisible metal
which is introduced between them, and
which combines with both so as firmly
to unite them on solidifying. Closely
allied to this are the processes by which
70
one metal is, for purposes of adornment Metal Work,
or preservation from corrosion, coated
with a thin film or deposit of another,
usually more costly, metal.
Though hereafter electro-metallurgy
may assert its claim to artistic originality
as a third division, for the present all
metal work, so far as its artistic aspect
depends upon process, falls naturally
into one of the two broad divisions of
cast metal and wrought metal. Both
have been employed from a time long
anterior to written history ; ornaments -
of beaten gold, and tools of cast bronze,
are alike found among the relics of very
early stages of civilisation, and in early
stages both alike are artistic. The
choice between the two processes is
determined by such considerations as
convenience of manufacture and the
physical properties of the metals, and
the different purposes in view. When
71
Metal Work, a thick and comparatively massive shape
is required, it is often easier to cast it
at once. For thinner and lighter forms
it is usually more convenient to treat the
ingot or crude product of the furnace as
mere raw material for a long series of
workings under the hammer, or its patent
mechanical equivalents, the rolling and
pressing mills of modern mechanics.
The choice is further influenced by the
toughness generally characteristic of
wrought metal, whereas the alloys which
yield the cleanest castings are by no
means universally the best in other
respects. Iron is the extreme instance
of this : ordinary cast iron being an im-
pure form of the metal, which is too
brittle to be worked under the hammer,
but is readily cast into moulds, being
fluid at a temperature which, though
high, is easily obtained in a blast furnace.
Wrought iron, however, which is usually
72
obtained from cast iron by a process called Metal Work,
puddling, whereby the impurities are
burnt out, does not become fluid enough
to pour into moulds ; but on the other
hand, pieces at a white heat can be united
into a solid mass by skilful hammering,
a process which is called welding, and,
together with the fact that from its
great hardness it is usually worked hot,
is specially distinctive of the blacksmith's
craft. In no other metal is the separa-
tion between the two branches so wide
as in iron. The misdirected skill of •
some modern iron-founders has caused
the name of cast iron to be regarded as
the very negative of art, and has even
thrown suspicion on the process of
casting itself as one of questionable
honesty. Nevertheless, as a craft capable
of giving final shape to metal, it has
manifestly an artistic aspect, and, in
fact, bronze statuary, a fine art pure and
73
Metal Work, simple, is reproduced from the clay-
model merely by moulding and casting.
We must therefore look for the artistic
conditions in the preparation of the
model or pattern, the impress of which
in sand or loam forms the mould ; the
pattern may be carved in wood or
modelled in clay, but the handling of
the wood or clay is modified by the
conditions under which the form is
reproduced. And lastly, the finished
object may either retain the surface
formed as the metal solidifies, as in the
case of the bronzes cast by the wax
process, or the skin may be removed by
the use of cutting tools, chisels and files
and gravers, so that, as in the case of
many of the better French bronzes, the
finished work is strictly carved work.
On the contrary, much silversmith's
work, as well as such simple objects as
Chinese gongs and Indian "lotahs,"
74
after being cast approximately to shape Metal Work,
are finished by hammer work, that is,
treated as plastic material with tools
that force the material into shape in-
stead of cutting the shape out of the
mass by removing exterior portions of
material. Attempts to imitate both
processes by casting only, thus dis-
pensing with the cost of finishing,
are common, but as they dispense
likewise with all beauty in the product,
even if they do not substitute varnished
and tinted zinc for better metal, their ^
success is commercial only.
We have thus three characteristic
kinds of surface resulting from the con-
ditions of treatment, marking out three
natural divisions of the art : and be
it noted that questions of surface or
texture are all -important in the arts ;
beauty is skin deep. First, the natural
skin of the metal solidified in contact
75
Metal Work, with the mould, and more or less closely
imitative of the surface of the original
model, usually for our purposes a plastic
surface ; secondly, there is carved,
technically called chased, work ; and
thirdly, beaten or wrought work, which
in ornament is termed embossing.
Superimposed on these we have the
cross divisions of the crafts according to
the special metal operated on, and in
the existing industrial organisation the
groups thus obtained have to be further
divided into many sub-heads, according
to the articles produced ; and finally,
another commercial distinction has to be
drawn which greatly affects the present
condition of handicraft, that is, the
division of the several trades into crafts-
men and salesmen. There can be no
doubt that the extent of the existing
dissociation of the producing craftsman
from the consumer is an evil for the arts,
76
and that the growing preponderance of Metal Work,
great stores is inimical to excellence of
workmanship. It is, perhaps, an advan-
tage for the workman to be relieved
from the office of salesman ; the position
of the village smith plying his calling in
face of his customers might not suit
every craft, but the services of the
middleman are dearly bought at the
price of artistic freedom. It is too often
in the power of the middleman to dic-
tate the quality of workmanship, too
often his seeming interest to ordain that *
it shall be bad.
The choice of a metal for any par-
ticular purpose is determined by physical
properties combined with considerations
of cost. Iron, if only for its cheapness,
is the material for the largest works of
metal ; while in the form of steel it is
the best available material for many very
small works, watch-springs for instance :
77
Metal Work, it has the defect of liability to rust ; the
surfaces of other metals may tarnish, but
iron rusts through. For the present
only one application of cast iron con-
cerns us — its use for grates and stoves.
The point to remember is, that as the
material has but little beauty, its em-
ployment should be restricted to the
quantity prescribed by the demands of
utility. Wrought iron, on the contrary,
gives very great scope to the artist, and
it offers this peculiar advantage, that the
necessity of striking while the iron is
hot enforces such free dexterity of
handling in the ordinary smith, that he
has comparatively little to learn if set
to produce ornamental work, and thus
renewed interest in the art has found
craftsmen enough who could readily
respond to the demand made upon
them.
Copper, distinguished among metals
78
by its glowing red tint, has as a material Metal Work.
for artistic work been overshadowed by
its alloys, brass and bronze ; partly be-
cause they make sounder castings, partly
it is to be feared from the approach of
their colour to gold. Holding an inter-
mediate position between iron and the
precious metals, they are the material
of innumerable household utensils and
smaller architectural fittings.
Lead, tin, and zinc scarcely concern
the artist to-day, though neither plumber
nor pewterer has always been restricted ?
to plain utilitarianism. Gold and silver
have been distinguished in all ages as
the precious metals, both for their
comparative rarity and their freedom
from corrosion, and their extreme
beauty. They are both extremely
malleable and very readily worked.
Unhappily there is little original English
work being done in these metals. The
79
Metal Work, more ordinary wares have all life and
feeling taken out of them by mechanical
finish, an abrasive process being employed
to remove every sign of tool-marks. The
all-important surface is thus obliterated.
As to design, fashion oscillates between
copies of one past period and another.
A comparison of one of these copies
with an original will make the distinc-
tion between the work of a man paid to
do his quickest and one paid to do his
best clearer than volumes of description.
Indeed, when all is said, a writer can
but indicate the logic that underlies the
craft, or hint at the relation which
subsists between the process, the material,
and the finished ware: the distinction
between good and bad in art eludes
definition ; it is not an affair of reason,
but of perception.
W. A. S. Benson.
80
STONE AND WOOD CARVING
'T^HE crafts of the stone and wood
-^ carver may fairly be taken in
review at the same time, although they
differ in themselves.
It is a misfortune that there should
be so great a gulf as there is between
the craftsman who is called, and con-
siders himself to be properly called, " a
sculptor " and his fellow-craftsman who
is called '' a carver." In these days the
'' sculptor " is but too often a man who
would think it a condescension to execute
what, for want of a better name, we
must call decorative work. In truth,
G 8i
Stone and the sculptor IS the outcome of that
Wood entire separation which has come about
between the lov€ of beauty, once common
in everyday life, and art, as it is now
called — a thing degraded to the pur-
poses of a toy, a mere ornament for the
rich. The sculptor is trained to make
these ornaments, things which have no
relation to their surroundings, but which
may be placed now in a drawing-room,
now in a conservatory or a public square,
alone and unsheltered. He is a child of
the studio.
The result of this training is, he has
lost all knowledge how to produce work
of a decorative character. He under-
stands nothing of design in a wide sense,
but being able to model a figure with toler-
able success he rests therewith content.
Being designed, as it is, in the studio, his
work is wanting in sympathy with its
surroundings ; it does not fall into its
82
place, it is not a part of a complete Stone and
conception. ^°°^
Things were not so when sculpture
and what, for want of a better term, we
have called " stone and wood carving '*
were at their prime.
The Greek craftsman could produce
both the great figure of the god, which
stood alone as the central object in
the temple, and (working in thorough
sympathy with the architect) the decora-
tive sculpture of less importance which
was attached to the building round
about, and without which the beauty
of the fabric was incomplete.
So also the great Florentine sculptors
spent themselves with equal zeal on a
door, the enclosure of a choir, a pulpit,
or a tomb, which in those days meant
not merely the effigy of the departed, but
a complete design of many parts all full
of beauty and skill.
83
Carving.
Stone and In the great days of Mediaeval Art
°° sculpture played a part of the highest
importance. The works then produced
are not only excellent in themselves,
but are so designed as to form a part of
the building they adorn. How thor-
oughly unfinished would be the west
front of the Cathedral at Wells, or the
portals of Amiens or Reims, without
their sculpture.
How rarely can we feel this sense of
satisfaction, of unity of result, between
the work of the sculptor and the architect
in our buildings of to-day. The figures
are " stood about " like ornaments on
the mantelpiece. The architect seems
as unable to prepare for them as the
sculptor to make them. We seldom see
congruity even between the figure and
the pedestal on which it stands.
The want of this extended sympathy
leads to another ill result. Wood, stone,
84
Carving.
and metal, different as they are, are Stone and
treated by the artist in much the same ^Wood
fashion. The original model in clay
seems to stand behind everything. The
" artist " makes the clay model ; his
subordinates work it out in one or
another material. The result can only
be unsatisfactory because the natural
limitations fixed by the qualities of the
different materials have been neglected,
whereas they should stand forth pro-
minently in the mind of the artist from
the moment he first conceives his design.
Marble, stones — some hard, some soft,
— terra cotta,metals, or wood, each demand
a difference of treatment. For example,
the fibrous nature of wood enables the
craftsman to produce work which would
fall to pieces at the first blow if executed
in stone. The polished and varied sur-
face of marble demands a treatment of
surface and section of mouldings which
85
Stone and in stone would seem tame and poor.
Wood Again, it must not be forgotten that
Carving. . ° .
most works in stone or marble are built
up. They are composed of many blocks
standing one on the other. With wood
it is quite different. Used in thick
pieces it splits ; good wood-work is
therefore framed together, the framing
and intermediate panelling lending itself
to the richest decoration ; but anything
in the design which suggests stone con-
struction is obviously wrong. In short,
wood must be treated as a material
that is fibrous and tenacious, and in
planks or slabs ; stone or marble as
of close, even texture, brittle and in
blocks.
Consequent on these differences of
texture, we find that the tools and method
of handling them used by the wood-
carver differ in many respects from those
used by the worker in stone or marble.
86
One material is scooped and cut out, the Stone and
other is attacked by a constant repetition ^^^^
Carving,
of blows.
In the history of Mediaeval Art we
find that the craft of the stone-carver
was perfectly understood long before
that of his brother craftsman in wood.
Whilst the first had all through Europe
attained great perfection in the thirteenth
century, the second did not reach the
same standard till the fifteenth, and with
the classic revival it died out. Nothing
displays more fully the adaptation of .
design and decoration to the material
than much of the fifteenth-century stall-
work in our English cathedrals. These
could only be executed in wood ; the
design is suited to that material only ;
but when the Italian influence creeps in,
the designs adopted are in fact suited to
fine stone, marble, or alabaster, and not
to wood.
87
Stone and Until the craftsman in stone and wood
Wood -g j^Qi-g of an architect, and the architect
more of a craftsman, we cannot hope
for improvement.
SoMERs Clarke.
SS
FURNITURE
* I ''HE institution of schools of art and
design, and the efforts of serials
and magazines devoted to artistic matters,
have had their proper effect in the
creation of a pretty general distaste for
the clumsy and inartistic forms which
characterised cabinets and furniture
generally some years back. Unfortu-
nately for the movement, some manu-
facturers saw their opportunity in the
demand thus created for better and more
artistic shapes to produce bad and ill-
made copies of good designs, which
undermined the self-respect of the
89
Furniture, unfortunate man (frequently a good and
sufficient craftsman) whose ill hap it was
to be obliged to make them, and vexed
the soul of the equally unfortunate
purchaser.
The introduction of machinery for
moulding, which left only the fitting and
polishing to be done by the craftsman,
and which enabled manufacturers to
produce two or three cabinets in the
time formerly occupied in the making of
one, was all against the quality and
stability of the work. No good work
was ever done in a hurry : the craftsman
may be rapid, but his rapidity is the
result of very deliberate thought, and
not of hurry. Good furniture, however,
cannot be made rapidly. All wood, no
matter how long it is kept, nor how
dry it may be superficially, will always
shrink again when cut into.
It follows that the longer the interval
90
between the cutting up of the wood, and Furniture.
its fitting together, the better for the
work. In the old times the parts of a
cabinet lay about in the workman's
benchway for weeks, and even months,
and were continually turned over and
handled by him while he was engaged
on the mouldings and other details.
The wood thus became really dry, and
no further shrinkage could take place
after it was put together.
A word here about the designing of
cabinets. ?
Modern furniture designers are far too
much influenced by considerations of
style, and sacrifice a good deal that is
valuable in order to conform to certain
rules which, though sound enough in
their relation to architecture, do not
really apply to furniture at all. Much
more pleasing, and not necessarily less
artistic work would be produced, were
91
Furniture, designers, and handicraftsmen too, en-
couraged to allow their imagination more
scope, and to get more of their own
individuality into their work, instead of
being the slaves of styles invented by
people who lived under quite different
conditions from those now prevailing.
Mouldings as applied to cabinets are
nearly always too coarse, and project too
much. This applies equally to the
carvings, which should always be quite
subordinate to the general design and
mouldings, and (in its application to
surfaces) should be in low relief. This
is quite compatible with all necessary
vigour as well as refinement. The idea
that boldness — viz. high projection of
parts in carving — has anything to do
with vigour is a common one, but is
quite erroneous. All the power and
vigour which he is capable of putting
into anything, the clever carver can put
92
into a piece of ornament which shall not Furniture,
project more than a quarter of an inch
from the ground in any part. Indeed, I
have known good carvers who did their
best work within those limits.
Knowledge of line, of the manage-
ment of planes, with dexterity in the
handling of surfaces, is all he requires.
Another common mistake is to suppose
that smoothness of surface has anything
to do with finish properly so called. If
only half the time which is commonly
spent in smoothing and polishing carved r
surfaces was devoted to the more
thorough study and development of the
various parts of the design, and the
correction of the outlines, the surface
might very well be left to take care of
itself, and the work would be the better
for it.
There is not space in this paper to
do more than glance at a few other
93
Furniture, methods in ordinary use for cabinet
decoration. Marquetry, inlays of ivory,
and various other materials have always
been extensively used, and sometimes
with excellent effect. In many old
examples the surface of the solid wood
was cut away to the pattern, and various
other kinds of wood pressed into the
lines so sunk. The method more gener-
ally adopted now is to insert the pattern
into veneer which has been prepared to
receive it, and mount the whole on a
solid panel or shape with glue.
The besetting sin of the modern
designer or maker of marquetry is a
tendency to " loud " colour and violent
contrasts of both colour and grain. It
is common to see as many as a dozen
different kinds of wood used in the
decoration of a modern cabinet — some
of them stained woods, and the colours
of no two of them in harmony.
94
The best work in this kind depends Furniture,
for its effect on a rich, though it may be
low tone of colour. It is seldom that
more than two or three different kinds
of wood are used, but each kind is so
carefully selected for the purpose of
the design, and is used in so many
different ways, that, while the all-
important "tone" is kept throughout,
the variety of surface is almost infinite.
For this reason, though it is not necessary
that the designer should actually cut the
work himself, it is most essential that he .
should always be within call of the
cutter, and should himself select every
piece of wood which is introduced into
the design. This kind of work is some-
times shaded with hot sand ; at other
times a darker wood is introduced into
the pattern for the shadows. The latter
is the better way ; the former is the
cheaper.
95
Furniture. The polishing of cabinet work. I
have so strong an objection in this con-
nection to the French polisher and all
his works and ways, that, notwithstand-
ing the popular prejudice in favour of
brilliant surfaces, I would have none of
him. Formerly the cabinetmaker was
accustomed to polish his own work,
sometimes by exposing the finished
surfaces to the light for a few weeks in
order to darken them, and then applying
beeswax with plentiful rubbing. This
was the earliest and the best method,
but in later times a polish composed of
naphtha and shellac was used. The latter
polish, though open to many of the
objections which may be urged against
that now in use, was at least hard and
lasting, which can hardly be said of its
modern substitute.
The action of the more reputable
cabinetmaking firms has been, of late,
96
almost wholly in the direction of better Furniture,
design and construction ; but a still
better guarantee of progress in the future
of the craft is found in the fact that
the craftsman who takes an artistic and
intelligent, and not a merely mechanical
interest in his work, is now often to be
met. To such men greater individual
freedom is alone wanting.
Stephen Webb.
97
STAINED GLASS
TN these days there is a tendency to
* judge the merits of stained glass
from the standpoint of the archaeologist.
It is good or bad in so far as it is directly
imitative of work of the fourteenth or
fifteenth century. The art had reached
to a surprising degree of beauty and
perfection in the fifteenth century, and
although under the influence of the
Renaissance some good work was done,
it rapidly declined only to lift its head
once more with the revived study of the
architecture of the Middle Ages.
The burning energy of Pugin, which
98
nothing could escape, was directed Stained
towards this end, but the attainment of ^^^ss.
a mere archaeological correctness was the
chief aim in view. The crude draughts-
manship of the ancient craftsman was
diligently imitated, but the spirit and
charm of the original was lost, as, in a
mere imitation, it must be. In the
revival of the art, whilst there was an
attempt to imitate the drawing, there
was no attempt to reproduce the quality
of the ancient glass. Thus, brilliant,
transparent, and unbroken tints were
used, lacking all the richness and splen-
dour of colour so characteristic of the
originals. Under these conditions of
blind imitation the modern worker in
stained glass produced things probably
more hideous than the world ever saw
before.
Departing altogether from the tradi-
tions of the mediaeval schools, whether
99
Stained ancient or modern, there has arisen
Glass. another school which has found its chief
exponents at Munich. The object of
these people has been, ignoring the con-
dition under which they must necessarily-
work, to produce an ordinary picture in
enamelled colours upon sheets of glass.
The result has been the production of
mere transparencies no better than painted
blinds.
What then, it may be asked, are the
limiting conditions, imposed upon him
by the nature of the materials, within
which the craftsman must work to
produce a satisfactory result ^
In the first place, a stained glass
window is not an easel picture. It does
not stand within a frame, as does the
easel picture, in isolation from the objects
surrounding it ; it is not even an object
to be looked at by itself ; its duty is, not
only to be beautiful, but to play its part
100
in the adornment of the building in Stained
which it is placed, being subordinated to Glass.
the effect the interior is intended to
produce as a whole. It is, in fact, but
one of many parts that go to produce
a complete result. A visit to one of
our mediaeval churches, such as York
Minster, Gloucester Cathedral, or Mal-
vern Priory, church buildings, which
still retain much of their ancient glass,
and a comparison of the unity of effect
there experienced with the internecine
struggle exhibited in most buildings
furnished by the glass painters of to-day,
will surely convince the most indifferent
that there is yet much to be learned.
Secondly, the great difference be-
tween coloured glass and painted glass
must be kept in view. A coloured glass
window is in the nature of a mosaic.
Not only are no large pieces of glass
used, but each piece is separated from
lOI
Stained and at the same time joined to its neigh-
^lass. i^Q^j. ^y. ^ ^j^-j^ grooved strip of lead
which holds the two. " Coloured glass
is obtained by a mixture of metallic
oxides whilst in a state of fusion. This
colouring pervades the substance of the
glass and becomes incorporated with it." ^
It is termed " pot-metal." An examina-
tion of such a piece of glass will show it
to be full of varieties of a given colour,
uneven in thickness, full of little air-
bubbles and other accidents which cause
the rays of light to play in and through
it with endless variety of effect. It is
the exact opposite to the clear sheet of
ordinary window-glass.
To build up a decorative work (and
such a form of expression may be found
very appropriate in this craft) in coloured
^ Industrial y^rts, "Historical Sketches," p. 195, published
for the Committee of Council on Education. Chapman
and Hall.
102
glass, the pieces must be carefully selected, Stained
the gradations of tint in a given piece ^^^"•
being made use of to gain the result
aimed at. The leaded " canes " by
which the whole is held together are
made use of to aid the effect. Fine lines
and hatchings are painted as with " silver
stain," and in this respect only is there
any approach to enamelling in the making
of a coloured glass window. The glass
mosaic as above described is held in its
place in the window by horizontal iron
bars, and the position of these is a matter
of some importance, and is by no means
overlooked by the artist in considering
the effect of his finished work. A well-
designed coloured glass window is, in fact,
like nothing else in the world but itself.
It is not only a mosaic ; it is not merely
a picture. It is the honest outcome of
the use of glass for making a beautiful
window which shall transmit light and
103
Stained not look like anything but what it is.
Glass. Yhe effect of the work is obtained by
the contrast of the rich colours of the
pot -metal with the pearly tones of the
clear glass.
We must now describe a painted
window, so that the distinction between
a coloured and a painted window may
be clearly made out. Quoting from the
same book as before — " To paint glass
the artist uses a plate of translucent
glass, and applies the design and colour-
ing with vitrifiable colours. These
colours, true enamels, are the product of
metallic oxides combined with vitreous
compounds called fluxes. Through the
medium of these, assisted by a strong
heat, the colouring matters are fixed
upon the plate of glass." In the painted
window we are invited to forget that
glass is being used. Shadows are ob-
tained by loading the surface with
104
enamel colours ; the fullest rotundity of Stained
modelling is aimed at ; the lead and iron ^^^ss.
so essentially necessary to the construc-
tion and safety of the window are
concealed with extraordinary skill and
ingenuity. The spectator perceives a
hole in the wall with a very indifferent
picture in it — overdone in the high
lights, smoky and unpleasant in the
shadows, in no sense decorative. We
need concern ourselves no more with
painted windows ; they are thoroughly
false and unworthy of consideration.
Of coloured or stained windows, as
they are more commonly called, many
are made, mostly bad, but there are
amongst us a few who know how to
make them well, and these are better
than any made elsewhere in Europe at
this time.
SoMERs Clarke.
105
TABLE GLASS
"PEW materials lend themselves more
readily to the skill of the craftsman
than glass. The fluid or viscous condi-
tion of the "metal" as it comes from
the " pot," the way in which it is shaped
by the breath of the craftsman, and by
his skill in making use of centrifugal
force, these and many other things too
numerous to mention are all manifested
in the triumphs of the Venetian glass-
blower. At the first glance we see that
the vessel he has made is of a material
once liquid. He takes the fullest ad-
vantage of the conditions under which
1 06
he works, and the result is a beautiful Table Glass,
thing which can be produced in but
one way.
For many centuries the old methods
were followed, but with the power to
produce the " metal," or glass of extreme
purity and transparency, came the desire
to leave the old paths, and produce
work in imitation of crystal. The
wheel came into play, and cut and
engraved glass became general. At first
there was nothing but a genuine advance
or variation on the old modes. '
The specimens of clear glass made at
the end of the seventeenth and beginning
of the eighteenth centuries are well
designed to suit the capabilities of the
material. The form given to the liquid
metal by the craftsman's skill is still
manifest, its delicate transparency ac-
centuated here and there by cutting the
surface into small facets, or engraving
107
Table Glass, upon it graceful designs ; but as skill
increased so taste degraded. The grace-
ful outlines and natural curves of the
old workers gave place to distortions of
line but too common in all decorative
works of the period. A little later and
the material was produced in mere lumps,
cut and tormented into a thousand
surfaces, suggesting that the work was
made from the solid, as, in part, it was.
This miserable stuff reached its climax
in the early years of the present
reign.
Since then a great reaction has taken
place. For example, the old decanter,
a massive lump of misshapen material
better suited to the purpose of braining
a burglar than decorating a table, has
given place to a light and gracefully
formed vessel, covered in many cases
with well-designed surface engraving,
and thoroughly suited both to the uses it
io8
is intended to fulfil and the material of Table Glass,
which it is made. And not only so,
but a distinct variation and development
upon the old types has been made.
The works produced have not been
merely copies, but they have their own
character. It is not necessary to describe
the craft of the glass-blower. It is
sufficient to say that he deals with a
material which, when it comes to his
hands, is a liquid, solidifying rapidly
on exposure to the air; that there is
hardly a limit to the delicacy of the
film that can be made ; and, in addi-
tion to using a material of one colour,
different colours can be laid one over
the other, the outer ones being after-
wards cut through by the wheel, leaving
a pattern in one colour on a ground of
another.
There has developed itself of late an
unfortunate tendency to stray from the
109
Table Glass, path of improvement,^ but a due con-
sideration on the part both of the
purchaser and of the craftsman of how
the material should be used will result,
it may be hoped, in farther advances on
the right road.
SoMERS Clarke.
1 Novelty rather than improvement is the rock on which
our craftsmen are but too often wrecked.
IIO
^IC^ ioF!^f73
PRINTING
PRINTING, in the only sense with
which we are at present concerned,
differs from most if not from alJ the arts
and crafts represented in the Exhibition
in being comparatively modern. For
although the Chinese took impressions
from wood blocks engraved in relief for
centuries before the wood-cutters of the
Netherlands, by a similar process, pro-
duced the block books, which were
the immediate predecessors of the true
printed book, the invention of movable
metal letters in the middle of the
fifteenth century may justly be considered
III
Printing, as the invention of the art of printing.
And it is worth mention in passing
that, as an example of fine typography,
the earhest book printed with movable
types, the Gutenberg, or " forty-two line
Bible" of about 1455, has never been
surpassed.
Printing, then, for our purpose, may
be considered as the art of making
books by means of movable types.
Now, as all books not primarily intended
as picture-books consist principally of
types composed to form letterpress,
it is of the first importance that the
letter used should be fine in form ;
especially as no more time is occupied,
or cost incurred, in casting, setting, or
printing beautiful letters than in the
same operations with ugly ones. And
it was a matter of course that in the
Middle Ages, when the craftsmen took
care that beautiful form should always
112
be a part of their productions whatever Printing.
they were, the forms of printed letters
should be beautiful, and that their
arrangement on the page should be
reasonable and a help to the shapeliness
of the letters themselves. The Middle
Ages brought caligraphy to perfection,
and it was natural therefore that the
forms of printed letters should follow
more or less closely those of the written
character, and they followed them very
closely. The first books were printed
in black letter, i.e. the letter which was
a Gothic development of the ancient
Roman character, and which developed
more completely and satisfactorily on the
side of the *' lower-case " than the capital
letters ; the " lower-case " being in fact
invented in the early Middle Ages.
The earliest book printed with movable
type, the aforesaid Gutenberg Bible, is
printed in letters which are an exact
I 113
Printing, imitation of the more formal ecclesiastical
writing which obtained at that time ;
this has since been called " missal type,"
and was in fact the kind of letter used in
the many splendid missals, psalters, etc.,
produced by printing in the fifteenth
century. But the first Bible actually dated
(which also was printed at Maintz by
Peter Schceffer in the year 1462) imitates
a much freer hand, simpler, rounder, and
less spiky ^ and therefore* far pleasanter
and easier to read. On the whole the
type of this book may be considered the
ne-plus-ultra of Gothic type, especially
as regards the lower-case letters; and
type very similar was used during the
next fifteen or twenty years not only by
Schceffer, but by printers in Strasburg,
Basle, Paris, Lubeck, and other cities.
But though on the whole, except in
Italy, Gothic letter was most ofi:en used,
a very few years saw the birth of Roman
114
character not only in Italy, but in Printing.
Germany and France. In 1465 Sweyn-
heim and Pannartz began printing in
the monastery of Subiaco near Rome,
and used an exceedingly beautiful type,
which is indeed to look at a transition
between Gothic and Roman, but which
must certainly have come from the
study of the twelfth or even the eleventh
century MSS. They printed very few
books in this type, three only ; but in
their very first books in Rome, beginning
with the year 1468, they discarded this
for a more completely Roman and far
less beautiful letter. But about the
same year Mentelin at Strasburg began
to print in a type which is distinctly
Roman ; and the next year Gunther
Zeiner at Augsburg followed suit ;
while in 1470 at Paris Udalric Gering
and his associates turned out the first
books printed in France, also in Roman
115
Printing, character. The Roman type of all these
printers is similar in character, and is
very simple and legible, and unaffectedly
designed for use ; but it is by no means
without beauty. It must be said that
it is in no way like the transition type
of Subiaco, and though more Roman
than that, yet scarcely more like the
complete Roman type of the earliest
printers of Rome.
A further development of the Roman
letter took place at Venice. John of
Spires and his brother Vindelin, followed
by Nicholas Jenson, began to print in
that city, 1469, 1470 ; their type is on
the lines of the German and French
rather than of the Roman printers. Of
Jenson it must be said that he carried
the development of Roman type as far
as it can go : his letter is admirably
clear and regular, but at least as beauti-
ful as any other Roman type. After his
116
death in the " fourteen eighties," or at Printing,
least by 1490, printing in Venice had
declined very much ; and though the
famous family of Aldus restored its
technical excellence, rejecting battered
letters, and paying great attention to
the "press work" or actual process of
printing, yet their type is artistically on
a much lower level than Jenson's, and in
fact they must be considered to have
ended the age of fine printing in Italy.
Jenson, however, had many contem-
poraries who used beautiful type, some
of which — as, e.g., that of Jacobus
Rubeus or Jacques le Rouge — is
scarcely distinguishable from his. It
was these great Venetian printers, to-
gether with their brethren of Rome,
Milan, Parma, and one or two other
cities, who produced the splendid editions
of the Classics, which are one of the
great glories of the printer's art, and are
117
Printing, worthy representatives of the eager
enthusiasm for the revived learning of
that epoch. By far the greater part of
these Italian printers, it should be
mentioned, were Germans or Frenchmen,
working under the influence of Italian
opinion and aims.
It must be understood that through
the whole of the fifteenth and the first
quarter of the sixteenth centuries the
Roman letter was used side by side with
the Gothic. Even in Italy most of the
theological and law books were printed
in Gothic letter, which was generally
more formally Gothic than the print-
ing of the German workmen, many of
whose types, indeed, like that of the
Subiaco works, are of a transitional char-
acter. This was notably the case with
the early works printed at Ulm, and in
a somewhat lesser degree at Augsburg.
In fact Gunther Zeiner's first type
ii8
(afterwards used by Schussler) is remark- Printing,
ably like the type of the before-men-
tioned Subiaco books.
In the Low Countries and Cologne,
which were very fertile of printed books,
Gothic was the favourite. The charac-
teristic Dutch type, as represented by the
excellent printer Gerard Leew, is very
pronounced and uncompromising Gothic.
This type was introduced into England
by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's suc-
cessor, and was used there with very
little variation all through the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, and indeed
into the eighteenth. Most of Caxton's
own types are of an earlier character,
though they also much resemble Flemish
or Cologne letter. After the end of
the fifteenth century the degradation of
printing, especially in Germany and
Italy, went on apace ; and by the end
of the sixteenth century there was no
119
Printing, really beautiful printing done : the best,
mostly French or Low-Country, was neat
and clear, but without any distinction ;
the worst, which perhaps was the
English, was a terrible falling-ofF from
the work of the earlier presses ; and
things got worse and worse through
the whole of the seventeenth century,
so that in the eighteenth printing was
very miserably performed. In England
about this time, an attempt was made
(notably by Caslon, who started business
in London as a type-founder in 1720)
to improve the letter in form. Caslon^s
type is clear and neat, and fairly well
designed ; he seems to have taken the
letter of the Elzevirs of the seventeenth
century for his model : type cast from
his matrices is still in everyday use.
In spite, however, of his praiseworthy
efforts, printing had still one last de-
gradation to undergo. The seventeenth
century founts were bad rather negatively Printing,
than positively. But for the beauty of
the earlier work they might have seemed
tolerable. It was reserved for the
founders of the later eighteenth century
to produce letters which are positively
ugly, and which, it may be added, are
dazzling and unpleasant to the eye
owing to the clumsy thickening and
vulgar thinning of the lines : for
the seventeenth -century letters are at
least pure and simple in line. The
Italian, Bodoni, and the Frenchman,
Didot, were the leaders in this luckless
change, though our own Baskerville,
who was at work some years before
them, went much on the same lines;
but his letters, though uninteresting and
poor, are not nearly so gross and vulgar
as those of either the Italian or the
Frenchman.
With this change the art of printing
121
Printing, touched bottom, so far as fine printing
is concerned, though paper did not get
to its worst till about 1840. The
Chiswick press in 1844 revived Caslon's
founts, printing for Messrs. Longman
the Diary of Lady Willoughby. This
experiment was so far successful that
about 1850 Messrs. Miller and Richard
of Edinburgh were induced to cut
punches for a series of " old style "
letters. These and similar founts, cast
by the above firm and others, have now
come into general use and are obviously
a great improvement on the ordinary
** modern style " in use in England,
which is in fact the Bodoni type a little
reduced in ugliness. The design of the
letters of this modern " old style "
leaves a good deal to be desired, and
the whole effect is a little too gray,
owing to the thinness of the letters.
It must be remembered, however, that
122
most modern printing is done by Printing.
machinery on soft paper, and not by
the hand press, and these somewhat
wiry letters are suitable for the machine
process, which would not do justice to
letters of more generous design.
It is discouraging to note that the
improvement of the last fifty years is
almost wholly confined to Great Britain.
Here and there a book is printed in
France or Germany with some pretension
to good taste, but the general revival of
the old forms has made no way in those
countries. Italy is contentedly stagnant.
America has produced a good many
showy books, the typography, paper,
and illustrations of which are, however,
all wrong, oddity rather than rational
beauty and meaning being apparently
the thing sought for both in the letters
and the illustrations.
To say a few words on the principles
123
Printing, of design in typography : it is obvious
that legibility is the first thing to be
aimed at in the forms of the letters ; this
is best furthered by the avoidance of
irrational swellings and spiky projections,
and by the using of careful purity of
line. Even the Caslon type when en-
larged shows great shortcomings in this
respect : the ends of many of the letters
such as the t and e are hooked up in a
vulgar and meaningless way, instead of
ending in the sharp and clear stroke of
Jenson's letters ; there is a grossness in
the upper finishings of letters like the c,
the a, and so on, an ugly pear-shaped
swelling defacing the form of the letter :
in short, it happens to this craft, as to
others, that the utilitarian practice,
though it professes to avoid ornament,
still clings to a foolish, because mis-
understood conventionality, deduced
from what was once ornament, and is
124
by no means useful ; which title can only Printing,
be claimed by artistic practice, whether
the art in it be conscious or unconscious.
In no characters is the contrast
between the ugly and vulgar illegibility
of the modern type and the elegance
and legibility of the ancient more
striking than in the Arabic numerals.
In the old print each figure has its
definite individuality, and one cannot
be mistaken for the other ; in reading
the modern figures the eyes must be
strained before the reader can have any
reasonable assurance that he has a 5, an
8, or a 3 before him, unless the press
work is of the best : this is awkward if
you have to read Bradshaw's Guide in a
hurry.
One of the differences between the
fine type and the utilitarian must prob-
ably be put down to a misapprehension
of a commercial necessity : this is the
125
Printing, narrowing of the modern letters. Most
of Jenson's letters -are designed within a
square, the modern letters are narrowed
by a third or thereabout ; but while this
gain of space very much hampers the
possibility of beauty of design, it is not
a real gain, for the modern printer
throws the gain away by putting in-
ordinately wide spaces between his lines,
which, probably, the lateral compression
of his letters renders necessary. Com-
mercialism again compels the use of
type too small in size to be comfortable
reading : the size known as '' Long
primer" ought to be the smallest size
used in a book meant to be read.
Here, again, if the practice of '' leading "
were retrenched larger type could be used
without enhancing the price of a book.
One very important matter in "set-
ting up " for fine printing is the
"spacing," that is, the lateral distance
126
of words from one another. In good Printing,
printing the spaces between the words
should be as near as possible equal (it
is impossible that they should be quite
equal except in lines of poetry) ; modern
printers understand this, but it is only
practised in the very best establish-
ments. But another point which they
should attend to they almost always
disregard ; this is the tendency to the
formation of ugly meandering white
lines or " rivers " in the page, a blemish
which can be nearly, though not wholly,
avoided by care and forethought, the
desirable thing being "the breaking
of the line" as in bonding masonry
or brickwork, thus : ■ — — The
general solidity of a page is much to be
sought for : modern printers generally
overdo the "whites" in the spacing,
a defect probably forced on them by
the characterless quality of the letters.
127
Printing. For where these are boldly and care-
fully designed, and each letter is
thoroughly individual in form, the
words may be set much closer to-
gether, without loss of clearness. No
definite rules, however, except the
avoidance " of "rivers" and excess of
white, can be given for the spacing,
which requires the constant exercise of
judgment and taste on the part of the
printer.
The position of the page on the
paper should be considered if the book
is to have a satisfactory look. Here
once more the almost invariable modern
practice is in opposition to a natural
sense of proportion. From the time
when books first took their present
shape till the end of the sixteenth
century, or indeed later, the page so
lay on the paper that there was more
space allowed to the bottom and fore
128
margin than to the top and back of Printing,
the paper, thus :
the unit of the book being looked on
as the two pages forming an opening.
The modern printer, in the teeth of the
evidence given by his own eyes, con-
siders the single page as the unit, and
prints the page in the middle of his
paper — only nominally so, however, in
many cases, since when he uses a
headline he counts that in, the result
as measured by the eye being that the
lower margin is less than the top one,
and that the whole opening has an
upside-down look vertically, and that
laterally the page looks as if it were
being driven off the paper.
K 129
Printing. The paper on which the printing is
to be done is a necessary part of our
subject : of this it may be said that
though there is some good paper made
now, it is never used except for very
expensive books, although it would
not materially increase the cost in all
but the very cheapest. The paper
that is used for ordinary books is
exceedingly bad even in this country,
but is beaten in the race for vileness
by that made in America, which is the
worst conceivable. There seems to be
no reason why ordinary paper should
not be better made, even allowing the
necessity for a very low price ; but any
improvement must be based on showing
openly that the cheap article is cheap,
e.g. the cheap paper should not sacrifice
toughness and durability to a smooth
and white surface, which should be in-
dications of a delicacy of material and
130
manufacture which would of necessity Printing,
increase its cost. One fruitful source of
badness in paper is the habit that pub-
lishers have of eking out a thin volume
by printing it on thick paper almost
of the substance of cardboard, a device
which deceives nobody, and makes a
book very unpleasant to read. On the
whole, a small book should be printed
on paper which is as thin as may be
without being transparent. The paper
used for printing the small highly orna-
mented French service-books about the
beginning of the sixteenth century is a
model in this respect, being thin, tough,
and opaque. However, the fact must
not be blinked that machine-made paper
cannot in the nature of things be made
of so good a texture as that made by
hand.
The ornamentation of printed books
is too wide a subject to be dealt with
131
Printing, fully here ; but one thing must be said
on it. The essential point to be re-
membered is that the ornament, what-
' ever it is, whether picture or pattern-
work, should form part of the page^
should be a part of the whole scheme of
the book. Simple as this proposition is,
it is necessary to be stated, because the
modern practice is to disregard the
relation between the printing and the
ornament altogether, so that if the two
are helpful to one another it is a mere
matter of accident. The due relation
of letter to pictures and other orna-
ment was thoroughly understood by the
old printers ; so that even when the
woodcuts are very rude indeed, the
proportions of the page still give
pleasure by the sense of richness that
the cuts and letter together convey.
When, as is most often the case, there is
actual beauty in the cuts, the books so
132
ornamented are amongst the most Printing,
delightful works of art that have ever
been produced. Therefore, granted well-
designed type, due spacing of the lines
and words, and proper position of the
page on the paper, all books might be
at least comely and well-looking : and if
to these good qualities were added really
beautiful ornament and pictures, printed
books might once again illustrate to the
full the position of our Society that a
work of utility might be also a work of
art, if we cared to make it so.
William Morris.
Emery Walker.
133
BOOKBINDING
IVAODERN bookbinding dates from
the application of printing to
literature, and in essentials has remained
unchanged to the present day, though
in those outward characteristics, which
appeal to the touch and to the eye, and
constitute binding in an artistic sense,
it has gone through many changes for
better and for worse, which, in the
opinion of the writer, have resulted, in
the main, in the exaggeration of technical
skill and in the death of artistic fancy.
The first operation of the modern
134
binder is to fold or refold the printed Book-
sheet into a section, and to gather the ^^^^^^S-
sections, numbered or lettered at the
foot, in their proper order into a
volume.
The sections are then taken, one by
one, placed face downwards in a frame,
and sewn through the back by a con-
tinuous thread running backwards and
forwards along the backs of the sections
to upright strings fastened at regular
intervals in the sewing frame. This
process unites the sections to one another
in series one after the other, and permits
the perusal of the book by the simple
turning of leaf after leaf upon the hinge
formed by the thread and the back of
the section.
A volume, or series of sections, so
treated, the ends of the string being
properly secured, is essentially " bound " ;
all that is subsequently done is done for
135
Book- the protection or for the decoration of
inding. ^j^g volume or of its cover.
The sides of a volume are protected
by millboards, called shortly " boards."
The boards themselves and the back
are protected by a cover of leather,
vellum, silk, linen, or paper, wholly or
in part. The edges of the volume are
protected by the projection of the boards
beyond them at top, bottom, and fore-
edge, and usually by being cut smooth
and gilt.
A volume so bound and protected
may be decorated by tooling or other-
wise upon all the exposed surfaces (upon
the edges, the sides, and the back)
and may be designated by lettering
upon the back or the sides.
The degree in which a bound book
is protected and decorated will deter-
mine the class to which the binding will
belong.
136
(i) In cloth bindings the cover, called Book-
a " case," is made apart from the book, bmdmg.
and is attached as a whole after the
book is sewn.
(2) In half bindings the cover is built
up for and on each individual book, but
the boards of which it is composed are
only partly covered with the leather or
other material which covers the back.
(3) In whole bindings the boards are
wholly covered with leather or other
durable material, which in half binding
covers only a portion of them. •
(4) In extra bindings whole binding is
advanced a stage higher by decoration.
Of course in the various stages the
details vary commensurately with the
stage itself, being more or less elaborate
as the stage is higher or lower in the
scale.
The process of extra binding set out
in more detail is as follows : —
137
Book- (i) First the sections are folded or
binding, refolded.
(2) Then "end-papers" — sections of
plain paper added at the beginning and
end of the volume to protect the first
and last, the most exposed, sections of
printed matter constituting the volume
proper — having been prepared and added,
the sections are beaten, or rolled, or
pressed, to make them " solid."
The end-papers are usually added at
a later stage, and are pasted on, and not
sewn, but, in the opinion of the writer, it
is better to add them at this stage, and
to sew them and not to paste them.
(3) Then the sections are sewn as
already described.
(4) When sewn the volume passes
into the hands of the " forwarder," who
(5) "Makes" the back, beating it
round, if the back is to be round, and
" backing " it, or making it fan out from
138
the centre to right and left and project Book-
at the edges, to form a kind of ridge to binding,
receive and to protect the edges of the
boards which form the sides of the cover.
(6) The back having been made, the
"boards" (made of millboard, and
originally of wood) for the protection of
the sides are made and cut to shape, and
attached by lacing into them the ends of
the strings upon which the book has
been sewn.
(7) The boards having been attached,
the edges of the book are now cut smooth
and even at the top, bottom, and fore-
edge, the edges of the boards being used
as guides for the purpose. In some cases
the order is reversed, and the edges are
first cut and then the boards.
(8) The edges may now be coloured
and gilt, and if it is proposed to
" gauffer " or to decorate them with
tooling, they are so treated at this stage.
139
Book- (9) The head-band is next worked
binding. Qj^ ^^ j^g^^ ^j^j ^^^1^ ^^^ ^j^g ^^^^ I'j^g^
with paper or leather or other material
to keep the head-band in its place and
to strengthen the back itself.
The book is now ready to be covered.
(10) If the book is covered with
leather, the leather is carefully pared all
round the edges and along the line of
the back, to make the edges sharp and
the joints free.
(11) The book having been covered,
the depression on the inside of the
boards caused by the overlap of the
leather is filled in with paper, so that
the entire inner surface may be smooth
and even, and ready to receive the first
and last leaves of the end-papers, which
finally are cut to shape and pasted down,
leaving the borders only uncovered.
Sometimes, however, the first and last
leaves of the " end-papers " are of silk,
140
and the "joint" of leather, in which Book-
case, of course, the end-papers are not "^^^^^^S-
pasted down, but the insides of the
boards are independently treated, and are
covered, sometimes with leather, some-
times with silk or other material.
The book is now "forwarded," and
passes into the hands of the " finisher "
to be tooled or decorated, or " finished "
as it is called.
The decoration in gold on the surface
of leather is wrought out, bit by bit, by
means of small brass stamps called ■
" tools."
The steps of the process are shortly
as follows : —
(12) The pattern having been settled
and worked out on paper, it is " trans-
ferred" to, or marked out on, the
various surfaces to which it is to be
applied.
Each surface is then prepared in
141
Book- succession, and, if large, bit by bit, to
binding, receive the gold.
(13) First the leather is washed with
water or with vinegar.
(14) Then the pattern is pencilled
over with " glaire " (white of egg beaten
up and drained off), or the surface is
wholly washed with it.
(15) Next it is smeared lightly with
grease or oil.
(16) And, finally, the gold (gold
leaf) is applied by a pad of cotton wool,
or a flat thin brush called a " tip."
(17) The pattern, visible through the
gold, is now reimpressed or worked with
the tools heated to about the temperature
of boiling water, and the unimpressed or
waste gold is removed by an oiled rag,
leaving the pattern in gold and the rest
of the leather clear.
These several operations are, in
142
England, usually distributed among five Book-
classes of persons. binding.
(i) The superintendent or person
responsible for the whole work.
(2) The sewer ^ usually a woman, who
folds, sews, and makes the head-bands.
(3) The hook-edge gilder^ who gilds
the edges. Usually a craft apart.
(4) Th& forwarder^ who performs all
the other operations leading up to the
finishing.
(5) ThQ finisher, who decorates and
letters the volume after it is forwarded. •
In Paris the work is still further dis-
tributed, a special workman (couvreur)
being employed to prepare the leather
for covering and to cover.
In the opinion of the writer, the work,
as a craft of beauty, suffers, as do the
workmen, from the allocation of different
operations to different workmen. The
work should be conceived of as one, and
143
/
Book- be wholly executed by one person, or at
binding, niost by two, and especially should there
be no distinction between " finisher " and
" forwarder," between " executant " and
" artist."
The following technical names may
serve to call attention to the principal
features of a bound book.
(i) The back^ the posterior edge of
the volume upon which at the present
time the title is usually placed. For-
merly it was placed on the fore-edge
or side.
The back may be {a) convex or con-
cave or flat ; (^) marked horizontally
with bands, or smooth from head to
tail ; {c) tight, the leather or other
covering adhering to the back itself, or
hollow, the leather or other covering not
so adhering ; and {d) stiff or flexible.
(2) Edges, the three other edges of
144
the book, — the top, the bottom, and the Book-
fore-edge. ^^^^^^S-
(3) Bands ^ the cords upon which the
book is sewn, and which, if not " let in "
or embedded in the back, appear on it as
parallel ridges. The ridges are, how-
ever, usually artificial, the real bands
being " let in " to facilitate the sewing,
and their places supplied by thin slips of
leather cut to resemble them and glued
on the back. This process also enables
the forwarder to give great sharpness
and finish to this part of his work, if he ^
think it worth while.
(4) Between-bands^ the space between
the bands.
(5) Head and tail^ the top and
bottom of the back.
(6) The head-hand and he ad-cap y the
fillet of silk worked in buttonhole stitch
at the head and tail, and the cap or
cover of leather over it. The head-
L 145
Book- band had its origin probably in the desire
binding. ^^ strengthen the back and to resist the
strain when a book is pulled by head or
tail from the shelf.
(7) Boards^ the sides of the cover,
stiff or limp, thick or thin, in all
degrees.
(8) Squares^ the projection of the
boards beyond the edges of the book.
These may be shallow or deep in all
degrees, limited only by the purpose
they have to fulfil and the danger they
will themselves be exposed to if too
deep.
(9) Borders^ the overlaps of leather
on the insides of the boards.
(10) Proof, the rough edges of leaves
left uncut in cutting the edges to show
where the original margin was, and to
prove that the cutting has not been too
severe. '
146
The life of bookbinding is in the Book-
dainty mutation of its mutable elements — binding,
back, bands, boards, squares, decoration.
These elements admit of almost endless
variation, singly and in combination, in
kind and in degree. In fact, however,
they are now almost always uniformly
treated or worked up to one type or set
of types. This is the death of book-
binding as a craft of beauty.
The finish, moreover, or execution,
has outrun invention, and is the great
characteristic of modern bookbinding.
This again, the inversion of the due
order, is, in the opinion of the writer,
but as the carving on the tomb of a dead
art, and itself dead.
A well - bound beautiful book is
neither of one type, nor finished so that
its highest praise is that *'had it been
made by a machine it could not have
been made better." It is individual ; it
H7
Book- is instinct with the hand of him who
binding, j^ade it ; it is pleasant to feel, to handle,
and to see ; it is the original work of an
original mind working in freedom simul-
taneously with hand and heart and brain
to produce a thing of use, which all time
shall agree ever more and more also to
call " a thing of beauty."
T. J. Cobden-Sanderson.
148
OF MURAL PAINTING
TpHERE seems no precise reason why
the subject of this note should
differ much from that of Mr. Crane's
article on ** Decorative Painting" (pp.
39-51). "Mural Painting" need not,
as such, consist of any one sort of paint-
ing more than another. " Decorative
Painting " does seem, on the other hand,
to indicate a certain desire or under-
taking to render the object painted more
pleasant to the beholder's eye.
From long habit, however, chiefly
induced by the constant practice of
the Italians of modern times, " Mural
149
Of Mural Painting " has come to be looked upon
Painting, ^s figure painting (in fact, the human
figure exclusively) on walls — and no
other sort of objects can sufficiently im-
part that dignity to a building which it
seems to crave for. I can think of no
valid reason why a set of rooms, or walls,
should not be decorated with animals
in lieu of "humans," as the late Mr.
Trelawney used to call us : one wall to
be devoted to monkeys, a second to be
filled in with tigers, a third to be given
up to horses, etc. etc. I know men in
England, and, I believe, some artists,
who would be delighted with the substi-
tution. But I hope the general sense of
the public would be set against such
subjects, and the lowering effects of them
on every one, and the kind of humili-
ation we should feel at knowing them to
exist.
I have been informed that in Berlin
150
the walls of the rooms where the antique Of Mural
statues are kept have been painted with ^^^^^^^S-
mixed subjects representing antique
buildings with antique Greek views and
landscapes, to back up, as it were, the
statues. I must own it, that without
having seen the decoration in question,
I feel filled with extreme aversion for
the plan. The more so when one con-
siders the extreme unlikelihood of the
same being made tolerable in colour at
Berlin. I have also been told that some
painters in the North of England, bitten
with a desire to decorate buildings, have
painted one set of rooms with landscapes.
This, without the least knowledge of
the works in question, as landscapes, I
must allow I regret. There is, it seems
to me, an unbridgeable chasm, not to
be passed, between landscape art and the
decoration of walls ; for the very essence
of the landscape art is distance, whereas
151
Of Mural the very essence of the wall-picture is its
I'amting. solidity, or, at least, its not appearing to
be a hole in the wall. On the matter of
subjects fit for painting on walls I may
have a few words to say farther on in
this paper, but first I had better set
doAvn what little I have to advise with
regard to the material and mode of
executing.
The old-fashioned Italian or " Buon
Fresco " I look upon as practically given
up in this country, and every other
European country that has not a climate
to equal Italy. If the climate of Paris
will not admit of this process, how much
less is our damp, foggy, changeable
atmosphere likely to put up with it for
many years ! It is true that the frescoes
of William Dyce have lasted for some
thirty years without apparent damage ;
but also it is the case that the Queen's
Robing Rooms in the House of Lords
152
have been specially guarded against Of Mural
atmospheric changes of temperature. ^in^^^g-
Next to real fresco, there has been in
repute for a time the waterglass process,
in which Daniel Maclise's great paintings
have been executed. I see no precise
reason why these noble works should
not last, and defy climate for many,
many long years yet ; though from want
of experience he very much endangered
this durability through the too lavish
application of the medium. But in
Germany, the country of waterglass, the
process is already in bad repute. The
third alternative, "spirit fresco," or
what we in England claim as the
Gambier-Parry process, has, I under-
stand, superseded it. I have myself
painted in this system seven works on the
walls of the Manchester Town Hall, and
have had no reason to complain of their
behaviour. Since beginning the series,
153
Of Mural however, a fresh change has come over
Painting. ^^^ fortunes of mural art in the fact
that, in France (what most strongly
recommends itself to common sense), the
mural painters have now taken to painting
on canvas, which is afterwards cemented,
or what the French call " maronflee," on
to the wall. White-lead and oil, with a
very small admixture of rosin melted in
oil, are the ingredients used. It is laid
on cold and plentifully on the wall and
on the back of the picture, and the
painting pressed down with a cloth or
handkerchief : nothing further being
required, saving to guard the edges of
the canvas from curling up before the
white-lead has had time to harden.
The advantage of this process of cement-
ing lies in the fact that with each suc-
ceeding year it must become harder and
more like stone in its consistency. The
canvases may be prepared as if for oil
154
painting, and painted with common oil- Of Mural
colours flatted (or matted) afterwards by Pointing,
gum-elemi and spike-oil. Or the canvas
may be prepared with the Gambier-
Parry colour and painted in that very
mat medium. The canvases should if
possible be fine in texture, as better
adapted for adhering to the wall. The
advantage of this process is thut, should
at any time, through neglect, damp
invade the wall, and the canvas show a
tendency to get loose, it would be easy
to replace it ; or the canvas might be
altogether detached from the wall and
strained as a picture.
I must now return to the choice of
subject, a matter of much importance,
but on which it is difficult to give advice.
One thing, however, may be urged as
a rule, and that is, that very dark or
Rembrandtesque subjects are particularly
unsuited for mural paintings. I cannot
155
Of Mural go into the reasons for this, but a slight
Painting, experiment ought to satisfy the painter,
having once heard the principle enun-
ciated : that is, if he belong to the class
likely to succeed at such work.
Another sine qua non as to subject is
that the painter himself must be allowed
to select it. It is true that certain limit-
ations may be accorded — for instance,
the artist may be required to select a
subject with certain tendencies in it — but
the actual invention of the subject and
working out of it must be his. In fact,
the painter himself is the only judge of
what he is likely to carry out well and of
the subjects that are paintable. Then
much depends on whom the works are
for ; if for the general public, and
carried out with their money, care (it
seems to me but fair) should be taken
that the subjects are such as they can
understand and take interest in. If, on
156
the contrary, you are painting for highly- Of Mural
cultured people with a turn for Greek Pointing,
myths, it is quite another thing ; then,
such a subject as ** Eros reproaching his
brother Anteros for his coldness " might
be one offering opportunities for shades
of sentiment suited to the givers of the
commissions concerned. But for such
as have not been trained to entertain
these refinements, downright facts, either
in history or in sociology, are calculated
most to excite the imagination. It is
not always necessary for the spectator to
be exact in his conclusions. I remember
once at Manchester, the members of a
Young Men's Christian Association had
come to a meeting in the great hall.
Some of them were there too soon, and
so were looking round the room. One
observed : " What's this about .? " His
friend answered : ** Fallen off a ladder,
the police are running him in ! " Well,
157
Of Mural this was not quite correct. A wounded
amting. yQ^j^g Danish chieftain was being hurried
out of Manchester on his comrade's
shoulders, with a view to save 'his Hfe.
The Phrygian helmets of the Danes
indicated neither firemen nor policemen ;
but the idea was one of misfortune, and
care bestowed on it — and did as well,
and showed sympathy in a somewhat
uncultivated, though well-intentioned,
class of Lancastrians. On the other
hand, I have noticed that subjects
that interest infallibly all classes,
educated or illiterate, are religious sub-
jects. It is not a question of piety —
but comes from the simple breadth of
poetry and humanity usually involved in
this class of subject. That the amount
of religiosity in either spectator or pro-
ducer has nothing to do with the feeling
is clear if we consider.
The Spaniards are one of the most
158
religious peoples ever known, and yet Of Mural
their art is singularly deficient in this P^^^^i^g-
quality. Were there ever two great
painters as wanting in the sacred feeling
as Velasquez and Murillo ? and yet, in
all probability, they were more religious
than ourselves.
It only remains for me to point to the
fact that mural painting, when it has
been practised jointly by those who were
at the same time easel -painters, has
invariably raised those painters to far
higher flights and instances of style than
they seem capable of in the smaller path.
Take the examples left: us, say by Raphael
and Michel Angelo, or some of the
earlier masters, such as the " Fulminati "
of Signorelli, compared with his speci-
mens in our National Gallery ; or the
works left on walls by even less favoured
artists, such as Domenichino and Andrea
del Sarto, or the French de la Roche's
159
Of Mural " Hemicycle," or our own great painters
Fainting, j^y^e and Maclise's frescoes ; the same
rise in style, the same improvement, is
everywhere to be noticed, both in draw-
ing, in colour, and in flesh-painting.
F. Madox Brown.
i6o
OF SGRAFFITO WORK
T^HE Italian words Graffiato,Sgraffiato,
or Sgraffito, mean *' Scratched,"
and scratched work is the oldest form of
graphic expression and surface decoration
used by man.
The term Sgraffito is, however,
specially used to denote decoration
scratched or incised upon plaster or
potters clay while still soft, and for
beauty of effect depends either solely
upon lines thus incised according to
design, with the resulting contrast of
surfaces, or partly upon such lines and
contrast, and partly upon an under-coat
M l6l
Of Sgraffito of colour revealed by the incisions ;
°^ * while, again, the means at disposal may
be increased by varying the colours of
the under-coat in accordance with the
design.
Of the potter's sgraffito I have no
experience, but it is my present purpose
briefly and practically to examine the
method, special aptitudes, and limitations
of polychrome sgraffito as applied to the
plasterer's craft.
First, then, as to method. Given
the wall intended to be treated : granted
the completion of the scheme of decora-
tion, the cartoons having been executed
in several colours and the outlines firmly
pricked, and further, all things being
ready for beginning work. Hack off
any existing plaster from the wall : when
bare, rake and sweep out the joints
thoroughly : when clean, give the wall
as much water as it will drink : lay the
162
coarse coat, leaving the face rough in Of Sgraffito
order to make a good key for the next Work.
coat : when sufficiently set, fix your
cartoon in its destined position with
slate nails : pounce through the pricked
outlines : remove the cartoon : replace
the nails in the register holes : mark in
with a brush in white oil paint the
spaces for the different colours as shown
in the cartoon, and pounced in outline
on the coarse coat, placing the letters B,
R, Y, etc., as the case may be, in order
to show the plasterer where to lay the
different colours — Black, Red, Yellow,
etc. : give the wall as much water as it
will drink : lay the colour coat in ac-
cordance with the lettered spaces on the
coarse coat, taking care not to displace
the register nails, and leaving plenty of
key for the final surface coat.
In laying the colour coat, calculate
how much of the colour surface it may
163
Of Sgraffito be advisable to get on the wall, as the
same duration of time should be main-
tained throughout the work between the
laying of the colour coat and the follow-
ing on with the final surface coat — for
this reason, if the colour coat sets hard
before the final coat is laid, it will
not be possible to scrape up the colour
to its full strength wherever it may be
revealed by incision of the design. When
sufficiently set, i.e. in about 24 hours,
follow on with the final surface coat,
only laying as much as can be cut and
cleaned up in a day : when this is
sufficiently steady, fix up the cartoon in
its registered position : pounce through
the pricked outlines : remove the cartoon
and cut the design in the surface coat
before it sets : then, if your register is
correct, you will cut through to different
colours according to the design, and in
the course of a few days the work should
164
set as hard and homogeneous as stone, Of Sgraffito
and as damp-proof as the nature of Work.
things permits.
The three coats above referred to may
be gauged as follows : —
Coarse Coat, — 2 or 3 of sharp clean
sand to i of Portland, to be laid about
I inch in thickness. This coat is to
promote an even suction and to keep
back damp.
Colour Coat. — i of colour to ij of
old Portland, to be laid about \ inch in
thickness. Specially prepared distemper
colours should be used, and amongst
such may be mentioned golden ochre,
Turkey red, Indian red, manganese
black, lime blue, and umber.
Final Surface Coat, — Aberthaw lime
and selenitic cement, both sifted through
a fine sieve — the proportions of the
gauge depend upon the heat of the lime :
or, Parian cement sifted as above — air-
165
Of Sgraffito slaked for 24 hours, and gauged with
Work. water coloured with ochre, so as to give
a creamy tone when the plaster dries out :
or, 3 of selenitic cement to 2 of silver
sand, both sifted as above — this may be
used for out-door work.
Individual taste and experience must
decide as to the thickness of the final
coat, but if laid between ^ and ^ inch,
and the lines cut with slanting edges, a
side light gives emphasis to the finished
result, making the outlines tell alternately
as they take the light or cast a shadow.
Plasterers* small tools of various kinds
and knife-blades fixed in tool handles
will be found suited to the simple craft
of cutting and clearing off the final
surface coat ; but as to this a craftsman
finds his own tools by experience, and
indeed by the same acquired perception
must be interpreted all the foregoing
directions, and specially that ambiguous
166
word, dear to the writers of recipes, — Of Sgraffito
Sufficient. ^°'^-
Thus far method. Now, as to special
aptitudes and limitations. Sgraffito work
may claim a special aptitude for design
whose centre of aim is line. It has no
beauty of material like glass, no mystery
of surface like mosaic, no pre-eminence
of subtly-woven tone and colour like
tapestry ; yet it gives freer play to line
than any of these mentioned fields of
design, and a cartoon for sgraffito can
be executed in facsimile, undeviated by
warp and woof, and unchecked by
angular tesserae or lead lines. True,
hardness of design may easily result
fi-om this aptitude, indeed is to a
certain extent inherent to the method
under examination, but in overcoming
this danger and in making the most of
this aptitude is the artist discovered.
Sgraffito fi-om its very nature " asserts
167
Of Sgraffito the wall " ; that is, preserves the solid
'' appearance of the building which it is
intended to decorate. The decoration is
in the wall rather than on the wall. It
seems to be organic. The inner surface
of the actual wall changes colour in
puzzling but orderly sequence, as the
upper surface passes into expressive lines
and spaces, delivers its simple message,
and then relapses into silence ; but
whether incised with intricate design,
or left in plain relieving spaces, the wall
receives no further treatment, the marks
of float, trowel, and scraper remain, and
combine to make a natural surface.
It compels the work to be executed
in situ. The studio must be exchanged
for the scaffold, and the result should
justify the inconvenience. However
carefully the scheme of decoration may
be designed, slight yet important modifi-
cations and readjustments will probably
i68
be found necessary in the transfer from Of Sgraffito
cartoon to wall ; and though the ascent ^o^k.
of the scaffold may seem an indignity to
those who prefer to suiFer vicariously in
the execution of their works, and though
we of the nineteenth know, as Cennini
of the fifteenth century knew, " that
painting pictures is the proper employ-
ment of a gentleman, and with velvet on
his back he may paint what he pleases,"
still the fact remains, that if decoration
is to attain that inevitable fitness for its
place which is the fulfilment of design,
this *' proper employment of a gentle-
man" must be postponed, and velvet
exchanged for blouse.
It compels a quick, sure manner of
work ; and this quickness of execution,
due to the setting nature of the final
coat, and to the consequent necessity of
working against time, gives an appearance
of strenuous ease to the firm incisions
169
Of Sgraffito and spaces by which the design is ex-
°^^* pressed, and a hving energy of line to
the whole. Again, the setting nature
of the colour coat suggests, and naturally
lends itself to, an occasional addition in
the shape of mosaic to the means at
disposal, and a little glitter here and
there will be found to go a long way in
giving points of emphasis and play to
large surfaces.
It compels the artist to adopt a limited
colour scheme — a limitation, and yet
one which may almost be welcomed as
an aptitude, for of colours in decorative
work multiplication may be said to be a
vexation.
Finally, the limitations of sgraffito as
a method of expression are the same as
those of all incised or line work. By it
you can express ideas and suggest life,
but you cannot realise, — cannot imitate
the natural objects on which your graphic
170
language is founded. The means at Of Sgraffito
disposal are too scanty. Item : white ^^ '
lines and spaces relieved against and
slightly raised on a coloured ground ;
coloured lines and spaces slightly sunk
on a white surface ; intricacy relieved
by simplicity of line, and again either
relieved by plain spaces of coloured
ground or white surface. Indeed they
are simple means. Yet line still remains
the readiest manner of graphic expres-
sion ; and if in the strength of limita-
tion our past masters of the arts and
crafts have had power to " free, arouse,
dilate" by their simple record of hand
and soul, we also should be able to
bring forth new achievement from old
method, and to suggest the life and
express the ideas which sway the latter
years of our own century.
Heywood Sumner.
171
OF STUCCO AND GESSO
CEW things are more disheartening
to the pursuer of plastic art than
finding that, when he has carried his own
labour to a certain point, he has to en-
trust it to another in order to render it
permanent and useful. If he models in
clay and wishes it burnt into terra cotta,
the shrinkage and risk in firing, and the
danger in transport to the kiln, are a night-
mare to him. If he wishes it cast in
plaster, the distortion by waste-moulding,
or the cost of piece-moulding, are serious
grievances to him, considering that after
all he has but a friable result ; and though
172
this latter objection is minimised by Mrs. Of Stucco
Laxton Clark's ingenious process of in- ^"^ Gesso,
durating plaster, yet I am persuaded
that most modellers would prefer to
complete their work in some permanent
form with their own hands.
Having this desirable end in view, I
wish to draw their attention to some
disused processes which once largely pre-
vailed, by which the artist is enabled to
finish, and render durable and vendible,
his work, without having to part with it
or pay for another's aid. r
These old processes are modelling in
Stucco-duro and Gesso.
Stucco-duro, although of very ancient
practice, is now practically a lost art.
The materials required are simply well-
burnt and slacked lime, a little fine sand,
and some finely- ground unburnt lime-
stone or white marble dust. These are
well tempered together with water and
173
Of Stucco beaten up with sticks until a good work-
and Gesso. ^|^jg p^^^^ results. In fact, the preparation
of the materials is exactly the same as that
described by Vitruvius, who recommends
that the fragments of marble be sifted
into three degrees of fineness, using the
coarser for the rough bossage, the medium
for the general modelling, and the finest
for the surface finish, after which it can
be polished with chalk and powdered
lime if necessary. Indeed, to so fine a
surface can this material be brought, and
so highly can it be polished, that he
mentions its use for mirrors.
The only caution that it is needful to
give is to avoid working too quickly; for,
as Sir Henry Wooton, King James's ambas-
sador at Venice, who greatly advocated the
use of stucco-duro, observed, the stucco
worker "makes his figures by addition
and the carver by subtraction," and to
avoid too great risk of the work cracking
174
in drying, these additions must be made Of Stucco
slowly where the relief is great. If the ^^^ Gesso.
relief is very great, or if a figure of large
dimensions is essayed, it may be needful
even to delay the drying of the stucco,
and the addition of a little stiff paste
will insure this, so that the work may
be consecutively worked upon for many
days.
From the remains of the stucco work
of classic times left us, we can realise
how perfectly workable this material was ;
and if you examine the plaster casts *
taken from some most delicate low-relief
plaques in stucco exhumed some ten
years ago near the Villa Farnesina at
Rome, or the rougher and readier frag-
ments of stucco-duro itself from some
Italo-Greek tombs, both of which are to
be seen in the South Kensington Museum,
you will at once be convinced of the great
applicability of the process.
175
Of Stucco With the decadence of classic art
and Gesso, gome portion of the process seems to
have been lost, and the use of pounded
travertine was substituted for white
marble ; but, as the bassi - relievi of
the early Renaissance were mostly-
decorated with colour, this was not
important. The ground colours seem
generally to have been laid on whilst
the stucco was wet, as in fresco, and
the details heightened with tempera or
encaustic colours, sometimes with ac-
cessories enriched in gilt " gesso " (of
which hereafter). Many remains of
these exist, and in the Nineteenth
Winter Exhibition of the Royal Aca-
demy there were no less than twelve
very interesting examples of it exhibited,
and in the South Kensington Museum
are some few moderately good illustra-
tions of it.
It was not, however, until the sixteenth
176
century that the old means of producing Of Stucco
the highly-finished white stucchi were ^"^ ^^^^°-
rediscovered, and this revival of the art
as an architectonic accessory is due to the
exhumation of the baths of Titus under
Leo X. Raphael and Giovanni da Udine
were then so struck with the beauty of
the stucco work thus exposed to view
that its re-use was at once determined
upon, and the Loggia of the Vatican was
the first result of many experiments,
though the re- invented process seems
to have been precisely that described
by Vitruvius. Naturally, the art of
modelling in stucco at once became
popular : the patronage of it by the
Pope, and the practice of it by the
artists who worked for him, gave it
the highest sanction, and hardly a
building of any architectural import-
ance was erected in Italy during the
sixteenth century that did not bear
N 177
Of Stucco evidence of the artistic craft of the
and Gesso, gtuccatori.
There has just (Autumn, 1889) arrived
at the South Kensington Museum a model
of the central hall of the Villa Madama
in Rome, thus decorated by Giulio
Romano and Giovanni da Udine, which
exemplifies the adaptability of the pro-
cess ; and in this model Cav. Mariani
has employed stucco-duro for its execu-
tion, showing to how high a pitch of
finish this material is capable of being
carried. Indeed, it was used by gold-
smiths for the models for their craft, as
being less liable to injury than wax, yet
capable of receiving equally delicate treat-
ment ; and Benvenuto Cellini modelled
the celebrated " button," with " that
magnificent big diamond " in the middle,
for the cope of Pope Clement, with all
its intricate detail, in this material. How
minute this work of some six inches
178
diameter was may be inferred from Of Stucco
Cellini's own description of it. Above ^^^ ^^^^°-
the diamond, in the centre of the piece,
was shown God the Father seated, in the
act of giving the benediction ; below were
three children, who, with their arms up-
raised, were supporting the jewel. One
of them, in the middle, was in full relief,
the other two in half-relief. '^ All round
I set a crowd of cherubs in divers atti-
tudes. A mantle undulated to the wind
around the figure of the Father, from the
folds of which cherubs peeped out ; and
there were many other ornaments besides,
which," adds he, and for once we may
believe him, " made a very beautiful
effect." At the same time, figures larger
than life, indeed colossal figures, were
executed in it, and in our own country
the Italian artists brought over by our
Henry VIII. worked in that style for his
vanished palace of Nonsuch. Gradually,
179
Of Stucco stucco-duro fell into disuse, and coarse
and Gesso, pargetry and modelled plaster ceilings
became in later years its sole and
degenerate descendants.
Gesso is really a painter's art rather
than a sculptor's, and consists in impasto
painting with a mixture of plaster of
Paris or whiting in glue (the composition
with which the ground of his pictures is
laid) after roughly modelling the higher
forms with tow or some fibrous material
incorporated with the gesso ; but it is
questionable if gesso is the best vehicle
for any but the lowest relief. By it the
most subtle and delicate variation of
surface can be obtained, and the finest
lines pencilled, analogous, in fact, to the
fine pate sur pate work in porcelain. Its
chief use in early times was in the
accessories of painting, as the nimbi,
attributes, and jewellery of the personage
represented, and it was almost entirely
i8o
used as a ground- work for gilding upon. Of Stucco
Abundant illustration of this usage will ^^^ ^^^^°-
be found in the pictures by the early-
Italian masters in the National Gallery.
The retables of altars were largely
decorated in this material, a notable
example being that still existing in West-
minster Abbey.
Many of the gorgeous accessories to
the panoply of war in mediaeval times,
such as decorative shields and the lighter
military accoutrements, were thus orna-
mented in low relief, and on the high- ^
cruppered and high -peaked saddles it
was abundantly displayed. In the six-
teenth-century work of Germany it
seems to have received an admixture of
finely -pounded lithographic stone, or
hone stone, by which it became of such
hardness as to be taken for sculpture in
these materials. Its chief use, however,
was for the decoration of the caskets
i8i
Of Stucco and ornamental objects which make up
and Gesso, ^j^g refinement of domestic life, and the
base representative of it which figures
on our picture - frames claims a noble
ancestry.
Its tenacity, when well prepared, is
exceedingly great, and I have used it on
glass, on polished marble, on porcelain,
and such like non-absorbent surfaces,
from which it can scarcely be separated
without destruction of its base. Indeed,
for miniature art, gesso possesses innumer-
able advantages not presented by any
other medium, but it is hardly available
for larger works.
Time and space will not permit my
entering more fully into these two forms
of plastic art ; but seeing that we are
annually receiving such large accessions
to the numbers of our modellers, and as,
of course, it is not possible for all these
to achieve success in, or find a means of
182
living by, the art of sculpture in marble, Of Stucco
I have sought to indicate a home-art ^^*^ ^^^^°*
means by which, at very moderate cost,
they can bring their labours in useful
form before the world, and at the same
time learn and live.
G. T. Robinson.
183
OF CAST IRON
/^^AST iron is nearly our humblest
^^ material, and with associations less
than all artistic, for it has been almost
hopelessly vulgarised in the present
century, so much so that Mr. Ruskin,
with his fearless use of paradox to shock
one into thought, has laid it down that
cast iron is an artistic solecism, impossible
for architectural service now, or at any
time. And yet, although we can never
claim for iron the beauty of bronze, it is
in some degree a parallel material, and
has been used with appreciation in many
ways up to the beginning of this century.
184
Iron was already known in Sussex at Of
the coming of the Romans. Through- ^^'^ 1^°"-
out this county and Kent, in out-of-the-
way farm-houses, iron fire-backs to open
hearths, fine specimens of the founder's
art, are still in daily use as they have
been for three hundred years or more.
Some have Gothic diapers and meanders
of vine with heraldic badges and initials,
and are evidently cast from models made
in the fifteenth century, patterns that
remained in stock and were cast from
again and again. Others, of the follow-
ing centuries, have coat-arms and sup-
porters, salamanders in the flames, figures,
a triton or centaur, or even a scene, the
Judgment of Solomon, or Marriage of
Alexander, or, more appropriately, mere
pattern-work, vases of flowers and the
like. However crude they may be, and
some are absurdly inadequate as sculpture,
the sense of treatment and relief suitable
185
Of to the material never fails to give them
Cast Iron, a fit interest.
With these backs cast-iron fire-dogs
are often found, of which some Gothic
examples also remain, simple in form
with soft dull modelling ; later, these
were often a mere obelisk on a base
surmounted by a ball or a bird, or rude
terminal figures ; sometimes a more
delicate full figure, the limbs well to-
gether, so that nothing projects from the
general post-like form ; and within their
limitations they are not without grace
and character.
In Frant church, near Tunbridge, are
several cast-iron grave slabs about six
feet long by half that width, perfectly
flat, one with a single shield of arms and
some letters, others with several ; they
are quite successfiil, natural, and not in
the least vulgar.
Iron railings are the most usual form
i86
of cast iron as an accessory to architecture ; Of
the earlier examples of these in London ^^^^ ^^°^-
are thoroughly fit for their purpose and
their material ; sturdily simple forms of
gently swelling curves, or with slightly
rounded reliefs. The original railing at
St. Paul's, of Lamberhurst iron, is the
finest of these, a large portion of which
around the west front was removed in
1873. Another example encloses the
portico of St. Martin's -in -the -Fields.
The railing of the central area of Berke-
ley Square is beautifully designed, and
there are instances here, as in Grosvenor
Square, where cast iron is used together
with wrought, a difficult combination.
Balcony railings and staircase balus-
trades are quite general to houses of the
late eighteenth century. Refined and
thoroughly good of their kind, they never
fail to please, and never, of course,
imitate wrought iron. The design is
187
Of always direct, unpretentious and effortless,
Cast Iron. • j^ ^ manner that became at this time
quite a tradition.
The verandahs also, of which there
are so many in Piccadilly or Mayfair,
with posts reeded and of delicate profiles,
are of the same kind, confessedly cast
iron, and never without the characterising
dulness of the forms, so that they have
no jutting members to be broken off, to
expose a repulsive jagged fracture. The
opposite of all these qualities may be
found in the " expensive "-looking railing
on the Embankment enclosing the
gardens, whose tiny fretted and fretful
forms invite an experiment often suc-
cessful.
It must be understood that cast iron
should be merely a flat lattice-like design,
obviously cast in panels^ or plain post
and rail construction with cast uprights
and terminal knops tenoned into rails,
i88
so that there is no doubt of straight- Of
forward unaffected fitting. The British ^^'^ I^^"*
Museum screen may be taken to instance
how ample ability will not redeem false
principles of design : the construction is
not clear, nor are the forms sufficiently
simple, the result being only a high order
of commonplace grandeur.
Even the lamp-posts set up in the
beginning of the century for oil lights, a
few of which have not yet been improved
away from back streets, show the same ,
care for appropriate form. Some of
the Pall Mall Clubs, again, have well-
designed candelabra of a more preten-
tious kind ; also London and Waterloo
Bridges.
The fire-grates, both with hobs and
close fronts, that came into use about the
middle of the last century, are decorated
all over the field with tiny flutings,
beads, and leaf mouldings, sometimes
189
Of even with little figure medallions, and
Cast Iron, ^arry delicacy to its limit. The better
examples are entirely successful, both in
form and in the ornamentation, which,
adapted to this new purpose, does no
more than gracefully acknowledge its
debt to the past, just as the best orna-
ment at all times is neither original nor
copied: it must recognise tradition, and
add something which shall be the tradition
of the future. The method followed is
to keep the general form quite simple
and the areas flat, while the decoration,
just an embroidery of the surface, is of
one substance and in the slightest possible
relief. Other larger grates there were
with plain surfaces simply framed with
mouldings.
Even the sculptor has not refused iron.
Pliny says there were two statues in
Rhodes, one of iron and copper, and the
other, a Hercules, entirely of iron. In
190
the palace at Prague there is a St. Of
George horsed and armed, the work of ^^^' ^^°"*
the fourteenth century. The qualities
natural to iron which it has to offer for
sculpture may best be appreciated by
seeing the examples at the Museum of
Geology, in Jermyn Street. On the stair-
case there are two large dogs, two orna-
mental candelabra, and two figures ; the
dogs, although not fine as sculpture, are
well treated, in mass and surface, for the
metal. In the same museum there is a
smaller statue still better for surface and
finish, a French work signed and dated
1 84 1, and, therefore, half an antique.
But for ordinary foundry-work without
surface finish — probably the most ap-
propriate, certainly the most available,
method — the little lions on the outer
rail at the British Museum are proof of
how sufficient feeling for design will
dignify any material for any object ;
191
Of they are by the late Alfred Stevens, and
Cast Iron, ^j.^ thoroughly iron beasts, so slightly
modelled that they would be only blocked
out for bronze. In the Geological
Museum are also specimens of Berlin
and Ilsenburg manufacture ; they serve
to point the moral that ingenuity is not
art, nor tenuity refinement.
The question of rust is a difficult one,
the oxide not being an added beauty
like the patina acquired by bronze, yet
the decay of cast iron is much less than
is generally thought, especially on large
smooth surfaces, if the casting has been
once treated by an oil bath or a coating
of hot tar : the celebrated iron pillar of
Delhi, some twenty feet high, has stood
for fourteen centuries, and shows, it is
said, little evidence of decay. It would
be interesting to see how cast spheres
of good iron would be affected in our
climate, if occasionally coated with a
192
lacquer. In painting, the range of tints Of
best approved is black through gray to ^^^^ ^^^^'
white : the simple negative gray gives
a pleasant unobtrusiveness to the well-
designed iron -work of the Northern
Station in Paris, whereas our almost
universal Indian red is a very bad choice
— a hot coarse colour, you must see it,
and be irritated, and it is surely the only
colour that gets worse as it bleaches in
the sun. Gilding is suitable to a certain
extent ; but for internal work the homely .
black-leading cannot be bettered.
To put together the results obtained
in our examination of examples.
( 1 ) The metal must be both good and
carefully manipulated.
(2) The design must be thought out
through the material and its traditional
methods.
(3) The pattern must have the orna-
ment modelled, not carved, as is almost
o 193
Of universally the case now, carving in
Cast Iron, ^qq^^ being entirely unfit to give the
soft suggestive relief required both by
the nature of the sand-mould into which
it is impressed, and the crystalline struc-
ture of the metal when cast.
(4) Flat surfaces like grate fronts may
be decorated with some intricacy if the
relief is delicate. But the relief must be
less than the basis of attachment, so that
the moulding may be easily practicable,
and no portions invite one to test how
easily they might be detached.
(5) Objects in the round must have a
simple and substantial bounding form
with but little ornament, and that only
suggested. This applies equally to
figures. In them homogeneous struc-
ture is of the first importance.
(6) When possible, the surface should
be finished and left as a metal casting.
It may, however, be entirely gilt. If
194
painted, the colour must be neutral and Of
Cast Iron,
gray.
Casting in iron has been so abased and
abused that it is almost difficult to believe
that the metal has anything to offer to
the arts. At no other time and in no
other country would a national staple
commodity have been so degraded. Yet
in its strength under pressure, but fragility
to a blow, in certain qualities of texture
and of required manipulation, it invites
a specially characterised treatment in the
design, and it offers one of the few
materials naturally black available in the
colour arrangement of interiors.
W. R. Lethaby.
195
OF DYEING AS AN ART
r^YEING is a very ancient art ; from
^^ the earliest times of the ancient
civilisations till within about forty years
ago there had been no essential change
in it, and not much change of any kind.
Up to the time of the discovery of the
process of Prussian-blue dyeing in about
1 8 1 o (it was known as a pigment thirty
or forty years earlier), the only changes
in the art were the result of the intro-
duction of the American insect dye
(cochineal), which gradually superseded
the European one (kermes), and the
American wood -dyes now known as
196
logwood and Brazil-wood : the latter Of Dyeing
differs little from the Asiatic and African ^^ ^^ ^^^•
Red Saunders, and other red dye-woods ;
the former has cheapened and worsened
black-dyeing, in so far as it has taken
the place of the indigo-vat as a basis.
The American quercitron bark gives us
also a useful additional yellow dye.
These changes, and one or two others,
however, did little towards revolution-
ising the art ; that revolution was left
for our own days, and resulted from the
discovery of what are known as the Ani-
line dyes, deduced by a long process
from the plants of the coal-measures.
Of these dyes it must be enough to say
that their discovery, while conferring the
greatest honour on the abstract science of
chemistry, and while doing great service
to capitalists in their hunt after profits,
has terribly injured the art of dyeing, and
for the general public has nearly destroyed
197
Of Dyeing it as an art. Henceforward there is an
as an Art. absolute divorce between the commercial
process and the art of dyeing. Any-
one wanting to produce dyed textiles
with any artistic quality in them must
entirely forgo the modern and commer-
cial methods in favour of those which
are at least as old as Pliny, who speaks
of them as being old in his time.
Now, in order to dye textiles in
patterns or otherwise, we need four
colours to start with — to wit, blue, red,
yellow, and brown ; green, purple, black,
and all intermediate shades can be made
from a mixture of these colours.
Blue is given us by indigo and woad,
which do not differ in colour in the least,
their chemical product being the same.
Woad may be called northern indigo ;
and indigo tropical or sub-tropical woad.
Note that until the introduction of
Prussian blue about 1810 there was no
198
other blue dye except this indigotine that Of Dyeing
could be called a dye ; the other blue ^^ ^^ ^''^*
dyes were mere stains which would not
bear the sun for more than a few days.
Red is yielded by the insect dyes
kermes, lac-dye, and cochineal, and by the
vegetable dye madder. Of these, kermes
is the king ; brighter than madder and at
once more permanent and more beautiful
than cochineal : the latter on an aluminous
basis gives a rather cold crimson, and
on a tin basis a rather hot scarlet (e.g. the
dress-coat of a line officer). Madder
yields on wool a deep-toned blood-red,
somewhat bricky and tending to scarlet.
On cotton and linen, all imaginable shades
of red according to the process. It is
not of much use in dyeing silk, which it
is apt to " blind " ; i.e. it takes off the
gloss. Lac-dye gives a hot and not
pleasant scarlet, as may be noted in a
private militiaman's coat. The French
199
Of Dyeing liners' trousers, by the way, are, or were,
as an Art. ^^^j ^-^j^ madder, so that their country-
men sometimes call them the " Madder-
wearers " ; but their cloth is somewhat
too cheaply dyed to do credit to the
drysaltery.
Besides these permanent red dyes there
are others produced from woods, called
in the Middle Ages by the general name
of " Brazil " ; whence the name of the
American country, because the conquerors
found so much dyeing-wood growing
there. Some of these wood-dyes are very
beautiful in colour ; but unluckily they
are none of them permanent, as you may
see by examining the beautiful stuffs of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries at
the South Kensington Museum, in which
you will scarcely find any red, but plenty
of fawn-colour, which is in fact the wood-
red of 500 years ago thus faded. If you
turn from them to the Gothic tapestries,
and note the reds in them, you will have Of Dyeing
the measure of the relative permanence of *^ ^^ ^^^'
kermes and " Brazil," the tapestry reds
being all dyed with kermes, and still
retaining the greater part of their colour.
The mediaeval dyers must be partly
excused, however, because " Brazil " is
especially a silk dye, kermes sharing
somewhat in the ill qualities of madder
for silk ; though I have dyed silk in
kermes and got very beautiful and power-
ful colours by means of it.
Yellow dyes are chiefly given us by
weld (sometimes called wild mignonette),
quercitron bark (above mentioned), and
old fustic, an American dye-wood. Of
these weld is much the prettiest, and is
the yellow silk dye par excellence, though
it dyes wool well enough. But yellow
dyes are the commonest to be met with
in nature, and our fields and hedgerows
bear plenty of greening-weeds, as our
20I
Of Dyeing forefathers called them, since they used
as an Art. ^j^^j^ chiefly for greening blue woollen
cloth ; for, as you may well believe, they,
being good colourists, had no great taste
for yellow woollen stuff. Dyers'-broom,
saw-wort, the twigs of the poplar, the
osier, and the birch, heather, broom,
flowers and twigs, will all of them give
yellows of more or less permanence. Of
these I have tried poplar and osier twigs,
which both gave a strong yellow, but the
former not a very permanent one.
Speaking generally, yellow dyes are
the least permanent of all, as once more
you may see by looking at an old tapestry,
in which the greens have always faded
more than the reds or blues ; the best
yellow dyes, however, lose only their
brighter shade, the " lemon " colour, and
leave a residuum of brownish yellow,
which still makes a kind of a green over
the blue.
Brown is best got from the roots of Of Dyeing
the walnut tree, or in their default from ^^ ^^ ^"*
the green husks of the nuts. This material
is especially best for " saddening," as the
old dyers used to call it. The best and
most enduring blacks also were done with
this simple dye-stuff, the goods being
first dyed in the indigo or woad-vat till
they were a very dark blue and then
browned into black by means of the wal-
nut-root. Catechu, the inspissated juice
of a plant or plants, which comes to us
fi:om India, also gives rich and useful
permanent browns of various shades.
Green is obtained by dyeing a blue of
the required shade in the indigo -vat,
and then greening it with a good yellow
dye, adding what else may be necessary
(as, e.g., madder) to modify the colour
according to taste.
Purple is got by blueing in the indigo-
vat, and afterwards by a bath of cochineal,
203
Of Dyeing or kermes, or madder ; all intermediate
as an rt. gj^^^^gg ^f claret and murrey and russet
can be got by these drugs helped out by
" saddening."
Black, as aforesaid, is best made by
, dyeing dark blue wool with brown ; and
walnut is better than iron for the brown
part, because the iron-brown is apt to rot
the fibre ; as once more you will see in
some pieces of old tapestry or old Persian
carpets, where the black is quite perished,
or at least in the case of the carpet gone
down to the knots. All intermediate
shades can, as aforesaid, be got by the
blending of these prime colours, or by
using weak baths of them. For instance,
all shades of flesh colour can be got by
means of weak baths of madder and wal-
nut '* saddening " ; madder or cochineal
mixed with weld gives us orange, and
with saddening all imaginable shades
between yellow and red, including the
204
ambers, maize-colour, etc. The crimsons Of Dyeing
in Gothic tapestries must have been got ^^ ^^ ^^^*
by dyeing kermes over pale shades of
blue, since the crimson red-dye, cochineal,
had not yet come to Europe.
A word or two (entirely unscientific)
about the processes of this old-fashioned
or artistic dyeing.
In the first place, all dyes must be
soluble colours, differing in this respect
from pigments ; most of which are in-
soluble, and are only very finely divided,
as, e,g., ultramarine, umber, terre-verte.
Next, dyes may be divided into those
which need a mordant and those which
do not ; or, as the old chemist Bancroft
very conveniently expresses it, into adjec-
tive and substantive dyes.
Indigo is the great substantive dye :
the indigo has to be de- oxidised and
thereby made soluble, in which state
it loses its blue colour in proportion as
205
Of Dyeing the solution is complete ; the goods are
as an Art. plunged into this solution and worked
in it " between two waters," as the phrase
goes, and when exposed to the air the
indigo they have got on them is swiftly-
oxidised, and once more becomes in-
soluble. This process is repeated till the
required shade is got. All shades of
blue can be got by this means, from the
pale *'watchet," as our forefathers called
it, up to the blue which the eighteenth-
century French dyers called " Bleu
d'enfer.'* Navy Blue is the politer name
for it to-day in England. I must add
that, though this seems an easy process,
the setting of the blue-vat is a ticklish
job, and requires, I should say, more ex-
perience than any other dyeing process.
The brown dyes, walnut and catechu,
need no mordant, and are substantive
dyes ; some of the yellows also can be
dyed without mordant, but are much
206
improved by it. The red dyes, kermes Of Dyeing
and madder, and the yellow dye weld, ^^ ^^ ^^^•
are especially mordant or adjective dyes :
they are all dyed on an aluminous basis.
To put the matter plainly, the goods are
worked in a solution of alum (usually
with a little acid added), and after an
interval of a day or two (ageing) are
dyed in a bath of the dissolved dye-stufF.
A lake is thus formed on the fibre which
is in most cases very durable. The
effect of this " mordanting " of the fibre
is clearest seen in the maddering of
printed cotton goods, which are first
printed with aluminous mordants of
various degrees of strength (or with iron
if black is needed, or a mixture of iron
with alumina for purple), and then dyed
wholesale in the madder-beck : the result
being that the parts which have been
mordanted come out various shades of
red, etc., according to the strength or
207
Of Dyeing composition of the mordant, while the
as an Art. unmordanted parts remain a dirty pink,
which has to be '' cleared '* into white
by soaping and exposure to the sun and
air ; which process both brightens and
fixes the dyed parts.
Pliny saw this going on in Egypt, and
it puzzled him very much, that a cloth
dyed in one colour should come out
coloured diversely.
That reminds me to say a word on the
fish-dye of the ancients : it was a sub-
stantive dye and behaved somewhat as
indigo. It was very permanent. The
colour was a real purple in the modern
sense of the word, i.e. a colour or shades
of a colour between red and blue. The
real Byzantine books which are written
on purple vellum give you some, at least,
of its shades. The ancients, you must
remember, used words for colours in a
way that seems vague to us, because they
208
f
were generally thinking of the tone rather Of Dyeing
than the tint. When they wanted to ^^ ^^ ^^^•
specify a red dye they would not use the
word purpureus, but coccineus, i.e. scarlet
of kermes.
The art of dyeing, I am bound to say,
is a difficult one, needing for its practice
a good craftsman, with plenty of experi-
ence. Matching a colour by means of it
is an agreeable but somewhat anxious
game to play.
As to the artistic value of these dye-
stuffs, most of which, together with the
necessary mordant alumina, the world
discovered in early times (I mean early
historical times), I must tell you that
they all make in their simplest forms
beautiful colours ; they need no mud-
dling into artistic usefulness, when you
need your colours bright (as I hope you
usually do), and they can be modified
and toned without dirtying, as the foul
p 209
Of Dyeing blotches of the capitalist dyer cannot be.
as an Art. -j^ike all dyes, they are not eternal ; the
sun in lighting them and beautifying
them consumes them ; yet gradually,
and for the most part kindly, as (to use
my example for the last time in this
paper) you will see if you look at the
Gothic tapestries in the drawing-room
at Hampton Court. These colours in
fading still remain beautiful, and never,
even after long wear, pass into nothing-
ness, through that stage of livid ugliness
which distinguishes the commercial dyes
as nuisances, even more than their short
and by no means merry life.
I may also note that no textiles dyed
blue or green, otherwise than by indigo,
keep an agreeable colour by candle-light :
many quite bright greens turning into
sheer drab. A fashionable blue which
simulates indigo turns into a slaty purple
by candle-light ; and Prussian blues are
2IO
also much damaged by it. I except from Of Dyeing
this condemnation a commercial green ^^ ^^ ^^^'
known as gas-green, which is as abomin-
able as its name, both by daylight and
gaslight, and indeed one would almost
expect it to make unlighted midnight
hideous.
William Morris.
(
211
OF EMBROIDERY
HP HE technicalities of Embroidery are
* very simple and its tools few —
practically consisting of a needle, and
nothing else. The work can be wrought
loose in the hand, or stretched in a frame,
which latter mode is often advisable,
always when smooth and minute work
is aimed at. There are no mysteries of
method beyond a few elementary rules
that can be quickly learnt ; no way to
perfection except that of care and patience
and love of the work itself. This being
so, the more is demanded from design
and execution : we look for complete
212
triumph over the limitations of process Of
and material, and, what is equally im- Embroidery,
portant, a certain judgment and self-
restraint ; and, in short, those mental
qualities that distinguish mechanical
from intelligent work. The latitude
allowed to the worker ; the lavishness
and ingenuity displayed in the stitches
employed ; in short, the vivid expression
of the worker's individuality, form a
great part of the success of needlework.
The varieties of stitch are too many to
be closely described without diagrams,
but the chief are as follows : —
Chain-stitch consists of loops simulat-
ing the links of a simple chain. Some
of the most famous work of the Middle
Ages was worked in this stitch, which is
enduring, and of its nature necessitates
careful execution. We are more familiar
with it in the dainty work of the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, in the
213
Of airy brightness and simplicity of which
Embroidery. |-gg ^ peculiar charm, contrasted with the
more pompous and pretentious work of
the same period. This stitch is also
wrought with a hook on any loose
material stretched in a tambour frame.
Tapestry-stitch consists of a building-
up of stitches laid one beside another,
and gives a surface slightly resembling
that of tapestry. I give the name as it
is so often used, but it is vague, and
leads to the confusion that exists in
people's minds between loom-tapestry and
embroidery. The stitch is worked in a
frame, and is particularly suitable for the
drapery of figures and anything that re-
quires skilful blending of several colours,
or a certain amount of shading. This
facility of " painting " with the needle
is in itself a danger, for it tempts some
people to produce a highly shaded imita-
tion of a picture, an attempt which must
214
be a failure both as a decorative and as a Of
pictorial achievement. It cannot be said "^'^^o^^^'y-
too often that the essential qualities of
all good needlework are a broad surface,
bold lines and pure, brilliant and, as a
rule, simple colouring ; all of which
being qualities attainable through, and
prescribed by, the limitations of this
art.
Applique has been, and is still, a
favourite method of work, which Vasari
tells us Botticelli praised as being very suit-
able to processional banners and hangings
used in the open air, as it is solid and
enduring, also bold and effective in style.
It is more accurately described as a method
of work in which various stitches are
made use of, for it consists of designs
embroidered on a stout ground and then
cut out and laid on silk or velvet, and
edged round with lines of gold or silk,
and sometimes with pearls. It requires
215
Of considerable deftness and judgment in
Embroidery, applying, as the work could well be spoilt
by clumsy and heavy finishing. It is now
looked upon as solely ecclesiastical, I
believe, and is associated in our minds
with garish red, gold and white, and with
dull geometric ornament, though there
is absolutely no reason why church
embroidery of to-day should be limited
to ungraceful forms and staring colours.
A certain period of work, thick and
solid, but not very interesting, either as
to method or design, has been stereotyped
into what is known as Ecclesiastical Em-
broidery, the mechanical characteristics
of the style being, of course, emphasised
and exaggerated in the process. Church
work will never be of the finest while
these characteristics are insisted on ; the
more pity, as it is seemly that the richest
and noblest work should be devoted to
churches, and to all buildings that belong
216
to and are an expression of the com- Of
munal life of the people. Another and Embroidery,
simpler form of applied work is to cut
out the desired forms in one material and
lay upon another, securing the applique
with stitches round the outline, which
are hidden by an edging cord. The
work may be further enriched by light
ornament of lines and flourishes laid
directly on the ground material.
Couching is an effective method of
work, in which broad masses of silk or
gold thread are laid down and secured
by a network or diaper of crossing
threads, through which the under sur-
face shines very prettily. It is often
used in conjunction with applique. There
are as many varieties of couching stitches
as the worker has invention for ; in some
the threads are laid simply and flatly on
the form to be covered, while in others
a slight relief is obtained by layers of
217
Of soft linen thread which form a kind
Embroidery, ^f moulding or Stuffing, and which are
covered by the silk threads or whatever
is to be the final decorative surface.
The ingenious patchwork coverlets of
our grandmothers, formed of scraps of
old gowns pieced together in certain
symmetrical forms, constitute the
romance of family history, but this
method has an older origin than would
be imagined. Queen Isis-em-Kheb's em-
balmed body went down the Nile to its
burial-place under a canopy that was lately
discovered, and is preserved in the Boulak
Museum. It consists of many squares
of gazelle-hide of different colours sewn
together and ornamented with various
devices. Under the name of patchwork,
or mosaic -like piecing together of
different coloured stuffs, comes also the
Persian work made at Resht. Bits of
fine cloth are cut out for leaves, flowers, and
218
so forth, and neatly stitched together Of
with great accuracy. This done, the Embroidery,
work is further carried out and enriched
by chain and other stitches. The result
is perfectly smooth flat work, no easy feat
when done on a large scale, as it often is.
Darning and running need little ex-
planation. The former stitch is familiar
to us in the well-known Cretan and
Turkish cloths: the stitch here is used
mechanically in parallel lines, and simu-
lates weaving, so that these handsome
borders in a deep rich red might as well
have come from the loom as from the
needle. Another method of darning is
looser and coarser, and suitable only for
cloths and hangings not subject to much
wear and rubbing ; the stitches follow
the curves of the design, which the needle
paints, as it were, shading and blending
the colours. It is necessary to use this
facility for shading temperately, however,
219
Of or the flatness essential to decorative
Embroidery. ^^^^ -^ j^g^^
The foregoing is a rough list of stitches
which could be copiously supplemented,
but that I am obliged to pass on to
another important point, that of design.
If needlework is to be looked upon
seriously, it is necessary to secure appro-
priate and practicable designs. Where
the worker does not invent for herself,
she should at least interpret her designer,
just as the designer interprets and does
not attempt to imitate nature. It follows
from this, that it is better to avoid using
designs of artists who know nothing of
the capacities of needlework, and design
beautiful and intricate forms without
reference to the execution, the result
being unsatisfactory and incomplete. Re-
garding the design itself, broad bold lines
should be chosen, and broad harmonious
colour (which should be roughly planned
220
before setting to work), with as much Of
minute work, and stitches introducing Embroidery.
play of colour, as befits the purpose of
the work and humour of the worker ;
there should be no scratching, no indefi-
niteness of form or colour, no vagueness
that allows the eye to puzzle over the
design — beyond that indefinable sense of
mystery which arrests the attention and
withholds the full charm of the work for
a moment, to unfold it to those who
stop to give it more than a glance. But
there are so many different stitches and so
many different modes of setting to work,
that it will soon be seen that these few
hints do not apply to all of them. One
method, for instance, consists of trusting
entirely to design, and leaves colour out
of account : white work on white linen,
white on dark ground, or black or dark
blue upon white. Again, some work
depends more on magnificence of colour
Of than on form, as, for example, the hand-
Embroidery. gQjj^g Italian hangings of the seventeenth
century, worked in floss-silk, on linen
sometimes, and sometimes on a dusky-
open canvas which makes the silks gleam
and glow like precious stones.
In thus slightly describing the methods
chiefly used in embroidery, I do so prin-
cipally from old examples, as modern
embroidery, being a dilettante pastime,
has little distinct character, and is, in its
best points, usually imitative. Eastern
work still retains the old professional
skill, but beauty of colour is rapidly dis-
appearing, and little attention is paid to
durability of the dyes used. In speaking
rather slightingly of modern needlework,
I must add that its non-success is often
due more to the use of poor materials
than to want of skill in working. It is
surely folly to waste time over work that
looks shabby in a month. The worker
222
should use judgment and thought to Of
procure materials, not necessarily rich, EniDroidery.
but each good and genuine of its kind.
Lastly, she should not be sparing of her
own handiwork, for, while a slightly
executed piece of work depends wholly
on design, in one where the actual
stitchery is more elaborate, but the design
less masterly, the patience and thought
lavished on it render it in a different
way equally pleasing, and bring it more
within the scope of the amateur.
May Morris.
223
OF LACE
T ACE is a term freely used at the
present time to describe various
sorts of open ornament in thread work,
the successflil effect of which depends
very much upon the contrasting of
more or less closely - textured forms
with grounds or intervening spaces filled
in with meshes of equal size or with
cross -ties, bars, etc. Whence it has
come to pass that fabrics having an
appearance of this description, such as
embroideries upon nets, cut linen works,
drawn thread works, and machine-woven
counterfeits of lace -like fabrics, are
224
frequently called laces. But they differ Of Lace,
in make from those productions of certain
specialised handicrafts to which from the
sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries lace
owes its fame.
These specialised handicrafts are di-
visible into two branches. The one
branch involves the employment of a
needle to loop a continuous thread into
varieties of shapes and devices ; the
other is in the nature of making corre-
sponding or similar ornament by twisting
and plaiting together a number of separate
threads, the loose ends of which have to
be fastened in a row on a cushion or
pillow, the supply of the threads being
wound around the heads of lengthened
bobbins, so shaped for convenience in
handling. The first-named branch is
needlepoint lace-making ; the second,
bobbin or pillow lace-making. Needle-
point lace-making may be regarded as a
Q 225
Of Lace, species of embroidery, whilst bobbin or
pillow lace-making is closely allied to
the twisting and knotting together of
threads for fringes. Embroidery, how-
ever, postulates a foundation of material
to be enriched with needlework, whereas
needlepoint and pillow lace are wrought
independently of any corresponding
foundation of material.
The production of slender needles and
small metal pins is an important incident
in the history of lace-making by hand.
Broadly speaking, the manufacture for a
widespread consumption of such metal
pins and needles does not date earlier
than the fourteenth century. Without
small implements of this character deli-
cate lace-making is not possible. It is
therefore fair to assume that although
historic nations like the Egyptian, As-
syrian, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman, made
use of fringes and knotted cords upon
226
their hangings, cloaks, and tunics, lace Of Lace,
was unknown to them. Their bone,
wooden, or metal pins and needles were
suited to certain classes of embroidery
and to the making of nets, looped cords,
etc., but not to such lace -making as
we know it from the early days of the
sixteenth century.
About the end of the fifteenth century,
with the development in Europe of fine
linen for underclothing, collars and cuffs
just visible beyond the outer garments
came into vogue, and a taste was speedily
manifested for trimming linen under-
shirts, collars and cuffs, with insertions
and borders of kindred material. This
taste seems to have been first displayed
in a marked manner by Venetian and
Flemish women ; for the earliest known
books of engraved patterns for linen
ornamental borders and insertions are
those which were published during the
227
Of Lace, commencement of the sixteenth century
at Venice and Antwerp. But such
patterns were designed in the first place
for various sorts of embroidery upon a
material, such as darning upon canvas
{punto fa su la rete a maglia quadra)^
drawn thread work of reticulated patterns
(^punto tirato or funto a reticella)^ and
cut work {punto t agitato). Patterns for
quite other sorts of work, such as point
in the air {punto in aere) and thread
work twisted and plaited by means of
little leaden weights or bobbins {merletti
a piomhini)^ were about thirty years later
in publication. These two last-named
classes of work are respectively identi-
fiable {punto in aere) with needlepoint
and {merletti a piombini) with bobbin
lace-making ; and they seem to date
from about 1 540.
The sixteenth - century and earliest
known needlepoint laces {punto in aere)
228
are of narrow lengths or bands, the Of Lace,
patterns of which are composed princi-
pally of repeated open squares filled in
with circular, star, and other geometric
shapes, set upon diagonal and cross lines
which radiate from the centre of each
square to its corners and sides. When
the bands were to serve as borders they
would have a dentated edging added to
them ; this edging might be made of
either needlepoint or bobbin lace. As
time went on the dimensions of both lace
bands and lace Vandykes increased so that,
whilst these served as trimmings to linen,
lace of considerable width and various
shapes came to be made, and rufFs, collars,
and cufFs were wholly made of it. Such
lace was thin and wiry in appearance.
The leading lines of the patterns formed
squares and geometrical figures, amongst
which were disposed small wheel and
seed forms, little triangles, and such like.
229
Of Lace. A few years later the details of these
geometrically planned patterns became
more varied, tiny human figures, fruits,
vases and flowers, being used as orna-
mental details. But a more distinct
change in character of pattern was
effected when flowing scrolls with leaf
and blossom devices, held together by
means of little ties or bars, were adopted.
Different portions of the scrolls and
blossoms with their connecting links
or bars would often be enriched with
little loops or picots^ with stitched reliefs,
and varieties of close and open work.
Then came a taste for arranging the bars
or ties into trellis grounds, or grounds
of hexagons, over which small ornamental
devices would be scattered in balanced
groups. At the same time, the bobbin
or pillow lace-workers produced grounds
of small equal -size meshes in plaited
threads. This inventiveness on the part
230
of the bobbin or pillow workers reacted Of Lace,
upon the needlepoint workers, who in
their turn produced still more delicate
grounds with meshes of single and double
twisted threads.
Lace, passing from stage to stage,
thus became a filmy tissue or fabric, and
its original use as a somewhat stiff,
wiry-looking trimming to linen con-
sequently changed. Larger articles than
borders, collars, and cuffs were made of
the new filmy material, and lace flounces,
veils, loose sleeves, curtains, and bed-
covers were produced. This transition
may be traced through the first hundred
and twenty years of lace-making. It
culminated during the succeeding ninety
years in a development of fanciful pattern-
making, in which realistic representation
of flowers, trees, cupids, warriors, sports-
men, animals of the chase, emblems of all
sorts, rococo and architectural ornament,
231
Of Lace, is typical. Whilst the eighteenth century
may perhaps be regarded as a period of
questionable propriety in the employ-
ment of ornament hardly appropriate to
the twisting, plaiting, and looping together
of threads, it is nevertheless notable for
tours de force in lace-making achieved
without regard to cost or trouble. From
this stage, the climax of which may be
placed about 1760, the designing of lace
patterns declined ; and from the end of
the eighteenth to the first twenty years
or so of the nineteenth centuries, laces,
although still made with the needle and
bobbins, became little more than finely-
meshed nets powdered over with dots
or leaves, or single blossoms, or tiny
sprays.
Within the limits of a brief note like
the present, it is not possible to discuss
local peculiarities in methods of work
and styles of design which established
232
t
the characters of the various Venetian Of Lace,
and other Italian points, of the French
points of Alen^on and Argentan, of the
cloudy Valenciennes, Mechlin, and Brus-
sels laces. Neither can one touch upon
the nurturing of the industry by nuns in
convents, by workers subsidised by State
grants, and so forth. It would require
more space than is available to fairly
discuss what styles of ornament are least
or most suited to lace -making ; or
whether lace is less rightly employed as
a tissue for the making of entire articles
of costume or of household use, than as
an ornamental accessory or trimming to
costume.
Whilst very much lace is a fantastic
adjunct to costume, serving a purpose
sometimes like that of appoggiature and
fioriture in music, other lace, such as
the carved-i vory-looking scrolls of Vene-
tian raised points, which are principally
233
Of Lace, associated with the jabots and ruffles of
kings, ministers, and marshals, and with
the ornamentation of priests' vestments,
is certainly more dignified in character.
The loops, twists, and plaits of threads
are more noticeable in laces of com-
paratively small dimensions than they
are in laces of great size. Size rather
tempts the lace -worker to strive for
ready effect, and to sacrifice the minute-
ness and finish of hand work, which
give quality of preciousness to lace. The
via media to this quality lies between
two extremes; namely, applying dainty
threads to the interpretation of badly
shaped and ill-grouped forms on the one
hand, and on the other hand adopting
a style of ornament which depends upon
largeness of detail and massiveness in
grouping, and is therefore unsuited to
lace. Without finish of handicraft, pro-
ducing beautiful ornament suited to the
234
material in which it is expressed, lace Of Lace,
worthy the name cannot be made.
The industry is still pursued in
France, Belgium, Venice, Austria, Bo-
hemia, and Ireland. Honiton has ac-
quired a notoriety for its pillow laces,
many of which some hundred years ago
were as varied and well executed as
Brussels pillow laces. Other English
towns in the Midland counties followed
the lead chiefly of Mechlin, Valenci-
ennes, Lille, and Arras, but were rarely
as successful as their leaders. Saxony,
Russia, and the Auvergne produce
quantities of pillow laces, having little
pretence to design, though capable of
pretty effects when artistically worn.
There is no question that the want of
a sustained intelligence in appreciat-
ing ingenious hand-made laces has told
severely upon the industry ; and as
with other artistic handicrafts, so with
235
Of Lace, lace-making, machinery has very con-
siderably supplanted the hand. There
is at present a limited revival in the
demand for hand-made laces, and efforts
are made at certain centres to give
new life to the industry by infusing
into it artistic feeling derived from a
study of work done during the periods
when the art flourished.
Alan S. Cole.
236
OF BOOK ILLUSTRATION
AND BOOK DECORATION
D OOK illustration is supposed to have
•■-^ made a great advance in the last
few years. No doubt it has, but this
advance has not been made on any
definite principle, but, as it were, in and
out of a network of cross- purposes. No
attempt has been made to classify
illustration in relation to the purpose it
has to fulfil.
Broadly speaking, this purpose is
threefold. It is either utilitarian, or
partly utilitarian partly artistic, or purely
artistic. The first may be dismissed at
237
Of Book once. Such drawings as technical dia-
Illustration prrams must be clear and accurate, but by
and Book ° . , ' . /
Decoration. ^"^^^ ^^^V ^^^ure they are non-artistic,
and in regard to art it is a case of
** hands off" to the draughtsman.
Illustration as an art, that is, book
decoration, begins with the second class.
From this standpoint an illustration
involves something more than mere
drawing. In the first place, the draw-
ing must illustrate the subject, but as
the drawing will not be set in a plain
mount, but surrounded or bordered by
printed type, there is the further problem
of the relation of the drawing to the
printed type. The relative importance
attached to the printed type or the draw-
ing is the crucial point for the illustrator.
If all his thoughts are concentrated on
his own drawing, one line to him will be
much as another ; but if he considers his
illustration as going with the type to
238
form one homogeneous design, each line Of Book
becomes a matter of deliberate intention, illustration
• 1 r • ' ^^^ Book
Now, m the early days of prmtmg, Decoration,
when both type and illustration were
printed off a single block, the latter
standpoint was adopted as a matter of
course, and as the art developed and
men of genuine ability applied them-
selves to design, this intimate relation
between printer and designer produced
results of inimitable beauty. Each page .
of a fine Aldine is a work of art in itself.
The eye can run over page after page
for the simple pleasure of its decoration.
No black blots in a sea of ignoble type
break the quiet dignity of the page ;
each part of it works together with the
rest for one premeditated harmony.
But gradually, with the severance of the
arts, the printer lost sight of the artist,
and the latter cared only for himself;
and there came the inevitable result
239
Of Book which has followed this selfishness in
Illustration ^|| ^j^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^f ^-^^ Printing
and Book , ^ ,, i , %
Decoration, ceased to be an art at all, and the art of
book decoration died of neglect ; the
illustrator made his drawing without
thought of the type, and left it to the
printer to pitch it into the text, and
reproduce it as best he could.
The low-water mark in artistic illus-
tration was reached perhaps in the early-
part of this century, and the greatest
offender was Turner himself. The illus-
trations which Turner made for Rogers's
Poems show no sort of modification of
his habitual practice in painting. They
may have been beautiful in themselves,
but it evidently never entered into
Turner's head that the method, which
was admirable in a picture aided by all
the resources of colour, was beside the
mark when applied to the printed page
with all the limitations of black and
240
white and the simple line. One looks Of Book
in vain in Turner's illustrations for any ^lustration
evidence that he was conscious of the Decoration,
existence of the rest of the page at all.
Something more than a landscape
painter's knowledge of drawing is neces-
sary. The custom of getting illus-
trations from painters who have little
knowledge of decorative design has led
to the invention of all sorts of mechanical
processes in order to transfer easel-work r
direct to the printed page. The effect
of this upon book decoration has been
deadly. Process-work of this sort has
gone far to kill wood-engraving ; and
as to its result, instead of a uniform
texture of line woven as it were over the
entire page, the eye is arrested by harsh
patches of black or gray which show a
disregard of the printed type which is
little less than brutal. Leaving recent
work out of account, one exception only
R 241
Of Book can be made, and that is in the case of
Illustration William Blake.
and Book .
Decoration. The mherent conditions of book
decoration point to the line drawn by
hand, and reproduced, either by wood-
engraving or by direct facsimile process,
as its proper method. Indeed, the ideal
of paginal beauty would be reached by
leaving both the text and the illustrative
design to hand, if not to one hand.
This, however, is out of the question ;
the cost alone is prohibitive. The point
for the book -decorator to consider is,
what sort of line will range best with the
type. In the case of the second division
of our classification, which, in default of
a better name, may be called "record
work," it is impossible to apply to the line
the amount of abstraction and selection
which would be necessary in pure design.
To do so, for instance, in the case of an
architectural illustration, would destroy
242
the " vraisemblance " which is of the Of Book
essence of such a drawing. Even in this Illustration
case, however, the line ought to be very Decoration,
carefully considered. It is important to
recollect that the type establishes a sort
of scale of its own, and, taking ordinary
lettering, this would exclude very minute
work where the lines are close together
and there is much cross-hatching ; and
also simple outline work such as Retsch
used to labour at, for the latter errs on
the side of tenuity and meagreness as
much as process-reproduction of brush-
work sins in the opposite extreme. The
line used in architectural illustration
should be free, accurate, and unfaltering,
drawn with sufficient technical knowledge
of architecture to enable the draughtsman
to know where he can stop without injury
to his subject. The line should not be
obstinate, but so light and subtle as to
reflect without effort each thought that
243
Of Book flits across the artist's mind. Vierge has
Illustration ghown how much can be done in this
Decoration "^^y* With a few free lines and the
contrast of some dark piece of shading in
exactly the right place, he will often tell
you more of a subject than will the most
elaborately finished picture. This is the
method to aim at in architectural illus-
tration. The poetry of architecture and
its highest qualities of dignity of mass
and outline are smothered by that
laborious accuracy which covers every
part of the drawing with a vain repetition
of unfeeling lines.
Where, however, the illustration is
purely imaginative, the decorative stand-
point should be kept steadily in view, and
the process of selection and abstraction
carried very much farther. Here, at
length, the illustrator can so order his
design that the drawing and the printed
type form a single piece of decoration,
244
not disregarding the type, but using it as Of Book
in itself a means of obtaining texture and ^lustration
1 rr rr-^i • ^'^^ Book
scale and distributed eftect. The type is, Decoration,
as it were, the technical datum of the
design, which determines the scale of the
line to be used with it. With a wiry
type no doubt a wiry drawing is desir-
able, but the types of the great periods
of printing are firm in outline and large
and ample in distribution. Assuming,
then, that one of these types can be used, .
the line of the accompanying design
should be strongly drawn, and designed
from end to end with full allowance for
the white paper. No better model can
be followed than Diirer's woodcuts.
The amount of work which Diirer would
get out of a single line is something extra-
ordinary, and perhaps to us impossible ;
for in view of our complex modern
ideas and total absence of tradition, prob-
ably no modern designer can hope to
245
Of Book attain to the great German's magnificent
Illustration directness and tremendous intensity of
and Book
Decoration, expression.
Deliberate selection, both in subject
and treatment, becomes therefore a
matter of the first importance. The
designer should reject subjects which
do not admit of a decorative treat-
ment. His business is not with science,
or morals, but with art for its own
sake ; he should, therefore, select his
subject with a single eye to its artistic
possibilities. As to the line itself, it is
impossible to offer any suggestion, for
the line used is as much a part of the
designer's idea as the words of a poem
are of a poet's poetry ; and the invention
of these must come of itself. But once
in consciousness, the line must be put
under rigid control as simply a means of
expression. There is an insidious danger
in the line. Designers sometimes seem
246
to be inebriated with their own cunning ; Of Book
they go on drawing line after line. Illustration
apparently for the simple pleasure of Decoration,
deftly placing them side by side, or at
best to produce some spurious imitation
of texture. As soon as the line is made
an end in itself, it becomes a wearisome
thing. The use of the line and the
imitation of texture should be absolutely
subordinated to the decorative purposes
of the design, and the neglect of this rule
is as bad art as if a musician, from
perverse delight in the intricacies of a
fugue, were to lose his theme in a chaos
of counterpoint.
If, then, to conclude, we are to return
to the best traditions of book decoration,
the artist must abandon the selfish
isolation in which he has hitherto worked.
He must regard the printed type not
as a necessary evil, but as a valuable
material for the decoration of the page,
247
Of Book and the type and the illustration should
Illustration j^^ considered in strict relation to each
and Book
Decoration. Other. This will involve a self-restraint
far more rigid than any required in
etching, because the point to be aimed at
is not so much the direct suggestion of
nature, as the best decorative treatment
of the line in relation to the entire page.
Thus, to the skill of the draughtsman
must be added the far-seeing imagination
of the designer, which, instead of being
content with a hole-and-corner success,
involving disgrace to the rest of the page,
embraces in its consciousness all the
materials available for the beautification
of the page as a whole. It is only by
this severe intellectual effort, by this self-
abnegation, by this ready acceptance of
the union of the arts, that the art of
book illustration can again attain to a
permanent value.
Reginald Blomfield.
248
OF DESIGNS
AND WORKING DRAWINGS
npHE drawings which most deeply
^ interest the workman are working
drawings — -just the last to be appreciated
by the public, because they are the last
to be understood. The most admired
of show drawings are to us craftsmen
comparatively without interest. We
recognise the " competition " drawing at
once ; we see how it was made in order
to secure the commission, not with a
view to its effect in execution (which is
the true and only end of a design), and
we do not wonder at the failure of
249
Of Designs competitions in general. For the man
and ^j^Q j,^j.gg least, if even he knows at all,
Working ,,..,, . . .
Drawings. "^^ ^ design Will appear in execution is
the most likely to perpetrate a pretti-
ness which may gain the favour of the
inexpert, with whom the selection is
likely to rest.
The general public, and all in fact
who are technically ignorant on the
subject, need to be warned that the most
attractive and what are called ''taking"
drawings are just those which are least
likely to be designs — still less bond fide
working drawings. The real workman
has not the time, even if he had the
inclination, to " finish up " his drawings
to the point that is generally considered
pleasing ; the inventive spirit has not the
patience. We have each of us the fail-
ings complementary to our faculties, and
vice versa ; and you will usually find —
certainly it is my experience — that the
250
makers of very elaborately finished draw- Of Designs
ings seldom do anything: but what we
ur u r ju r forking
have often seen before ; and that men of Drawings.
any individuality, actual designers that
is to say, have a way of considering
a drawing finished as soon as ever it
expresses what they mean.
You may take it, then, as a general
rule that highly finished and elaborate
drawings are got up for show, " finished
for exhibition " as they say (in compliance
with the supposed requirements of an
exhibition rather than with a view to
practical purposes), and that drawings
completed only so far as is necessary,
precise in their details, disfigured by
notes in writing, sections, and so on, are
at least genuine workaday designs.
If you ask what a design should be
like — well, like a design. It is altogether
a different thing from a picture ; it is
almost the reverse of it. Practically no
251
Of Designs man has, as I said, the leisure, even if
^^/^,^. he had the ability, to make an effective
Working r • ^ ^ '
Drawings. "Wished picture of a thing yet to be
carried out — perhaps not to be carried
out. This last is a most serious con-
sideration for him, and may have a sad
effect upon his work. The artist who
could afford thus to give himself away
gratis would certainly not do so ; the
man who might be willing to do it
could not ; for if he has " got no work
to do" — that is at least presumptive
evidence that he is not precisely a master
of his craft.
The design that looks like a picture
is likely to be at best a reminiscence of
something done before ; and the more
often it has been done the more likely it
' is to be pictorially successful — and by
so much the less is it, strictly speaking, a
design.
This applies especially to designs on a
252
Working
Drawings.
small scale, such as are usually submitted Of Designs
to catch the rare commission. To ^^^
imitate in a full-sized cartoon the texture
of material, the casualty of reflected
light, and other such accidents of efl^ect, is
sheer nonsense, and no practical workman
would think of such a thing. A painter
put to the uncongenial task of decorative
design might be excused for attempting
to make his productions pass muster by
workmanship excellent in itself, although
not in the least to the point : one does
what one can, or what one must ; and if
a man has a faculty he needs must show
it. Only, the perfection of painting will
not, for all that, make design.
In the first small sketch-design, every-
thing need not of course be expressed ;
but it should be indicated — for the pur-
pose is simply to explain the scheme pro-
posed : so much of pictorial representation
as may be necessary to that is desirable,
253
Of Designs and no more. It should be in the nature
, of a diagram, specific enough to illustrate
Drawings. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ worked
out. It ought by strict rights to commit
one definitely to a certain method of exe-
cution, as a written specification would ;
and may often with advantage be helped
out by written notes, which explain
more definitely than any pictorial render-
ing just how this is to be wrought, that
cast, the other chased, and so on, as the
case may be.
Whatever the method of expression the
artist may adopt, he should be perfectly
clear in his own mind how his design is
to be worked out ; and he ought to make
it clear also to any one with sufficient
technical knowledge to understand a
drawing.
In the first sketch for a window, for
example, he need not show every lead
and every piece of glass ; but there
254
should be no possible mistake as to how Of Designs
it is to be glazed, or which is " painted " ^^^_
glass and which is " mosaic." To omit Dj-awines
the necessary bars in a sketch for glass
seems to me a weak concession to the
prejudice of the public. One may have
to concede such points sometimes ; but
the concession is due less to necessity
than to the — what shall we call it ? — not
perhaps exactly the cowardice, but at all
events the timidity, of the artist.
In a full -sized working drawing or
cartoon everything material to the design
should be expressed, and that as definitely
as possible. In a cartoon for glass (to
take again the same example) every lead-
line should be shown, as well as the saddle
bars ; to omit them is about as excusable
as it would be to leave out the sections
from a design for cabinet work. It is
contended sometimes that such details
are not necessary, that the artist can
255
Of Designs bear all that in mind. Doubtless he can,
^^^_ more or less ; but I am inclined to believe
Working i • i 7
Drawings "^^^^ Strongly m the less. At any rate
he will much more certainly have them
in view whilst he keeps them visibly before
his eyes. One thing that deters him is
the fear of offending the client, who will
not believe, when he sees leads and bars
in a drawing, how little they are likely
to assert themselves in the glass.
Very much the same thing applies to
designs and working drawings generally.
A thorough craftsman never suggests a
form or colour without realising in his
own mind how he will be able to get
such form or colour in the actual work ;
and in his working drawing he explains
that fully, making allowance even for
some not impossible dulness of appre-
hension on the part of the executant.
Thus, if a pattern is to be woven he
indicates the cards to be employed, he
256
arranges what parts are " single," what Of Designs
"double," as the weavers call it, what ^^^
changes in the shuttle are proposed, and Drawings.
by the crossing of which threads certain
intermediate tints are to be obtained.
Or again, if the design is for wall-
paper printing, he arranges not only for
the blocks, but the order in which they
shall be printed ; and provides for
possible printing in " flock," or for the
printing of one transparent colour over »
another, so as to get more colours than
there are blocks used, and so on.
In either case, too, he shows quite
plainly the limits of each colour, not so
much seeking the softness of effect which
is his ultimate aim, as the precision which*
will enable the block or card cutter to
see at a glance what he means, — even
at the risk of a certain hardness in his
drawing ; for the drawing is in itself of
no account ; it is only the means to an
s 257
Of Designs end ; and his end is the stuff, the paper,
and Qj, -y^hatever it may be, in execution.
Drawings. -^ workman intent on his design will
sacrifice his drawing to it — harden it, as
I said, for the sake of emphasis, annotate
it, patch it, cut it up into pieces to prove
it, if need be do anything to make his
meaning clear to the workman who comes
after him. It is as a rule only the dilet-
tante who is dainty about preserving his
drawings.
To an artist very much in repute there
may be some temptation to be careful of
his designs, and to elaborate them (him-
self, or by the hands of his assistants),
because, so finished, they have a com-
mercial value as drawings — but this is at
best pot-boiling ; and the only men who
are subject to this temptation are just
those who might be proof against it.
Men of such rank that even their work-
ing drawings are in demand have no very
258
urgent need to work for the pot ; and Of Designs
the working drawings of men to whom ^^^
^^orkin.£
pounds and shillings must needs be a j)i.a^ines
real consideration are not sought after.
In the case of very smart and highly
finished drawings by comparatively un-
known designers — of ninety-nine out of
a hundred, that is to say, or nine hun-
dred and ninety-nine out of a thousand
perhaps — elaboration implies either that,
having little to say, a man fills up his
time in saying it at unnecessary length,
or that he is working for exhibition.
And why not work for exhibition ? it
may be asked. There is a simple answer
to that : The exhibition pitch is in much
too high a key, and in the long run it
will ruin the faculty of the workman who
adopts it.
It is only fair to admit that an ex-
hibition of fragmentary and unfinished
drawings, soiled, tattered, and torn, as
259
Of Designs they almost invariably come from the
Trr . . workshop or factory, would make a very
Working u- u u
Drawings. P^^^ ^^^^^ — which may be an argument
against exhibiting them at all. Cer-
tainly it is a reason for mending, clean-
ing, and mounting them, and putting
them in some sort of frame (for what is
not worth the pains of making present-
able is not worth showing), but that is a
very different thing from working designs
up to picture pitch.
When all is said, designs, if exhibited,
appeal primarily to designers. We all
want to see each other's work, and especi-
ally each other's way of working ; but it
should not be altogether uninteresting
to the intelligent amateur to see what
working drawings are, and to compare
them with the kind of specious competi-
tion drawings by which he is so apt to
be misled.
Lewis F. Day.
260
FURNITURE AND THE ROOM
np HE art of furnishing runs on two
* wheels — the room and the furni-
ture. As in the bicycle, the inordinate
development of one wheel at the expense
of its colleague has been not without
some great feats, yet too often has pro-
voked catastrophe ; so ftirnishing makes
safest progression when, with a juster
proportion, its two wheels are kept to
moderate and uniform diameters. The
room should be for the furniture just as
much as the furniture for the room.
Of late it has not been so ; we have
been indulging in the *' disproportionately
261
Furniture wheeled " type, and the result has been
^^^ to crowd our rooms, and reduce them
the Room. . . .^ t_, , . .
to msignincance. rLven locomotion m
them is often embarrassing, especially
when the upholsterer has been allowed
carte blanche. But, apart from this,
there is a sense of repletion in these
masses of chattel — miscellanies brought
together with no subordination to each
other, or to the effect of the room
as a whole. Taken in the single piece,
our furniture is sometimes not without
its merit, but it is rarely exempt from
self-assertion, or, to use a slang term,
"fussiness." And an aggregation of
" flissinesses " becomes fatiguing. One
is betrayed into uncivilised longings for
the workhouse, or even the convict's
cell, the simplicity of bare boards and
tables !
But we must not use our dictum for
aggressive purposes merely, faulty as
262
modern systems may be. In the dis- Furniture
tinction of the two sides of the problem ^^^
of furnishing — the room for the furni-
ture, and the furniture for the room —
there is some historical significance.
Under these titles might be written
respectively the first and last chapters
in the history of this art — its rise and
its decadence.
Furniture in the embryonic state of
chests, which held the possessions of
early times, and served, as they moved
from place to place, for tables, chairs,
and wardrobes, may have been in exist-
ence while the tents and sheds which
accommodated them were of less value.
But furnishing began with settled archi-
tecture, when the room grew first into
importance, and overshadowed its con-
tents. The art of the builder had
soared far beyond the ambitions of the
furnisher.
263
Furniture Later, the two constituents of our art
^"^ came to be produced simultaneously,
and under one impulse of design. The
room, whether church or hall, had now
its specific furniture. In the former
this was adapted for ritual, in the latter
for feasting ; but in both the contents
formed in idea an integral part of the
interior in which they stood. And
while these conditions endured, the art
was in its palmy state.
Later, furniture came to be considered
apart from its position. It grew fanciful
and fortuitous. The problem of fitting
it to the room was no problem at all
while both sprang from a common con-
ception : it became so when its inde-
pendent design, at first a foible of
luxury, grew to be a necessity of pro-
duction. As long, however, as archi-
tecture remained dominant, and painting
and sculpture were its acknowledged
264
vassals, furniture retained its legitimate Furniture
position and shared in their triumphs. ^"
. /^ the Room.
But when these the elder sisters shook
off their allegiance, furniture followed
suit. It developed the self-assertion of
which we have spoken, and, in the belief
that it could stand alone, divorced itself
from that support which was the final
cause of its existence. There have been
doubtless many slackenings and tighten-
ings of the chain which links the arts of
design together ; but it is to be noted
how with each slackening furniture grew
gorgeous and artificial, failed to sympa-
thise with common needs, and sank
slowly but surely into feebleness and
insipidity.
We had passed through some such
cycle by the middle of this century.
With the dissolution of old ties the
majority of the decorative arts had
perished. Painting remained to us,
265
Furniture arrogating to herself the role which
, ^" hitherto the whole company had com-
the Room. . . . _
Dined to make successful. In her
struggle to fill the giant's robe, she has
run unresistingly in the ruts of the age.
She has crowded her portable canvases,
side by side, into exhibitions and galleries,
and claimed the title of art for literary
rather than aesthetic suggestions. The
minor coquetries of craftsmanship, from
which once was nourished the burly
strength of art, have felt out of place in
such illustrious company. So we have
the forced art of public display, but it
has ceased to be the habit in which our
common rooms and homely walls could
be dressed.
The attendant symptom has been the
loss from our houses of all that archi-
tectural amalgam, which in former times
blended the structure with its contents,
the screens and panellings, which, half
266
room, half furniture, cemented the one Furniture
to the other. The eighteenth century ^^
^ . ^ •'the Room,
carried on the tradition to a great extent
with plinth and dado, cornice and en-
crusted ceiling ; but by the middle of
the nineteenth we had our interiors
handed over to us by the architect
almost completely void of architectural
feature. We are asked to take as a
substitute, what is naively called '' decor-
ation," two coats of paint, and a veneer
of machine-printed wall-papers.
In this progress of obliteration an
important factor has been the increasing
brevity of our tenures. Three or four
times in twenty years the outgoing
tenant will make good his dilapidations,
and the house-agent will put the premises
into tenantable repair — as these things
are settled for us by lawyers and sur-
veyors. After a series of such processes,
what can remain of internal architecture ?
267
Furniture Can there be left even a room worth
and furnishing, in the true sense of the
the Room. . ^, ^ , .
termr ine first step to render it so
must usually be the obliteration of as
much as possible of the maimed and
distorted construction, which our lease-
hold house offers.
What wonder, then, if furniture, be-
ginning again to account herself an art,
should have transgressed her limits and
invaded the room ? Ceilings, walls and
floors, chimneypieces, grates, doors and
windows, all nowadays come into the
hands of the artistic furnisher, and are at
the mercy of upholsterers and cabinet-
makers to begin with, and of the
antiquity-collector to follow. Then we
bring in our gardens, and finish ofF our
drawing-room as a mixture of a con-
servatory and a bric-a-brac shop.
The fashion for archaeological mimicry
has been another pitfall. The attempt
268
to bring back art by complete repro- Furniture
ductions of old -day furnishings has ^^^
been much the vogue abroad. The
Parisians distinguish many styles and
aiFect to carry them out in every detail.
The Americans have copied Paris, and
we have done a little ourselves. But
the weak element in all this is, that the
occupier of these mediaeval or classic
apartments remains still the nineteenth-
century embodiment, which we meet in
railway carriage and omnibus. We
cannot be cultured Epicureans in a
drawing-room of the Roman Empire,
and by the opening of a door walk as
Flemish Burgomasters into our libraries.
The heart of the age will mould its
productions irrespective of fashion or
archaeology, and such miserable shams
fail to reach it.
If we, who live in this century, can at
all ourselves appraise the position, its
269
Furniture most essential characteristic in its bearing
*"^ upon art has been the commercial
tendency. Thereby an indelible stamp
is set upon our furniture. The making
of it under the supreme condition of
profitable sale has affected it in both its
functions. On the side of utility our
furniture has been shaped to the uses of
the million, not of the individual. Hence
its monotonously average character, its
failure to become part of ourselves,
its lack of personal and local charm.
How should a "stock*' article possess
either ?
But the blight has fallen more cruelly
on that other function, which is a
necessity of human craftsmanship — the
effort to express itself and please the eye
by the expression. Art being the
monopoly of "painting," and having
nothing to do with such vulgar matters
as furniture, commercialism has been able
270
to advance a standard of beauty of its own, Furniture
with one canon, that of speedy profits. *"^
^ . , ; ^ ^ ^ . the Room.
Furniture has become a mere ware m
the market of fashion. Bought to-day
as the rage, it is discarded to-morrow,
and some new fancy purchased. The
tradesman has a new margin of profit,
but the customer is just where he was.
It may be granted that a genuine neces-
sity of sale is the stimulus to which all
serious effort in the arts must look fon ?
progress, and without which they would
become faddism and conceit. But it is
a different thing altogether when this
passes from stimulus into motive — the
exclusive motive of profit to the pro-
ducer. The worth of the article is
impaired as much as the well-being of
the craftsman, and furniture is degraded
to the position of a pawn in the game of
the sweater.
We must, I fear, be content at
271
the Room.
Furniture present to put up with exhibitions
^^"^ and unarchitectural rooms. But while
making the best of these conditions, we
need not acquiesce in them or maintain
their permanence. At any rate we may
fight a good fight with commercialism.
The evils of heartless and unloving
production, under the grind of an
unnecessary greed, are patent enough to
lead us to reflect that we have after all
in these matters a choice. We need not
spend our money on that which is not
bread. We can go for our furniture to
the individual craftsman and not the
commercial firm. The penalty for so
doing is no longer prohibitive.
In closing our remarks we cannot do
better than repeat our initial axiom — the
art of furnishing lies with the room as
much as with the furniture. The old
ways are still the only ways. When we
care for art sufficiently to summon her
272
from her state prison-house of exhibi- Furniture
tions and galleries, to live again a free life ^^
° ' ° . the Room.
among us in our homes, she will appear
as a controlling force, using not only-
painting and sculpture, but all the decora-
tive arts to shape room and flirniture
under one purpose of design. Whether
we shall then give her the time-honoured
title of architecture, or call her by another
name, is of no moment. . .
Edward S. Prior. *
273
OF THE ROOM
AND FURNITURE
npHE transient tenure that most of us
* have in our dwellings, and the
absorbing nature of the struggle that
most of us have to make to win the
necessary provisions of life, prevent our
encouraging the manufacture of well-
wrought furniture.
We mean to outgrow our houses —
our lease expires after so many years
and then we shall want an entirely
different class of furniture ; consequently
we purchase articles that have only
sufficient life in them to last the brief
274
period of our occupation, and are content Of the
to abide by the want of appropriateness ^°°"^ ^^^
. , , . ^ . r Furniture.
or beauty, in the clear intention or some
day surrounding ourselves with objects
that shall be joys to us for the remainder
of our life. Another deterrent condition
to making a serious outlay in furniture
is the instability of fashion : each decade
sees a new style, and the furniture that
we have acquired in the exercise of our
experienced taste will in all probability t
be discarded by the impetuous purism of
the succeeding generation.
At present we are suffering from such
a catholicity of taste as sees good in
everything, and has an indifferent and
tepid appreciation of all and sundry,
especially if consecrated by age.
This is mainly a reaction against the
austerity of those moralists who preached
the logic of construction, and who re-
quired outward proof of the principles
275
Of the on which and by which each piece was
Room and designed.
Furniture.
Another cause prejudicial to the
growth of modern furniture is the
canonisation of old.
That tables and chairs should have
lasted one hundred years is indeed proof
that they were originally well made : that
the conditions of the moment of their
make were better than they are now is
possible, and such aureole as is their
due let us hasten to offer. But, to
take advantage of their survival and
to increase their number by facsimile
reproduction is to paralyse all healthy
growth of manufacture.
As an answer to the needs and habits
of our ancestors of one hundred years
ago — both in construction and design —
let them serve us as models showing the
attitude of mind in which we should
meet the problems of our day — and so
276
far as the needs and habits of the present Of the
time are unchanged, as models of form, ^°°"^ ^^^
. J • 1 Furniture.
not to be mcorporated with our ver-
nacular, but which we should recognise
as successful form, and discover the
plastic secrets of its shape.
With this possession we may borrow
what forms we will — shapes of the Ind
and far Cathay — the whole wide world
is open to us — of past imaginations and
of the dreams of our own.
But without this master-key the
copying is slavish, and the bondage of
the task is both cruel and destructive.
Cruel, because mindless, work can be
reproduced more rapidly than thoughtful
work can be invented, and the rate of
production affects the price of other
articles of similar kind, so that the one
dictates what the other shall receive ;
and destructive, because it treats the
craftsman as a mere machine, whose
277
Of the only standard can be mechanical ex-
Room and cellence.
Now, all furniture that has any per-
manent value has been designed and
wrought to meet the ends it had to
serve, and the careful elaboration of it
gave its maker scope for his pleasure
and occasion for his pride.
If a man really likes what he has
got to do, he will make great shifts to
express and realise his pleasure ; he will
choose carefully his materials, and either
in playfulness of fancy, or in grave
renunciation of the garniture of his art,
will put the stamp of his individuality on
his work.
An example of living art in modern
furniture is a costermonger's barrow.
Affectionately put together, carved and
painted, it expresses almost in words the
pride and taste of its owner.
As long as we are incapable of
278
recognising and sympathising with the Of the
delight of the workman in the realisation ^^^^ and
of his art, our admiration of his work is
a pretence, and our encouragement of it
blind — and this blindness makes us
insensitive as to whether the delight is
really there or no ; consequently our
patronage will most often be disastrous
rather than helpful.
The value of furniture depends on
the directness of its response to the
requirements that called it into being,
and to the nature of the conditions that
evoked it.
To obtain good furniture we must
contrive that the conditions of its service
are worthy conditions, and not merely
the dictates of our fancy or our sloth.
At the present moment modern furni-
ture may be roughly divided into two
classes : furniture for service, and fiirni-
ture for display. Most of us, however,
279
Of the have to confine ourselves to the pos-
Room and gggsion of Serviceable furniture only ;
Furniture. r i • • r i •
and a more rrank recognition or this
limitation would assist us greatly in our
selection. If only we kept our real
needs steadily before us, how much more
beauty we could import into our homes!
Owing to lack of observation, and of
experienced canons of taste, our fancies
are caught by some chance object that
pleases — one of that huge collection of
ephemeral articles which " have been
created to supply a want " that hitherto
has never been felt — and as the cost of
these fictions is (by the nature of the
case) so low as to be of no great moment
to us, the thing is purchased and helps
henceforth to swell the museum of in-
congruous accumulation that goes by
the name of a *' furnished drawing-
room."
A fancy, so caught, is soon outworn,
280
Room and
Furniture.
but the precept of economy forbids the Of the
discharge of the superfluous purchase,
and so it adds its unit to the sum of daily
labour spent on its preservation and its
appearance. This burden of unnecessary
toil is the index of the needlessness and
cruelty with which we spend the labour
of those whom need has put under our
service.
And the sum of money spent on these
ill-considered acquisitions which have
gone to swell the general total of distress,
an ever-widening ring of bitter ripple,
might, concentrated, have purchased some
one thing, both beautiflil and useful,
whose fashioning had been a pleasure to
the artificer, and whose presence was an
increasing delight to the owner and an
added unit to this world's real wealth.
Such indiscriminate collection defeats
its own aim. Compare the way Giovanni
Bellini fits up St. Jerome's study for
2»I
Room and
Furniture.
Of the him in the National Gallery. There is
no stint of money evidently ; the Saint
gets all that he can properly want, and
he gets over and above — the addition
born of his denial — the look of peace
and calm in his room, that can so seldom
be found with us. Another reason
why our rooms are so glaringly over-
furnished is, that many of us aim at
a standard of profusion, in forgetflilness
of the circumstances which created that
standard. Families, whose descent has
been historic, and whose home has been
their pride, accumulate, in the lapse of
time, heirlooms of many kinds — pictures,
furniture, trinkets, etc. — and as these in-
crease in numbers, the rooms in which
they are contained become filled and
crowded beyond what beauty or comfort
permits, and such sacrifice is justly made
for the demands of filial pride.
This emotion is so conspicuously an
282
honourable one that we are all eager to Of the
possess and give scope to our own, and ^°o"^ ^^^
^ , , ^ . , ' . Furniture.
SO long as the scope is honest there is
nothing more laudable.
But the temptation is to add to our
uninherited display in this particular by
substitutes, and to surround ourselves
with immemorable articles, the justifica-
tion of whose presence really should be
that they form part of the history of our
lives in more important respects than the r
mere occasions of their purchase.
It is this unreasoning ambition that
leads to the rivalling of princely houses
by the acquisition of " family portraits
purchased in Wardour Street" — the
rivalling of historic libraries by the
purchase of thousands of books to form
our yesterday's libraries of undisturbed
volumes — the rivalling of memorable
chairs and tables, by recently bought
articles of our own, crowded in imitation
283
Of the of our model with innumerable trifles,
Room and ^q ^}^g infinite tax of our space, our
Furniture. . ,
patience, and our purse.
Our want of care and restraint in the
selection of our furniture affects both its
design and manufacture.
Constantly articles are bought for
temporary use — we postponing the re-
sponsibility of wise purchase until we
have more time, or else we buy what is
not precisely what we want but which
must do, since we cannot wait to have the
exact things made, and have not the time
to search elsewhere for them.
Furniture, in response to this demand,
must be made either so striking as to
arrest the eye, or so variedly serviceable
as to meet some considerable proportion
of the conflicting requirements made on
it by the chance intending purchaser, or
else it must fall back on the impregnable
basis of antiquity and silence all argument
284
with the canon that what the late Mr. Of the
Chippendale did was bound to be " good Room and
„ , Furniture.
taste.
"There should be a place for every-
thing, and everything in its place." Very
true. But in the exercise of our orderli-
ness we require the hearty co-operation
of the ** place " itself. 'Tis a wonderful
aid when the place fits the object it is
intended to contain.
Take the common male chest of
drawers as a case in point. Its function
is to hold a man's shirts and his clothes,
articles of a known and constant size.
Why are the drawers not made propor-
tionate for their duty ^ Why are they
so few and so deep that when filled — as
they needs must be — they are uneasy to
draw out, and to obtain the particular
article of which we are in quest, and
which of course is at the bottom, we
must burrow into the heavy super-
285
Room and
Furniture.
Of the incumbent mass of clothes in our search,
and — that successful — spend a weary-
while in contriving to repack the ill-
disposed space. It can hardly be economy
of labour and material that dictates this,
for — if so — why is the usual hanging
wardrobe made so preposterously too
tall ^ Does the idiot maker suppose that
a woman's dress is hung all in one piece,
body and skirt, from the nape of the
neck, to trail its extremest length ?
The art of buying furniture, or having
it made for us, is to be acquired only by
study and pains, and we must either
pursue the necessary education, or depute
the furnishing of our rooms to competent
hands : and the responsibility does not
end here, for there is the duty of dis-
covering who are competent, and this
must be done indirectly since direct
inquiry only elicits the one criterion,
omnipotent, omnipresent, of cost.
286
The object to be gained in furnishing Of the
a room is to supply the just requirements ^^^^ ^^'^
of the occupants, to accentuate or further
the character of the room, and to indi-
cate the individual habits and tastes of
the owner.
Each piece should be beautiful in
itself, and, still more important, should
minister to and increase the beauty of the
others. Collective beauty is to be aimed
at ; not so much individual.
Proportion is another essential. Not
that the proportions of furniture should
vary with the size of the rooms : the
dimensions of chairs, height of tables,
sizes of doors, have long been all fixed
and, having direct reference to the human
body, are immutable.
Substantially, the size of man's body is
the same and has been the same from the
dawn of history until now, and will be
the same whether in a cottage parlour or
287
Of the the Albert Hall. But there is a propor-
Room and ^-^j^ -j^ ^^^ relations of the spaces of a
Furniture. . ^ . ... ,
room to Its furniture which must be
secured. If this is not done, no indivi-
dual beauty of the objects in the room
will repair the lost harmony or be com-
pensation for the picture that might have
been.
A museum of beautiful objects has its
educational value, but no one pretends
that it claims to be more than a storehouse
of beauty.
The painter who crowds his canvas with
the innumerable spots of colour that can
be squeezed out of euery tube of beau-
tiful paint that the colourman sells, is
no nearer his goal than he who fills his
rooms with a heterogeneous miscellany of
articles swept together from every clime
and of every age.
Halsey Ricardo.
288
THE ENGLISH TRADITION
T^HE sense of a consecutive tradition
^ has so completely faded out of
English art that it has become difficult
to realise the meaning of tradition, or
the possibility of its ever again reviving ;
and this state of things is not improved
by the fact that it is due to uncertainty
of purpose, and not to any burning
fever of individualism. Tradition in
art is a matter of environment, of in-
tellectual atmosphere. As the result of
many generations of work along one
continuous line, there has accumulated a
certain amount of ability in design and
u 289
The English manual dexterity, certain ideas are in
Tradition, ^^iq air, certain ways of doing things
come to be recognised as the right ways.
To all this endowment an artist born in
any of the living ages of art succeeded
as a matter of course, and it is the
absence of this inherited knowledge that
places the modern craftsman under
exceptional disabilities.
There is evidence to prove the exist-
ence in England of hereditary crafts
in which the son succeeded the father
for generations, and to show that the
guilds were rather the guardians of high
traditional skill than mere trades unions ;
but there is surer proof of a common
thread of tradition in certain qualities
all along the line, which gave to English
work a character peculiar to itself.
Instances of genuine Gothic flirniture
are rare ; in England at any rate it was
usually simple and solid, sufficient to
290
answer the needs of an age without any The English
highly developed sense of the luxuries Tradition.
of life. It is not till the Renaissance
that much material can be found for a
history of English furniture. Much of
the motif of this work came from Italy
and the Netherlands ; indeed cabinet
work was imported largely from the
latter country. It was just here, how-
ever, that tradition stepped in, and gave
to our sixteenth and seventeenth century ?
fiirniture a distinctly national character.
The delicate mouldings, the skilfiil
turnings, the quiet inlays of ebony,
ivory, cherry wood, and walnut, above
all the breadth and sobriety of its design,
point to a tradition of craftsmanship
strong enough to assimilate all the ideas
which it borrowed from other ages and
other countries. Contrast, for instance,
a piece of Tottenham Court Road mar-
quetry with the mother-of-pearl and
291
The English ebony inlay on an English cabinet at
Tradition, gouth Kensington. So far as mere skill
in cutting goes there may be no great
difference between the two, but the
latter is charming, and the former tedious
in the last degree ; and the reason is
that in the seventeenth century the
craftsman loved his work, and was
master of it. He started with an idea
in his head, and used his material with
meaning, and so his inlay is as fanciful
as the seaweed, and yet entirely sub-
ordinated to the harmony of the whole
design. Perhaps some of the best
furniture work ever done in England
was done between 1600 and 1660. I
refer, of course, to the good examples,
to work which depended for its effect
on refined design and delicate detail, not
to the bulbous legs and coarse carving
of ordinary Elizabethan, though even
this had a naivete and spontaneity
292
entirely lacking in modern reproduc- The English
tions. Tradition.
After the Restoration, signs of French
influence appear in English furniture,
but the tradition of structural fitness
and dignity of design was preserved
through the great architectural age of
Wren and Gibbs, and lasted till the
latter half of the eighteenth century. If
that century was not particularly inspired,
it at least understood consummate work-
manship. The average of technical skill
in the handicrafts was far in advance of
the ordinary trade work of the present
day. Some curious evidences of the
activity prevailing in what are called
the minor arts may be found in The
Laboratory and School of Arts^ a small
octavo volume published in 1738. The
work of this period furnishes a standing
instance of the value of tradition. By
the beginning of the eighteenth century a
293
The English school of carvers had grown up in Eng-
Tradition. |^j^j ^^^ could carve, with absolute
precision and without mechanical aids,
all such ornament as egg and tongue
work, or the acanthus, and other con-
ventional foliage used for the decoration
of the mouldings of doors, mantelpieces,
and the like. Grinling Gibbons is
usually named as the founder of this
school, but Gibbons was himself trained
by such men as Wren and Gibbs, and
for the source from which this work
derives the real stamp of style one must
go back to the austere genius of Inigo
Jones. The importance of the architect,
in influencing craftsmen in all such mat-
ters as this, cannot be overrated. He
has, or ought to have, sufficient know-
ledge of the crafts to settle for the
craftsman the all -important points of
scale and proportion to the rest of the
design ; and this is just one of those
294
points in which contemporary archi- The English
tecture, both as regards the education of Tradition,
the architect and current practice, is
exceedingly apt to fail. Sir William
Chambers and the brothers Adam were
the last of the architects before the
cataclysm of the nineteenth century who
made designs for furniture with any
degree of skill.
In the latter half of the eighteenth
century occur the familiar names of
Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton,
and if these excellent cabinetmakers did
a tenth of the work with which the
dealers credit them, they must each have
had the hundred hands of Gyas. The
rosewood furniture inlaid with arabesques
in thin flat brass, and made by Gillow at
the end of the last century, is perhaps
the last genuine effort in English furni-
ture, though the tradition of good work
and simple design died very hard in old-
295
The English fashioned country places. The mischief
Tradition, beg^n with the ridiculous mediaevalism
of Horace Walpole, which substituted
amateur fancy for craftsmanship, and led
in the following century to the complete
extinction of any tradition whatever.
The heavy attempts at furniture in the
Greek style which accompanied the
architecture of Wilkins and Soane were
as artificial as this literary Gothic, and
the two resulted in the chaos of art
which found its expression in the great
Exhibition of 1 8 5 1 .
Three great qualities stamped the
English tradition in furniture so long as
it was a living force — steadfastness of
purpose, reserve in design, and thorough
workmanship. Take any good period
of English furniture, and one finds cer-
tain well - recognised types consistently
adhered to throughout the country.
There is no difficulty in grasping their
296
general characteristics, whereas the very The English
genius of classification could furnish no Tradition,
clue to the labyrinth of nineteenth-cen-
tury design. The men of these earlier
times made no laborious search for quaint-
ness, no disordered attempt to combine the
peculiarities of a dozen different ages.
One general type was adhered to because
it was the legacy of generations, and
there was no reason for departing from
such an excellent model. The designers
and the workmen had only to perfect
what was already good ; they made no
experiments in ornament, but used it
with nice judgment, and full knowledge
of its effect. The result was that, instead
of being forced and unreasonable, their
work was thoroughly happy ; one cannot
think of it as better done than it is.
The quality of reserve and sobriety is
even more important. As compared
with the later developments of the
297
The English Renaissance on the Continent, English
Tradition, furniture was always distinguished by its
simplicity and self-restraint. Yet it is
this very quality which is most con-
spicuously absent from modern work.
As a people we rather pride ourselves on
the resolute suppression of any florid
display of feeling, but art in this country
is so completely divorced from every-
day existence, that it never seems to
occur to an Englishman to import some
of this fine insular quality into his daily
surroundings.
It has been reserved for this generation
to part company with the tradition of
finished workmanship. Good work of
course can be done, but it is exceedingly
difficult to find the workman, and the
average is bad. We have nothing to
take the place of the admirable crafts-
manship of the last century, which in-
cluded not only great manual skill, but
298
also an assured knowledge of the purpose The English
of any given piece of furniture, of the Tradition.
form best suited for it, and the exact
strength of material necessary, a know-
ledge which came of long familiarity
with the difficulties of design and exe-
cution, which never hesitated in its
technique, which attained a rightness of
method so complete as to seem inevitable.
Craftsmanship of this order hardly exists
nowadays. It is the result of tradition, ,
of the labour of many generations of
cunning workmen.
Lastly, as the complement of these
lapses on the part of the craftsman, there
has been a gradual decadence in the taste
of the public. Science and mechanical
ingenuity have gone far to destroy the
art of the handicrafts. Art is a matter
of the imagination, and of the skill of
one's hands — but the pace nowadays is
too much for it. Certainly from the
299
The English sixteenth to the eighteenth century a
Tradition, well - educated English gentleman had
some knowledge of the arts, and especi-
ally of architecture ; the Earl of Burling-
ton even designed important buildings,
though not with remarkable success ;
but at any rate educated people had
some insight into the arts, whether
inherited or acquired. Nowadays good
education and breeding are no guarantee
for anything of the sort, unless it is some
miscellaneous knowledge of pictures.
Few people, outside the artists, and not
too many of them, give any serious
attention to architecture and sculpture,
and consequently an art such as furniture,
which is based almost entirely upon
these, is hardly recognised by the public
as an art at all. How much the artist
and his public react upon each other is
shown by the plain fact that up to the
last few years they have steadily marched
300
down hill together, and it is not very The English
certain that they have yet begun to turn Tradition.
the corner. That our English tradition
was once a living thing is shown by the
beautiful furniture, purely English in
design and execution, still to be seen in
great houses and museums, but it is not
likely that such a tradition will spring
up again till the artists try to make the
unity of the arts a real thing, and the
craftsman grows callous to fashion and
archaeology, and the public resolutely
turns its back on what is tawdry and
silly.
Reginald Blomfield.
301
CARPENTERS' FURNITURE
TT requires a far search to gather up
examples of furniture really represent-
ative in this kind, and thus to gain a
point of view for a prospect into the
more ideal where furniture no longer
is bought to look expensively useless
in a boudoir, but serves everyday and
commonplace need, such as must always
be the wont, where most men work, and
exchange in some sort life for life.
The best present - day . example is
the deal table in those last places to
be vulgarised, farm-house or cottage
kitchen. But in the Middle Ages things
302
as simply made as a kitchen table, mere Carpenters'
carpenters' framings, were decorated to Furniture,
the utmost stretch of the imagination
by means simple and rude as their
construction. Design, indeed, really fresh
and penetrating, co-exists it seems only
with simplest conditions.
Simple, serviceable movables fall into
few kinds : the box, cupboard, and table,
the stool, bench, and chair. The box
was once the most frequent, useful, ,
and beautiful of all these ; now it is
never made as furniture. Often it was
seat, coffer, and table in one, with
chequers inlaid on the top for chess.
There are a great number of chests
in England as early as the thirteenth
century. One type of construction,
perhaps the earliest, is to clamp the
wood -work together and beautifully
decorate it by branching scrolls of iron-
work. Another kind was ornamented
303
Carpenters' by a sort of butter -print patterning,
Furniture. ^^^ -j^^^ ^j^^ wood in ingenious fillings
to squares and circles, which you can
imitate by drawing the intersecting
lines the compasses seem to make of
their own will in a circle, and cutting
down each space to a shallow V.
This simple carpenter's decoration is
especially identified with chests. The
same kind of work is still done
in Iceland and Norway, the separate
compartments often brightly painted
into a mosaic of colour ; or patterns
of simple scroll-work are made out
in incised line and space. In Italy
this charming art of incising was
carried much farther in the cassoni,
the fronts of which, broad planks of
cypress wood, are often romantic with
quite a tapestry of kings and ladies,
beasts, birds, and foliage, cut in outline
with a knife and punched with dots,
304
the cavities being filled with a coloured Carpenters'
mastic like sealing-wax. Panelling, Furniture,
rough inlaying in the solid, carving and
painting, and casing with repousse or
pierced metal, or covering with leather
incised into designs, and making out
patterns with nail-heads, were all methods
of decoration used by the maker of
boxes: other examples, and those not
the least stately, had no other orna-
ment than the purfling at the edges
formed by ingeniously elaborate dove-
tails fitting together like a puzzle and
showing a pattern like an inlay.
When people work naturally, it is
as wearisome and unnecessary often to
repeat the same design as to continually
paint the same picture. Design comes
by designing. On the one hand tradi-
tion carefully and continuously shapes the
object to fill its use, on the other spon-
taneous and eager excursions are made
X 305
Carpenters' into the limitless fields of beautiful device.
Furniture. Where construction and form are thus the
result of a long tradition undisturbed by
fashion, they are always absolutely right
as to use and distinctive as to beauty,
the construction being not only visible,
but one with the decoration. Take a
present-day survival, the large country
cart, the body shaped like the waist of a
sailing ship, and every rail and upright
unalterably logical, and then decorated by
quaint chamferings, the facets of which
are made out in brightest paint. Or
look at an old table, always with stretch-
ing rails at the bottom and framed to-
gether with strong tenons and cross pins
into turned posts, but so thoughtfully
done that every one is original and all
beautiful. Turning, a delightful old art,
half for convenience, half for beauty,
itself comes down to us from long before
the Conquest.
306
The great charm in furniture of the Carpenters'
simplest structure may best be seen in old furniture,
illuminated manuscripts, where a chest, a
bench, and against the wall a cupboard,
the top rising in steps where are set out
tall " Venice glasses," or a " garnish " of
plate under a tester of some bright stuff,
make up a whole of fairy beauty in the
frank simplicity of the forms and the
innocent gaiety of bright colour. Take
the St. Jerome in his study of Diirer
or Bellini, and compare the dignity of
serene and satisfying order with the most
beautifully furnished room you know :
how vulgar our good taste appears and
how foreign to the end of culture —
Peace.
From records, and what remains to us,
we know that the room, the hangings, and
the furniture were patterned all over
with scattered flowers and inscriptions —
violets and the words " bonne pensee " ;
307
Carpenters' or vases of lilies and *' pax," angels
Furniture, ^j^j incense pots, ciphers and initials,
badges and devices, or whatever there
be of suggestion and mystery. The
panelling and furniture were " green like
a curtain," as the old accounts have it ;
or vermilion and white, like some painted
chairs at Knole ; or even decorated with
paintings and gilt gesso patterns like the
Norfolk screens. Fancy a bed with
the underside of the canopy having an
Annunciation or spreading trellis of
roses, and the chamber carved like one
in thirteenth-century romance : —
" N'a el monde beste n'oisel
Qui n'i soit ovre a cisel."
If we would know how far we are
from the soul of art, we have but to
remember that all this, the romance
element in design, the joy in life, nature,
and colour, which in one past develop-
ment we call Gothic, and which is ever
308
the well of beauty undefiled, is not now Carpenters'
so much impossible of attainment as Furniture,
entirely out of range with our spirit and
life, a felt anachronism and affectation.
All art is sentiment embodied in form.
To find beauty we must consider what
really gives us pleasure — pleasure, not
pride — and show our unashamed delight
in it ; ^^ and so, when we have leisure to
be happy and strength to be simple we
shall find Art again" — the art of the
workman.
W. R. Lethaby.
309
OF DECORATED FURNITURE
pvECORATED or ''sumptuous" fur-
^^^ niture is not merely furniture
that is expensive to buy, but that which
has been elaborated with much thought,
knowledge, and skill. Such furniture
cannot be cheap, certainly, but the real
cost of it is sometimes borne by the artist
who produces rather than by the man
who may happen to buy it. Furniture
on which valuable labour is bestowed
may consist of — i . Large standing objects
which, though actually movable, are
practically fixtures, such as cabinets,
presses, sideboards of various kinds;
310
monumental objects. 2. Chairs, tables of Of
convenient shapes, stands for lights and ^^^°^^^^°^
. Furniture.
Other purposes, coiters, caskets, mirror
and picture frames. 3. Numberless small
convenient utensils. Here we can but
notice class i, the large standing objects
which most absorb the energies of artists
of every degree and order in their
construction or decoration.
Cabinets seem to have been so named
as being little strongholds — " offices " of
men of business for stowing papers and
documents in orderly receptacles. They
are secured with the best locks procur-
able. They often contain secret drawers
and cavities, hidden from all eyes but
those of the owner. Nor are instances
wanting of owners leaving no information
on these matters to their heirs, so that
casual buyers sometimes come in for a
windfall, or such a catastrophe as befell
the owner of Richard the Third's bed.
311
Decorated
Furniture.
Of It is not to be expected that elaborate
systems of secret drawers and hiding-
places should be contrived in cabinets of
our time. Money and jewels are con-
sidered safer when deposited in banks.
But, ingenuity of construction in a
complicated piece of furniture must
certainly be counted as one of its
perfections. Sound and accurate joinery
with well - seasoned woods, properly
understood as to shrinkage and as to
the relations between one kind of timber
and another in these respects, is no
small merit.
Some old English cabinets are to be met
with in the construction of which wood
only is used, the morticing admirable,
the boards, used to hold ends and
divisions together from end to end,
strained and secured by wedges that
turn on pivots, etc. Furniture of this
kind can be taken to pieces and set
312
Furniture.
Up, resuming proper rigidity toties Of
quoties. Decorated
To look at the subject historically,
it seems that the cabinet, dresser, or side-
board is a chest set on legs, and that
the "press," or cupboard (closet, not
proper f^^-board), takes the place of the
panelled recess closed by doors, generally
contrived, and sometimes ingeniously
hidden, in the construction of a panelled
room. The front of the elevated chest
is hinged, and flaps down, while the
lid is a fixture ; the interior is more
complicated than that of the chest, as
its subdivisions are more conveniently
reached.
Before leaving this part of the subject,
it is worth notice that the architectural,
or rather architectonic, character seems
to have deeply impressed the makers of
cabinets when the chest-type had gradu-
ally been lost. Italian, German, English,
313
Of and other cabinets are often found re-
Decorated
Furniture.
presenting a church front or a house
front, with columns, doors, sometimes
ebony and ivory pavements, etc.
Next as to methods of decorating
cabinets, etc. The kind which deserves
our first attention is that of sculpture.
Here, undoubtedly, we must look to the
Italians as our masters, and to that
admirable school of wood-carving which
maintained itself so long in Flanders, with
an Italian grace grafted on the ingenuity,
vigour, and playfulness of a northern race.
Our English carvers, admirable crafts-
men during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, seem to have been closely
allied with the contemporary Flemings.
Fronts of cabinets, dressers, chimney-
pieces, etc., were imported from Belgium
and were made up by English joiners
with panelling, supplemented with carving
where required, for our great houses.
314
Furniture.
But the best Italian carving remains on Of
chests and chest fronts which were made pecorated
in great numbers in the sixteenth century.
Some of these chests are toilet chests ;
some have formed wall-seats, laid along
the sides of halls and galleries to hold
hangings, etc., when the house was
empty, and have served as seats or as
"monumental" pieces when company
was received.
As the chest grew into the cabinet, or
bureau, or dresser, great attention was
paid to the supports. It need hardly be
pointed out that, for the support of seats,
tables, etc., animals, typical of strength or
other qualities — the lion or the sphinx,
the horse, sometimes the slave — have been
employed by long traditional usage. And
carvers of wood have not failed to give
full attention to the use and decoration
of conventional supports to the furniture
now under discussion. They are made
315
Of to unite the central mass to a shallow
Decorated
Furniture.
base, leaving the remaining space open.
Next to sculptured decoration comes
incrusted. The most costly kinds of
material, precious stones, such as lapis
lazuli, agate, rare marbles, etc., have been
employed on furniture surfaces. But
such work is rather that of the lapidary
than of the cabinetmaker. It is very
costly, and seems to have been confined,
in fact, to the factories kept up in Italy,
Russia, and other states, at government
expense. We do not produce them in
this country ; and the number of such
objects is probably limited wherever we
look for them.
Incrustation of precious woods is a
more natural system of wood-decoration.
Veneered wood, which is laid on a
roughened surface with thin glue at
immense pressure, if well made, is very
long-lived. The woods used give a
316
coloured surface, and are polished so as Of
to bring the colour fully out, and to I^ecorated
protect the material from damp. In fine
examples the veneers form little pictures,
or patterns, either by the arrangement of
the grain of the pieces used, so as to
make pictorial lines by means of the
grain itself, or by using woods of various
colours.
A very fine surface decoration was
invented, or carried to perfection, by
Andre Charles Boule, for Louis XIV.
It is a veneer of tortoise-shell and brass,
with occasional white metal. An im-
portant element in Boule decoration is
noticeable in the chiselled angle mounts,
lines of moulding, claws, feet, etc., all of
which are imposed, though they have
the general character of metal angle
supports. In fact, the tortoise-shell is
held by glue, and the metal by fine nails
of the same material, the heads of which
317
Of are filed down. Incrustation, or mar-
Decorated quetry ^ of this kind is costly, and most
Furniture. - . . , 111 r -
or It IS due to the labours or artists
and craftsmen employed by the kings
of France at the expense of the Govern-
ment. A considerable quantity of it is
still made in that country.
Now as to the way in which sculptors,
or incrusters, should dispose of their
decoration, and the fidelity to nature
which is to be expected of them, whether
in sculpture or wood mosaic, i.e. wood
painting. First, we may suppose they
will concentrate their more important
details in recognisable divisions of their
, pieces, or in such ways that a proportion
and rhythm shall be expressed by their
dispositions of masses and fine details ;
placing their figures in central panels,
on angles, or on dividing members ;
leaving some plain surface to set off
their decorative detail ; and taking care
318
that the contours of running mouldings Of
shall not be lost sight of by the carver, decorated
But how far is absolute natural truth,
even absolute obedience to the laws of
his art in every particular of his details,
to be expected from the artist? We
cannot doubt that such absolute obedience
is sometimes departed from intentionally
and with success. All Greek sculpture
is not always absolutely true to nature
nor as beautiful as the sculptor, if
free, could have made it. Statues are
conventionalised, decorative scrolls exag-
gerated, figures turned into columns
for good reasons, and in the result
successfully. In furniture, as in archi-
tecture, carved work or incrustation is
not free^ but is in service ; and com-
promises with verisimilitude to nature,
even violence, may sometimes be required
on details in the interests of the entire
structure.
319
Of Next let a word or two be reserved
Decorated f^j. pointed Furniture. Painting has
been employed on furniture of all kinds
at many periods. The ancients made
theirs of bronze, or of ivory, carved or
inlaid. In the Middle Ages wood-carving
and many kinds of furniture were painted.
The coronation chair at Westminster was
so decorated. The chest fronts of Delli
and other painters are often pictures of
great intrinsic merit, and very generally
these family chest fronts are valuable
records of costumes and fashions of their
day. In this country the practice of
painting pianoforte cases, chair-backs,
table-tops, panels of all sorts, has been
much resorted to. Distinguished painters,
Angelica KaufFmann and her contem-
poraries, and a whole race of coach-
painters have left monuments of their
skill in this line. It must suffice here
to recall certain modern examples, e.g.
320
a small dresser, now in the national Of
collections, with doors painted by Mr. decorated
T^ . , . . , / Furniture.
Jroynter, with spirited figures represent-
ing the Beers and the Wines ; the fine
piano case painted by Mr. Burne-Jones ;
another by Mr. Alma Tadema ; lastly, a
tall clock-case by Mr. Stanhope, which,
as well as other promising examples,
have been exhibited by the Arts and
Crafts Society.
J. H. Pollen.
321
OF CARVING
1 T is not uncommon to see an elaborate
piece of furniture, in decorating
which it is evident that the carver has
had opportunity for the exercise of all
his skill, and which, indeed, bears evidence
of the most skilful woodcutting on almost
every square inch of its surface, from
the contemplation of which neither an
artist nor an educated craftsman can
derive any pleasure or satisfaction. This
would seem to point to the designer of
the ornament as the cause of failure, and
the writer of this believes that in such
cases it will generally be found that the
322
designer, though he may know every- Of Carving,
thing that he ought to know about the
production of designs which shall look
well on paper or on a flat surface, has
had no experience, by actually working
at the material, of its difficulties, special
capabilities, or limitations.
If at the same time he has had but a
limited experience of the difl^erence in
treatment necessary for carving which is
to be seen at various altitudes, his failure
may be taken as sufficiently accounted
for.
An idea now prevalent that it is not
advisable to make models for wood-
carving is not by any means borne out
by the experience of the writer of this
paper.
Models are certainly not necessary for
ordinary work, such as mouldings, or
even for work in panels when the surfaces
are intended to be almost wholly on one
323
Of Carving, plane, but the carved decoration of a
panel, which pretends to be in any degree
a work of art, often depends for its effect
quite as much on the masterly treatment
of surface planes, and the relative pro-
jection from the surface of the more
prominent parts, as upon the outline.
Now, there are many men who, though
able to carve wood exquisitely, have
never given themselves the trouble, or
perhaps have scarcely had the opportunity,
to learn how to read an ordinary drawing.
The practice obtains in many carving
shops for one or two leading men to
rough out (viz, shape out roughly) all
the work so far as that is practicable, and
the others take it up after them and
finish it. The followers are not neces-
sarily less skilful carvers or cutters than
the leaders, but have, presumably, less
knowledge of form. If, then, one wishes
to avail oneself of the skill of these men
324
for carrying out really important work, Of Carving.
it is much the simpler way to make
a model (however rough) which shall
accurately express everything one wishes
to see in the finished work ; and, assuming
the designer to be fairly dexterous in the
use of clay or other plastic material, a
sketch model will not occupy any more
of his time than a drawing would.
To put it plainly, no designer can ever
know what he ought to expect from a ^
worker in any material if he has not
worked in that material himself. If he
has carved marble, for instance, he knows
the extreme care required in under-
cutting the projecting parts of the design,
and the cost entailed by the processes
necessary to be employed for that purpose.
He therefore so arranges the various
parts of his design that wherever it is
possible these projecting portions shall
be supported by other forms, so avoiding
325
Of Carving, the labour and cost of relieving (or
under-cutting) them ; and if he be skilful
his skill will appear in the fact that his
motive in this will be apparent only to
experts, while to others the whole will
appear to grow naturally out of the
design. Moreover, he knows that he
must depend for the success of this thing
on an effect of breadth and dignity. He
is not afraid of a somewhat elaborate
surface treatment, being aware that nearly
any variety of surface which he can
readily produce in clay may be rendered
in marble with a reasonable amount of
trouble.
In designing for the wood-carver he
is on altogether different ground. He
may safely lay aside some portion of his
late dignity, and depend almost entirely
on vigour of line ; the ease with which
under-cutting is done in this material
enabling him to obtain contrast by the
326
use of delicately relieved forms. Here, Of Carving.
however, he must not allow the effect in
his model to depend in any degree on
surface treatment. Care in that respect
will prevent disappointment in the finished
work.
The most noticeable feature in modern
carved surface decoration is the almost
universal tendency to overcrowding. It
appears seldom to have occurred to the
craftsman or designer that decorating a
panel, for instance, is not at all the same
thing as covering it with decoration.
Still less does he seem to have felt that
occasionally some portions of the ground
are much more valuable in the design
than anything which he can put on them.
Indeed, the thoughtful designer who
understands its use and appreciates its
value, frequently has more trouble with
his ground than with anything else in
the panel. Also, if he have the true
327
Of Carving, decorative spirit, his mind is constantly
on the general scheme surrounding his
work, and he is always ready to subor-
dinate himself and his work in order
that it may enhance and not disturb this
general scheme.
We will suppose, for example, that he
has to decorate a column with raised
ornament. He feels at once that the
outlines of that column are of infinitely
more importance than anything which
he can put on it, however ingenious or
beautiful his design may be. He there-
fore keeps his necessary projecting parts
as small and low as possible, leaving as
much of the column as he can showing
between the lines of his pattern. By
this means the idea of strength and
support is not interfered with, and the
tout ensemble is not destroyed.
This may seem somewhat elementary
to many who will read it. My excuse
328
must be that one sees many columns in Of Carving.
which every vestige of the outline is so
covered by the carving which has been
built round them, that the idea of their
supporting anything other than their
ornament appears preposterous.
There has been no opportunity to
do more than glance at such a subject
as this in a space so limited ; but the
purposes of this paper will have been
served if it has supplied a useful hint ,
to any craftsman, or if by its means
any designer shall have been induced
to make a more thorough study of the
materials within his reach.
Stephen Webb.
329
INTARSIA AND INLAID
WOOD-WORK
A LTHOUGH decoration by inlaying
^ *■ woods of different colours must
naturally have suggested itself in very
early times, as soon indeed as there were
workmen of skill sufficient for it, the
history of this branch of art practically
begins in the fifteenth century. It is
eminently an Italian art, which according
to Vasari had its origin in the days of
Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello ; and it
had its birth in a land which has a
greater variety of mild close-grained
woods with a greater variety of colour
330
than Northern Europe. By the Italians Intarsia and
it was regarded as a lower form of paint- ^^^^^°-
T .? 11 • r 1 • 1 • • Wood -work,
ing. Like all mosaic, of which art it is
properly a branch, it has its limitations ;
and it is only so long as it confines itself
to these that it is a legitimate form of
decoration. Tarsia is at the best one of
the minor decorative arts, but when well
employed it is one that gives an immense
deal of pleasure, and one to which it
cannot be denied that the buildings of
Italy owe much of their splendour.
Their polished and inlaid furniture
harmonises with the rare delicacy of
their marble and mosaic, and goes far
towards producing that air of rich refine-
ment and elaborate culture which is to
the severer styles and simpler materials
of the North what the velvet -robed
Senator of St. Mark was to the mail-clad
feudal chief from beyond the Alps. As
to its durability, the experience of four
331
Intarsia and centuries sliice Vasari's time has proved
Inlaid ^^^^ ^-^j^ ordinary care, or perhaps with
Wood-work. ^ ^
nothing worse than mere neglect, Intarsia
will last as long as painting. Its only-
real enemy is damp, as will be readily
understood from the nature of the
materials and the mode of putting them
together. For though in a few instances,
when the art was in its infancy, the inlaid
pattern may have been cut of a sub-
stantial thickness and sunk into a solid
ground ploughed out to receive it, this
method was obviously very laborious,
and admitted only of very simple design,
for it is very difficult in this way to keep
the lines of the drawing accurately. The
recognised way of making Intarsia was,
and is, to form both pattern and ground
in thin veneers about ^ of an inch thick,
which are glued down upon a solid
panel. At first sight this method may
appear too slight and unsubstantial for
332
work intended to last for centuries, but Intarsia and
it has, in fact, stood the test of time ^^^^^^
extremely well, when the work has been
kept in the dry even temperature of
churches and great houses, where there
is neither damp to melt the glue and
swell the veneer, nor excessive heat to
make the wood shrink and start asunder.
When these conditions were not observed,
of course the work was soon ruined, and
Vasari tells an amusing story of the
humiliation which befell Benedetto da
Majano, who began his career as an
Intarsiatore^ in the matter of two
splendid chests which he had made for
Matthias Corvinus, from which the
veneers, loosened by the damp of a sea
voyage, fell off in the royal presence.
The veneers being so thin, it is of
course easy to cut through several layers
of them at once, and this suggested, or
at all events lent itself admirably to the
Intarsia and design of the earlier examples, which are
Inlaid generally arabesques symmetrically dis-
posed right and left of a central line. If
two dark and two light veneers are put
together, the whole of one panel, both
ground and pattern, can be cut at one
operation with a thin fret saw ; the
ornamental pattern drops into the space
cut out of the ground, which it, of
course, fits exactly except for the thick-
ness of the saw-cut, and the two half-
patterns thus filled in are " handed "
right and left, and so complete the
symmetrical design. The line given
by the thickness of the saw is then filled
in with glue and black colour so as to
define the outline, and additional saw-
cuts are made or lines are engraved, and
in either case filled in with the same
stopping, wherever additional lines are
wanted for the design. It only remains
to glue the whole down to a solid panel,
334
and to polish and varnish the surface, Intarsia and
and it is then ready to be framed into its „^ ^j^^'^ ,
Wood-work.
place as the back of a church stall, or
the lining of a courtly hall, library, or
cabinet.
It was thus that the simpler Italian
Intarsia was done, such as that in the
dado surrounding Perugino's Sala del
Cambio in his native city, where the
design consists of light arabesques in
box or some similar wood on a walnut
ground, defined by black lines just as I
have described.
But like all true artists the Intarsiatore
did not stand still. Having successfully
accomplished simple outline and accurate
drawing, he was dissatisfied until he
could carry his art farther by introducing
the refinement of shading. This was
done at different times and by different
artists in a variety of ways ; either by
inlaying the shadow in different kinds of
335
Intarsia and woods, by scorching it With fire, or by
Inlaid staining it with chemical solutions. In
' the book desks of the choir at the
Certosa or Charterhouse of Pavia, the
effect of shading is got in a direct but
somewhat imperfect way by laying strips
of different coloured woods side by side.
Each flower or leaf was probably built
up of tolerably thick pieces of wood
glued together in position, so that they
could be sliced off in veneers and yield
several flowers or leaves from the same
block, much in the way of Tunbridge
Wells ware, though the Italian specimens
are, I believe, always cut with the grain
and not across it. The designs thus
produced are very effective at a short
distance, but the method is, of course,
suitable only to bold and simple con-
ventional patterns.
The panels of the high screen or back
to the stalls at the same church afford an
336
instance of a more elaborate method. Intarsia and
These splendid panels, which go all Inlaid
1 1 1 . . , - Wood-work.
round the choir, contam each a three-
quarter-length figure of a saint. Lanzi
deservedly praises them as the largest
and most perfect figures of tarsia which
he had seen. They date from i486,
and. were executed by an Istrian artist,
Bartolommeo da Pola, perhaps from the
designs of Borgognone. The method
by which their highly pictorial effect is
produced is a mixed one, the shading
being partly inlaid with woods of different
colours, and partly obtained by scorching
the wood with fire or hot sand in the
manner generally in use for marqueterie
at the present day. The inexhaustible
patience as well as the fertility of resource
displayed by Messer Bartolommeo is
astonishing. Where the saw-cut did not
give him a strong enough line he has
inlaid a firm line of black wood, the high
z 337
Intarsia and lights of the draperies are inlaid in white,
Inlaid ^j^g ^^ijg shaded by burning, and the
Wood-work. . r ^ a- 7 '
flowing lines of the curling hair are all
inlaid, each several tress being shaded by-
three narrow strips of gradated colour
following the curved lines of the lock
to which they belong. When it is
remembered that there are some forty or
more of these panels, each differing from
the rest, the splendour as well as the
laborious nature of the decoration of
this unrivalled choir will be better
understood.
Of all the examples of pictorial Intarsia
the most elaborate are perhaps those in
the choir stalls of Sta. Maria Maggiore
in Bergamo. They are attributed to
Gianfrancesco Capo di Ferro, who worked
from the designs of Lotto, and was either
a rival or pupil of Fra Damiano di
Bergamo, a famous master of the art.
They consist of figure subjects and
338
landscapes on a small scale, shaded with Intarsia and
all the delicacy and roundness attainable „^ ^, ^^ ,
"' , . Wood -work.
in a tinted drawing, and certainly show
how near Intarsia can approach to
painting. Their drawing is excellent
and their execution marvellous ; but at
the same time one feels that, however one
may admire them as a tour de force, the
limitations of good sense and proper use
of the material have been reached and
overstepped. When the delicacy of the
work is so great that it requires to be
covered up or kept under glass, it
obviously quits the province of decorative
art ; furniture is meant to be used, and
when it is too precious to be usable on
account of the over -delicate ornament
bestowed upon it, it must be admitted
that the ornament is out of place, and,
therefore, bad art.
The later Italian Intarsia was betrayed
into extravagance by the dexterity of the
339
Intarsia and craftsman. The temptation before which
Inlaid j^g £g|| ^^g ^^^^ ^£ j-iyallitiff the painter.
Wood -work. .
and as he advanced in facility of
technique, and found wider resources at
his command, he threw aside not only
those restraints which necessity had
hitherto imposed, but also those which
good taste and judgment still called
him to obey. In the plain unshaded
arabesques of the Sala del Cambio, and
even in the figure panels of the Certosa,
the treatment is purely decorative ; the
idea of a plane surface is rightly observed,
and there is no attempt to represent
distance or to produce illusory effects of
relief. Above all, the work is solid and
simple enough to bear handling ; the
stalls may be sat in, the desks may be
used for books, the doors may be opened
and shut, without fear of injury to their
decoration. Working within these limits,
the art was safe ; but they came in time
340
to be disregarded, and in this, as in other Intarsia and
Inlaid
Wood -work.
branches of art, the style was ruined " ^^
by the over- ingenuity of the artists.
Conscious of their own dexterity, they
attempted things never done before, with
means quite unsuited to the purpose,
and with the sole result that they did
imperfectly and laboriously with their
wooden veneers, their glue -pot, and their
chemicals, what the painter did with
crayon and brush perfectly and easily.
Their greatest triumphs after they began
to run riot in this way, however
interesting as miracles of dexterity, have
no value as works of art in the eyes of
those who know the true principles of
decorative design ; while nothing can be
much duller than the elaborate play-
fulness of the Intarsiatore who loved to
cover his panelling with sham book-cases,
birds in cages, guitars, and military
instruments in elaborate perspective.
341
Intarsia and It would take too long to Say much
Inlaid about the art in its appHcation to
Wood-work.- . , ,, ^^.
rurniture, such as tables, chairs, cabinets,
and other movables, which are decorated
with inlay that generally goes by the
French name of marqueterie. Mar-
queterie and Intarsia are the same thing,
though from habit the French title is
generally used when speaking of work
on a smaller scale. And as the methods
and materials are the same, whether used
on a grand or a small scale, so the same
rules and restraints apply to both classes
of design, and can no more be infringed
with impunity on the door of a tall clock-
case than on the doors of a palatial hall
of audience. Nothing can be a prettier
or more practical and durable mode of
decorating furniture than marqueterie in
simple brown, black, yellow, and white ;
and when used with judgment there is
nothing to forbid the employment of
342
dyed woods ; while the smallness of the Intarsia and
scale puts at our disposal ivory, mother- Wood^work.
of-pearl, and tortoise-shell, materials which
in larger works are naturally out of the
question. Nothing, on the other hand,
is more offensive to good taste than some
of the overdone marqueterie of the
French school of the last century, with
its picture panels, and naturalesque
figures, flowers, and foliage, straggling
all over the surface, as if the article of
furniture were merely a vehicle for the
cleverness of the marqueterie cutter.
Still worse is the modern work of the
kind, whether English or foreign, of
which so much that is hopelessly pre-
tentious and vulgar is turned out now-
adays, in which the aim of the designer
seems to have been to cover the surface
as thickly as he could with flowers and
festoons of all conceivable colours, with-
out any regard for the form of the thing
343
Intarsia and he was decorating, the nature of the
nlaid material he was using, or the graceful
Wood -work. ... r
disposition and economy of the ornament
he was contriving.
T. G. Jackson.
344
WOODS AND OTHER
MATERIALS
npHE woods in ordinary use by cabinet-
* makers may be divided broadly
into two classes, viz. those which by
their strength, toughness, and other
qualities are suitable for construction,
and those which by reason of the beauty
of their texture or grain, their rarity, or
their costliness, have come to be used
chiefly for decorative purposes — veneer-
ing or inlaying. There are certainly
several woods which combine the quali-
ties necessary for either purpose, as will
be noticed later on. At present the
345
Woods and above classification is sufficiently accurate
other ^Qj. ^j^g purposes of this paper. The
Materials. .
woods chiefly used in the construction
of cabinet work and furniture are oak,
walnut, mahogany, rosewood, satin-wood,
cedar, plane, sycamore.
The oak has been made the standard
by which to measure all other woods for
the qualities of strength, toughness, and
durability. There are said to be nearly
fifty species of oak known, but the
common English oak possesses these
qualities in a far greater degree than
any other wood. It is, however, very
cross-grained and difficult to manage
where delicate details are required,
and its qualities recommend it to the
carpenter rather than to the furniture-
maker, who prefers the softer and
straight -grained oak from Turkey or
wainscot from Holland, which, in addi-
tion to being more easily worked and
346
taking a higher finish, is not so liable to Woods and
warp or split. °^^^^
. Materials.
There is also a species called white
oak, which is imported into this country
from America, and is largely used for
interior fittings and cabinet-making. It
is not equal to the British oak in strength
or durability, and it is inferior to the
wainscot in the beauty of its markings.
The better the quality of this oak, the
more it shrinks in drying.
Walnut is a favourite wood with the
furniture-maker, as well as the carver, on
account of its even texture and straight
grain. The English variety is of a light
grayish-brown colour, which colour im-
proves much by age under polish. That
from Italy has more gray in it, and
though it looks extremely well when
carved is less liked by carvers on account
of its brittleness. It is but little liable
to the attacks of worms. In the English
347
Woods and kind, the older (and therefore, generally
other speaking, the better) wood may be
IVIatcrials
recognised by its darker colour.
Of mahogany there are two kinds,
viz. those which are grown in the islands
of Cuba and Jamaica, and in Honduras.
The Cuba or Spanish mahogany is much
the harder and more durable, and is, in
the opinion of the writer, the very best
wood for all the purposes of the cabinet
or furniture maker known to us. It is
beautifully figured, takes a fine polish, is
not difficult to work, when its extreme
hardness is taken into account, and is less
subject to twisting and warping than any
other kind of wood. It has become so
costly of late years, however, that it is
mostly cut into veneers, and used for the
decoration of furniture surfaces.
Honduras mahogany, or, as cabinet-
makers call it, " Bay Wood," is that
which is now in most frequent demand
348
for the construction of the best kinds of Woods and
furniture and cabinet work. It is fairly ^^^^^
j^lEtcnals
Strong (though it cannot compare in that
respect with Cuba or rosewood), works
easily, does not shrink, resists changes of
temperature without alteration, and holds
glue well, all of which qualities specially
recommend it for the purposes of con-
struction where veneers are to be used.
Many cabinetmakers prefer to use this
wood for drawers, even in an oak job.
Rosewood is one of those woods used
indifferently for construction or for the
decoration of other woods. Though
beautiful specimens of grain and figure
are often seen, its colour does not com-
pare with good specimens of Cuba veneer.
Its purple tone (whatever stains are used)
is not so agreeable as the rich, deep,
mellow browns of the mahogany ; nor
does it harmonise so readily with its
surroundings in an ordinary room. It
349
Woods and has great strength and durability, and is
^^^^^ not difficult to work. Probably the best
Materials. . . , . . ,
way to use it constructively is in the
making of small cabinets, chairs^ etc. —
that is, if one wishes for an appearance of
lightness with real strength. The writer
does not here offer any opinion as to
whether a piece of furniture, or indeed
anything else, should or should not look
strong when it really is so.
Satin-wood, most of which comes from
the West India islands, is well known
for its fine lustre and grain, as also for its
warm colour, which is usually deepened
by yellow stain. It is much used for
painted furniture, and the plain variety
is liked by the carver.
Cedar is too well known to need any
description here. It is commonly believed
that no worm will touch it, and it is there-
fore greatly in demand for the interior
fitting of cabinets, drawers, etc. It is a
350
straight-grained wood and fairly easy to Woods and
work, though liable to split. It is im- ^^^^^
.;, . 1 ,-, 1 Materials.
possible in a short paper like the present
to do more than glance at a few of the
numerous other woods in common use.
Ebony has always been greatly liked for
small or elaborate caskets or cabinets, its
extreme closeness of grain and hardness
enabling the carver to bring up the
smallest details with all the sharpness of
metal work.
Sycamore, beech, and holly are fre-
quently stained to imitate walnut, rose-
wood, or other materials ; of these the
first two are used constructively, but the
latter, which takes the stain best, is nearly
all cut into veneer, and, in addition to its
use for covering large surfaces, forms an
important element in the modern mar-
quetry decorations.
Bass wood, on account of its softness
and the facility with which it can be
351
Woods and Stained to any requisite shade, is ex-
other tensively used to imitate other woods in
l^atcrials
modern furniture of the cheaper sort.
It should, however, never be used for
furniture at all, as it has (as a cabinet-
maker would say) no " nature " in it, and
in the result there is no wear in it.
Other woods, coming under the second
category, as amboyna, coromandel, snake-
wood, orange-wood, thuyer, are all woods
of a beautiful figure, which may be varied
indefinitely by cutting the veneers at
different angles to the grain of the wood,
and the tone may also be varied by the
introduction of colour into the polish
which is used on them. Coromandel
wood is one of the most beautiful of
these, but it is not so available as it would
otherwise be on account of its resistance to
glue. Orange-wood, when not stained,
is very wasteful in use, as the natural
colour is confined to the heart of the tree.
352
Materials.
Silver, white metal, brass, etc., are cut Woods and
into a veneer of tortoise-shell or mother- _ ^^^^"^
of-pearl, producing a decorative effect
which, in the opinion of the writer, is
more accurately described as " gorgeous"
than " beautiful."
There are many processes and materials
used to alter or modify the colour of
woods and to " convert " one wood into
another. Oak is made dark by being
subjected to the fumes of liquid ammonia,
which penetrate it to almost any depth.
Ordinary oak is made into brown oak by
being treated with a solution of chromate
of potash (which is also used to convert
various light woods into mahogany, etc.).
Pearlash is used for the same purpose,
though not commonly. For converting
pear-tree, sycamore, etc., into ebony, two
or more applications of logwood chips,
with an after application of vinegar and
steel filings, are used.
2 A 353
Woods and A good deal of bedroom and other
other furniture is enamelled, and here the
Materials. .... ....
ground is prepared with size and whiting,
and this is worked over with flake white,
transparent polish, and bismuth. But by
far the most beautiful surface treatment
in this kind are the lacquers, composed
of spirit and various gums, or of shellac
and spirit into which colour is introduced.
Stephen Webb.
354
OF MODERN EMBROIDERY
I F we wish to arrive at a true estimate
^ of the value of modern embroidery,
we must examine the work being sold
in the fancy-work shops, illustrated in
ladies' newspapers or embroidered in the
drawing-rooms of to-day, and consider
in what respect it differs from the
old work such as that exhibited in the
South Kensington Museum.
The old embroidery and the modern
differ widely — in design, in colour, and in
material ; nor would any one deny that
a very large proportion of modern work
is greatly inferior to that of past times.
355
Of Modern What, then, are the special charac-
Erabroidery. teristics of the design of the present day ?
Modern design is frequently very
naturalistic, and seems rather to seek
after a life-like rendering of the object
to be embroidered than the decoration of
the material to be ornamented.
Then again it may be noted that
modern designs are often ill adapted to
the requirements of embroidery. This is
probably because many of the people who
design for embroidery do not understand
it. Very often a design that has been
made for this purpose would have been
better suited to a wall paper, a panel of
tiles, or a woven pattern The designer
should either be also an embroiderer or
have studied the subject so thoroughly as
to be able to direct the worker, for the
design should be drawn in relation to the
colours and stitches in which it is to be
carried out.
356
The more, indeed, people will study Of Modern
the fine designs of the past, and compare Embroidery,
with them the designs of the art-needle-
work of the present, the more they will
realise that, where the former is rich,
dignified, and restrained, obedient to law
in every curve and line, the latter is florid,
careless, weak, and ignores law. And how
finished that old embroidery was, and how
full ! No grudging of the time or the
labour spent either on design or needle-
work ; no scamping ; no mere outlining.
Border within border we often see, and
all the space within covered up to the
edges and into the corners. Contrast
with this very much of our modern work.
Let us take as an example one piece that
was on view this summer at a well-known
place in London where embroidery is
sold. It is merely a type of many others
in many other places. This was a three-
fold screen made of dark red -brown
357
Of Modern velveteen. All over it ran diagonal
Embroidery, crossing lines coarsely worked in light
silk, to imitate a wire trellis, with occa-
sional upright supports worked in brown
wool, imitating knotty sticks. Up one
side of this trellis climbed a scrambling
mass of white clematis; one spray wander-
ing along the top fell a little way down
the other side. Thus a good part of the
screen was bare of embroidery, except for
the trellis. Naturalism could not go
much farther, design is almost absent, and
the result is feeble and devoid of beauty.
If we turn now to material, we shall
find that embroidery, like some other
arts, depends much for its excellence on
the minor crafts which provide it with
material ; and these crafts supplied it with
better material in former times than they
do now. A stuff to be used as a ground
for embroidery should have endless
capacities for wear. This was a quality
358
eminently possessed by hand-spun and Of Modern
hand-woven linen, which, with its ^"^broidery.
rounded and separate thread, and the
creamy tint of its partial bleaching, made
an ideal ground for embroidery. Or if
silk were preferred, the silks of past
centuries were at once thick, firm, soft
and pure, quite free from the dress or
artificial thickening, by whose aid a
silk nowadays tries to look rich when
it is not. The oatmeal cloth, diagonal
cloth, cotton-backed satin, velveteen and
plush, so much used now, are very
inferior materials as grounds for needle-
work to the hand-loom linens and silks
on which so large a part of the old
embroidery remaining to us was worked.
And so very much of the beauty of the
embroidery depends on the appropriate-
ness of the material.^ Cloth, serge, and
plush are not appropriate ; embroidery
1 But cf. "Of Materials," p. 365.
359
Of Modern never looks half so well on them as on
Embroidery, g-jj^ ^^^ y^^^^^
It is equally important that the thread,
whether of silk, wool, flax, or metal,
should be pure and as well made as it
can be, and, if dyed, dyed with colours
that will stand light and washing. Most
of the silk, wool, and flax thread sold
for embroidery is not as good as it
should be. The filoselles and crewels
very soon get worn away from the sur-
face of the material they are worked on.
The crewels are made of too soft a wool,
and are not twisted tight enough, and
the filoselles, not being made of pure
silk, should never be used at all, pretty
and soft though their effect undoubtedly
is while fresh. Though every imagin-
able shade of colour can be produced by
modern dyers, the craft seems to have
been better understood by the dyers of
times not very long past, who, though
360
they may not have been able to produce Of Modern
so many shades, could dye colours which Embroidery.
would wash and did not quickly fade, or
when they faded merely lost some colour,
instead of changing colour, as so many
modern dyes do. The old embroidery
is worked with purer and fewer colours ;
now all kinds of dull intermediate tints
are used of gold, brown, olive, and the
like, which generally fade rapidly and
will not wash. Many people, admiring
old embroidery and desiring to make
their new work look like it at least in
colour, will use tints as faint and delicate
as the faded old colours, forgetting that
itx a few years their work will be almost
colourless. It is wiser to use strong
good colours, for a little fading does not
spoil but really improves them.
So we see that many things combine
to render embroidery as fine as that
of the past difficult of production, and
361
Of Modern there is nothing more against it than
Embroidery, machinery, which floods the market with
its cheap imitations, so that an em-
broidered dress is no longer the choice
and rare production it once was ; the
machine-made imitation is so common
and so cheap that a refined taste, sick of
the vulgarity of the imitation, cares little
even for the reality, and seeks refuge in
an unornamented plainness. The hand-
worked embroidery glorified and gave
value to the material it was worked on.
The machine-work cannot lift it above
the commonplace. When will people
understand that the more ornament is
slow and difficult of production, the more
we appreciate it when we have got it ;
that it is because we know that the
thought of a human brain and the skill
of a human hand went into every stroke
of a chisel, every touch of a brush, or
every stitch placed by the needle, that we
362
admire, enjoy, and wonder at the statue. Of Modern
the picture, or the needlework that is ^^^'°^^"'>^-
the result of that patience and that skill ;
and that we do not care about the orna-
ment at all, and that it becomes lifeless
always, and often vulgar, when it has
been made at little or no cost by a
machine which is ready at any moment
to produce any quantity more of the
same thing ? All ornament and pattern
was once produced by hand only, there-
fore it was always rare and costly and
was valued accordingly. Fashions did
not change quickly. It was worth
while to embroider a garment beauti-
fully, for it would be worn for years, for
a lifetime perhaps ; and the elaborately
worked counterpane would cover the
bed in the guest-chamber for more than
one generation.
These remarks must be understood to
apply to the ordinary fancy-work and
363
Of Modern so-called " art-needle work " of the present
Embroidery, j^y^ Twenty years ago there would
have been no ray of light in the depths
to which the art of embroidery had
fallen. Now for some years steady and
successful efforts have been made by a
few people to produce once more works
worthy of the past glories of the art.
They have proved to us that designers
can design and that women can execute
fine embroidery, but their productions
are but as a drop in the ocean of inferior
and valueless work.
Mary E. Turner.
364
OF MATERIALS
A LMOST every fabric that is good
^^ of its kind is suitable for a
ground for needlework, and any thread
of silk, linen, cotton, or wool, is suitable
for laying on a web, with the purpose of
decorating it. Yet these materials should
not be wedded indiscriminately, every
surface requiring its peculiar treatment ;
a loose woollen fabric, for example, being
best covered with wool-work rather than
with silk. Not that it is necessary to
work in linen thread on linen ground, in
silk on silk ground, and so forth ; silk
upon linen, silk on canvas, wool on
365
Of linen, are legitimate, because suitable
Matenals. combinations ; it being scarcely necessary
to note that linen or wool threads should
not be used on silk surface, as to place
the poorer on the richer material would
be an error in taste. Gold thread and
precious stones will of course be reserved
for the richer grounds, and the more
elaborate kinds of work.
A plain or a figured (damask) silk can
be employed as a ground for needlework,
the broken surface of a good damask
sometimes enriching and helping out the
design. If work is to be laid directly
on silk ground, it should be rather open
and light in character ; if closer stitches
are wanted, the principal forms are
usually done on a canvas or linen backing,
which is then cut out and " applied " to
the final silk ground, the design being
carried on and completed by lighter work
of lines and curves, and by the enrichment
366
of gold thread, and sometimes even Of
precious stones. These two methods Materials.
are a serious and dignified form of em-
broidery, and were ofi:en used by the
great mediaeval embroiderers on a rich
figured or damask silk, and sometimes
on plain silk, and sometimes on a silky
velvet. It is not easy to procure ab-
solutely pure " undressed " silk now, and
pliable silk velvet of a suitable nature
is still more difficult to obtain. Satin is,
to my thinking, almost too shiny a surface
for a ground, but it may, occasionally,
be useful for small work. A sort of
imitation called " Roman satin " is some-
times employed on account of its cheap-
ness and effectiveness, I suppose, as it
cannot be for its beauty; the texture,
when much handled^ being woolly and
unpleasant. No one taking trouble to
procure choice materials will think of
making use of it.
367
Of Floss silk lends itself particularly to
Matenals. ^^^ j^-^^j ^^ needlework we are speaking
of; there is no twist on it, the silk is
pure and untouched, if properly dyed
has a soft gloss, and a yielding surface
that renders it quite the foremost of
embroidery silks, though its delicate
texture requires skilful handling. But
avoid silks that profess to be floss with
the difficulty in handling removed. If
the old workers could use a pure un-
twisted floss, surely we can take the
trouble to conquer this difficulty and do
the same. Twisted silk, if used on a
silk ground, should, I think, be rather
fine ; if thick and much twisted, it stands
out in relief against the ground and
gives a hard and ropy appearance. I
am, in fact, assuming that work on so
costly a material as pure thick silk is
to be rather fine than coarse. Gold and
silver thread is much used with silk, but
3^^
it is almost impossible to keep the silver Of
from tarnishing. Ordinary ''gold pass- Materials,
ing," which consists of a gilt silver thread
wound round silk, is also apt to tarnish,
and should always be lacquered before
using — a rather troublesome process to
do at home, as the gold has to be un-
wound and brushed over with the lacquer,
and should be dried in a warm room
free from damp, or on a hot sunny day.
Japanese paper -gold is useful, for the
reason that it does not tarnish, though in
some ways it is more troublesome to
manage than the gold that can be threaded
in a needle and passed through the
material. It consists, like much of the
ancient gold thread, of a gilded strip of
paper wound round silk, the old gold
being gilded vellum, when not the flat
gold beaten out thin (as, by the bye, in
many of the Eastern towels made to-day
where the flat tinsel is very cleverly used).
2 B 369
Of For needlework for more ordinary
Materials, ^g^g^ linen is by far the most pleasing
and enduring web. Unlike silk on the
one side, and wool on the other, it has
scarcely any limitations in treatment, or
in material suitable to be used on it. For
hangings it can be chosen of a loose large
texture, and covered with bold work
executed in silk, linen thread, or wool,
or it can be chosen of the finest thread,
and covered with minute delicate stitches ;
it can be worked equally well in the
hand, or in a frame, and usually the
more it is handled the better it looks.
A thick twisted silk is excellent for big
and coarse work on linen, the stitches
used being on the same scale, big and
bold, and finer silk used sparingly if
needed. White linen thread is often the
material employed for linen altar cloths,
coverlets, etc., and some extremely choice
examples of such work are to be seen in
370
our museums, some worked roughly with Of
a large linen thread and big stitches, some atenals.
with patient minuteness. It is hardly-
necessary to say how important the
design of such work is.
Different qualities of this material will
be suggested to the embroideress by her
needs ; but, before passing to other
things, I should not omit mention of the
charming linen woven at Langdale. For
some purposes it is very useful, as good
linen for embroidering on is not easy to
obtain. We have, however, yet to find
a web which will resemble the rougher
and coarser linens used for old embroi-
deries, rather loosely woven, with a thick
glossy thread, and of a heavy yet yielding
substance, quite unlike the hard paper-
like surfaces of machine-made linens.
The Langdale linen is, of course, hand-
spun and hand-made, and the flat silky
thread gives a very pleasant surface ; but,
371
Of owing to its price and fine texture, it is
Materials. ^^^ always Suitable for the purposes of
large hangings. Many fine examples of
Persian work, such as quilts and so forth,
are executed on a white cotton ground,
neither very fine nor very coarse, entirely
in floss silk, a variety of stitches being
used, and the brightest possible colours
chosen. The cool silky surface of linen,
however, commends itself more to us than
cotton, each country rightly choosing the
materials nearest to hand, in this as in
other decorative arts. Both linen and
cotton are good grounds for wool-work,
of which the most satisfactory kind is
that done on a large scale, with a variety
of close and curious stitches within bold
curves and outlines.
Canvas and net are open textures of
linen or cotton, and can be used either
as a ground-work covered entirely with
some stitch like the old-fashioned cross-
372
stitch or tent -stitch, or some kindred Of
mechanical stitch, or it can stand as the Materials,
ground, to be decorated with bright silks.
The texture of canvas being coarse, the
design for it should be chosen on a large
scale, and thick silk used ; floss preferably
as the glossiest, but a thick twisted silk is
almost equally effective, and rather easier
to handle. This canvas is used frequently
in seventeenth - century Italian room-
hangings, either in the natural brownish
colour, or dyed blue or green, the dye
on it giving a dusky neutral colour
which well shows up the richness of the
silk.
Of woollen materials, cloth is the king;
though as a ground for needle-decoration
it has its limitations. It forms a good
basis for applique, the groups of orna-
ment being worked separately, and laid
on the cloth with threads and cords of
silk, gold, or wool, according to the
373
Of treatment decided on. Rough serge gives
Materials. ^ good Surface for large open wool-work.
Such work is quickly done, and could be
made a very pleasing decoration for walls.
See the delightful inventories of the
worldly goods of Sir John Fastolf in the
notes to the Paston Letters, where the
description of green and blue worsted
hangings, and "bankers" worked over
with roses and boughs, and hunting scenes,
make one long to emulate the rich fancies
of forgotten arts, and try to plan out
similar work, much of which was quite
unambitious and simple, both in design
and execution. "Slack," a slightly
twisted wool, worsted and crewel are
usually the forms of work used ; of these
slack wool is the pleasantest for large
work, worsted being too harsh ; crewel
is very fine and much twisted,^ often met
* Crewel, cruU, curly : —
" His locks were cruU as they were laid in press,"
says Chaucer of the Squire in The Canterbury Tales.
374
with in old work of a fine kind. The Of
advantage of wool over silk in cost is Materials.
obvious, and renders it suitable for the
commoner uses of life, where lavishness
would be out of place.
May Morris.
375
COLOUR
I T is not unusual to hear said of textiles
and embroideries, *' I like soft quiet
colouring ; such and such is too bright."
This assertion is both right and wrong ;
it shows an instinctive pleasure in har-
mony combined with ignorance of tech-
nique. To begin with, colour cannot
be too bright in itself ; if it appears so,
it is the skill of the craftsman that is at
fault. It will be noted in a fine piece
of work that far from blazing with colour
in a way to disturb the eye, its general
effect is that of a subdued glow ; and yet,
on considering the different shades of the
376
colours used, they are found to be in Colour,
themselves of the brightest the dyer can
produce. Thus I have seen in an old
Persian rug light and dark blue flowers
and orange leaves outlined with turquoise
blue on a strong red ground, a combina-
tion that sounds daring, and yet nothing
could be more peaceful in tone than the
beautiful and complicated groups of
colours here displayed. Harmony, then,
produces this repose, which is demanded
instinctively, purity and crispness being
further obtained by the quality of the
colours used.
Thus in blues, use the shades that are
only obtained satisfactorily by indigo
dye, with such modifications as slightly
''greening" with yellow when a green-
blue is wanted, and so forth. The pure
blue of indigo,^ neither slaty nor too
1 For notes on the dyer's art and the nature of dye stuffs,
see William Morris's essay on "Dyeing as an Art," p. 196.
377
Colour, hot and red on the one hand, nor tending
to a coarse " peacock " green-blue on
the other, is perfect in all its tones,
and of all colours the safest to use in
masses. Its modifications to purple on
one side and green -blue on the other
are also useful, though to be employed
with moderation. There are endless
varieties of useful reds, from pink, salmon,
orange, and scarlet, to blood -red and
deep purple -red, obtained by different
dyes and by different processes of dyeing.
Kermes, an insect dye, gives a very
beautiful and permanent colour, rather
scarlet. Cochineal, also an insect dye,
gives a red, rather inferior, but useful for
mixed shades, and much used on silk, of
which madder and kermes are apt to
destroy the gloss, the former a good deal,
the latter slightly. Madder, a vege-
table dye, " yields on wool a deep-toned
blood-red, somewhat bricky and tending
378
to scarlet. On cotton and linen all Colour,
imaginable shades of red, according to the
process." ^ Of the shades into which red
enters, avoid over-abundant use of warm
orange or scarlet, which are the more
valuable (especially the latter) the more
sparingly used ; there is a dusky orange
and a faint clear bricky scarlet, sometimes
met with in old work, that do not need
this reservation, being quiet colours of
impure yet beautiful tone. Clear, full
yellow, fine in itself, also loses its value
if too plentifully used, or lacking due
relief by other colours. The pure colour
is neither reddish and hot in tone, nor
greenish and sickly It is very abundant,
for example, in Persian silk embroidery,
also in Chinese, and again in Spanish
and Italian work of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The best and
most permanent yellow dye, especially
^ William Morris, " Dyeing as an Art."
379
Colour, valuable on silk, is weld or " wild
mignonette."
Next to blue, green seems the most
natural colour to live with, and the most
restful to the eye and brain ; yet it is
curious to those not familiar with the ins
and outs of dyeing that it should be
so difficult to obtain through ordinary
commercial channels a full, rich, per-
manent green, neither muddy yellow
nor coarse bluish. A dyer who
employed old-fashioned dye-stuffs and
methods would, however, tell us that
the greens of commerce are obtained
by messes, and not by dyes, the only
method for obtaining good shades being
that of dyeing a blue of the depth re-
quired in the indigo-vat, and afterwards
"greening" it with yellow, with whatever
modifications are needed. Three sets of
greens will be found useful for needle-
work, full yellow-greens of two or three
380
shades, grayish-greens, and blue-greens. Colour.
Of these, the shades tending to grayish-
green are the most manageable in large
masses. There is also an olive-green
that is good, if not too dark and brown,
when it becomes a nondescript, and as
such to be condemned.
Walnut (the roots or the husks or the
nut) and catechu (the juice of a plant) are
the most reliable brown dye-stuffs, giving
good rich colour. The best black, by
the bye, formerly used, consisted of the
darkest indigo shade the material would
take, dipped afterwards in the walnut
root dye.
This hasty enumeration of dye-stuffs
gives an idea of those principally used
until this century, but now very rarely,
since the reign of Aniline. Yet they give
the only really pure and permanent
colours known, not losing their value by
artificial light, and very little and
381
Colour, gradually fading through centuries of
exposure to sunlight. It would be pleasant
if in purchasing silk or cloth one had
not to pause and consider "will it
fade ? " meaning not " will it fade in
a hundred, or ten, or three years ? " but
"will it fade and be an unsightly rag
this time next month ? " I cannot see
that Aniline has done more for us than
this.
Colour can be treated in several dif-
ferent ways : by distinctly light shades,
whether few or many, on a dark ground,
which treatment lends itself to great
variety and effect ; or by dark on a light
ground, not so rich or satisfying in effect ;
or again, by colour placed on colour of
equal tone, as it were a mosaic or
piecing together of colours united, or
"jointed," by outlining round the
various members of the design. Black
on white, or white on white, a mere
382
drawing of a design on the material, Colour,
scarcely comes under the head of
Colour, though, as aforesaid, some very
beautiful work has been done in this
way.
As regards method of colouring, it is
not very possible to give much indi-
cation of what to use and what to avoid,
it being greatly a matter of practice,
and somewhat of instinct, how to unite
colour into beautiful and complex groups.
A few hints for and against certain com-
binations may perhaps be given: for
instance, avoid placing a blue immediately
against a green of nearly the same tone ;
an outline of a different colour disposes
of this difficulty, but even so, blue and
green for equally leading colours should
be avoided. Again, red and yellow, if
both of a vivid tone, will need a soften-
ing outline ; also, I think, red and green
if at all strong ; avoid cold green in
383
Colour, contact with misty blue-green, which in
itself is rather a pretty colour : the
warning seems futile, but I have seen
these colours used persistently together,
and do not like the resulting undecided
gray tone. A cold strong green renders
service sometimes, notably for placing
against a clear brilliant yellow, which
is apt to deaden certain softer greens.
Brown, when used, should be chosen
carefully, warm in tint, but not hot;
avoid the mixture of brown and yellow,
often seen in " Art Depots," but not in
nature, an unfortunate groping after the
picturesque, as brown wants cooling
down, and to marry it to a flaming
yellow is not the way to do it. Black
should be used very sparingly indeed,
though by no means banished from the
palette. Blue and pink, blue and red,
with a little tender green for relief,
are perfectly safe combinations for the
384
leading colours in a piece of work ; Colour,
again, yellow and green, or yellow,
pink, and green, make a delightfully
fresh and joyous show. There is a large
coverlet to be seen at the South Ken-
sington Museum (in the Persian gallery)
which is worked in these colours, all
very much the same bright tone, the
centre being green and yellow and
pink, and the several borders the
same, with the order and proportion
altered to make a variety. In recall-
ing bright colouring like this, one is
reminded of Chaucer and his unfail-
ing delight in gay colours, which he
constantly brings before us in describing
garden, woodland, or beflowered gown.
As—
" Everich tree well from his fellow grewe
With branches broad laden with leaves newe
That sprongen out against the sonne sheene
Some golden red and some a glad bright grene."
2 C 385
Colour. Or, again, the Squire's dress in the Pro-
logue to The Canterbury Tales —
" Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
Alle ful of freshe floures, white and rede."
May Morris.
386
STITCHES AND MECHANISM
A S a guiding classification of methods
-^ ^ of embroidery considered from
the technical point of view, I have set
down the following heads : —
(a) Embroidery of materials in
frames. *
(<^) Embroidery of materials held in
the hand.
(c) Positions of the needle in making
stitches.
(d) Varieties of stitches.
(e) Effects of stitches in relation to
materials into which they are
worked.
387
Stitches and (/) Methods of stitching different
Mechanism. materials together.
(g) Embroidery in relief.
(h) Embroidery on open grounds
like net, etc.
(/) Drawn thread work ; needlepoint
lace.
(j) Embroidery allied to tapestry
weaving.
In the first place, I define embroidery
as the ornamental enrichment by needle-
work of a given material. Such material
is usually a closely-woven stuff; but skins
of attiimals, leather, etc., also serve as
foundations for embroidery, and so do
nets.
(tf) Materials to be embroidered may
be either stretched out in a frame, or
held loosely (^) in the hand. Ex-
perience decides when either way is the
better. For embroidery upon nets,
frames are indispensable. The use of
388
frames is also necessary when a particular Stitches and
aim of the embroiderer is to secure an Mechanism.
even tension of stitch throughout his
work. There are various frames, some
large and standing on trestles ; in these
many feet of material can be stretched
out. Then there are small handy frames
in which a square foot or two of material
is stretched ; and again there are smaller
frames, usually circular, in which a few ,
inches of materials of delicate texture,
like muslin and cambric, may be
stretched.
Oriental embroiderers, like those of
China, Japan, Persia, and India, are
great users of frames for their work.
(c) Stitches having peculiar or in-
dividual characteristics are compara-
tively few. Almost all are in use for
plain needlework. It is through the
employment of them to render or
express ornament or pattern that they
389
Stitches and become embroidery stitches. Some em-
Mechanism, broiderers and some schools of em-
broidery contend that the number of
embroidery stitches is almost infinite.
This, however, is probably one of the
myths of the craft. To begin with,
there are barely more than two different
positions in which the needle is held
for making a stitch — one when the
needle is passed more or less horizontally
through the material, the other when
the needle is worked more or less
vertically. In respect of the first-named
way, the point of the needle enters the
material usually in two places, and one
pull takes the embroidery thread into
the material more or less horizontally,
or along or behind its surface (Fig. i).
In the second, the needle is passed up-
wards from beneath the material, pulled
right through it, and then returned
downwards, so that there are two pulls
390
instead of one to complete a single Stitches and
stitch. Mechanism.
A hooked or crochet needle with a
handle is held more or less vertically for
working a chain stitch upon the surface
of a material stretched in a frame, but
Fig. I . — Stem Stitch — a peculiar use of short stitches.
this is a method of embroidery involving
the use of an implement distinct from
that done with the ordinary and freely-
plied needle. Still, including this last-
named method, which comes into the
class of embroidery done with the needle
391
Stitches and in a more or less vertical position, we
Mechanism. ^^ ^^^ g^^ moTt than two distinctive
positions for holding the embroidery
needle.
Fig. 2. — Chain Stitch.
(d) Varieties of stitches may be classi-
fied under two sections : one of stitches
in which the thread is looped, as in
chain stitch, knotted stitches, and button-
392
hole stitch ; the other of stitches in Stitches and
which the thread is not looped, but lies Mechanism.
flatly, as in short and long stitches —
crewel or feather stitches as they are
sometimes called, — darning stitches, tent
and cross stitches, and satin stitch.
Fig. 3. — Satin Stitch.
Almost all of these stitches produce
different sorts of surface or texture in
the embroidery done with them. Chain
stitches, for instance, give a broken or
granular - looking surface (Fig. 2).
This effect in surface is more strongly
393
Stitches and marked when knotted stitches are used.
Mechanism, g^^'j^ stitches give a flat surface (Fig.
3), and are generally used for em-
broidery or details which are to be of an
Fig. 4. — Feather or Crewel Stitch — a mixture of long
and short stitches.
even tint of colour. Crewel or long
and short stitches combined (Fig. 4)
give a slightly less even texture than
satin stitches. Crewel stitch is specially
adapted to the rendering of coloured
394
surfaces of work in which different tints Stitches and
are to modulate into one another. Mechanism.
(e) The effects of stitches in relation
to the materials into which they are
worked can be considered under two
broadly-marked divisions. The one is
in regard to embroidery which is to
produce an effect on one side only of a
material ; the other to embroidery which
shall produce similar effects equally on
both the back and front of the material.
A darning and a satin stitch may be
worked so that the embroidery has
almost the same effect on both sides of
the material. Chain stitch and crewel
stitch can only be used with regard to
effect on one side of a material.
(/) But these suggestions for a
simple classification of embroidery do not
by any means apply to many methods
of so-called embroidery, the effects of
which depend upon something more
395
Stitches and than stitches. In these other methods
Mechanism, cutting materials into shapes, stitching
materials together, or on to one another,
and drawing certain threads out of a
woven material and then working over
the undrawn threads, are involved.
Applied or applique work is generally
used in connection with ornament of
bold forms. The larger and principal
forms are cut out of one material and
then stitched down to another — the
junctures of the edges of the cut-out
forms being usually concealed and the
shapes of the forms emphasised by cord
stitched along them. Patchwork depends
for successful effect upon skill in cutting
out the several pieces which are to be
stitched together. Patchwork is a sort
of mosaic work in textile materials ;
and, far beyond the homely patchwork
quilt of country cottages, patchwork
lends itself to the production of
396
ingenious counterchanges of form and Stitches and
colour in complex patterns. These Mechanism,
methods of applique and patchwork are
peculiarly adapted to ornamental needle-
work which is to lie, or hang, stretched
out flatly, and are not suited therefore
to work in which is involved a calculated
beauty of effect from folds.
(g) There are two or three classes of
embroidery in relief which are not well
adapted to embroideries on lissome
materials in which folds are to be con-
sidered. Quilting is one of these classes.
It may be artistically employed for
rendering low-relief ornament, by means
of a stout cord or padding placed be-
tween two bits of stuff, which are then
ornamentally stitched together so that
the cord or padding may fill out and
give slight relief to the ornamental
portions defined by and enclosed between
the lines of stitching. There is also
397
Stitches and padded embroidery or work consisting
Mechanism, ^f ^ number of details separately wrought
in relief over padding of hanks of thread,
wadding, and such like. Effects of high
^_i^lZ^u^
^^"^
Fig. 5. — A form of Embroidery in relief, called "Couching."
relief are obtainable by this method.
Another class, but of lower relief em-
broidery, is couching (Fig. 5), in which
cords and gimps are laid side by side,
in groups, upon the face of a material,
398
and then stitched down to it. Various Stitches and
effects can be obtained in this method. Mechanism.
The colour of the thread used to stitch
the cords or gimp down may be different
from that of the cords or gimp, and the
stitches may of course be so taken as
to produce small powdered or diaper
patterns over the face of the groups of
cords or gimp. Gold cords are often
used in this class of work, which is
peculiarly identified with ecclesiastical
embroideries of the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries, as also with Japanese
work of later date.
(Ji) The embroidery and work hitherto
alluded to has been such as requires a
foundation of a closely woven nature,
like linen, cloth, silk, and velvet. But
there are varieties of embroidery done
upon netted or meshed grounds. And
on to these open grounds, embroidery in
darning and chain stitches can be wrought.
399
Stitches and For the most part the embroideries upon
Mechanism. ^^^^ ^^ meshed grounds have a lace-like
appearance. In lace, the contrast be-
tween close work and open, or partially-
open, spaces about it plays an important
part. The methods of making lace by
the needle, or by bobbins on a cushion,
are totally distinct from the methods of
making lace-like embroideries upon net.
(/') Akin to lace and embroideries
upon net is embroidery in which much
of its special effect is obtained by the
withdrawal of threads from the material,
and then either whipping or overcasting
in button -hole stitches the undrawn
threads. The Persians and embroiderers
in the Grecian Archipelago have excelled
in such work, producing wondrously
delicate textile grills of ingenious geo-
metric patterns. In this drawn thread
work, as it is called, we often meet with
the employment of button-hole stitching,
400
which is an important stitch in making Stitches and
needlepoint lace (Fig. 6). Mechanism.
U) w^ ^^^^ ^^^^ "^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ °^ ^
weaving stitch resembling in effect, on a
small scale, willow weaving for hurdles.
This weaving stitch, and the method of
compacting together the threads made
Fig. 6. — Button-hole Stitching, as used in needlepoint lace.
with it, are closely allied to that special
method of weaving known as tapestry
weaving. Some of the earliest specimens
of tapestry weaving consist of ornamental
borders, bands, and panels, which were
inwoven into tunics and cloaks worn
2 D 401
Stitches and by Greeks and Romans from the fourth
Mechanism, century before Christ, up to the eighth
or ninth after Christ. The scale of the
work in these is so small, as compared
with that of large tapestry wall-hangings
of the fifteenth century, that the method
may be regarded as being related more
to drawn thread embroidery than to
weaving into an extensive field of warp
threads.
A sketch of the different employments
of the foregoing methods of embroidery
is not to be included in this paper. The
universality of embroidery from the
earliest of historic times is attested by
evidences of its practice amongst primi-
tive tribes throughout the world. Frag-
ments of stitched materials or undoubted
indications of them have been found in
the remains of early American Indians,
and in the cave dwellings of men who
lived thousands of years before the
402
period of historic Egyptians and As- Stitches and
Syrians. Of Greek short and long Mechanism,
stitch, and chain stitch and applique
embroidery, there are specimens of the
third or fourth century b.c. preserved
in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg.
Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and
Romans were skilful in the use of
tapestry weaving stitches. Dainty em-
broidery, with delicate silken threads, was
practised by the Chinese long before
similar work was done in the countries
west of Persia, or in countries which
came within the Byzantine Empire. In
the early days of that Empire, the
Emperor Theodosius I. framed rules
respecting the importation of silk, and
made regulations for the labour employed
in the gyncecea^ the public weaving and
embroidering rooms of that period, the
development and organisation of which
are traceable to the apartments allotted
403
Stitches and in private houses to the sempstresses and
Mechanism, embroideresses who formed part of the
well-to-do households of early classic
times.
Alan S. Cole.
404
DESIGN
^^ Drink ivaters out of thine own cistern^ and running ivaters
out of thine oivn ivell" — Solomon.
'■^Produce; produce; be it but the infinitesimallest product^
ice." — Carlyle.
pOR the last sixty years, ever since
the Gothic Revival set in, we have
done our best to resuscitate the art of
embroidery. First the Church and then
the world took up the task, and much
admirable work has been done by the
" Schools," the shops, and at home.
And yet the verdict still must be " the
old is better."
Considering all things, this lack of
absolute success is perplexing and needs
405
Design, to be explained. For we have realised
our ideals. Never was a time when the
art and science of needlework were so
thoroughly understood as in England at
the present moment. Our designers can
design in any style. Every old method
is at our fingers* ends. Every ingenious
stitch of old humanity has been mastered,
and a descriptive name given to it of our
own devising. Every traditional pattern
— wave, lotus, daisy, convolvulus, honey-
suckle, " Sacred Hom " or tree of life ;
every animal form, or bird, fish or
reptile, has been traced to its source,
and its symbolism laid bare. Every
phase of the world's primal schools of
design — Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian,
Chinese, Greek, Byzantine, European —
has been illustrated and made easy of
imitation. We are archaeologists : we
are critics : we are artists. We are
lovers of old work : we are learned in
406
historical and aesthetic questions, in Design,
technical rules and principles of design.
We are colourists, and can play with
colour as musicians play with notes.
What is more, we are in terrible earnest-
ness about the whole business. The
honour of the British nation, the credit
of Royalty, are, in a manner, staked
upon the success of our "Schools of
Needlework." And yet, in spite of all
these favouring circumstances, we get
no nearer to the old work that first
mocked us to emulation in regard to
power of initiative and human interest.
Truth and gallantry prompt me to
add, it is not in stitchery but in design
that we lag behind the old. Fair
English hands can copy every trick of
ancient artistry : finger-skill was never
defter, will was never more ardent to do
fine things, than now. Yet our work
hangs fire. It fails in design. Why ?
407
Design. Now, Emerson has well said that all
the arts have their origin in some en-
thusiasm. Mark this, however : that
whereas the design of old needlework is
based upon enthusiasm for birds, flowers,
and animal life,^ the design of modern
needlework has its origin in enthusiasm
for antique art. Nature is, of course,
the groundwork of all art, even of ours ;
but it is not to Nature at first-hand that
we go. The flowers we embroider were
not plucked from field and garden, but
from the camphor-scented preserves at
Kensington. Our needlework conveys
no pretty message of
" The life that breathes, the life that lives,"
it savours only of the now stiffs and
stark device of dead hands. Our art
holds no mirror up to Nature as we
^ A strip of sixteenth -century needlework in my pos-
session (6 ft. by 2 ft. 6 in.) figures thirty different specimens
of plants, six animals, and four birds, besides ornamental
sprays of foliage.
408
see her, it only reflects the reflection of Design.
dead periods. Nay, not content with
merely rifling the motifs of moth-fretted
rags, we must needs turn for novelty to
an old Persian tile which, well magnified,
makes a capital design for a quilt that
one might perchance sleep under in spite
of what is outside ! Or we are not
ashamed to ask our best embroideresses
to copy the barbaric wriggles and child-
like crudities of a seventh-century "Book
of Kells," a task which cramps her style
and robs Celtic art of all its wonder.
We have, I said, realised our ideals.
We can do splendidly what we set our-
selves to do — namely, to mimic old
masterpieces. The question is. What
next? Shall we continue to hunt old
trails, and die, not leaving the world
richer than we found it ? Or shall we
for art and honour's sake boldly adven-
ture something — drop this wearisome
409
Design, translation of old styles and translate
Nature instead ?
Think of the gain to the " Schools,"
and to the designers themselves, if we
elect to take another starting - point !
No more museum-inspired work ! No
more scruples about styles ! No more
dry-as-dust stock patterns! No more
loathly Persian-tile quilts ! No more
awful '* Zoomorphic " table-cloths ! No
more cast-iron-looking altar cloths, or
Syon Cope angels, or stumpy Norfolk-
screen saints! No more Tudor roses
and pumped- out Christian imagery
suggesting that Christianity is dead and
buried! But, instead, we shall have
design hy living men/^r living men —
something that expresses fresh realisa-
tions of sacred facts, personal brood-
ings, skill, joy in Nature — in grace of
form and gladness of colour ; design
that shall recall Shakespeare's maid who
410
"... with her neeld composes Design.
Nature's own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry.
That even Art sisters the natural roses."
For, after all, modern design should
be as the old — living thought, artfully-
expressed : fancy that has taken fair
shapes. And needlework is still a
pictorial art that requires a real artist to
direct the design, a real artist to ply the
needle. Given these, and our needle-
work can be as full of story as the
Bayeux tapestry, as full of imagery as
the Syon Cope, and better drawn. The
charm of old embroidery lies in this,
that it clothes current thought in current
shapes. It meant something to the
workers, and to the man in the street
for whom it was done. And for our
work to gain the same sensibility, the
same range of appeal, the same human
interest, we must employ the same
means. We must clothe modern ideas
411
Design, in modern dress ; adorn our design with
living fancy, and rise to the height of
our knowledge and capacities.
Doubtless there is danger to the un-
trained designer in direct resort to
Nature. For the tendency in his or her
case is to copy outright, to give us pure
crude fact and not to design at all.
Still there is hope in honest error : none
in the icy perfections of the mere stylist.
For the unskilled designer there is no
training like drawing from an old herbal ;
for in all old drawing of Nature there
is a large element of design. Besides
which, the very limitations of the
materials used in realising a design in
needlework, be it ever so naturally
coloured, hinders a too definite presenta-
tion of the real.
For the professional stylist, the con-
firmed conventionalist, an hour in his
garden, a stroll in the embroidered
412
meadows, a dip into an old herbal, a Design,
few carefully-drawn cribs from Curtis's
Botanical Magazine, or even — for
lack of something better — Sutton's
last Illustrated Catalogue, is wholesome
exercise, and will do more to revive the
original instincts of a true designer than
a month of sixpenny days at a stuffy
museum. The old masters are dead,
but " the flowers," as Victor Hugo says,
" the flowers last always."
John D. Sedding.
413
ON DESIGNING FOR THE ART
OF EMBROIDERY
IN every form of art the thing which
^ is of primary importance is the
question of Design.
By Design I understand the inventive
arrangement of lines and masses, for their
own sake, in such a relation to one another,
that they form a fine, harmonious whole :
a whole, that is, towards which each part
contributes, and is in such a combina-
tion with every other part that the
result is a unity of effect, so completely
satisfying us that we have no sense of
demanding in it more or less.
414
After this statement and definition let On Design-
me proceed to touch briefly upon four ^"^ ^^^ ^^^
points in relation to the matter, as it Embroidery,
concerns itself with the art of Em-
broidery ; and the first of these four
points shall be this. Before you com-
mence your design, consider carefully the
conditions under which the finished
work is to be seen. There is a tendency
in embroidery to be too uniformly
delicate and minute. To be too delicate,
or even minute, in something which is
always to be seen close under one's
eyes is, it may be, impossible ; but in
an altar-cloth, a banner, a wall-hanging,
this delicacy and minuteness are not
merely thrown away, but they tend to
make the thing ineffective. For such
objects as these I have mentioned, the
main lines and masses of the design
should, it would seem in the nature of
the case, be well emphasised ; if they are
415
On Design- well emphasised, and of course fine in
ing for the ^j^^-j. character and arrangement, there
Embroiden\ ^^ produced a sense of largeness and
dignity which is of the highest value,
and for the absence of which no amount
of curious workmanship will atone. In
making your design, let these main lines
and masses be the first things you attend
to, and secure. Stand away at a distance,
and see if they tell out satisfactorily,
before you go on to put in a single touch
of detail.
For the second point : remember that
embroidery deals with its objects as if
they were all on the same plane. It has
been sometimes described as the art of
painting with the needle ; but it neces-
sarily and essentially differs from the art
of painting in this, that it, properly,
represents all things as being equally
near to you, as laid out before you on
the same plane. It would seem, therefore,
416
to be a sound rule to fill the spaces, On Design-
left for vou by the arrangement of your ^^S fo^ the
main Imes and masses, with such torms Embroidery,
as shall occupy these spaces, one by one,
completely ; with such patterns, I mean,
as shall appear to have their natural and
full development within the limits of
each space : avoid the appearance of one
thing being behind the other, with
portions of it cut off and obscured by
what comes in front of it. But in this,
as in so much else, an immense deal •
must be left to the instinct of the artist.
Thirdly : aim at simplicity in the
elements or motives of your design ;
do not crowd it with a score of different
elements, which produce a sense of con-
fusion and irritation, and, in reality,
prove only a poverty of invention. A
real richness of invention, as well as a
richness of effect, lies in using one or
two, perhaps at most three, elements,
2 E 417
On Design- with variety in the treatment of them,
ing for the Make yourself thoroughly master of the
Embroidery, essential pomts, m whatever elements
you choose as the basis of your design,
before you set pencil to paper ; and you
will find in almost any natural form you
fix upon more than enough to give you
all the variety and richness you require,
if you have sufficient natural fancy to
play with it.
Lastly : return again and again, and
for evermore, to Nature. The value of
studying specimens of old embroidery is
immense ; it makes you familiar with
the principles and methods, which ex-
perience has found to be true and use-
ful ; it puts you into possession of the
traditions of the art. He that has no
reverence for the traditions of his art
seals his own doom ; he that is careless
about them, or treats them with super-
ciliousness, or will not give the time and
418
pains necessary to understand them, but On Design-
thinks to start ojfF afresh along clean ^"S ^°^ ^^^
new lines of his own, stamps himself £^^^1^^.^^^^^.
as an upstart — makes himself perhaps,
if he is clever, a nine days' curiosity —
but loses himself, by and by, in ex-
travagances, and brings no fruit to
perfection. The study of old work, /
then, is of the highest importance, is
essential ; the patient and humble study
of it. But for what end? To learn
principles and methods, to secure a
sound foundation for oneself; not to
slavishly imitate results, and live on
bound hand and foot in the swaddling
clothes of precedent. Learn your
business in the schools, but go out to
Nature for your inspirations. See Nature
through your own eyes, and be a per-
sistent and curious observer of her in-
finite wonders. Yet to see Nature in
herself is not everything, it is but half
419
On Design- the matter ; the other half is to know
ing for the j^^^ ^^ ^g^ j^^j. f^^ ^j^^ purposes of fine
Embroiden^ art, to know how to translate her into the
language of art. And this knowledge
we acquire by a sound acquaintance
with the essential conditions of whatever
art we practise, a frank acceptance of
these conditions, and a reverential ap-
preciation of the teaching and examples
of past workmen. Timidity and impu-
dence are both alike fatal to an artist :
timidity, which makes it impossible for
him to see with his own eyes, and
find his own methods ; and impudence,
which makes him imagine that his own
eyes, and his own methods, are the best
that ever were.
Selwyn Image.
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh
420
A SELECTION
FROM THE
Recent Publications
OF
Messrs. PERCIVAL
KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
LONDON
34 King Street, Covent Garden,
London, W.C.
April 1893.
Crown Svo, With Illustrations. 6s.
Recollections of Dr. John Brown
Author of ' Rab and His Friends.'
With Selections from Correspondence.
By ALEXANDER PEDDIE, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., F.R.S.E., Etc.
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