A few words must be given to a retrospect of the state of this branch
of the national industry, and to its prospects. If we look back
twenty-five years to the furniture exhibited in London in 1851, the
improvement of the present time seems incredible.
We may take that Exhibition, the first of these modern displays of all
sorts of products of labour, as a point of departure for our review.
In 1851, the Commissioners directed that a complete report should be
drawn up on the subject of the decorative treatment of manufactures of
all kinds, including the particular class of objects under discussion.
The author of this report calls attention to what should be the first
consideration, in the construction of objects for daily and personal
use. From the continual presence of these things, "defects overlooked
at first, or disregarded for some showy excellence, grow into great
grievances, when, having become an offence, the annoyance daily
increases. Here at least utility should be the first object, and as
simplicity rarely offends, that ornament which is the most simple in
style will be the most likely to give lasting satisfaction."[7] Yet on
examining the furniture on the English side, the reporter could not
but notice, how rarely this very obvious consideration had been
attended to. "The ornament of such works on the English side consists
largely of _imitative_ carving." Ornaments consisting of flowers,
garlands of massive size and absolute relief, were applied
indiscriminately to bedsteads, sideboards, bookcases, pier-glasses,
&c., without any principle of selection or accommodation. "The laws of
ornament were as completely set aside as those of use and convenience.
Many of these works, instead of being useful, would require _a rail
to keep off the household_."
[7] Supplementary Report, chap. xxx.
These strictures were far from being applicable to the entire British
Exhibition of this class of work. One or two notable exceptions may be
quoted, such as a bookcase carved in oak, exhibited by Mr. Crace,
bought by the Commissioners and added to the Kensington collections.
This and a few other works "are particularly to be commended for their
sound constructive treatment, and for the very judicious manner in
which ornament is made subservient to it. The metal-work is also
excellent, and the brass fittings of the panels of the bookcase
deserve to be studied, both for the manner in which they have been put
together and for their graceful lines."
Four years later, in 1855, in the Paris Exhibition, our furniture and
woodwork had made a stride forward, which was still more marked in the
London Exhibition of 1862. By that time, our leading houses had
appreciated the necessity of obtaining talented designers and foremen,
and in many instances they had employed the first architects of the
day to give them drawings. The result was a great progress. While the
French, indeed, continued to produce very fine pieces, some on the
best models, or rather after the principles of the best periods of the
Renaissance, our own cabinet makers had run far on in the same
direction and in many others, for the mediA|val feeling had still a
strong hold on the taste of English architects and their patrons.
The greatest change, however, was that which the Paris exhibition of
1867 brought to light. Fifteen full years had passed, since public
attention had been called to any careful comparison between the state
of our furniture and the decorations of the interiors of our houses,
with those of other countries, and the advance was incalculably
greater on the part of this country than on that of the other
competing nations.
It is worth remarking, that in three great comparative Exhibitions,
and particularly in that of 1867, national tastes and peculiarities
seemed to have been so completely pared away, that it became difficult
to keep the productions of the North and West of Europe from those of
the South or the East, distinct in one's mind. Each nation followed
the fashion of the works that had obtained the best prizes at former
Exhibitions.
For the present, French Renaissance designs in woodwork, and the
produce of the looms of Lyons in hangings, serve to give the key to
the school of domestic and industrial art in this country. If we look
at the richest and most costly productions that have been exhibited,
and carried off prizes at the International Exhibitions of late years
(and we have no other standard of easy comparison), it will be found
that French cabinets, tables, and chairs have served as models to the
successful competitors. Indeed, the most successful of such pieces of
furniture are actually designed by French artists in some of our
leading firms. There is a decided English type in the satin-wood
furniture of Messrs. Wright and Mansfield, and there is some
invention, though not always happy, about our designers of mediA|val
furniture. These productions are, however, too apt to be heavy and
ecclesiastical, to follow rather the types of stone constructions, and
the teachings of the admirable plates of Viollet-le-duc, than the
lighter work, inaugurated, not without power and success, by Pugin.
There is a company of artists, Morris and Co., who have combined
painting and woodwork, and produced excellent results; but they have
had few followers, or rather few successful followers. I cannot but
mention with honourable commendation the Royal School of Art
needlework, as a subsidiary branch of furniture art.
So far as to the past. With regard to the future some few remarks may
not be out of place: on the excellence of workmanship, the propriety
of design, and the beauty of decoration.
The altered conditions of a trade such as that of the cabinet maker,
which combines the useful with the agreeable, comely, and beautiful,
in its productions, have been alluded to already. This change must
seriously affect the accomplishments of the workman. Instead of
working under and with his master, he is become one of a regiment of
officials. He cannot identify himself with the entire work of which he
only executes members interchangeable with other members, all
mechanically alike. Again, mortises, tenons, dovetails, and joinery of
all sorts, no longer demand from hand-work the accuracy, neatness, and
perfection of former days. These operations are done for him.
Occasionally he supplements the work of the engine. Like a player who
only plays music occasionally, we cannot expect him to retain all the
fineness of his hand in perfection.
Is the modern workman, then, the equal of those of sixty years since,
whose productions stand so well to this day, because of this
perfection of manual dexterity? It will be difficult to maintain that
he is, but it would be most unjust to deny either that the best
workmanship can be turned out, or that it is turned out, of our great
establishments. This is the work of the most choice and accomplished
hands. In smaller London houses, and in the furniture which we find in
the trade generally, the workmanship is inferior, relatively, to that
of the former period.
The introduction of machinery, however, is a fact, and its effects on
manual skill must be accepted as a necessity. Nor must we pass over
the further fact, that if the modern joiner is not the equal of the
journeymen of Chippendale, he can _do more_. He has powers at command,
and can carry into execution quantities, beyond the reach of
half-a-dozen, perhaps a score of his predecessors. The consumer ought
to reap advantages from this latter fact which he has failed hitherto
to get, as shall be explained presently.
This brings me to the consideration of the proprieties of design, and
the beauty of decoration of our present furniture. If workmanship is
affected by altered conditions of the manufacture, so also is design,
that union of effective and suitable decoration with the required
convenience of each piece of furniture, which may be called _style_.
The artist, as regards his productions or style, is fashioned partly
by what he thinks and loves, partly by his materials and his tools.
With some materials he can do little, for want of tools and
appliances. As regards material, wood remains what it always has been,
but the steam-engine supplies an absolutely new set of tools. What has
been done with them? The impressed marquetry has been mentioned, but
as yet nothing really new has been done by the use of machinery. Thin
veneers which might be cut out with scissors, as if one were cutting
paper in inexhaustible fulness and variety, are restricted, in this
impressed marquetry, to such as can be copied in the coarse material,
zinc, which has to be punched or sawn out for the manufacture. Then
again we have the carving or copying machine. At present nothing more
is done with it than to copy, and to copy somewhat clumsily, in
duplicate or in large numbers, that which has first been carved or
modelled by hand. It would be premature to decide, that with so
powerful a tool in his hand, an accomplished artist trained to use it,
could not produce real and rapid sculpture. But no such artist has yet
stepped on the stage, and it can only be an artist who can put the
matter to a proof.
In following the style and ornamentation of former periods, our new
machinery is in no sense a help to us. The man who cuts out his
material for a Sheraton chair _felt_ what he was going to carve upon,
chose his pieces, arranged the grain, and the spare material just as
he would require it, with careful reference to the use of his carving
tools from first to last. _The pace_, too, required in executing
orders was then more deliberate; costly and elaborate plant and
machinery not being required, provincial workmen of admirable skill
were to be found in many towns. There is no royal process by which we
can put a log of wood into one end of an engine, and find a chair, a
table, or a cabinet at the other. What steam machinery does for us is
to perform with certainty, and with immense rapidity, the simple
operations of sawing, planing, boring, and turning. It is by turnery
that ornamentation is done in the engine. Any length of moulded edges
can be soon turned out, any amount of the parts of panelling, of
turned rails, and of ornaments turned on flat surfaces pressed on the
cutting tool, together with the piercing of fretwork and curved and
shaped edges to boards. The saw being a fixture in this instance, is
an advantage, but machine turnery is not rich in resources. The tool
itself is filed laboriously to the mould required, and the wood merely
pressed against it. When the wood revolves (as in the old lathe), the
turner, with the simple edge of his chisel or his gouge, was the
master of an endless variety of ornament limited only by his fancy or
skill of hand.
It is nevertheless in the turnery and the fret-cutting machinery, that
a furniture artist must find the elements of a style. The man of
genius, the poet and maker, who can throw himself into these elements,
will do wonders with them. The lathe is as old as history. During the
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, turned wood
furniture was made in considerable quantities in this country, in
Italy, and in the Indian possessions of the Portuguese. All the
furniture of Arabs, Moors, and Turks springs from the lathe and the
moulding plane; the tables and stools, the ingenious reticulation of
Cairene geometrical panelling, the screens of woodwork so effective in
the queen of Arab cities and in Damascus are derived from these humble
sources.
To surface ornament of marquetry, occasional carved insertions can be
added. But light, neat, and elegant woodwork, panelling, bookcases,
cabinets, dressers, chairs, and tables, can be turned out without
these additions, and the variety might be endless.
Carved acanthus foliage, bulging legs and surfaces, artistic carving
and marquetry, and chiselled metal-mountings must be the work of
trained sculptors. The engine gives them no real help. To design, that
is invent (not to copy), carving and marquetry that will bear
comparison with the products of Riesener, and of the school of
Gibbons, is not to be done by command of appliances or skilful
workmanship _only_. The artist who is thoroughly at home in designs of
this kind, is the pupil or descendant of masters whose traditions are
well established:
"Fortes creantur fortibus."
But neat furniture, unornamented by hand-work, ought to be turned out
of the engine-room, the perfection of lightness, convenience, and
strength. And here the buyer will look for the advantage of
_cheapness_. We do not find that our large makers supply well-made
machine furniture _cheap_. As a broad rule, prices seem to be
calculated on _what a man would do_, and work done in the machine is
priced, as if a man had made it by hand. In point of fact, five or six
men's work is done in the same time, and the cost of wages charged on
articles so made, will leave a disproportioned profit, notwithstanding
the expense of setting up and maintaining the steam plant.
Decorative furniture can never be had at a cheap rate.
A word, in conclusion, as to the arts which are necessarily pressed
into the service of furniture, and their prospects of the future.
These "sumptuary" arts have been spoken of in these pages as a revival
in furniture and _style_, as dead. The disorders that culminated
in the French revolution cut off our present European thoughts, or at
least our manners and customs, from the past.
We are now trying to revivify past traditions. The furniture makers
have made extraordinary exertions in this direction. How will it be in
the coming years?
Some critics are of opinion that "art manufacture" is a delusion, and
that, if our academicians were equal to the ancient Greeks, we should
not find that rich buyers would care about the shapes of their chairs
(if comfortable), the colours of their walls, and so forth--a singular
delusion. If Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Raphael exhibited at
Burlington House, their pupils and followers would overflow with good
work in various degrees of elaboration. We should find it in our
churches, houses, seats, carriages, and the rest. This is what
_did_ happen when the great artists were flourishing. Ugliness
and vulgarity were not endurable anywhere. Mentor expressed himself in
drinking cups, Cellini in brooches, Holbein in daggers, Michael Angelo
in a candlestick, Raphael culminated in a church banner. The art that
finds its utterances on knobs, or handles, or drawer fronts, is
restricted certainly, because the object is of awkward shape or
surface, is to be handled and used, and is only a part of something
larger. Nevertheless the street of tripods in Athens, the front of the
_biga_ in the Vatican, were "occasions" on which good sculptors
did the best that those occasions allowed of. Four fine silver images,
representing four great provincial capitals, in the Blacas Collection
(now to be seen in the British Museum), were perhaps the ends of the
poles of a Sedan chair.
Objects of this kind, though fragmentary, or slightly worked out, or
combined in some grotesque but graceful fashion, with a piece of leaf
or stalk, are the easy results of long years of mental and manual
training.
The workman artist, therefore, though his productions may not be
thought suitable for the Academy walls, is a child of the same school,
as that which brings forth such portents as Phidias, Praxiteles,
Michael Angelo, and Leonardo, not to speak of our Royal Academicians.
Artists who are "specialists," like Giovanni da Udine, will continue
to do special things only, but those admirably. Where the arts
flourish, there will be a large school that includes half a nation,
artists of all ranges of education, refinement, and knowledge. Some
will sculpture figures for the temple, others will be of the rank of
workmen. Vasari has given full details of the sumptuous furniture
which was executed by the sixteenth century Academicians of Florence.
How are we to procure such teachings? This was the question which
Colbert put to himself in the reign of Louis XIV. He resolved it, by
getting masters and teachers of every kind of sumptuary art from
Italy. The result has been to give the French nation a lead in this
kind of industry, that holds good even amidst the ruin of old
traditions, at this day.
The Kensington schools, and those on the same pattern throughout the
country, are efforts made by the Government to meet the wants of our
manufacturers. They are inelastic, and it is too soon to judge of the
work they are likely to do hereafter. The only great error in such
education would be to train scholars to be "ornamentalists," i.e.
_to teach them conventional art_.
Art is conventional in connection with architecture and furniture,
because in most instances this is all that would be proper or look
well. A good modeller, draughtsman, or carver, would become
conventional just as occasion required, but with no abstract desire
for ugliness or the grotesque. That artists should be generally well
educated and good scholars, and that the profession should possess
knowledge and refinement, is of more importance than most people
suppose. This kind of refinement lay at the root of the universality
of accomplishments of the sixteenth century artists.
Lastly, it is not enough that the profession only should be educated,
so as to supply the manufacturer with designs. It is the rich that
must be taught as well. We are neither Italians nor Frenchmen, and,
indeed, speaking generally, we have not so much sense of beauty and
propriety in art as those races have, even with such degeneracy as
prevails but too widely over the Channel.
It is enough to look at modern London, to listen to the disputes of
committees of management or selection for a public monument, a street,
or a gallery, and to take a glance at their choice, to see what we are
in these respects. But Englishmen are not wanting in genius, and in
the matter of which these pages treat, they have played their part
well in the past.
When buyers know what is ugly, they will not tolerate it about their
houses; the eagerness to possess something new or original will give
place to a just judgment of what is good, whether new or old. Most
periods of good sumptuary art owe their designs to a few old types
constantly reproduced under new and agreeable varieties, that are not
radical changes. To know good from bad in these matters, is the result
not of a natural instinct altogether, but of such a sense instructed
by study, experience, and reflection. Nor, on the other hand, does
such an instinct accompany great intellectual acquirements naturally,
and as a matter of right. A man may possess a vast amount of learning,
statesmanship, or professional knowledge, and be no judge of painting,
sculpture, marquetry furniture, or blue porcelain. Nor, though he
knows something of the history of these objects, will he necessarily
admire and like the best or most beautiful examples. It is this sense
of what is becoming, that has to be learned, though it is occasionally
a natural gift. When whole nations have become used to good domestic
art, public opinion will be sound, and will perpetuate itself as
regards this subject matter, till some great national convulsion
reduces sumptuous living, and refined social manners and habits, to
ruin.