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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 
 
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 Recollections of Dr. John Brown 
 
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 By ALEXANDER PEDDIE, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., F.R.S.E., Etc. 
 
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 Author of 'Our South African Empire,' * A History of the Dominion of 
 Canada,' and 'Geography of Africa South of the Zambesi,' etc. 
 
 With an Introduction by LORD BRASSEY. 
 
 Contents. — The West Indies— The Leeward Islands— Newfoundland 
 — The Dominion of Canada — The West African Settlements — The South 
 African Colonies— The Australian Colonies — Tasmania — South Australia 
 — New Zealand — The Islands of the Pacific and Fiji — Ceylon and the 
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 The Author's endeavour in this Work is to view Venice as a 
 personality ; to trace, as it were, in brief her biography ; attempt- 
 ing to show what made her ; how she grew ; what mistakes she 
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 has brought out fully the poetry and 
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 sufficient to justify a more complete ac- 
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 seen that the researches undertaken by 
 
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 come.' — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' This masterly work. ._ . . Dr. Arlidge 
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 'Thisinvaluablework.'— DailyTelegrajh. 
 
 ' Few, if any, British men have a better 
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 make it delightful reading for those with- 
 out a smattering of medicine.' — 
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 The Evolution of Decorative Art 
 
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 as illustrated by the Art of Modern Races of Mankind. 
 
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 Curator of the Ethnographical Department (Pitt-Rivers Collection), 
 University Museum, Oxford. 
 
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 COMTENTS OF THE APRIL NuMBER, 1893. 
 
 The History of English Serfdom. Prof. W. J. Ashley, M.A. 
 Edward Vansittart Neale as Christian Socialist. 
 
 His Honour Judge Hughes, Q.C. 
 The Ethics of Wills. The Rev. T. C. Fry, D.D. 
 Co-operators and Profit-Sharing^. W. E. Snell. 
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 Edwin Cannan, M.A. 
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 London: 34 King Street, Covent Garden. 
 
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 With numerous Illustrations, 
 
 including Pen and Pencil Drawings by Jane E. Cook. 
 
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 mounted, price Five Guineas net each. 
 
 Old Touraine 
 
 The Life and History of the Famous Chateaux of France. 
 By THEODORE ANDREA COOK, B.A., 
 
 sometime Scholar of Wadham College, Oxford. 
 
 There is an itinerary for the tourist, and a map, genealogical 
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 A Paradise of English Poetry 
 
 Arranged by the Rev. H. C. BEECHING, M.A., 
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 This work is printed on hand-made paper, bound in buckram, 
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 ' That those who walk in the rose- ] are not many men who can stand this test, 
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 will say that the planting has been well ' phantly. . . . Before we leave this book, 
 
 done, we cannot doubt for a moment. 
 He has not only a knowledge of English 
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 without which a knowledge of, and even 
 a love for, literature is wasted. He does 
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 ture, — that is comparatively easy. He 
 knows what is bad, and with him base 
 metal is never offered us for gold. There 
 
 we must commend Mr. Beeching's excel- 
 lent notes. They are interesting, to the 
 ponit, not too long, and often enable one 
 to get an additional touch of pleasure from 
 the verse they annotate. ' — Spectator. 
 
 A ver^' skilful selection, and eminently 
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 itself to all true lovers of English poetry.' 
 — Times. 
 
 London : 34 King Street, Covent Garden. 
 
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 ' It is pleasant to be able to say that this 
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 London : 34 King Street, Covent Garden. 
 
14 
 
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 IVii/i Maps and Illustrations. 
 
 Norway and the Norwegians 
 
 By C. F. KEARY, M.A., F.S.A. 
 
 Contents. — The Land : The Glacial Era and its Remains ; Islands ; 
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 panion.'— Saturday Review. 
 
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 15 
 
 Vol. I. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 France of To-day 
 
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 By M. BETHAM EDWARDS, 
 
 Officier de L'Instruction Publique de France. 
 
 Editor of Arthur Young's ' Travels in France. ' 
 
 Contents of Vol. i. 
 Introductory. Part I. — Provinces: Bourbonnais, Auvergne, Velay, 
 Languedoc, Pyrenees. Part II. — Provinces: Anjou, Poitou, Gascoigne, 
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 in a more attractive shape. ' — 
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 . ' Undoubtedly a work inspired by a 
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 ' Miss Betham Edwards knows more of 
 rural life in France than probably does 
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 interested in agriculture and industry will 
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 We look forward eagerly to the volume 
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 duty, are charmingly indicated in these 
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 The Forest Cantons of Switzerland 
 
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