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 craftsmanship of the
last century, which included not only great manual skill, but also an
assured knowledge of the purpose of any given piece of furniture, of the
form best suited for it, and the exact strength of material necessary, a
knowledge which came of long familiarity with the difficulties of design
and execution, 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 sixteenth to the eighteenth century a well-educated English
gentleman had some knowledge of the arts, and especially of
architecture; the Earl of Burlington 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 down hill together, and it is not very certain
that they have yet begun to turn 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.
CARPENTERS' FURNITURE
It requires a far search to gather up examples of furniture really
representative 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 as simply made as a kitchen table, mere carpenters' framings,
were decorated to 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 by a sort
of butter-print patterning, cut into the 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, the cavities being filled
with a coloured mastic like sealing-wax. Panelling, 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 ornament than the purfling at the edges formed by ingeniously
elaborate dovetails 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 tradition carefully and continuously
shapes the object to fill its use, on the other spontaneous and eager
excursions are made into the limitless fields of beautiful device.
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 stretching rails at the bottom and
framed together 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.
The great charm in furniture of the simplest structure may best be seen
in old 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 Duerer 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_"; or
vases of lilies and "pax," angels and 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 development we call Gothic, and
which is ever the well of beauty undefiled, is not now so much
impossible of attainment as 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.
OF DECORATED FURNITURE
Decorated or "sumptuous" furniture 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--1. Large standing objects which,
though actually movable, are practically fixtures, such as cabinets,
presses, sideboards of various kinds; monumental objects. 2. Chairs,
tables of convenient shapes, stands for lights and other purposes,
coffers, caskets, mirror and picture frames. 3. Numberless small
convenient utensils. Here we can but notice class 1, 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
procurable. 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.
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 considered 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 up, resuming proper rigidity _toties quoties_.
To look at the subject historically, it seems that the cabinet, dresser,
or sideboard is a chest set on legs, and that the "press," or cupboard
(closet, not proper _cup_-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 gradually been
lost. Italian, German, English, and other cabinets are often found
representing 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 craftsmen during the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, seem to have been closely allied with
the contemporary Flemings. Fronts of cabinets, dressers, chimneypieces,
etc., were imported from Belgium and were made up by English joiners
with panelling, supplemented with carving where required, for our great
houses. But the best Italian carving remains on chests and chest fronts
which were made 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 to unite the central mass to a shallow 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 coloured surface, and are polished so as to bring
the colour fully out, _and_ to 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 important 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 are filed down. Incrustation, or
_marquetry_, of this kind is costly, and most of it is due to the
labours of artists and craftsmen employed by the kings of France at the
expense of the Government. 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 that the contours of running
mouldings shall not be lost sight of by the carver. 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
exaggerated, figures turned into columns for good reasons, and in the
result successfully. In furniture, as in architecture, carved work or
incrustation is not _free_, but is in _service_; and compromises with
verisimilitude to nature, even violence, may sometimes be required on
details in the interests of the entire structure.
Next let a word or two be reserved for Painted 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
contemporaries, 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._ a small dresser, now in the national
collections, with doors painted by Mr. Poynter, with spirited figures
representing 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.
OF CARVING
It 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
designer, though he may know everything 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
difference 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 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 projection 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 necessarily 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 for carrying out
really important work, 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 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 use of
delicately relieved forms. Here, 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
decorative spirit, his mind is constantly on the general scheme
surrounding his work, and he is always ready to subordinate 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 therefore 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
must be that one sees many columns in 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.
INTARSIA AND INLAID WOOD-WORK