SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT ON DESIGN.

711

Glass XXX.]

handicraft is entirely or partially the means of producingthe ornament, as in china and glass, in works in the pre-cious metals, carving, Sec. This partly arises from thefacilities which machinery gives to the manufacturer,enabling him to produce the tlorid and overloaded ascheaply as the simple forms, and thus to satisfy the largermarket for the multitude, who desire quantity rather thanquality, and value a tiling the more, the more it is orna-mented. This state of modern manufacture, wherebyornament is multiplied without limit from a given model,by the machine or the mould, ought at least to awakenin the manufacturer a sense of the importance of the firstdesign. One would think that what was to be produced ,by thousands and tens of thousands should at least be awork of beauty, and no pains be spared to insure its ex-cellence. The cost of the first design or model must in 'such a case be a mere atom when divided among itsmyriad prototypes. It would seem strange, too, that anyone could be found to throw away great expense upondies and moulds, to carry out a design which in itselfwas hardly thought worth paying for. Yet often in thiscountry artists are paid little better than workmen, anda belief seems to prevail, that knowledge, skill, and tastecome by nature: the artist has often no interest in theresult of his labours, his name is unknown, his pay isniggardly, and what there may he of beauty and excel- ’lence in his work is often spoiled by the alterations ofthe manufacturer, who makes no scruple of setting hisown taste above that of the artist, and altering andchanging a design at his sole pleasure. In France , andsome parts of Germany , where taste lias long been cul-tivated, and the value of ornamental design is betterunderstood, these relations are better understood also ; iand in this country, if good taste is to prevail, the manu-facturer must learn to appreciate more highly the valueof the designer’s labours, must seek to foster his talents jand stimulate bis amour propre. Society also must be ;prepared to contribute more largely than heretofore to :public education in ornamental art, and taste must he :disseminated by every available means; for it is not only .truth, but a truth that should be told, that, notwithstand-ing our skilful workmanship and our excellent manufac-ture of most fabrics, we are sadly behind in the designapplied to them, and greatly indebted to foreign artistseven for what little is good. Moreover our greatest dif-ficulty consists even less iu the want of designers than ofskilled art-workmen to carry out designs. A design forcotton printing maybe spoiled by the “ putter-on,” orfor silk by him who prepares it for the loom. Thesculptor may design a statuette, but there are few able to :chase the bronze, or to retouch the clay, or to unite theparts when they come forth from the mould. Evenwhere such are found, they are mostly men of slowminds, who enter little into the spirit of the artist’slabours, and who work without feeling as without fire.\Ye find plenty of chasers able to imitate the fur of ani-mals, or the texture of draperies, but few who under-stand the bones and the anatomy of the parts, and fewerstill who carry an artist’s spirit into their works. Inpainting, also, the painter on glass and china is generallya mere copyist, or he works too entirely by rote, andwithout feeling. The lily and the rose which he paintsare always the same lily and the same rose, a work ofthe hand and eye, iu which the mind lias no share.There are honourable exceptions, no doubt, but with themany art is a mere handicraft. In France, in Germany ,in Bavaria, in Italy , this is not the case. There theartist often carries out his own design, and, where hedoes not, lias always at hand a band of skilled art-work-men to embody his ideas, or to complete his labours.The beautiful works in metal by Yeciite, Wagner, andWeishaupt, the china paintings of Jacobber, Schilt,Ducluzeac:, IIamax, and a multitude of others, and thefurniture carvings of Liexard, are choice examples ofthe above-stated truths; while the works in oxidizedsilver, such as seal and knife handles, paper-weights,cigar-cases, See., exhibited by Rudolphi, with the bronzesof Men*!, Pradier, and a host of other such works, showthe skill, taste, and knowledge of the art-workmen ofFrance. In France , moreover, there is a fitness and

fancy pervading ornamentation; the ornament, especiallywhere figures and animals are introduced, being speciallyadapted to the tiling ornamented. In England the orna-ment designed fur one work is made to do duty for twentyothers: one figure truly plays many parts, and is oftenused with an inconceivable want of fitness. But theEnglish public, and the English manufacturers as a body,are hardly yet awake on the question of design : Govern-ment has established schools of ornamental art in manyof our large manufacturing towns for the purpose ofspreading genuine taste, and educating our workmen;but they are as yet a forced product, and have hardlyanywhere, after ten years of struggle, won the warmsupport of the local manufacturer. Even in this GreatExhibition , the question of design was nearly overlooked,aud the works of the designer left without a place: hisname was not necessarily coupled with the fabrics ormanufactures his skill had designed or decorated, and hisreward therefore was left to the good feeling of his em-ployer. Xo special Jury was named to unite with manu-facturers in the various classes in judging of the taste andart displayed in the ornamentation of their fabrics; andthat art which, as we have before said, is calculated,when excellent, to raise the reputation of a nation’s ma-nufactures, was left to the judgment of those too likelyto consider, not its real excellence, but what an untaughtmultitude would purchase and would prize. Iu France many large establishments have well-appointed schoolsattached for teaching drawing and modelling, and therudiments of science connected with their manufactures.In Germany also, and in Italy , schools and institutionshave long been in operation for the cultivation of tastein design; and it will be necessary for this country toenter seriously on the same course, if we are to maintaineven our manufacturing reputation before the world.

In estimating the progress of this country in ornamentand in art-workmanship as compared with the continentalnations, there is one circumstance that must enter largelyinto consideration. In France, Germany, Italy, and Bel-gium , in addition to schools for teaching ornamental art,royal and national manufactories have been establishedfor many years. In these no necessary expense is sparedto bring to perfection the fabrics wrought iu them, bothas to the highest excellence of workmanship and mate-rials, and to their embellishment by ornamental design.The best painters, sculptors, and designers, as well asmen of the most scientific acquirements in botany, mi-neralogy, and chemistry, are among their professors ; andthe works being carried on at the public expense for theattainment of excellence, the cost of repeated failures isunheeded. In such establishments a band of skilled work-men must of necessity be trained to the ultimate benefitof the private manufacturers, and those difficulties whichscience had found the means of overcoming, or those newprocesses and new materials which it had brought tolight, be spread abroad for the common advantage of all.Moreover, the sight of excellence and of the products ofskilled workmanship is one of the greatest stimulants tofurther exertion, since all art and all manufacture arriveat perfection by gradual advance on past labours. Theworkman who sees the results of the skill which lias pro-duced such works in china and porcelain as are exhibitedin the Sevres room or iu the hall of the Zollverein , mustfeel this stimulus in no mean degree. When it is remem-bered what one single artist did in this country for thesame manufacture, and how greatly Wedgwood and hisworkmen were indebted to Flaxman, we can well feelwhat influence a band of artists of like ability, exercisingtheir talents to improve every department of the manu-facture, and of these a continued succession, would belikely to exercise over the taste and skill of those incontact with them. Nor is this all: the excellence ofone fabric awakens a desire for like excellence in others,and calls forth the same spirit of emulation. It surelyeanuot be doubted, therefore, that the continental nations,and more especially France , in this manufacture, andthrough it in many others, have been largely benefitedby such institutions; besides the amount of national repu-tation obtained by them from the display of the choiceworks which are therein produced.