spite of his military brusqueness, was as simple and frugal as our own
Farmer-King, George III, whose grandson he was. Frederik's blue cotton
umbrella is still exhibited as a relic in his apartments in Rosenborg
Castle, and at his death, in 1830, all classes mourned the loss of a
friend. Peasants bore the coffin of the old monarch tenderly to his
last resting-place at Roskilde.
He was twenty years of age when Count Marshal Bülow, with a fatherly
regard for the Crown Prince, and desirous of giving that touch of
refinement denied the youth by the naturalistic theories of Struensee
and the sterner methods of the Queen Dowager, took him from his
military duties to pay early morning visits to the Royal factory.
These glimpses into a world of artistry cannot have been other than
stimulating to the young prince. Struensee's Rousseau-like training
had made him a child of nature, and Juliane Marie had twisted him
into the cast-iron grooves of a stiff and formal Court etiquette. In
regard to art, he came at a time when the love of nature was becoming
paramount. The age was rapidly shaking off the artificial. Sated
with rococo ornament and with insipid and frivolous unrealities, the
pendulum swung to the natural and to the essentially simple. Straight
or shapely curved lines became the fashion. The period of _Louis Seize_
had succeeded the rococo taste of _Louis Quinze_ in Continental art.
=The Taste of the Empress Catherine of Russia.=--From 1784, when he
made his _coup d'état_, Frederik advisedly gave important orders to
the royal factory. In 1790 the _Flora Danica_ service was ordered by
the Crown Prince. It was not at first known for whom it was intended.
The old factory books record it as "_Perle model broge malet med
Flora Danica_" (Pearl body, colour painted with _Flora Danica_). As
the service progressed it transpired that it was to be presented to
Catherine II, Empress of Russia. The modern spirit was in the air,
the new style was realistic and tinged with a scientific _motif_;
moreover, it was to be a gift to a bluestocking. The Empress Catherine
essayed to make her Court the centre of letters and art. At great
cost she purchased the library of Diderot, and invited him to come
to St. Petersburg to be the custodian of his own collection. She
corresponded with Voltaire and she talked philosophy with Grimm, who,
in his celebrated _Correspondance Littéraire_, kept her informed of the
latest plays and books appearing in Paris. She established a French
theatre in St. Petersburg, and fined absentee courtiers fifty roubles
and sent her guards to bring in those who had failed to attend. French
visionaries looked to Russia as a land of promise. Voltaire never tired
of proclaiming that the Mohammedans should be driven out of Europe. And
the Empress Catherine was to be the chosen instrument. The philosopher
of Ferney, with his pen dipped in honey, writes:--
"_Si vous étiez souveraine de Constantinople votre majesté établirait
bien vite une belle académie grecque; on vous ferait une Catériniade;
les Zeuxis et les Phidias couvriraient la terre de vos images; la chute
de l'empire ottoman serait célébrée en grec; Athènes serait une de vos
capitales; la langue grecque deviendrait la langue universelle; tous
les negocians de la mer Egée demanderaient des passeports de votre
majesté._"
The great Danish service was therefore to be a fitting present for
so powerful a queen. For some twelve years the work was continued
uninterruptedly. At first it was designed for eighty persons, and in
1794 no less than 1,835 pieces were ready. The death of the Empress
Catherine II in 1796 precluded the service joining those of Sèvres and
Wedgwood in the imperial palace at St. Petersburg. But its manufacture
was still continued. In 1797 it had enlarged its dimensions, and was
fit for a hundred persons. In 1802 it was stopped. If counted in
English fashion, with lid, bowl, and stand as three pieces, the number
had grown to three thousand pieces, or some two thousand, counting
such vessels as one piece. The dessert service alone amounted to six
hundred and twenty-three pieces, consisting of basket vases, flower and
fruit stands, and, as is usual in dessert services, exceptionally fine
examples, elegant, finely modelled, and exquisitely painted.
The date of the completion of the _Flora Danica_ service practically
coincides with the date of the retirement of Müller from the
directorship of the factory, and therefore with this service ends the
great and prolific Müller period.
In the examination of the _Flora Danica_ service considerable attention
has been paid to the artistic and decorative results, but insufficient
study has been given to the causes which led to the inception of so
scientific an idea in regard to the record of the national flora on a
service of such importance.
[Illustration: FISH-DISH.
With drainer having modelled trout painted in natural colours. From
_Flora Danica_ service made for Catherine II, Empress of Russia.
(_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)]
=Theodor Holmskjold, the Botanist.=--The patron, as we have seen,
was the Crown Prince Frederik. The artist entrusted with the painting
of the work was A. C. Ba er, but the guiding spirit of the enterprise
undoubtedly was Theodor Holmskjold, who was a botanist of some
distinction, had studied under the world-renowned Von Linné at Upsala,
and was his favourite pupil. Holmskjold, a director of the factory
throughout the great Juliane Marie period, and almost to the end of
Müller's long control, brought the scientific spirit of exactitude into
the field of decorative art. Originally by name Holm, he took, after
his ennoblement in 1781, the title of Holmskjold. He was professor
of medicine and natural history at Söroe, the Danish Eton, where he
planned a botanical garden, and later he took part in the management
of the Botanical Gardens at Copenhagen. His work on _Danish Fungi_ is
distinguished by the artistic excellence of the illustrations, which
were made by Ba er. In 1767 he became postmaster-general of Copenhagen.
In 1772, the year of the masked ball at Christiansborg, we find him
cabinet secretary to Queen Juliane Marie. Undoubtedly at that time the
man of science put aside his dried specimens to join in the whirl of
politics and Court intrigue which ended in the seizure of Struensee
and Queen Matilda--the gallows-tree for the dictator and imprisonment
for Denmark's young queen. The classification of _fungi_ was seemingly
little enough preparation for the pinking of Court butterflies, when
plots of assassination were rife, and when the actors' heads were
not secure on their shoulders. But Holmskjold, together with another
student, Suhm, the historian, who came from his library and helped
to make history, ably acquitted himself. He was a trusted confidant
of Queen Juliane Marie. It was he who induced the queen to take up
Müller's company, and himself (then Holm) became one of the directors.
Long after Queen Juliane Marie's power had waned, we find him true to
his allegiance to her, as in 1792 he became chamberlain to her Court.
His connection with Müller was intimate. A widower in 1780, Müller
married Holm's somewhat elderly sister. In brother-in-law Holm Müller
found a good patron. His position at the Court, his relationship with
Müller, his intense desire to win renown for an enterprise to which he
had himself obtained the royal appellation, made him at once a powerful
and interested ally. He died in 1793, before the final completion of
the great service to which his influence had contributed so much,
but not before he had seen the establishment of the Royal Copenhagen
porcelain under the _régime_ of Queen Juliane Marie, his mistress,
attain great eminence and distinction.
It is impossible to ignore Holmskjold's special and particular
influence on the character of the decorations of the great Copenhagen
Catherine II service. The personality of the botanist-director is here
evident. But apart from this individual influence, in an examination
of the causes likely to have contributed to the style of decoration
employed, passing mention must be made of the great national enterprise
planned by Oeder in 1761: the original idea being that all European
Governments should contribute to a series of volumes illustrating the
complete flora of Europe. By this scientific co-operation duplication
was thus to be avoided, and each plant would be described once only.
Denmark alone took sufficient interest in the botanical work to
complete it. Austria touched the fringe of her flora with five hundred
illustrations, and Russia contributed a hundred. So the _Flora Danica_,
under the guidance of several generations of botanists, ploughed its
solitary furrow alone. The first volume, containing the first three
parts, was issued by Oeder in 1766. The plants were painted _in situ_
by zealous artist-botanists who travelled to the remote districts of
Denmark. This magnificent undertaking was in its earliest stages when
the great porcelain service was in contemplation.
It is interesting here to note the further history of the great
botanical work. Five parts were issued by O. F. Müller from 1775 to
1787. Vahl, the great botanist, who died in 1804, followed on by
another five parts, and the next seventeen parts, extending over
a period of thirty-five years, were under the editorship of J. W.
Horniman, who published a history of the progress of the work from
its inception down to 1836. By royal decree in 1847 it was decided
to accept illustrations of Swedish and Norwegian plants not found in
Denmark, thus increasing the scope and value of the work. It was to
be completed in fifty-one parts, and not until the year 1883 was this
great botanical work of the _Flora Danica_ pronounced finished!
It will thus be seen that, apart from Holmskjold's special and
particular predilections, there were general and national impulses
directed towards this work of exceptional character and of European
importance. It may readily be imagined that, prior to the advent of the
_Flora Danica_ service, the artists at the royal factory who painted
flowers had, under the vigilant eye of the specialist director, to
paint them from nature. A convolvulus did not become so decoratively
treated as to evade identification. The Greek honeysuckle pattern of
conventional use would not have passed at Copenhagen. Conventionality
was as much eschewed in decoration as was the rococo in modelling.
It is thus evident that nature and nature study, so remarkable and
beautiful a feature in Copenhagen porcelain, owes not a little to the
trained scientific vision of Theodor Holmskjold, the botanist.
Other factors enter into the question of the consideration of
this _Flora Danica_ service. It is obvious that the national feeling
in artistic and scientific circles was centred on nature and nature
study. Jean-Jacques had shown mankind that Dame Nature was capable of
being wooed with intense passion. It was not until the late eighteenth
century that the beauties of landscape began to be assiduously sought
after. Travellers crossed the Alps from one country to another and
regarded the frowning mountain, the sombre pass, or the rushing torrent
much in the same manner as the unpoetic mariner feared the hurricane.
Nature in her majestic loneliness was appalling. The sunny slopes of
the Apennines concealed volcanic terrors. The smile of the blue Lake
of Como was as treacherous as the dancing waves of the fickle sea
itself. Lakes and mountains and mountain gorges were to be avoided; no
mortal had conceived the idea of discovering their beauty. They were as
fearsome as the Pillars of Hercules to the Latin mariners.
[Illustration: CRUET STAND.
From _Flora Danica_ service made for Catherine II of Russia.
(_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)]
In England, Thomas Gray, the poet, made a journey into Westmoreland
and Cumberland in 1765 to see the Lake Country. His letters are the
first note in English literature of man's kinship with nature. It took
a century for the modern thought to germinate--"great men are part
of the infinite, brothers of the mountain and the sea." As early as
1739, Gray's letters to his mother are filled with passages extolling
the grandeur of the crags and precipices of the Alps, at a time when
Rousseau had not developed his later method, and Vernet had only
commenced to paint the turbulent sea with ecstasy.
In Denmark, in 1790, when the first model of the _Flora Danica_
service was turned on the potter's wheel, this inquiring and reflective
spirit was in the air, and the general tendency manifestly found a
reflex in the great national service being manufactured at the Royal
Porcelain Factory. The Russian Government had already entered into
co-operation in a small degree in regard to bringing the records of the
Russian flora into line with that of Denmark, and Catherine II, as is
known, was the patron of the German naturalist Dr. P. S. Pallas, who,
in 1784, commenced a _Flora Russica_, which was to eclipse anything yet
attempted. This was to be published at the expense of Catherine. At her
wish Pallas had in 1768 undertaken a scientific expedition to Siberia,
which occupied six years.
In this connection, therefore, and knowing the Empress Catherine to
be a votary of science and of art, the services made in England,
France, and Denmark for imperial use were not undertaken without due
consideration of this fact. The Sèvres service was embellished with
the art of the schools of Boucher, Lancret, and Watteau; the Wedgwood
service was frankly topographical, having painted copies, in mulberry
purple, of old engravings, and Copenhagen was designedly botanical,
based on the coloured illustrations of the _Flora Danica_ volumes.
=The Service.=--A notable visitor to the factory at the time of the
inception of the _Flora Danica_ service was the Chevalier Louis de
Boisgelin, Knight of Malta, who published his _Travels through Denmark
and Sweden_ in English in two volumes, at London, in 1810. The Comte
Alfonse de Fortia, his fellow-traveller, had previously published _Les
Voyages de deux François dans le Nord de l'Europe_. As a trustworthy
account of a contemporary eye-witness the opinion of de Boisgelin is
quoted:--
"The most beautiful porcelain likely to be sent for a long time
from this manufacture will be a complete service upon which is to be
represented, in natural colours, all the plants of the _Flora Danica_,
with one upon each piece, large or small, according to the dimensions
of the piece. The name of the plant will be marked under the plate,
and the whole is to be classed according to the Linnæan system. The
drawings are traced with such wonderful accuracy, that the most famous
painters belonging to the manufactory would not undertake so difficult
and slavish a piece of work."
This last statement as to the mechanical accuracy required in the
painting of the flora stamps it as something outside the realm of the
ordinary flower painter, and indicates at once the extreme scientific
definition of drawing required.
The Royal Copenhagen Factory had come to be recognized by other
Continental factories as excelling in the modelling of flowers, and
as exhibiting truthful and natural beauty in their employment for
decorative effect. The originality of the shapes of this service in
comparison with those of contemporary factories shows them to possess
a fine reticence which does not detract from the grand and imposing
character of the imperial service. The border is a new and bold
treatment with serrated leaf design, richly gilded and having three
rows of gilt pearls. In point of decoration the new style is realistic,
but far too scientific in treatment.
As a service it is magnificent. It amply fulfils the great and
inspired conceptions of its originators. Luplau was still a modeller,
skilful and practised in his own field of dignified, restrained,
and well-balanced forms compelling admiration, and the bouquets and
floral ornaments were modelled by Sören Preus. In painted decoration
the scientific atmosphere is only too evident. Ba er's pencil too
faithfully followed the botanical volumes of the _Flora Danica_. Each
piece is different; the whole gamut of the flora was covered, but each
subject was obviously not equally suitable for decorative effect. True
decorative art, however realistic, is alien from scientific exactitude.
The plants with their roots, leaves, and cross-sections of the stems
evade decorative treatment. The scientific spirit is further exhibited
in the written Latin names and references to the text of _Flora Danica_
appearing at the back of each piece. But it must be reiterated that it
was intended as a present to a votary of Von Linné, and the scientific
study of nature had challenged the capture of nature by art.
The magnificence of the great service is the magnificence of a great
series of ceramic volumes, reflecting in another medium the triumphs of
the illustrated volumes of the _Flora Danica_.
It is the first instance of the Copenhagen factory searching for
designs in a domain foreign to the true natural sources of inspiration
proper to the artist designer on porcelain. Another and later instance
is the series of imitative porcelain statuettes after Thorvaldsen's
creations in marble.
CHAPTER VI
EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED
CHAPTER VI
EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED
The "Danish Pattern"--The Bornholm Clay period--Peculiarities in
marking--Table of Marks (old blue-and-white underglaze painted
porcelain).
The blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain of Copenhagen has
become recognized as characteristic of the royal factory and of
Denmark. The original design is of Chinese origin, in common with other
forms of decoration, centuries old, followed by all European potters in
early days when the art of making true porcelain was discovered in the
West. But, like many another transplantation in art, it found congenial
atmosphere, and has become national to the country of its adoption.
The light, graceful plant _motif_ shown in the blue-and-white painted
fluted porcelain is as welcome a sight to Danes the world over as the
slender twin spires of Roskilde Cathedral, where the kings of Denmark
sleep in eternal peace.
The "Danish pattern" bears in a measure a certain relationship to
works in literature where the translation is greater than the original.
This is especially true when the work of a decadent period is
translated into the richer tongue of a more golden age. The English
Bible translated in the time of James I is richer in its fine wealth of
prose than the "original sacred tongues."
Some arts have been lost. It is said that the art of translation has
never been discovered. All have laboured after it in vain; it is as
hard to seek as hidden treasure, and one never finds it. But the Royal
Copenhagen Porcelain Factory found the "hidden treasure" in the design
which has grown into a thousand shapes inspired by the traditions of
Müller, who "laid the East in fee," and whose successors true to his
memory are not those
Who would keep an ancient form
Through which the spirit breathes no more.
From the manor farms of Vendsyssel to the confines of Danish-built
Altona, from the white cliffs of Möen to the ancient roofed city of
Ribe, the blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain plates and dishes
have been family heirlooms since the days of Christian VII.
[Illustration: GROUP OF UNDERGLAZE, BLUE PAINTED.
Bornholm Period.
(_In Museum of Royal Porcelain Factory, Copenhagen._)]
[Illustration: EARLY PLATES.
Painted in blue underglaze, showing variation of national Danish
pattern.
(_At Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]
The _Flora Danica_ service represents the greatest complete
creation in the overglaze painted work of the royal factory, and this
blue-and-white stands as the greatest and most complete creation of the
underglaze work.
It has been advanced, and on sure grounds, that this Copenhagen
blue-and-white porcelain, with its continuity of national design
extending in unbroken line for over a century and a quarter, is the
largest service the world has seen. It has grown by steady process
of evolution into thousands of well-defined forms, rich in inventive
modelling, and keeping abreast with modern requirements, and it is
to this day decorated with the old pattern of the early days. This
of itself is an achievement not equalled by any other factory. A
Copenhagen breakfast set of the twentieth century or a _tête-à-tête_
tea service can stand beside eighteenth-century blue-and-white
porcelain from the same factory, and be in perfect harmony in colour,
in decoration, and in character.
Kindred and allied by birth,
And made of the same clay.
The "Danish pattern" in blue was not long in attracting copyists from
other European factories. To-day in Copenhagen itself English faience
transfer-printed in blue stands as a trade imitation and a tribute
to the genius and originality of its prototype. Possibly the potter
plagiarists may never have heard of the pregnant words of Goethe:
"There are many echoes, but few voices."
=The Bornholm Clay Period.=--Mention has already been made, in dealing
with the early discoveries of Müller and the experiments he made, of
the clay which he found in the island of Bornholm. This clay forms
the body of some of the earliest-known pieces made by him. It may be
readily recognized by its heavy weight and by its grey tone. It is
easy, after making an examination of a great number of specimens of
the old blue-and-white ware, to distinguish this Bornholm period, even
although in the two years (1773-1775) prior to the adoption of the
three blue lines as a factory mark, some pieces bear no mark whatever.
It somewhat resembles certain heavy Japanese ware in its compact and
solid body and grey-blue colour.
The author has made a fairly exhaustive test of several hundred
pieces, both in public and in private collections. The gradual
development in regard to the perfection of the paste and the glaze
is so noticeable that it is possible to place the old blue-and-white
fluted ware in successive grades according to the stages of evolution.
At first coarse, though never meaningless nor offensive, when the ware
was obviously in an experimental period, it betrayed fire-cracks and
warpings in form and slight departures from perfect symmetry. Later it
became whiter and thinner, and was manifestly more completely under the
control of the potter. When the perfected period was reached, there
were tea caddies, pounce boxes, and, in particular, certain dishes, of
which an example is illustrated (p. 169) which are not unworthy to be
compared favourably with specimens of old blue-and-white Worcester of
the early period. There is a delicacy and refinement in the modelling
and potting, and that tenderness in the glaze and thinness in the body
which at once betoken that the technique has been subjected to the
patient potter's control.
[Illustration: GROUP, PAINTED IN BLUE UNDERGLAZE.
_Tea Caddy_, circular. Mark, three lines, figure 1 (blue); II (incised).
_Teapot._ Fine rich blue. Mark, three lines and figure 3 on lid.
_Tea Caddy._ Mark, three lines, figure 2 and two lines (blue); T
(incised).
(_In Museum at Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory._)]
[Illustration: DISH (NATIONAL DANISH PATTERN), AND TWO PLATES.
Decorated with underglaze blue painting.]
=Peculiarities in Marking.=--For the first time in any treatment of
the subject, the potters and modellers' marks are given in a table
appended to this chapter, which the writer hopes will be found useful
in identifying early examples. These hieroglyphics, usually accompanied
by the factory mark of the three blue lines, are painters' marks, and
in the case of incised marks are representative of the modellers or
turners. It may be possible, upon further research being given to the
subject, to identify the individual marks of each painter or modeller,
and thus arrive at some more definite conclusion in regard to the
date at which these early blue-and-white pieces were made. But until
the exact list of painters at the factory, together with the dates
at which they were employed, is subjected to exhaustive research, it
is obviously impossible to establish more than the present series of
marks, with limited conclusions in regard to chronological order.
The marks now given have been specially drawn from old examples of
undoubted authenticity.
There is one peculiarity in connection with the marks found on this
early blue-and-white porcelain. The bases are frequently ground,
and the factory mark of the three blue lines, with an accompanying
painter's mark, are on the base, with little spots of glaze put over
them no bigger than a threepenny-piece. Another idiosyncrasy of
Copenhagen marks, not confined to the blue-and-white, is the almost
hidden position in which some of the marks are found. In overglaze
painted figures the three blue lines will peep from beneath the hem
of some garment. In the blue-and-white examples the mark is sometimes
found on the inside of the handle of a teapot or on a lid. In some
of the earlier pieces the blue mark has turned to black under the
action of the oven. Similarly, in the early days of experiments in
connection with the perfecting of the blue, a series of plates will be
found of exactly the same decoration and bearing the same painter's
signature; but the caprice of the fire, or the inexact knowledge of
the craftsman, has converted the blue of some of them into a very deep
blue, approaching black in tone.
There is no doubt that the old blue-and-white porcelain of Copenhagen
has not yet been exploited by collectors. It came concurrently with
the rich overglaze painting in colours and the magnificence of gilding
for which the Müller period is remarkable. It stands quite apart; its
decoration is underglaze, and not at that time, nor since, has gold
ever been added to this mussel-blue painted and fluted utilitarian
ware other than in very exceptional circumstances. It is simple and
delightful, and what it was in the old days it is now. The style
of painted decoration is perennial. It is a pattern known all over
the world. It has lived for a hundred and thirty-six years. Its
life-history suggests the long-continued idealities of the Chinese
potter or the coloured intricacies of the Persian rug-weaver continued
by the wise children of clever craftsmen with equal fidelity from
generation to generation.
TABLE OF MARKS
(Old Blue-and-white Porcelain Underglaze Painted)
of Painters and Modellers, found usually in conjunction with the
Factory Mark of the three blue lines. Painter's mark in blue.
Modeller's mark incised.
Mark found on examples of the Bornholm clay period, see _Apothecary
Jar_ (illustrated, p. 161).
[Illustration]
On _Oval Dish_, fine body, and with scale pattern decoration in rich
blue. =MII= (incised). (Illustrated, p. 169).
[Illustration]
_Coffee Pot_, Bornholm period, =ML= incised. (Illustrated, p. 161).
[Illustration]
On a _Soup Tureen_, marked at bottom of vessel inside.
[Illustration]
On a _Soup Tureen_, at bottom of vessel inside, =TI= on base (incised).
[Illustration]
Bornholm period mark. On a _Pounce Box_, _Cup_ with spout and handle,
and other examples.
[Illustration]
On a _Plate_ with pierced edge (illustrated, p. 169).
[Illustration]
On a round _Inkstand_ Three lines and cross (in black). =K= (incised).
[Illustration]
On a _Pounce Box_, at Museum, Royal Copenhagen Manufactory. =L=
(incised).
[Illustration]
On a round _Tea Caddy_, with floral decoration. =II= (incised).
[Illustration]
On a _Tea Caddy_. Inside rim (in blue). =T= on base (incised).
[Illustration]
On a _Small Teapot_. Moulded rosebud on lid. Figure 3 (in blue) on rim
of lid. Other mark on base (in blue). (Illustrated, p. 167).
[Illustration]
On a _Compotier_ (in blue). At the Museum, Royal Copenhagen Porcelain
Factory.
[Illustration]
Mark (in blue) on _Plate_ with pierced edge.
[Illustration]
On a _Soup Tureen and Cover_, with lemon and leaves modelled on cover,
natural size. Figure 2 (incised).
[Illustration]
On a _Cup_, and other examples.
[Illustration]
On a _Plate_, at Museum, Royal Copenhagen Factory, and other examples.
[Illustration]
On _Cup_, of unusual decoration, with blue banded ornament.
[Illustration]
On a _Fruit Basket_, pierced work, twisted handles, and roses in
relief. =W2= (incised).
[Illustration]
On a _Jug_ at the _Dansk Folke Museum_, Copenhagen.
[Illustration]
On a _Dish_ at the _Dansk Folke Museum_, Copenhagen. Other numerals are
found from 1 to 7.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII
THE SUCCESSORS OF MÜLLER
(1820-1880)
THE DECADENCE
CHAPTER VII
THE SUCCESSORS OF MÜLLER
(1820-1880)
_THE DECADENCE_
Battle of Copenhagen, 1801--Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton--The
so-called Empire style--The Thorvaldsen period.
The great days of the Müller _régime_ had come to an end. A quarter
of a century of brilliant success was followed by twice that length of
gloom. The Arctic night of early nineteenth-century years had settled
on art. Müller's retirement in 1801 was not the only contributory
cause of the decadence of the factory. The French Revolution had
shaken Europe from end to end. The Napoleonic Wars following in its
wake disturbed serenity and repose in art and letters. The fortunes
of States were in the melting-pot, and destiny was "moulding men in
plastic circumstance." The storm cyclone had more than once centred
around Denmark. The century opened ill for the fortunes of the factory.
In April 1801 a British fleet entered the Sound and engaged in a great
naval battle with the Danish fleet. "I have been in a hundred and five
engagements," said Nelson, "but that of to-day is the most terrible of
them all." The genius of Napoleon conceived the idea of "conquering
the sea by the land," to quote his own words. Paul I of Russia became
Napoleon's ally and tool. Russia brought pressure to bear on Sweden,
Denmark, and Prussia, and these Powers were federated as the "League of
Armed Neutrality," with the avowed purpose of challenging the maritime
supremacy of England. Prussia marched troops into Hanover. Russia
seized all British ships in Russian ports, and every port from the
North Cape to Gibraltar was closed against the British flag. Behind
this combination was the brain of Napoleon.
The story of the battle is well known. The Danes fought stubbornly.
The love of the fatherland and the flag, the split flag of old
Denmark--the _Dannebrog_--a white cross on a red field, was stimulated
by the poets of the day. Old memories were awakened of the days of
Juel, Hvidfeldt, and Tordenskjold. Workmen, peasants from the farms,
and merchants from the city hastened to enroll. The students of the
university, a thousand strong, enlisted to a man. The Danish ships,
supported by the shore batteries, lay in the shallow waters of the
Sound. The attacking party had to navigate their ships through narrow
and dangerous shoals. On the church towers and roofs hundreds of
spectators watched the great fight. There was a dearth of seamen. In
some of the vessels there was, so a Danish account narrates, only one
sailor in twenty. These raw crews were kept at their drill throughout
the night prior to the battle.
[Illustration: LARGE PORCELAIN BOWL.
Painted in colours and richly gilded. Dated 2 April 1801.
With inscription in memory of the brave Danes who fell at the Battle of
Copenhagen
(_At Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]
Writing to the _Times_ in 1801, an officer present at the engagement
says: "The enemy made a very obstinate resistance and fought like brave
men. Most of our ships are very much cut up ... and the vessels which
have been captured are perfect sieves, there being hardly a single
plank in any one of them but has at least ten shot-holes in it. In
fact, it was the most dreadfully fought action that ever took place in
the annals of history." Of the shattered prizes, only one Danish vessel
was fit to be repaired and taken to Portsmouth.
It was at this battle, as every schoolboy knows, that Nelson
disregarded Admiral Parker's signal, "I have only one eye," he said,
turning to his captain, "and may be allowed to be blind on occasion."
Placing the spy-glass to his blind eye he said, "Upon my word, I do not
see any signal."
A young Danish officer, a lad of seventeen, Villemoes, commanding a
floating battery with twenty-four men, stuck to his post till only four
of his men remained. Nelson, after the battle, begged the Crown Prince
to introduce the young officer to him. The brave deeds of two great
fighting races stand out on that day of awful carnage. Captain Larssen,
after the battle, when he appeared in the streets of Copenhagen, was
the object of universal homage as the hero of Bloody Maundy Thursday.
When he passed Amagertorv, the fishwives would rise and make him a deep
curtsy. Yet he passed his days in straitened circumstances and died
well-nigh forgotten. No statue commemorates his memory.
But there is a ceramic record of that day of great battle. We
illustrate a Copenhagen porcelain bowl, with painted scene, showing the
_Dannebrog_ flying and the sea-fight in progress. It was given, painted
in colours, to the officers, and uncoloured to the _sous-officiers_
who fought on the 2nd of April 1801. There is one at the _Dansk Folke
Museum_ and another at Rosenborg Castle, and the few other bowls in
private hands are highly treasured as heirlooms. It is inscribed on a
panel:--
_Tilegnet
O. Fischer
og alle brave Danske.
Kiöbenhavn 2 April 1801,
af
Roepstorff._
(Dedicated to O. Fischer and all the brave Danes. Copenhagen, 2 April
1801, by Roepstorff.)
It is a sad story--the world-wide-empire dreams of one man had
brought devastating ruin to friend and foe alike. There are many
memories of the Battle of the Baltic; many links of friendship between
the island kingdoms by the sea have been forged since then.
Let us think of them that sleep
Full many a fathom deep
By thy wild and stormy steep,
Elsinore!
=Lord Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton.=--The letters of Lord Nelson
at that date have an interesting reference to Copenhagen porcelain.
Apart from finding his portrait on Staffordshire earthenware mugs and
jugs as a national hero, and commemorative of his victories, he took a
considerable pleasure in ceramic art. In 1802 he ordered a Worcester
service, pieces of which are found in the cabinets of collectors. His
letters frequently contain references to his china, e.g.: "I send
by the coach a little parcel containing the keys of the plate-chest
and the case of the tea-urn, and there is a case of Colebrook Dale
breakfast set and some other things."
[Illustration: CUP (1830-1840)
With view of Kronborg Castle, with shipping on the Sound. Painted in
colours and richly gilded.
(_At Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]
After the Battle of Copenhagen one of his letters to Lady Hamilton is
as follows:--
_April 14, 1801._
My dear Friend,
I was in hopes that I should have got off some Copenhagen china to
have sent you by Captain Bligh, who was one of my seconds on the 2nd.
He is a steady seaman, and a good and brave man....
Another letter to Lady Hamilton, written on the following day, runs:--
_St. George, April 15, 1801._
My dearest Friend,
I can get nothing here worth your acceptance, but as I know you have
a valuable collection of china, I send you some of the Copenhagen
manufacture. It will bring to your recollection that here your
attached friend Nelson fought and conquered. Captain Bligh has
promised to take charge of it, and I hope it will reach you safe....
Ever yours, most faithfully,
NELSON AND BRONTE.
At this date Müller had not retired from the factory, and Nelson
undoubtedly procured some specimens of the best period. It is a matter
of conjecture as to whether these examples are now known and in what
collection in England they may be found.
Hardly had the echoes of the booming guns died away when Copenhagen
was again bombarded by a British fleet in 1807, and the Danish fleet
captured to prevent it falling into the hands of Napoleon. A fire
had consumed a quarter of the city in 1795, and, succeeded by these
later calamities, produced a condition of considerable distress and
misery. The porcelain factory had its share of disaster. Falling bombs
did irreparable damage: thousands of pounds' worth of porcelain and
moulds were destroyed. This last blow was indeed a terrible one for the
factory, and helped to complete its ruin.
[Illustration: PLATE.
Painted with flower subject in natural colours overglaze by Jensen.
Date 1827 Rich gilding at border with apparently experimental designs.
Mark three lines and | in blue.
(_At Museum, Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory._)]
=The so-called Empire Style.=--But there came another Continental
movement inimical to art in no less degree than war--the great
inventive spirit which produced the age of machinery. Art grew
impoverished and unfertile. Genius seemed to have descended on the
workshop and the loom. The painter, the designer, the creator of forms,
and the artist in colours lived in a nightmare of banalities. In regard
to England, this industrial revolution has been a most powerful factor
in stifling art. In Denmark, happily, this problem has not even yet
come with overwhelming force, as there are no mines, no copper, iron,
or coal, and the shadowy side of scientific invention and deadening
commerce has not darkened the artistic horizon.
In considering the ceramics of Denmark, it should be borne in mind
that, owing to an isolated northern position, artistic movements
affecting the great European centres were slower in obtaining a
foothold in Copenhagen. This in a great measure explains the steady
growth of national art on its own lines. It was not until 1824, when G.
Hetch became director, that the Copenhagen factory commenced to produce
designs, then almost disappearing in other parts of Europe, in the
Empire style.
Count Caylus in France and Winckelmann in Germany in middle
eighteenth-century days had heralded the oncoming classic movement
which had its _furore_ of simplicity under the Empire.
Sir William Hamilton and Wedgwood had carried on the traditions in
England. The Copenhagen factory at this date followed the decoration of
Berlin and Vienna.
_A Cup_ of this period (1830-1840) is illustrated (p. 185). This cup is
heavily gilded in the prevalent atrocious style. It is finely painted
in natural colours, having a marine scene representing the Castle of
Kronborg, with the Sound, and a vessel in full sail. It was here on the
ramparts that Hamlet met the ghost of his father. To-day the Danish
soldiers in blue uniform keep sentry-go on the platform of the bastion.
The bugle-call echoes across the Sound, and the grey frowning walls
hold the mystery of the poet's dream.
One recalls Hamlet's vigil here, with his "The air bites shrewdly, it
is very cold," and Horatio's reply, "It is a nipping and an eager air,"
and the angry waves beating below and the gathering storm from the
north complete the picture.
We recollect the words--
The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
And remembering, fall in a muse, to be aroused by the note of the bugle
and the clash of arms of the guard.
[Illustration: FIGURE OF MERCURY.
After Thorvaldsen. White porcelain unglazed.]
It was here that Charles XII of Sweden came with an army to lay
siege, and the place where the manacled prisoners sat in the chapel
is yet another link between yesterday and to-day. Here, too, is the
tiny room, the prison of the young Queen Caroline Matilda, with barred
window, overlooking the stormy sea.
The picture of Kronborg Castle on a cup conjures up a list of tragic
memories. It is meet that it should find a record in Copenhagen
porcelain. It is a page from Danish history.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Plates of this period show the heavy style that had descended on the
factory. Deep gold bands enclose a circular picture, painted in a warm
brown colour by Garmein about 1820-1825. They are mainly topographical
in character. A plate painted by Jensen is signed with his initial,
together with the three blue lines as a factory mark (illustrated, p.
189). It is a fine flower-subject in natural colours, representing
primula, blue flowers, and daffodil. The border is richly gilded
and has three distinct patterns; it evidently has been used as an
experimental piece. It is now in the Museum at the royal factory. There
are other plates painted in colours by L. Lyngbe, in 1831 and 1833
respectively, bearing his initial L. They are decorated in rich gilding
by Brandstrup. One represents Söroe (with title on medallion), the Eton
of Denmark. The other is of Prince's Palace, Christiansborg, Copenhagen.
=The Thorvaldsen Period.=--In 1867 the factory came under the control
of A. Falck, and the director Holm, although not capable of raising the
artistic output to its old level, introduced a new feature in a number
of biscuit figures after Thorvaldsen, the great Danish sculptor.
We reproduce the well-known figure of the god _Mercury_, as indicating
the beauty of these productions. Interesting as they are, and
undoubtedly possessing great delicacy as replicas of masterpieces of
another art, the decadent note is still present in denoting that the
modellers had to seek inspiration elsewhere. It is pleasurable to be
able to collect a miniature gallery of Thorvaldsen's work in porcelain,
but the potting and modelling of them added nothing to the creative
faculty of the artists at the factory.
The only productions of importance now conducted were an occasional
jubilee or presentation vase made from Hetch's old moulds, decorated
with a view of some villa or some edifice associated with the person
who ordered the vase. They were usually covered with lilac or purple
ground and profusely gilded.
The flame had not gone out, but it was flickering fitfully, and the
artistic impulses in painting, and the poetry that had never died in
Denmark, were stirring to kindle the fire into renewed life.
Since Höyen, the historian, delivered his lecture in 1844 _On the
Conditions for the Development of a National Scandinavian Art_, artists
had turned homewards. There was the national spirit of the northern
people, the peasants and the fisher-folk, to make the Danish _genre_
picture. There was nothing northern to be found in Rome. Eckersberg had
indicated the way, and with the study of man came the study of nature.
Johann Thomas Lunbye, with his cattle and his forest landscapes, caught
the somnolent air of cattle before Troyon had set the fashion in
France. Peter Christian Skovgaad interpreted the spiritual beauty of
the Danish beech-woods; his favourite light was the cold pale day of
the northern sky with its sober blue. Kroyer, with his _Skagen Fishers
at Sunset_, and his _Fishermen setting out by Night_, surrounds the
_Dansk Folke_ with mystery and poetry.
To these days belong the rejuvenation of Danish art, and what the
painter was doing on his canvas the ceramic artist was shortly to do on
his vase and on his placque. The dawn of the Renaissance was at hand.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MODERN RENAISSANCE
CHAPTER VIII
THE MODERN RENAISSANCE
The after-effects of war--Philip Schou, Councillor of State, rebuilds
the factory--Arnold Krog appointed art director--A new technique
developed--Triumph of modern Copenhagen porcelain--The new
impulses stimulate other European potters--A new note added to
European ceramic art--The avoidance of classic or stereotyped
styles--The idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen--Intense national
sentiment of Copenhagen--Marks of leading painters and modellers.
On the threshold of the great Renaissance of art which re-established
the name and fame of the Royal Copenhagen Factory, it is necessary
to look at the subject from more than one point of view. The fire
which Müller had lit had been burning dimly; indeed, save for the
blue-and-white utilitarian ware, it had almost gone out. The Copenhagen
factory was a century old in the seventies. Most of our English
porcelain factories had put out their furnaces for ever. Chelsea,
Derby, Plymouth, Bristol, and Bow had entered that ghostly realm where
collectors snatch at the body of the potters and posterity portions out
the inheritance of the departed great.
The years of the English porcelain factories, with their triumphs
and their decadence, were compassed within the span of a man's life.
Plymouth and Bristol, the only hard-paste factories, together ran less
than twenty years. Bow succumbed in less than half a century. Chelsea
existed only thirty-nine years, and Derby, with all its vicissitudes of
fortune, changing hands many times, never reached a century old. The
Worcester factory is the only English porcelain factory in existence
to-day with a history which goes back to the middle years of the
eighteenth century.
[Illustration: PLACQUE. WILD GEESE ON ICE.
Painted in underglaze colours by Arnold Krog. Period 1891-1895.]
The half-century from 1825 to 1875, not only in Copenhagen but in
every part of Europe, represents a dead level of banality in art.
Sporadic attempts to awaken enthusiasm or to stimulate public interest
fell on stony ground. Genius unrequited, and hardly recognized,
consumed its life energy in solitary grandeur in many a lonely furrow.
The period is bounded on the one side by the Napoleonic Wars, and
on the other by the Crimean War and by the Franco-Prussian War. In
England, artistic impulses were stifled by the rapid progress of the
age of machinery, led by the Manchester school of thought--Ricardo and
John Stuart Mill. A soil so sterile as this was incapable of producing
the highest artistic results. The treasuries of many of the great
European Powers had been drained almost to depletion by vital wars, and
the little kingdom of Denmark had her share of political troubles. The
war-cloud had settled on the isthmus of Schleswig-Holstein. Prussia and
Austria and Denmark were whirled in a maelstrom of incessant warfare
concerning the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. All the Great Powers
became involved. For forty years the struggle in one form or another
broke out anew like a smouldering fire. It was not until 1866 that the
Treaty of Vienna definitely assigned the future of the duchies to the
Powers. This is not the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of a
prolonged struggle by Denmark against more powerful neighbours, but
in consequence of the widespread arena of conflict, from Missunde to
Jutland, and the large war indemnity paid, it is manifest that the fine
arts came very near extinction in such troublous times, when blow upon
blow was rained upon the kingdom of Denmark.
The fortunes of the factory were at a low ebb, as we have seen in
dealing with the decadent period. But in 1883 the models, stores,
and other effects of the factory were sold to the limited company
"Aluminia." From this date a new future commenced for the factory.
=Philip Schou rebuilds the Factory.=--The hour demanded the man,
and the man was Philip Schou, who came as the pioneer of modernity.
In the outskirts of the capital, close to the park of the Castle of
Frederiksberg, large buildings were erected, containing workshops
provided with the latest improvements in machines and kilns of the
newest designs. The ovens were much larger than the older type, and
designed to hold about 15,000 pieces of average size. These drastic
changes at the dawn of the Renaissance, entirely due to the foresight
of Schou, necessitated the expenditure of a considerable amount of
money. It is not surprising to find that during the first years the
undertaking, from a financial point of view, did not prove successful.
This, at the time, except to Schou, may not have been recognized as
the happiest omen, but it is a postulate that art and commercialism
do not usually thrive together. It was the same in Müller's day; it
has always been an admitted fact, and it always will be acknowledged
that the cloven hoof of commercialism has marked the oncoming of a
decadent period. But Philip Schou had ambitions and desires which
no reverses could thwart. His practical grasp of the situation and
his perspicacious conception of future possibilities, which have now
been realized, stamp him as a man possessed of that rare combination
of poetry and practicability which marks the pioneer of any great
enterprise.
[Illustration: PLACQUE.
With autumnal scene painted in underglaze colours. By Arnold Krog.
Period 1896-1900.]
There are triumphs of great business organization which compel our
admiration in no less degree than artistic achievements won in equally
adverse conditions. To build up the decayed fortunes of a moribund art,
to combat financial disaster and impending ruin, require indomitable
courage and intensity of application which cannot be classed other than
as genius.
The great period of Müller and the great triumphs were sinking into
oblivion. Of the once famous factory it seemed as though little
might be left but the name. The old models of beautiful symmetry had
long been set aside or even destroyed. The favourite blue-and-white
service, the national pattern treasured as the remaining heirloom,
had lost all its style and harmony. Haphazard conditions prevailed
and slovenly results predominated. Originality had taken wing and
deserted the old factory. The old mussel design was painted on any
form that found its way into Denmark from other factories. Copenhagen
was content to follow, and leave art and prestige to take care of
themselves. Now and again artistic productions, such as a wedding or
a jubilee vase made from the old moulds, like milestones, marked the
road. With this material, with its poverty of art and paucity of ideas,
the new director, shrewd and energetic, saw that no headway could be
made. A demand for artistic and original decoration of articles of
domestic use and luxury was just making itself felt, and there was some
talk of creating a national Christian VI style. But the factory has
accomplished something greater--it has created a European style.
The early days of the factory, with its new impulses and its youthful
spirit of modernity, are reflected at once in the first attempts to
inaugurate something of artistic and permanent value. The comparison
between Schou and Müller holds good in many respects. They both were
men in advance of their day. They were builders, not only in the sense
of being pioneers of an artistic industry, but in the practical sense
of laying down ovens and expending money on valuable plant as a means
to the great end they had in view. The struggle against adversity, the
accumulating cloud of financial losses, the want of outside support,
are common factors in both these men's sturdy fight against failure.
Müller had to combat the inheritance of failure left by Fournier, and
Philip Schou had to overcome the deathly inertia that had paralysed
the factory during the decadence. It is not easy to find co-operation
in face of a general tendency in an opposite direction. Mediocre minds
find it more congenial to float unconcernedly with the stream. Schou
was the strong swimmer fighting against the current.
There is one other point where he claims kinship with Müller; he was
felicitous in the selection of his lieutenants, and his choice of
artistic assistance to further his ambitions was as wise as it was
phenomenally prescient.
[Illustration: PLACQUES.
Painted in underglaze colours. Diameter 9 inches.
Kestrel by V. Th. Fischer. Meadow with farmhouse by C. F. Liisberg.]
=Arnold Krog appointed Art Director.=--In 1885 Arnold Krog became an
artist at the factory. Trained as an architect and a painter, he had
already spent five years in the restoration of Frederiksborg Castle,
and like those old Italian craftsmen who made all art their domain, he
came to the decoration of porcelain with instinctive appreciation of
its qualities.
A happier combination than this could not have been desired. Schou,
the business head, the man of strength of purpose, tenacity of will,
battling with stern facts and figures, and Arnold Krog, the artist and
dreamer, inventing new forms, wrestling with technical problems with a
practical skill wedded to poetic impulses.
The days of early Renaissance were filled with eager incessant work,
and whatever difficulties surged up to the doors of the factory, Schou
resisted them bravely. He believed in the future of the factory, he
believed in the work of the artists. It was this great proud belief of
a great man in his life's work that created the second great period in
the history of the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. This quotation
from a fellow-worker of that date shows how lovingly his memory is
still cherished: "Optimistic and broad-minded man as he was, he firmly
believed that the factory would succeed in spite of all difficulties.
He did not look for immediate profit, but left us to work in peace,
undisturbed by all the anxieties and pecuniary difficulties with which
he, as managing director, must have had to contend."
=A New Technique developed.=--In regard to the direction in decoration
which the new porcelain took, it is interesting to realize how distinct
a departure this was from contemporary art. The moment that Arnold Krog
awakened to the fact that the body of the porcelain is smooth, white,
hard, and of surpassing beauty, that moment determined its future.
To cover it with colours or with gold in the overglaze style, as his
predecessors had done, was at once to extinguish its innate loveliness.
If blue dots and lines could be painted on plates, surely, thought the
new art director, other artistic designs could be produced in the same
manner. From these premises the principle of underglaze painting was
accepted, and has been since followed so successfully.
The determination of the method employed immediately led to the
inquiry as to the exact definition such painting was to take. The
difficulty now was to decide what to paint. It was obvious that mere
ornamentation would lead to nothing new. Could Europe teach Copenhagen
anything? It apparently could, at that stage. Accordingly, Philip Schou
and Arnold Krog made a tour of Holland, Belgium, France, and England,
and visited many of the leading factories. At the Antwerp Exhibition
they saw many beautiful things from Sèvres and the other great European
factories, but they had to admit that their journey was in a great
measure fruitless, as they did not discover what they sought--new
impulses for original work.
It was not enough that all traditional arabesques and scrolls should be
discarded: the plain white resplendent surface of the ware demanded its
place in the scheme of decoration.
At Paris, Arnold Krog visited the collection of M. S. Bing, who had
just returned with rich treasures of Oriental art from China and
Japan. These masterpieces in bronze, earthenware, porcelain, and
ivory, together with drawings and colour-prints with endless variety
of composition, brought with them an atmosphere of ancient culture,
artistic genius, and unerring instinct, and to the mind capable of
unlocking the mysteries of the old unexplored East they revealed their
secret.
The immediate results indicate clearly enough that Copenhagen had not
"jumped a claim" and found treasure-trove upon which she could live
till others gained the secret. There was no slavish imitation of the
designs of the Oriental potter, as was the case with Sèvres and with
Worcester. With true vision, the results of the East were traced to the
original source of inspiration, and henceforth Nature in all her forms,
in all her varying phases and moods, became the mirror into which
Copenhagen looked to see herself reflected.
With such an ideal before the factory there was work enough for
all and much to be accomplished. The records of this period show the
incessant labours of all concerned in building anew the fortunes
of the factory. Liisberg the sculptor was appointed modeller, and
a young apprentice, Hallin, was made his assistant. The extreme
difficulty of the technique offered frequent disappointments. The
tone is determined by the exact thickness of the layer of pigment
applied, and it is impossible to distinguish between the different
shades before the firing has taken place. The only guide in this
work is a fine instinct. But the enthusiasm of the little band of
workers, modellers and artists, was not damped by the vagaries of the
furnace. With little enough by way of precedent to guide them, they
attained a sure and unerring technique and a complete mastery over the
idiosyncrasies of the medium in which they worked. These early years of
intense application have created traditions for the factory, and the
days of Philip Schou stand as never to be forgotten in the strenuous
outburst of initiative industry which has raised a monument to Danish
handicraft and culture. In 1902 Philip Schou resigned his position
as managing director, and it is pleasurable to record that in a full
and complete life he has seen his early dreams realized. He received
decoration at the hands of foreign Governments, and in 1888 was made
a knight-commander of the Legion of Honour. Copenhagen porcelain had
won European distinction, being acclaimed as adding new impulses and
teaching a new technique to the older factories.
[Illustration: PLACQUES.
Painted in underglaze colours. Diameter 9 inches.
Bird subject by V. Th. Fischer.
Cow in meadow at edge of lake by G. Rode.]
The early successes of the porcelain were as surprising to the leading
experts of Europe as they were gratifying to the pioneers of the
Copenhagen Renaissance. It is an interesting fact that the first piece
painted in underglaze colours was bought in September 1885 by the Duke
of Sutherland, whose yacht was lying in the Sound. The Duke paid a
visit to the royal factory, and although at that time only three pieces
were finished, he carried off a specimen decorated with a stork flying
over a lake. Such an historic piece as this is now worth a considerable
sum.
=Triumph of Modern Copenhagen Porcelain.=--At the great International
Exposition at Paris in 1889, the Royal Copenhagen exhibit attracted
unusual attention. Although the factory was not then in a position to
make a grand show of large or costly pieces, French collectors and
connoisseurs besieged the show-cases, and the demand far exceeded the
supply, ten times the price asked being offered in many instances by
disappointed collectors. Within fourteen days of the opening of the
Exhibition everything of any artistic value was sold. Coupled with this
commercial success came the award of the _Grand Prix d'honneur_, a rare
distinction at that time, especially for so small an undertaking.
At this Exhibition the coloured crystalline glazes were shown for
the first time. These, now so well known in the adoption by most
of the leading factories of the world, were discovered in 1886 by
Clement, the chemist at the Royal Copenhagen Factory, and perfected by
his successor, Hr. Engelhardt. (This crystalline ware is dealt with
separately in Chapter X.)
The days of the early Renaissance were full of promise--a promise
that has not been unfulfilled. The old factories, with traditions of
a century and a half, threw off their lethargy at the trumpet-blast
of modernity. The Copenhagen factory was like the fairy prince of
the romantic tale who blew the magic horn and awakened the sleeping
princesses.
=The New Impulses stimulate other European Potters.=--Art criticism
of this period abounds in glowing tribute. M. Edouard Garnier, one of
the directors of the Sèvres factory, wrote in the _Gazette des Beaux
Arts_ in 1889: "Not one of the foreign porcelain factories which in
1878 threatened to become dangerous rivals to us seems to have made
any progress; on the other hand, the beautiful exhibits of the Royal
Porcelain Factory of Copenhagen are quite a revelation to us: they show
quite a new spirit in the art of porcelain-making."
Among the varied developments at this time considerable attention
was given to the form of the blue-and-white "mussel"-painted ware, and
a wonderful variety of shapes followed each other in quick succession.
All the old artificial and oftentimes meaningless designs which had
crept in during the decadent period were discarded, and were replaced
by tasteful and natural designs which were conceived with a view to
the characteristic lines in their decoration. The great and wonderful
inventiveness and rich variety of this table ware in its thousand forms
are therefore the consummation of the incessant search for truth and
symmetry and beauty which characterized the early Renaissance period.
[Illustration: PLACQUE.
Painted in underglaze colours, by C. Liisberg. Diameter 12 inches.]
If proof be needed of the great influence Copenhagen art exercised on
contemporary ceramics, the proof is ready to hand. Just eleven years
after the Paris Exposition of 1889 came the great Exposition of 1900,
and an examination of the _grand-feu_ specimens of the Sèvres factory
shows to what extent the delicate tones of the new Copenhagen technique
in underglaze painting had affected the French potters. Crystalline
glazes had by this time been developed. In 1894 M. Edouard Garnier,
of the National factory at Sèvres, in again passing judgment upon the
work of Copenhagen, refers to the fact that two specimens exhibiting
"marvellous skill in the execution"--the _Flight of the Sparrows_ and
the _Lilacs_--were bought for inclusion in the modern collection of
ceramic art of the Sèvres Museum, and to this museum Hr. Philip Schou
sent the first specimens of varied colorations "_au grand feu_" and
the experiments made by Hr. Engelhardt of full or partial crystallized
glazes.
In regard to the general atmosphere of the _grand-feu_ ceramics, the
Sèvres factory had by 1900, the year of the Exhibition, turned with
such fond eyes to Copenhagen that the results then offered, triumphs
though they were, reflected something more than usual of the Northern
spirit. For instance, one remembers the two great biscuit groups
in hard porcelain for table decoration at the Élysée, by Frémiet,
the master sculptor. These were 4 feet 8 inches in height, and were
marvels of fabrication. The one was the Athenian _Minerva_, and the
other the Scandinavian _Diana_ standing in her chariot, with a hound
at her feet and driving two reindeer. These were the first pieces of
so great a size ever made in biscuit at Sèvres. Figures of Northern
animals followed the success of the factory by the Baltic, and there
was one, a _Wolf_ tracing human steps in the snow, by M. Valton, which
won commendation. Nor was this all. The grey tones were successfully
reproduced in the _Danish Dogs_, by Gardet.
There is no greater tribute to pay to the inspiring genius behind the
Royal Copenhagen Factory than to enumerate these instances of old
factories with the prestige of Sèvres and Meissen hailing the newly
awakened spirit of a younger factory. On every side, in these days,
came the tribute of praise generously given by masters of technique
and by rival workers in art. The Renaissance was something more than a
name--it had become an accomplished fact.
The great achievement of the modern Renaissance period is the creation
of a new technique in underglaze decoration, which has added something
to modern European ceramic art. The underglaze blue, employed at the
old royal factory by Müller, was familiar from early Meissen days.
But the revelation that underglaze painting of landscape had become
something more romantic than Chinese prototypes was a fact only
realized after Copenhagen had made successful experiment. The landscape
of the Oriental potter, at the best, had something of formality and
followed a convention alien to Western laws of perspective. Differing
essentially from the enamel colours of the overglaze Continental work,
and not less so from the glost-kiln colours of the English factories
in their underglaze work, the _grand-feu_ colours, with their scheme
of harmonies imparted something fresh and original to the art of the
modern potter.
It is, therefore, of great interest, commingled with considerable
speculation, to contemplate the various stages of evolution of this
characteristic style, and to await the future phases of its development.
In reviewing the work of this Renaissance period, an attempt has
been made by the writer to arrive at some conclusion as to that exact
point of time at which the genius of the factory reaches its whitest
heat during a brilliant quarter of a century of work. In a rich field
of design which exhibits so much character and freshness, when new
surprises may come forth from the oven at any moment, no inconsiderable
difficulty presents itself in selecting any period where the work is
more excellent.
Happily, in contemplating the underglaze productions of Copenhagen,
there is an extended period which may be passed in review. It is
perhaps natural, when making tests of the general output of work, to
select the middle years as productive of ceramic art of the highest
order. There is the advantage in point of date of being able to apply a
standard to it, either side by side with earlier work, or in comparison
with later creations in the same style of decoration by the same band
of artists and modellers.
The number and character of the decorative pieces produced at the Royal
Copenhagen Porcelain Factory during the ten years from 1896 to 1905, to
which the highest praise has been given, seem to indicate that a close
investigation of the details of the work of the individual modellers
and artists might with advantage be pursued by those cosmopolitan
collectors intent on acquiring masterpieces representative of the
highest modern ceramic art.
[Illustration: PLACQUE. SNOW SCENE WITH SETTING SUN.
Painted in underglaze colours. Signed A. Smidth.]
Personal tastes and predilections are not unimportant factors in
passing judgment upon the present-day work of the factory, but the
authorities of museums in various parts of the world, whose standard
is a high one, have not hesitated in selecting modern examples of
Royal Copenhagen porcelain. In following the trend of the development
of the porcelain since the great outburst in 1900, when at the Paris
Exhibition by general acclamation Copenhagen was acknowledged to be
ahead of all other European factories, disinterested critics and less
disinterested competitors have eagerly watched the progress of the
Danish ware. Art requires no passport to cross international barriers,
and foreign experts have enthusiastically admitted that the work of
Copenhagen is of surprising beauty. At successive exhibitions, when
nation has stood in friendly rivalry with nation, the ceramic record
of Copenhagen has not been dimmed by equal work. So far it is still in
advance of every one in Europe. Imitators it has, and, as the old adage
puts it, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
The question is always asked of factories "with a past," whether it
be Sèvres or Meissen, Wedgwood or Worcester--Is the work of to-day
an echo of past glories, has the lamp burned dim, is the sacred fire
still alight? In regard to other factories this is not the place to
make any pronouncement, nor is it impossible to say that at any moment
the spirit of the presiding genius of these great factories with great
traditions may awaken to inspire anew the modern potters upon whom
the mantle of succession has fallen. To cover European factories in a
survey is often to come upon silent and deserted temples with decrepit
worshippers offering sacrifices to a dim and distant past. But the
oracle may yet speak.
It is here that Copenhagen, with its great period of overglaze work,
under the Müller _régime_, holding equality with the great factories
of its day, as we have shown in earlier chapters, now comes forward
with a second great period of underglaze work, bearing no immediate
relationship with the first. Holger Danske has awakened to give magic
potency to the Danish art.
The following are the chief characteristics of Royal Copenhagen
porcelain. It is always hard fired _au grand feu_, and the various
classes of the underglaze decorated ware may be summarized as follows:--
=Underglaze Painted=
I. _Individual Pieces._
Vases and placques signed by the artists who have painted them. Such
unique specimens of personal work are never reproduced.
(A list of artists, with facsimile reproductions of their signatures,
will be found at the end of this chapter.)
II. _General Art Objects._
Vases, placques, bibelots, and ornamental subjects.
These are designed with a view to general production, and this practice
has originated since 1893.
[Illustration: PLACQUE.
With geese and landscape painted in underglaze colours. Signed C. F.
Liisberg.]
In this class may be included the collection of Commemorative
Placques designed by Arnold Krog. The number struck of these is
limited, and they are never repeated after the occasion for which they
were made (see p. 243).
More strictly utilitarian ware is represented by the continuous output
of the blue-and-white fluted service, to which new forms are constantly
being added.
III. _Figure Subjects._
Peasants, children, and animal life--quadrupeds, birds, and fish--all
modelled directly from nature.
IV. _Vases and Modelled Subjects with Coloured or Crystallized Glazes._
This style was commenced at Copenhagen as early as 1886, and is
described in detail, Chapter X.
=Overglaze Painted Porcelain=
Revival of porcelain in the style of the Juliane Marie period, modelled
and decorated from old and rare examples. This is the latest phase of
development.
* * * * *
In tabulated form some conception may be formed as to the classes into
which the work of the modern Renaissance may be divided. Something
must be said about the immediate causes which directed the line of
progression and advancement in the course it has taken.
The principles of decoration especially applying to porcelain, smooth,
white, and hard, such as this, have been realized to the full by Arnold
Krog, the art director of the factory.
The uttermost developments of the underglaze painting are governed by
the axiom that such a fine body as that of the Copenhagen porcelain is
instantly destroyed by being covered with colours or with gilding. The
old Danish mussel-blue painted underglaze dinner ware is the skeleton
upon which the fabric of the modern Renaissance movement has been built.
=The Avoidance of Classic or Stereotyped Styles.=--Something of the
forcefulness of the originality of Copenhagen may be gathered from a
brief hypothetical survey of what divergent paths design might have
taken even at that critical moment when it was determined to employ the
underglaze colours for decorative landscape subjects. The conventional
panel might have been still employed, and with it the formal scenes
of gardens with cavaliers and ladies, bringing the Chinese landscape
subject into Western perspective, and at the same time eschewing
the vivid colours of Sèvres or Meissen. Or underglaze painting, in
blue and the other _grand-feu_ colours, might have found itself in
panels supplemented by overglaze enamel colours of bright tone, in
floral decoration, or _œil-de-perdrix_ and other luscious patterns,
and richly gilded. It might, not unnaturally, have appeared to be
a safer beginning to develop the Danish conventional pattern into
something more intricate in design, with geometrical borders and formal
floral painting or with old Scandinavian interlaced designs of Runic
character, exhibiting the newer advance of underglaze treatment.
Copenhagen, with wise rejection, took none of these courses, and
the Renaissance leapt into being not only with new applications of
underglaze painting, but with a complete and rapidly perfected theory
wherein the subject became a ceramic poem. Throwing all convention
to the winds, it brought tone to underglaze painting, and within the
limits of the potter's technique, the same relative atmospheric quality
to the decorated vase or placque as there is on the canvas of the
painter.
The porcelain found itself in an incredibly short time, and rapidly
passed through its initial stages. The first light had come from the
East. The influx into Europe of some of the finest art work of Japan
had a marked effect on design.
But Krog's genius was too original to snatch at the body; he caught
the spirit of the best, and the first attempts have a slight indication
of their origin, till with full strength Copenhagen needed no guiding
hand to lead her to the inspiration of all true design. The simple
forms of nature were translated into ceramic art, and the melting,
dreamy, sad-hued porcelain was imbued with the subtle effects of
the Danish landscape. The great simplicity of _motif_ was the great
simplicity of genius. The effects are so natural and reticent that
their greatness might well escape common observation. But the trained
eyes of half the potters in Europe and of connoisseurs of the highest
ceramic art were turned, and are turned still, to the output of
the Copenhagen factory. _Summa ars est celare artem_ is eminently
applicable to the art of Arnold Krog and the band of Danish artists
trained under him. There is nothing showy or clever, nothing cheap or
meretricious in all their work. Everything that has come from Krog's
hands has been well conceived, and an honest attempt made not to win
admiration but to make one step forward in artistic evolution towards
the ideal. Without seeking reward he has won the esteem of the cultured
critics of a whole continent.
=The Idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen.=--Wherein lies the strength of
Copenhagen porcelain? The mysteries of underglaze did not originate
in Denmark. The blue, greenish-yellow, brown, sea-green, maroon,
lemon-colour, celadon-green, and red, are colours found painted under
the glaze in old Chinese examples in collections in various European
museums. But there is a difference. Chinese landscapes in blue have
a charm and atmosphere of their own, although the European taste
has shown a marked preference for enamel-painted porcelain of more
brilliant colours. The underglaze of the East was mainly confined to
decorative conventional treatment. There is the exquisite family of
jars, designed as presents at the New Year, painted underglaze, with
the prunus blossom, and geometric pattern representing the breaking
ice. These are grotesquely termed "ginger jars" in the jargon of the
auction-room, and fine specimens bring immense prices under the hammer.
In a measure these, and vases and beakers with floral decoration, and
cups and saucers, with dragons or with the well-known "aster" pattern,
may be regarded as conventional. From these prototypes Meissen and
Sèvres and Worcester drew many fine inspirations.
In underglaze blue painting there is another class with landscapes and
figures, such as bowls, of which there are infinite variety, which
convey, in lieu of regular ornament, a certain atmosphere. Even the
ordinary ginger jar of commerce, if it be old enough, exhibits a most
alluring suggestiveness. These designs appear to be traditional on
common ginger jars half a century apart in point of time. There is a
background of mountains, and stretch of sky with a triangular flight
of birds, flying high. There is a tree in the foreground, and a rustic
homestead. On a bank a fisherman casts a line into the water, and away
on the expanse of lake stands a junk. The whole is crudely and hastily
drawn, and one jar, if not exactly the counterpart of another, has the
same details in the scene. But, curiously enough, there is a poetry
and depth of tone about these common ginger jars which is difficult to
define.
To arrive at a technical reason for these differences in styles is
to examine the theories governing the art of ceramics. To take the
overglaze painting; this may be compared to the canvas of the painter
which is covered with pigment. His sky is blue or red or yellow or
an admixture of all three; the reflections of light on the water are
touches of pigment. There is no part of the canvas over which his deft
brush has not travelled. The underglaze painter on porcelain is like
the etcher, who obtains his illumination from the uncovered surface of
the copper upon which he works. The untouched portion of the plate of
the etcher forms the wide expanse of sky, and gives luminosity to the
deeply bitten lines of his subject. Similarly, in underglaze painting
on porcelain, the dazzling white expanse of the body, afterwards to be
coated with limpid transparent glaze, is the background into which the
design of the artist must imperceptibly melt. It is this depth of tone
and atmosphere which give poetic charm to underglaze painting.
But the _subject_ is not left to take care of itself. Without pictorial
indefinition the work may still remain on the plain of formal
decoration even though that be superlatively conceived and executed.
[Illustration: VASE.
Painted in underglaze colours by V. Th. Fischer. Height 13 inches.]
[Illustration: VASE.
Painted in underglaze colours by C. Liisberg. Height 20 inches.]
What is it that one sees when one comes face to face for the
first time with a Copenhagen vase of this golden period? The merest
dilettante in porcelain-collecting must at once recognize something
that he will find nowhere else in his cabinets. In form there is
always, necessarily, a full expanse to carry the subject, if it be
landscape. Nor is there a front and a reverse, as in the old school of
conventionally treated landscapes circumscribed by panels. There is a
breadth and continuity of subject traversing the circumference of the
vase, which, from new points of view, offers new surprises.
The body is white and hard and of ivory-like closeness when seen by
transmitted light. The rich liquid glaze has a slight greenish tone
and has a surface like polished crystal. The quality of this glaze is
exceptionally fine and possesses artistic properties peculiarly its
own. In modelled subjects such as fish this is especially noticeable.
In the noble figure of a _Sea Lion_, this glaze simulates the original
so skilfully that the sensation conveyed is exactly that of the smooth,
sleek, satin-like texture of that animal's body. It is obvious that
with such a vehicle as this glaze the effects produced in landscape
painting are those seen in nature in the sun-pierced vaporous haze of a
climate remarkable for its exquisite tones.
In colour the subjects appear in low tones of subtle elusiveness,
never, by reason of the technique of the underglaze palette, departing
from the strictly limited range of colours we have enumerated. The
tones of all these are pitched in a minor key. The brilliance of the
painter in enamel is conspicuously absent. There is no scarlet, or
bright yellow, or mazarin blue, or vivid green. The charm of colour
lies in its exquisite delicacy. It is the highest ceramic landscape
painting offered to the delectation of those possessed of sufficient
connoisseurship to appreciate the supreme handling of a difficult
technique.
It departs from the Chinese prototypes in underglaze blue. The deep
blue of Nankin is delightful in its poetry, but it is a convention that
landscapes are painted all blue. Copenhagen becomes more realistic, but
no less poetical, with added touches of amber, and mauve, and grey, and
sage green, and the blue, pale and tender, carries out a colour scheme
which stamps this Western art as something original and ideal.
It is thus seen that in body and glaze and colouring Copenhagen has
excellent points challenging comparison with anything that has gone
before. But with these technical problems solved satisfactorily,
there is yet something to be added, which has created a reflective
school of design and elevated Copenhagen to its present status. This
quality, difficult to describe, and yet ever-present in the results
when submitted to definite criticism, may be roughly summarized as
consisting of two essential traits of disciplined art--the apt choice
of decorative subject and the complete mastery exercised in fittingly
decorating the object.
[Illustration: DECORATIVE MEMORIAL PLACQUE.
By Arnold Krog.
Commemorating the restoration of Ribe Cathedral, Denmark.]
Apart from the technical excellence of selection of idea and
symmetrical incorporation with the form under decoration, there is the
national spirit, which is the soul imparted to the work of artists
filled with intense love of nature. This charm, lightly and daintily
woven into the dreams which the porcelain conveys in dim mysterious
manner, cannot be captured by the snare of the imitator.
The Western potter hitherto had not quite realized that he must be a
poet as well as a potter. To study Copenhagen porcelain is to read
poetry conveyed in another medium than printing-ink and paper. Nor
is this new of the highest ceramic art. To contemplate old Chinese
porcelain is not to think in poetry but to speak in poetry. Great
potters have twin souls the world over. The Chinese themselves have
terms for their own ware which indicate the plane on which all great
ceramic art should stand. To one colour is given the term "the
moonlight," to another "the blue of the prune skin," to another "the
violet of the wild apple," to another "the liquid dawn," to yet another
"the red of the bean blossom." Descriptions of certain ware and certain
colours and glazes become little poems, such as the account of the
Ch'ai Yao--"As blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as thin as paper,
and as resonant as a musical stone of jade." Nor is Chinese literature
wanting in reiterated allusions to the beauty of the national
porcelain. The wine cups are likened to "disks of thinnest ice" or to
"tilted lotus leaves floating down a stream."
The strain of poetry, so pronouncedly a feature in modern Copenhagen
work, is noticeable even in the old overglaze decorated porcelain.
The innate love of nature found expression in its refusal to follow
stereotyped forms of ceramic decoration. The national note never
departed except during the decadence. The _Flora Danica_ service,
with its stiff and painstaking decorations in botanical style, was a
monument to national ceramic art. The modern spirit, with its landscape
and realism, is crystallized in a great gallery of placques and vases,
and may be said to embody the _Poetica Danica_--the new interpretation
of nature. The flowers are no longer botanical specimens pressed
between the pages of a ceramic album. They are painted _in situ_,
and become delicate units in dream pictures, beside still lakes or
embosomed in grassy dells.
=Intense National Sentiment of Copenhagen Style.=--The Renaissance
period is at once national and reflective of the moods of the land of
its origin. The illustrations appearing in this chapter faintly suggest
the luminosity of the originals, but in their selection an attempt has
been made to show that a certain ordered progress has been at work. The
earlier examples are significant of the lingering traces of Oriental
suggestion, rapidly and completely assimilated, and any mannerism,
if such there be, was pushed aside by the native growth of vigorous
inventiveness and the rich profusion of forms and designs not dependent
on any outside influence.
To compare Japanese art with that of Copenhagen is to compare two
parallel lines which only meet in infinity and never coincide. Truth
and sincerity, love of nature, and mastery of form are common to
the Japanese and the Danish ceramists. But the former reflect the
brilliance of colour harmonies of a land teeming with rich colour and
steeped in Oriental tradition. The mirror is held to national life and
sentiment, and accordingly movement, humour, poetry, are essentials in
Japanese pottery.
The art of Copenhagen equally reflects the national life and character
under a northern sky. Pensive, dreamy, tinged with the stillness of the
Arctic night, with its violet sky, the wistful art of the North never
attempts the sensuous moments of the art of the Far East. The beauty of
form is reticent and reposeful. The range of the _grand-feu_ colours
coincides exactly with the tender colours of the little kingdom, and
the melting glaze adds that luminosity which makes the Danish landscape
so _spirituelle_.
Danish art has never attempted to be Japanese; on the other hand, Japan
has seriously realized that the art of Copenhagen is worth the copying,
and has done this with a light heart.
Again and again one is struck with the originality of a design new
to ceramic decoration. The _Placque_, of the period 1896 to 1900
(illustrated, p. 207), is a case in point, and is almost the only
instance of a dallying with the romantically artificial. But the effect
is so charming and so poetical that it disarms criticism. What could
promise so little as a subject for decorative treatment? A pair of iron
gates, flanked with stone pillars surmounted by formal urns. An avenue
of poplars approached by the ascending steps of a terrace, stretching
from the foreground in two converging lines, with the solitary figure
of a woman in black in the middle distance. That is all. But the result
is an alluring picture of an old-world chateau. A touch of Southern
elegance and courtly grace makes itself evident in the formal scene,
with its pathos of the figure symbolizing lonely sorrow and the dark
shadow of the chapel at the end of the grove.
It is possible, without eliminating much, to trace the steady growth
of temperamental art during a quarter of a century in successive stages
of five years. True to first impelling motives, the art of the factory
has never turned back. The modern movement known as _l'art nouveau_,
which swept across Europe with its meaningless swirls and curves, left
no trace on the work of the Royal Copenhagen Factory. Rich in the
possession and eager in the fulfilment of its own original conceptions,
it had no need of extraneous impulses, and has remained unstirred by
ephemeral art movements. The illustrations in this chapter are arranged
chronologically as far as possible, and it will be seen that the
subjects become as Danish as the ballad of King Christian. The gallery
is rich in its dreamy suggestiveness, the ceramic record of reposeful
scenes luxuriating in luscious somnolence--the sea, the sand-dunes, the
wild swans, and geese, and mallards, the wood with its deer and wild
life, the secluded lake with its denizens, the meadows, and the cattle
of the farm lands.
[Illustration: DESSERT PLATE.
With perforated border and rim decorated with scale design in blue, and
having national Danish pattern in centre.]
There has been a process of fermentation going on in modern Danish
pictorial art, and its influence is seen on the porcelain produced
at the royal factory. It is new because it is everlastingly old--the
worship of Nature. There is in modern Copenhagen porcelain the tender,
dreamy melancholy of the old Danish ballads. It is like some magic
story told in the twilight. Everything is silent, nebulous, steeped
in fragrant yet pathetic memories. There is a subtle and refined
introspection, an æsthetic yearning akin to sadness.
Every Dane remembers Jacobsen's whimsical visionary Mogens, who hums
softly to himself the refrain--"_I Längsel, I Längsel jeg lever!_"
(Longing, longing I live!).
This tristful ideality is a note in literature not far to seek. The
Danish poets have reflected Nature's moods with throbbing ecstasy,
tinged with sombre forebodings. It comes with unexpected pathos as an
ending to Christian Winther's poem _En Vandrer_ (A Wanderer), who,
after a pilgrimage through woodland glades of summerland, exclaims at
the sight of the cloud-capped mountains in the distance--
_Og--naar de er bestegne
Imorgen--ak!--hvad saa?_
(And when they are climbed, to-morrow, alas! what then?)
The outlook of the Copenhagen potter-artists reflects the genius
of inspired vision. The face of Nature is transfigured. This
interpretation links poesy and pensive art indissolubly together in
these ceramic poems palpitating with sensitiveness.
A touch of tender melancholy pervades the art of the potter. He has
caught the pale green of the sea, the vibrating light on the long sand
dunes and the silvery vaporous clouds that fret the horizon. To take
a Copenhagen vase with its sea-scape and dancing spray and pack of
scudding storm-clouds, tempts one to place it to one's ear as children
do sea-shells; surely one shall hear the sound of the leaping surge and
the roll of the breakers!
Bathed in liquid light, that soft effulgence peculiar to Denmark,
where the sunlight is so soft and subdued and nothing stands out in
harsh contrast, the scenery lends itself to soothing reverie. It has
been given to few to commune with Nature in her melting moods, "like
Niobe all tears." Corot stands for all time as having pierced the veil,
and Cazin has caught the quivering play of ghostly light rarely made
known to mortals. The modern Copenhagen potters have, "daring greatly,"
communed with Nature in like manner. They have essayed to "snatch
a grace beyond the reach of art"--or of ceramic art. But success
is theirs. The transparent atmosphere lending a pearly tone to the
trembling stretches of soft verdure and the cool limpid shadows resting
on the still meres are reflected in the porcelain. The pictures are
soothing and restful; we can hear the flutter of the mallards among the
reeds.
Of the _paysage intime_ there is profusion of wealth in the long
vista of the low-lying seashore of a beautiful land, the wheeling
gulls, the stretch of dunes, and the circling procession of clouds
over a wind-swept sea. The poetry and dreamy searchings of Copenhagen
porcelain have held the mirror to Nature. With outer eye illumined with
spiritual vision, the potters have translated the soul of Nature's
physical beauty into porcelain. Here is the natural--but there is the
vast, unfathomed supernatural. Can it be possible that there are yet
other secrets of the magic of the Northlands? Will the inner vision
bring forth into the furnace the dreams of the old world deep in the
Northern heart, buried these long centuries? Can the potter poet call
up the fleets of ghostly ships that set forth from Trondhjem Fjord with
King Olaf and Olgafar the mystic boat with neither sail nor helm nor
galley oar? All the wealth of dead ages lies as a hidden treasure-house
for him who can with wizardry open these portals and bring back the
Northern poesie. The Valrafy, or Raven of Battle, loved the swell and
the roar of the fierce Northern Main. The ocean sprite frequented the
cold waters of the Baltic and flashed, icy bearded, through the rack
and cloud of storm. Mermen and mermaidens still plash in the sea-caves
where mortals venture not, and to this day in story and tradition they
are treasured in the hearts of fisher-folk and those who go down to the
sea in ships.
But these are vain imaginings, and to ask more of an art already
raised to a plane of evasive and incommunicable inventiveness is to
clamour impertinently for the impossible.
TABLE OF MARKS[8]
Used by the leading Painters and Modellers during the Renaissance
Period from 1885.
[8] These marks are published by the courtesy of the Royal Copenhagen
Porcelain Factory, being supplied from official data, and are strictly
copyright.
All these initials or signatures of painters are used in conjunction
with the factory mark of the three blue lines.
* * * * *
Various signatures of ARNOLD KROG, Art Director of the Royal Copenhagen
Porcelain Factory since 1885 to the present time.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Examples of the diverse character of the work of Professor Krog
permeate the Renaissance period, and include--
Blue fluted service (continuous invention of new forms with
elaborate decoration)--
e.g. Dessert Plate (illustrated, p. 249).
Vases with landscapes and bird subjects.
Placques--
Birds, e.g. illustration, p. 203.
Series of heraldic placques, e.g. illustration, p. 243.
Figure Subjects--
Various, including quadrupeds and birds, e.g. Polar bear, Peacock
on an urn, etc.
Initials of C. F. LIISBERG.
Sometimes the name is signed in full.
Painter of landscapes, quadrupeds, birds, and flowers.
Modeller of animal subjects.
Came to factory in 1885, died in 1909.
[Illustration]
For examples of the beauty of the late Hr. Liisberg's work, see
illustrations:--
Vase (p. 239).
Placques (pp. 211, 221, 231).
C. MORTENSEN. Painter of landscape and animal subjects.
Modeller of animals.
1887-1901.
[Illustration]
OLUF JENSEN. Painter of flower subjects.
1885 to present time.
[Illustration]
AUG HALLIN. Painter.
1885-1895.
[Illustration]
GOTFRED RODE. Painter of landscapes and animals.
1895 to present time.
[Illustration]
See illustration, p. 217.
VILH. TH. FISCHER. Painter of animal subjects.
1894 to present time.
[Illustration]
For illustrations of Hr. Fischer's work, see pp. 211, 217, 239.
STEPHAN USSING. Painter of flowers and landscapes.
1894 to present time.
[Illustration]
FRK. A. SMIDTH. Painter of landscapes and flowers.
1885 to present time.
[Illustration]
For example of Frk. Smidth's work, see illustration, p. 227.
FRK. M. HØST. Painter of animals and flowers.
[Illustration]
FRK. BERTHA NATHANIELSEN. Painter of flowers and landscapes.
[Illustration]
FRK. JENNY MEYER. Painter of flower subjects.
[Illustration]
FRK. C. ZERNICHOW. Painter of children.
[Illustration]
GERHARD HEILMANN. Painter of landscapes and animals.
[Illustration]
The following mark is found on examples of crystalline glazes of the
Renaissance period:--
[Illustration]
This is the signature of Hr. V. ENGELHARDT, the chemist at the royal
factory, whose researches have perfected the glazes and won
considerable distinction for the factory in European ceramics.
1892 to present time.
For examples of Hr. Engelhardt's work, see illustrations, pp. 293,
297, 299, 303.
The following marks are incised and are of modellers, and are used in
conjunction with the factory mark of the three blue lines.
AXEL LOCHER. Modeller of figures.
[Illustration]
E. NIELSEN. Modeller of animals.
[Illustration]
CHRISTIAN THOMSEN. Modeller of figures and animals.
For examples, see illustrations, pp. 271, 275, 279, 285.
[Illustration]
THEODOR MADSEN. Modeller of animals.
[Illustration]
KNUD KYHN. Modeller of animals.
[Illustration]
FRK. A. PEDERSEN. Modeller of animals.
[Illustration]
FRK. M. NIELSEN. Modeller of birds and fishes.
1903 to present time.
[Illustration]
CARL MARTIN HANSEN. Modeller of figures.
1905 to present day.
[Illustration]
GERHARD HENNING. Modeller and painter of figures.
1909 to present time.
[Illustration]
This mark of the factory, with the crown and words "Royal Copenhagen"
inscribed in circle are in _green_. The three lines beneath are in blue.
[Illustration]
The use of this mark is from the year 1889, on many examples for the
English and American markets.
These marks of the crown and the three lines, _in blue_, are used on
all copies of the old models of the =overglaze= Müller period. These
are found on reproductions of old and rare examples of the early
days, made by the factory on traditional lines. The revival of this
_overglaze_ painting is a new impulse. The artist's initials are added
to the crown in colour or gold.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX
FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS
RENAISSANCE PERIOD
CHAPTER IX
FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS
_RENAISSANCE PERIOD_
Form _versus_ colour--The technique of modelling--The sound
principles of old Copenhagen porcelain--Underglaze succeeds
overglaze colouring--The love of animal life--Peasant types and
children.