714

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT OX DESIGN.

Ci.ass XXX.

wood, and marble, for decorative additions to buildings,exhibited in various parts of the Exhibition, since thereis little which, from the original or peculiar applicationof design, calls for especial notice. The errors of suchworks will often be found to originate in the constructionfitted for one material being applied to another; thus,that which ought to have been stone is wrought in wood,or wood treatments are carried out in stone or metal.The costly malachite decoration exhibited in the RussianCourt may be noticed as an example of this mistake.Stone doors at all would seem to be an anomaly, butframed after the manner of wood still more so. In addi-tion, the doors, which necessarily produce a sense ofextreme weight, are hung to pilasters so narrow as to bequite disproportioued for their support.

It may not be amiss here to advert to the error arisingfrom excess which these works illustrate. Thus, themalachite vases exhibited in this room are improperlysupported on malachite pedestals, greatly detracting fromthe sense of rarity and richness which would result fromhaving only the principal object made of the rare mate-rial, and its support in a baser one, while all the enrich-ment which would arise from contrast is lost also, andthe eye is fatigued with the quantity and sameness ofcolours, which would have been refreshed had a marbleof some homogeneous colour been used for the basesinstead of the malachite.

Ornaments manufactured from plaster materials, suchas gutta-percha, putty, carton-pierre, &c., have no doubta substantial value in the Great Exhibition , commerciallyconsidered. As regards design, however, they are butdangerous subsidiaries, often doing greater injury, fromthe tasteless, misplaced, and false decoration arising fromtheir use, than good, by ministering to decorative pur-poses. Apart from that monotonous multiplication ofthe same forms, necessarily resulting from the unvaryingproductions of the mould and the die, which has beenbefore alluded to, there are other evils sure to accompanymanufactured decorations such as those now under consi-deration. The great cheapness of the substitute, com-pared with the real material, inevitably leads to excess.Such ornament always seems added or applied, stuck onus it were, and can rarely be made to appear as a part ofconstruction; it therefore constantly carries with it asense of untruth, till the mind and eye, from habit,become satisfied with it, and at the same time deadenedto what is really true and good. Moreover, decoration ofsuch materials must necessarily be patchy and incom-plete : when the parts to be ornamented are large, thisevil is seen in its most exaggerated form; a florid andgaudy centre has perhaps to be united with coarse cor-ners, either by other ornaments or by the repetition ofthe centre portion, and all sorts of expedients must beresorted to to “ bring in ” the parts so as to suit thearchitectural distribution of the apartment; it can indeedbarely be possible that the quantities, or the geometricalarrangement in which the ornament has been originallyconstructed, will agree with the place to which it has tobe adapted, and more or less of make-shift must be theresult. One of the most important works in such mate-rials is the centre compartment of a room in carton-pierre, by V. Crlciiet (810, France , p. 1219), which,with all the excellences of the manufacture, exhibitsmany of its prominent defects, and may serve to illustratethe general faults of such materials. Thus it is decidedlyover ornamented, and this is shown not only in the excess :of ornament, but in the want of relative scale betweenthe ornament and the constructive forms of the architec-ture, the former being far too large, as well as too redun-dant. Scale also seems to have been quite disregarded inthe parts themselves, since the fruit and flowers, thebirds and game, of one part, are different in size fromthose of another part. The style, again, is mixed, onepart being two centuries earlier than the other. Thereis, besides, far more pains taken with the exact renderingof fur or a feather, than in perfecting the form of amoulding, or the shape of a panel—the architecture has,in the designer’s mind, been subordinate to the ornament, 'and an ill-formed ellipse, or a coarse and unrefined mould-ing, appears of less importance to him than the mere :

imitation of the feathers of his birds, or the fur of theanimals of which his ornament consists. Cany this treat-ment a little further, and it will result in having thegame, the fruit, the foliage, and the flowers not onlymodelled to the exactest imitation, but the skill of thepainter called in to add to its naturalism, and the wholepainted witli the colours of nature; thus decoration willbe thought perfect only when it competes with thosestrange relieved pictures which are exhibited in framesin close juxtaposition with the work in question. Of theartistic and skilful grouping, and of the merit of themodelling of the ornamental portions of this decoration ofCruchet’s, there can he no question; but, as has beenbefore said, even these excellences may merge into faultsif they are too exclusively directed to mere imitation,and if the design to which they are applied lias not themerit of a just perception of use and purpose. One greatcause of evil in the u>e of the materials under consider-ation consists in the false principle of their application todecorative purposes. It is found, for instance, that pecu-liar qualities, which are difficult of attainment and aneffort of great skill in other materials, can easily beobtained by a new means; instead, therefore, of carefullystudying its just adaptation to ornamental production, theeffort is only to emulate in excess those peculiar qualitieswhich are trials in the more intractable material. It toooften happens, moreover, that the original works imitatedwere in false taste; and this becomes far more apparentin the copies, since the mind can no longer dwell on themwith that admiration which is caused by a sense of diffi-culties overcome, and which compensated, in some degree,for the absence of good taste in the works they emulate:for instance, the exact imitation in wood or stone carvingof the individual details rather than of the general cha-racter of objects used as ornament, extreme relief, under-cutting, lightness, thinness, and picturesqueness of theforms of foliage and flowers, whereby their naturalgrowth is attempted in carving rather than a due orna-mental disposition of their forms—all tending to excessand exaggeration, and to be avoided rather than copied.Another source of error consists in rendering what shouldhe true constructive forms into mere ornament: tintspilasters, and even columns, consoles and trusses intendedto support weight, are manufactured in these imitativematerials, and introduced only to decorate, until all senseof utility and construction is lost, and ornament becomesthe principal instead of the subordinate. Such materials,however, are capable, under proper control, of usefulapplication to ornamental purposes, both from their readyadaptability to various surfaces and forms, and from thecleanness and sharpness with which they can be moulded,as is seen in the works of the Gutta Perciia Company(85, Class XXYIII., p. 783), those of Jackson and Son(p. 730), of Bielefikld and Co. (157, Class XXVI,,p. 744), and of others, as well as in the work abovereferred to. It is most desirable, therefore, that theerrors to which a false application leads should be care-fully pointed out, so as to bring these materials as muchas possible within their duly limited use.

Some of the above criticisms will apply to terra cottaalso; but this material, partaking largely of reality andallowing of being perfected by the hand after the firstmechanical process of moulding, would, under fittingregulation, become a most useful and durable agent ofornamental decoration.

Stained Glass Decoration.

The art of painting on glass, or glass-staining, lias comedown to us so intimately mixed up with the ecclesiasticalarchitecture of the middle ages, that it is almost impossi-ble to view the one unconnected with the other. It washorn of the same parent (the Church), and from the firstboth were equally devoted to her service. Of Gothicarchitecture, and of it almost exclusively, stained glasslias always formed a necessary decoration: it follows,therefore, that its ornamentation is almost wholly tradi-tional, and has relation to the various periods of theGothic architecture which it accompanies.

Not that it is necessary, or even desirable, that theepochs of the two arts should, in their revival, continue