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.

VASE.

Painted in underglaze colours by V. Th. Fischer. Height 13 inches.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The highest test to apply to a figure subject in porcelain is that it should be criticized in the biscuit stage. The crudities, the disproportioned ornament or the restless lack of cohesion become at once evident, without the touches of colour added to conceal the poverty of the art.

In our old factories at Plymouth and Bristol in the hard paste and at Bow in the soft paste, owing to an imperfect knowledge of the technique, fire-cracks often appeared in the body of objects intended for ornament. Collectors of experience and mature judgment know exactly what the potters did in these trying circumstances. The scientific examination of the treasures of the china cabinet has revealed many of the potter's tricks. A fire-crack becomes the body of a butterfly gaudily painted in rich colours. This is one instance of the use of colour to conceal the inexactitude of the craftsman. Similarly, in figures it becomes a speculative question as to what their character would turn out to be when they were stripped of the gorgeous costumes with which they are decked. Many a Chelsea figure with rich brocaded surtout, yellow vest, and breeches of amazing colour in scale pattern of peacock hues, would turn out to be a veritable scarecrow if stripped of the glories of pigment. The colour has deceived the eye in regard to form.

This love of colour and disregard of the niceties of form has betrayed many enthusiasts into going into raptures over monstrosities which would not bear the light of day upon them if they were in biscuit state. It is a matter for conjecture how many Staffordshire figures or Toby Jugs, minus pigment, would call for a word of praise judged solely on their modelling and symmetrical beauty.

In Copenhagen, from the early overglaze painted figures of the Müller period to the underglaze decorated figures of the Renaissance style, there is one quality that they have in common. This is especially noticeable in comparing them with work of other factories over an extended period of time. They exhibit with unerring precision the limitations of the potter in regard to the medium in which he works. At no time has the Copenhagen modeller attempted, save in the decadent period when he copied Thorvaldsen's sculpture, to encroach upon the work of the silversmith or the glass-blower. He has been true to the clay whose properties in the fire he knows so well. The technique of modelling in clay follows laws as definite as can well be laid down. It is the same in all crafts where strict observance is paid to the use for which objects are created. The Japanese ivory-carver in his netsukes, or ivory fastenings for garments, carves them as nearly oval or round as is possible. It may be a curled-up mouse, or an old man with a barrel, or any other fanciful subject, but the absence of spikes is the sign that the work is old and not modern carving for the European markets, when such objects bristle with points.

Similarly, in figures, for many reasons they should have no jutting arms or over out-thrust ornaments. First because in use they will be broken off. A glance at the damaged specimens on the china shelf will at once show the mistakes of the potter. Rarely at the Copenhagen factory did the modeller fancy for the moment he was a silver-worker and leave a projecting arm. There is one instance in an old figure most noticeable. A seller of kringler has an outstretched hand offering his ware for sale, but that is missing in the example the writer examined.

Another reason for the avoidance of undue extension is the technical difficulty of supporting this in the oven during firing. Clay in the oven requires every assistance to keep it from warping or bending over, and to introduce unnecessary difficulties in modelling is to produce bad art. This, coupled with the fact that porcelain shrinks in firing to about six-sevenths of its original size, is sufficient reason for the artistic potter to keep strictly within the limitations of his technique.

The Sound Principles of Old Copenhagen Porcelain.—Throughout the Müller period it will be seen how carefully these axioms were followed. In regard to the styles of decoration, the old school worked in overglaze painting and the Renaissance school employs underglaze painting. They are in complete contrast to one another in the treatment of a subject. The narrow range of underglaze colours in a measure limits the results of the decorator of figures. But it must not be imagined that the overglaze school of painting, by reason of its freer palette, allowed the modelling of the figures to be less than ideal. A reference to the Müller chapter on Figure Subjects will show that a great many examples were produced in white or in biscuit, and were thus entirely independent of colour to help out any deficiencies in modelling, if such existed.

An indication of the strong individuality of the figure modelling of the Juliane Marie period, is forthcoming in the fact that the factory to-day is producing some of the coloured figures of that period in white.

Underglaze succeeds Overglaze Colouring.—Concerning the Renaissance figures as a whole, there is a tendency to produce them in white; this bespeaks great strength of modelling, and, varied as they are in character, dealing with different phases of life, they are never insipid. But it may be advanced that the underglaze colours are not extended enough in their range to do justice to some of the costume subjects. It seems to the present writer, and perhaps the criticism is confirmed by a pronounced tendency in that direction by the latest artistic movement in the factory, that many of the modern figures, such as peasant women in costume and the soldier in Hans Andersen's story of the Tinder Box, would give more complete results in overglaze painting. This revival of overglaze painting in Copenhagen in figures, and in combination with underglaze work, is a new development which is being curiously watched by connoisseurs and technical experts.

The underglaze colours find complete harmony in the decoration of figures of birds, and are delicate and true to nature in the modelled fish, which have a graceful charm especially their own. They are a perfect medium for placques and vases, depicting the long vaporous clouds stretched across a leaden sky, the silvery blue transparent billows tossing in from the Baltic, or in the foreground streaming wearily over the level grey-yellow sand, flecked with the lilac seashore flowers and tufts of grass on the sand-dunes. The pale sad blues, the delicate greens, the amber, and pink, and dun-grey tones verging into violet which are transmuted in the grand feu convey the faint colours, the mist and the sadness, the storm and the rainy air, the dim haze extending over meadow and lake, and the tremulously yellow tones of sunset. The landscape is tinged with that soft melancholy which tones down all harshness and softens all lines. Meditative, somnolent, indecisive, liquid, limpid, and alluring in tender serenity, these characteristics appeal to the soul of the artist as belonging to the dream country of lakes and beech-woods and sand-hills and kaleidoscopic waters. These intangible and wraith-like impressions have been momentarily snatched by the potters and painters at the factory, nor has anything been dropped in the fiery ordeal of the furnace, and they stand in ceramic art as a permanent national record of the homeland of the Dane.

The Love of Animal Life.—There is one point at which the modern figure subjects break new ground. The Renaissance period is rich in its love of the animal kingdom. The wheeling gulls, the wild swans, and geese, and mallards, wading and diving birds, and storks, and owls have been modelled. The wild life of Denmark has provided a new field. This is studied from nature. There is a figure of a turkey, a denizen of the factory grounds, modelled from life. What other factory in the world is there where one may meet, as did the writer, a turkey with her brood being ushered from the garden up a staircase into a pen in one of the studios? The original with her brood may be seen illustrated, p. [337].

FIGURE OF WOMAN AND COW.

Painted in underglaze colours. Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.

Animals and fish have obtained full recognition in the gallery of figure subjects. The Zoological Gardens in close proximity to the factory has provided the Polar bear and other studies. A notable example of fine modelling is a Sea Lion, which is life-like in its faithful representation. The modelled fish, with the liquid glaze suggestive that they have just been captured, are a remarkable feature and are true in every detail—as true as were the botanical specimens on the Flora Danica service. They come as decorative objects as surprisingly beautiful in form as are the birds, and their variety captivates the lover of natural form and subdued colour.

Peasant Types and Children.—The peasant life of the country, the costume, now fast disappearing, and the old-world character, still happily preserved in many districts, were reproduced in the overglaze figures of an earlier period. This love of veracity in costume and environment is a feature which is traditional in the factory; it therefore comes as no surprise to find that peasant types are produced with underglaze treatment in colours. The only example of an animal in the overglaze Müller period is the Woman milking a Cow, and a similar subject of a Milkmaid and Cow may be seen treated in modern manner in underglaze style, with delicate suggestion of colour in the pale grey dress, delicate blue shawl, and kerchief with infinitesimal spots. The cow is white save for one or two splashes of light brown.

If Cupids be child-life, then the old style offers scores of examples, but the modern child has been denuded of his wings and is employed in other occupations than twining wreaths of roses around lovers. The usual children of the china shelf are armed with baskets and posies, and are Cupid-like in their character. But in the Renaissance figures of Copenhagen children the spirit of childhood is present. The simple peasant Child (illustrated, p. [279]), with burden of bottle and basket, is as true to life as the faithful record of an old Dutch master. It is, possibly without meaning to be, symbolic of the life of toil of the peasant. It is a tale the clay tells of the busy life of the fields. Even a tiny child has to bear her share of the long day's work. It is just that sad touch of reflection which illuminates great works of art, and it is here present. A figure such as this is worth, as a work of art, fifty meaningless Rockingham Flower Boys or Chelsea manikins in grotesque costume.

FIGURE OF BOY AND CALF.

Painted in underglaze colours. Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.

The Old Woman, modelled by the same artist, with bonnet and shawl with fringe, represents a type now belonging to days rapidly passing. The character of an obsolescent type has been caught with exceptional cleverness. There is another figure of an old woman less robust, and indicating less lovable qualities, with Bible in hand, and, if the truth be told, a somewhat crafty look. Such types as these will be recognized by those who know Denmark well; they are racy of the soil, and represent the acute perception of the modern potters in seizing disappearing types. Such crystallized character forms a permanent and very valuable record of the remoter side of country life, and is instinct with a truer feeling of art than whole galleries representing impossible porcelain cavaliers and ladies in costume the like of which no man has ever seen.

In dealing with the underglaze ware from its first application to utilitarian services to its subtle use in placques and vases with grand-feu colours, and finally in figure subjects and groups, it will be seen, both in regard to mastery of technique and artistic evolution, the natural order of development is that given in Chapter II in examining the stages of overglaze painting and modelling. At that period the order proceeds on lines of its own, and the usual stages of progression were influenced by the fact that in the early days of the factory Luplau, the first modelling-master, brought his experience to bear on the work, and figure subjects of a high order were attempted almost from the beginning. Here, in the Renaissance period, by slower evolution and particularly sure processes, the modelling of figures has arrived at a state of undoubted excellence. Apart from the first early inspiration when things Japanese broke upon Europe with overwhelming force, the Copenhagen artists have obtained their inspiration from within. They have followed the instincts of their own race, and they have developed on lines essentially their own, both in form, in colour, and in technique.

The Europe of sixty years ago was sated with meaningless formalities. Tired with the repetition of the scanty stock of Greek ornaments, and in search of novelty, it is only natural that men should turn their eyes to the only living schools of decorative art then in existence. In India, China, and Japan was found the freshness that design needed. When Müller was producing his masterpieces in clay, Wedgwood was transplanting Greek gods and goddesses into Staffordshire, and Chippendale was fashioning his fretwork angles to tables and chairs, taken direct from China. Between those days and the present is the great wave of classicism which dug out Etruscan vases and remodelled them, brought the Latin chair into the early nineteenth-century drawing-room, and with stilted affectation of simplicity drove elegance and comfort far afield.

PEASANT FIGURES.

Painted in underglaze colours. Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.

Of all Oriental schools it is thus natural that the Japanese, with the unexpected and unsymmetrical treatment of design, should appeal most at such a time. The true and fine feeling of the Japanese for birds and beasts, for the flower world and for landscape in its larger features, is shown in all their design, from the small ivory carvings to the lacquer work or the colour prints of Katsuchika Hokusai. The West has learned much from the East in the nineteenth century. Whistler's Nocturnes and Aubrey Beardsley's pen drawings catch their germ of novelty from sources other than European.

But "East is East and West is West," and Copenhagen underglaze decoration has produced the tones of the Northern world. Of all curious happenings, it is singular to record that to-day the Japanese ceramic artists are fashioning their work in the same subdued tones, and producing similar subjects in figures, to the little band of ceramic workers in Denmark. In the history of the manufacture of porcelain this is not exactly a new thing. In England we have Worcester copying Chinese examples and inventing a pseudo mark, and the Bow and Lowestoft factories copying Worcester's copy of Chinese originals. Meissen and Sèvres have both suffered heavily from votaries who have loved the originals so well that they could not forbear from imitating them. In England, at Worcester and at Coalport, the copyists excelled in their love for the Sèvres and Meissen originals by putting the marks of those factories on their productions.

It is a remarkable fact that Denmark, with no coal and with no minerals, and with no quartz and no china clay, should stand to-day as the leading porcelain factory in Europe. In the admirable article on Ceramics in the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) this verdict stands: "The most admirable result of this revived interest in Japanese art was, however, developed at the Royal Copenhagen works, the productions of which are not only famous all over the world, but have set a new style in porcelain decorations which is being followed at most of the Continental factories." In connection with figure subjects the same critic recognizes their precious qualities. "The Royal Copenhagen works have also produced a profusion of skilfully modelled animals, birds, and fishes, either in pure white or tinted after nature with the same underglaze colours. Other European factories have adopted the modern Copenhagen style of decoration."

Something should be said in passing of the domestic influence of the Royal Copenhagen Factory upon the art of Denmark. Like a sturdy oak-tree, the old factory has continued in its steady growth from the days of Queen Juliane Marie. It has weathered many storms, and now proudly rears its head as a beloved landmark. Its influence on generations of artists has been deep and lasting. It has scattered its largesse, and its sheltering branches have lent their protecting shade to many grateful pilgrims. In common with many another great factory, it has added new impulses to the centre of its origin. Like the acorn dropping from the parent tree, productive of flourishing young oaks, so has it been with the royal factory. It is pleasurable to be able to record here the successes of a Copenhagen porcelain factory conducted by Messrs. Bing and Gröndahl. Their art is fresh and winning, their painters have caught the touch of the royal factory, and their modellers have found inspiration in the work marked with the three blue lines. The Bing and Gröndahl ware is marked with the initials B & G. It was originated in the year 1853, and has been marked with a successful career. Many of its productions are to be found in museums side by side with work of the royal factory. There is a spirit of friendly rivalry between the ancestor and the youthful scion. This is only natural. But the old oak and the young tree will still continue to flourish side by side, and the old oak will always be the monarch of the forest, even a hundred years hence, when painstaking collectors wrangle as to dates and marks and weigh the B & G with the three blue lines, and find, as undoubtedly they will, beauty and poetry reminiscent of the Danish art.

Many of the early figure subjects of the Renaissance period were of surprising originality, and in some cases only one example was made. The collectors who were fortunate enough to secure these examples have since realized how happy was their choice. There is one figure of a Black Cat, exhibited at the Paris Exhibition, 1900, which has never been repeated in black, owing to the great difficulty experienced in manipulating the glaze and the hazardous nature of the experiment. White cats have been modelled in similar fashion, but there is only one black Copenhagen cat, and naturally such a rare piece is exceedingly valuable.

Among some of the later productions in figures are some finely modelled subjects taken from Hans Christian Andersen's Stories. Who does not remember the Tinder Box, that tale of enchantment where the soldier, coming home from the wars, marching along the road with knapsack on back, meets a witch who induces him to descend into the great cavern and procure the magic tinder box. A dainty little group in white represents the Soldier and the Witch. We know of his sudden rise to fortune, armed with a talisman as potent as Aladdin's Lamp. The sleeping princess imprisoned in a copper castle is brought to him by the faithful canine genii of the tinder box. How he narrowly escaped the gallows and finally took the princess as his bride is one of our own nursery stories, and there is a Copenhagen figure group showing the soldier with his arm around the princess in soldierly and lover-like fashion.

GROUP IN WHITE PORCELAIN.

The Princess and the Swineherd.
(From Hans Christian Andersen's Stories.)
Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.

The story of the Swineherd provides another subject, and what grace and elegance and beauty are in the lines, and delicacy in the sentiment. It is an idyll in porcelain. Away with pierrots and mimes, the fevered extravagances of imagination run riot in bizarre form and garish colour! Such a group as this should have a niche to itself in the china cabinet. It is superlatively chaste and reticent, daintily conceived and faultless in technique. The story is of the prince who became swineherd to the father of the weary princess. His taste for music took a mechanical turn in the whimsical invention of a pot that played tunes when it boiled, and, among other like toys, a rattle that would play waltzes and polkas. His hobby gained the fancy of the princess, who had to buy them with kisses. The porcelain represents the completion of the fairy-tale bargain. Alas! there is no happy ending, for the kissing became so fast and furious that the swineherd threw off his disguise, became prince on a sudden, and departed home to his kingdom, in disgust with a princess who could look with disdain on his presents of a rose and a nightingale because they were only natural, and set her affections on the trivialities of a swineherd.

Among the figures calling for regard in the highest sense, that of the Peacock standing on an urn, modelled by Arnold Krog, is of surprising grace and symmetry. Its modelling is at once true to nature and true to the requirements of the potter's art. A model on a lower plane would have placed the peacock on a base or tree-stump and utilized this as a support, and no figure would be complete without the gorgeous colouring of the tail. This is exactly what happens in a Derby figure of a Peacock (at the Victoria and Albert Museum). On a rococo base covered with a wealth of coloured flowers, a peacock stands in brilliant natural colouring. But in the Copenhagen figure the drooping tail is support enough in the kiln, and the natural pose of the bird, proud and erect, conveys dignity and beauty of form. The treatment at Copenhagen is exactly the opposite to the old school of ceramic artists. Here it is beauty of form first and colour in reticent subjection as an adjunct, and the results are undeniably superlative.

CHAPTER X
CRYSTALLINE
GLAZES

CHAPTER X

CRYSTALLINE GLAZES

Flambé or transmutation glazes of the Chinese potters—The Royal Copenhagen Factory produces the first specimen of crystallized glaze in 1886—Blue crackled glaze produced with design under control.

During the last decade of the nineteenth century the Western potter came under the spell of the modern chemist. Scientific study applied to the body and glaze and vitrifaction of the materials composing porcelain and faience, together with a closer study of the exact conditions of temperatures in the kilns, resulted in the discovery of certain well-defined decorative qualities in connection with glazes which, after considerable experiment, offered practically a new field for colour-work of a very beautiful nature.

In the flambé or transmutation glazes for which the Chinese potters were renowned, the effects of variegated or splashed colour are due to the capricious action of the fire on the glazes during the firing process. The single-coloured glazes of the Chinese applied to vases and other objects have been much prized by Europeans. The tints are very numerous, sea-green or celadon, yellow, red, blue, purple, brown, black, and other tones. These include the celebrated sang-de-bœuf colour of French collectors, so highly prized in China. It is thought probable that many of these single-colour glazes have been applied at a somewhat lower temperature, termed by the French demi-grand feu.

The mottled classes owe their appearance less to the difference in the colouring matter than to the manner in which it is applied. They are termed in French flambé, and there is no doubt that they were originally accidentally produced. According to the letters of a Jesuit missionary, Père d'Entrecolles, written in the early years of the eighteenth century, such vases were called Yao pien or transmutation vases. Such types, with turquoise colour passing into green, green melting into purple, and amber fading into grey, are suggestive of the permutation of colour harmonies which these transmutation glazes undergo in the furnace.

Beside the flambé glazes there are crackled glazes of turquoise-blue, apple-green, or of greyish white. This crackle porcelain is now artificially produced, but it doubtless owes its origin to accident and caprice of firing.

POLAR BEARS ON AN ICE FLOE.

Modelled by C. E. Bonnesen. Crystalline glaze by V. Engelhardt.

In flambé glazes an English potter, Mr. Bernard Moore, of Longton, has succeeded in producing sang-de-bœuf colour with delightful gradations of tone; unhappily, some of these pieces were destroyed by fire at the Brussels Exhibition in 1910.

Copenhagen produces the First Crystalline Glaze.—At the Copenhagen factory grand-feu coloured glazes have been developed in a remarkable manner. The crystal glaze, the serpent-skin, the tiger-eye, and crackled glaze, as well as many other varieties, show effects which hitherto have been unknown in porcelain, and have won the admiration of all connoisseurs. The inception of the crystalline glaze was due to Hr. Clement, the chemist at the Royal Copenhagen Factory, and it was owing to the indefatigable energy and experiments of Hr. Clement that, in 1886, the first piece of porcelain with crystalline glaze achieved a record for the Copenhagen laboratory and studio. Since that day other European potters have succeeded in producing crystalline glazed ware of exceptional beauty.

We illustrate a fine specimen of the early crystalline glaze of Copenhagen now preserved at the Museum of the National Porcelain Manufactory at Sèvres. It represents a frog on a leaf. "We should like specially to point out," says M. Edouard Garnier, the Director of the Museum at Sèvres, writing in 1894, "a large water-lily leaf on which a frog is imbedded in a thin layer of ice, which it has just succeeded in breaking. We have never seen a more striking example of what may be attained by a purely scientific process applied to art decoration, and we cannot repress the wish that this example may be followed by our modern ceramists." This is one of Arnold Krog's fine conceptions.

This specimen of the work of the Copenhagen chemist, Hr. V. Engelhardt, in crystallized glaze, has been followed by many notable achievements on his part. In 1902 there was a figure of a Polar Bear lapping water, modelled by Arnold Krog and produced in crystalline glaze by Hr. Engelhardt. This, of which only thirty pieces were made, was executed for an artistic club in Paris. Another fine subject is that representing two Polar Bears on the ice, one mounted on a frozen pinnacle. The whole is a skilful piece of modelling by C. E. Bonnesen, and crystalline glazing by Hr. V. Engelhardt.

FROG IMBEDDED IN ICE ON A WATER-LILY LEAF.

Modelled by Arnold Krog. Crystalline glaze by V. Engelhardt.
Period 1891-1895.

(At Sèvres Museum.)]

VASES.

Designed by Arnold Krog. Crystalline glaze by V. Engelhardt.

New shapes are continually being invented, and a long chain of experiments in the laboratory has resulted in the production of some very remarkable examples of colouring which are always welcome to collectors, who are quick to realize that no two examples can ever be the same. All colours can be handled in this manner. The range is a wide one, and the surprising gradations of tone have a charm undoubtedly their own, and not unworthy to be regarded as representative of some of the most wonderful creations of the modern potter. The metallic oxides in the hands of the twentieth-century chemist become possessed of magical properties and are transformed into tender harmonies vibrating with exquisite tones. Yellows, and blues, and browns merge into mauve or grey, in delightful tenderness, and black and white are included in the colour schemes of which this style is now capable.

Blue Crackled Glaze.—In regard to crackled glazes there is evidence that they are coming more under the governance of the chemist. There is a beautiful deep blue variety produced at Copenhagen, with a network of crackle graduated to a nicety, now swelling, when on the belly of the beaker or vase, and now contracting into minute meshes when on the slender neck. This is completely under mechanical control. As yet blue is the only colour produced in this style.

At the Brussels Exhibition, 1910, the Sèvres factory exhibited some large vases with crystalline glaze evidently under the complete mastery of the potter and chemist. These vases were of a very fine character, and the suggestion arises that at no far distant date the glazes now termed "transmutation" or adventitious will be completely mastered by the latest developments of modern science as applied to pottery, and thus "transmutation" will be a word of the past.

The technique of Copenhagen differs from that of Sèvres or of Berlin. In these latter cases the crystals appear like spots on the surface, whereas in Copenhagen ware the crystals have a more subtle and intimate incorporation with the glaze. They never stand on the surface, and often, as in the mellow brown glaze, they lie beneath and glow in reflected light.

A series of effects in broken colour, delicate in marking and veined and mottled in most pleasing character, is being attempted in vases. We illustrate several types in whole and partial crystallization, which lose considerably by appearing as black-and-white illustrations. Such vases are conspicuous for their revelry in colour, not the hard, dense, opaque colours of the old Chinese single glazes, but the limpid, vibrating, restless subtleties of Nature's own play of pulsating colours in changeful mood—the dazzling and fairy-like opalescence of the frost and the deep blue of the ice cave, or the pale amber sand-dunes imperceptibly fading into a translucent green stretch of waters, with the vaporous haze of a violet sky. In the white heat of the modern furnace the flowers of a prehistoric day, which have lain buried in the coal seams of an alien land, transmute the dull clay and the mineral glaze under the hand of the modern magician into colour nocturnes.

VASES.

With Crystalline glazes by V. Engelhardt.

CHAPTER XI
COPENHAGEN
ART FAIENCE

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Dish, with tropical bird, decorated in rich colours. Designed by Christian Joachim.

CHAPTER XI

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE

The inception of a new technique—The slow growth of a new art—The old masters of majolica—The great promise of a new school—The rich output of colour and inventive form.

The student of ceramic art well knows that porcelain and earthenware, although as poles asunder in their technique, do oftentimes touch one another in apparent affinity. For instance, what is more earthen than the brown crumbling body of the Dutch delft ware? It is a poor relation of porcelain. But the Dutch potter had in mind the great prototypes of the East. His dishes and his jars were an attempt to copy blue-and-white Kang-He porcelain. He covered his brown body with a white enamel and painted his tulips and his Batavian-Chinese designs to imitate the Dutch East India Company's examples he had before him. He created a new art, but he started as a copyist. Beautiful as is Delft, it is really only a simulation in earthenware of blue-and-white porcelain. Similarly in regard to English earthenware, with the noteworthy exceptions of a few types essentially true to the technique of earthenware, it is singular how peculiarly obtuse the Staffordshire potters have been to the limitations of earthenware. They have assiduously attempted to bring it into line with porcelain in its decoration and its appearance. The line of demarcation between earthenware and porcelain has become in England very indefinite, owing to the fact that true porcelain is not manufactured in this country. In consequence, the artificial composition of the body of English porcelain, where calcined bones form an addition to the Chinese formula of true porcelain, has brought it into closer relationship with earthenware than is the case in any other European porcelain. "Semi-porcelain," a term in English ceramics, is not to be found elsewhere. It is still a moot-point whether to classify Wedgwood's jasper ware as earthenware or porcelain. "Ironstone china," a hardware introduced by Mason in 1830 and copied by other potters, is earthenware, and the instances could be multiplied of confusion in nomenclature. But where, as on the Continent, only hard paste that is true porcelain in the Chinese manner is produced, save at Sèvres, the distinction between this and earthenware is most clearly defined.

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Placque, with parrot, decorated in rich colours by Christian Joachim.

At Copenhagen, therefore, the manufacture of faience at a porcelain factory was a leap into the unknown. Not only were different kilns to be employed, but a different technique and especial conditions governed the manufacture. The theories which had been skilfully put into practice and the ideals which had been reached in the art of porcelain were alien to the new departure in the field of faience. To have welded together the two arts and the two techniques would have ruined the enterprise at its commencement. The two streams were allowed to run apart, and the result is an artistic achievement no less noteworthy than the Renaissance of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain. The mantle of Philip Schou has descended on his son-in-law, Frederik Dalgas, who has ably continued the traditions of his predecessor in the management of this national enterprise. The inception and development of this art faience of Copenhagen is due to Mr. Frederik Dalgas, who brought a keen and virile intuition into this new field of ceramic adventure. Whereas in the porcelain there is delicate artistry and finesse, in the faience there is breadth and vivacity of colour schemes. Never do the twain touch each other in kinship. The faience is not a poor kinsman of the porcelain. It is a new creation, a fresh and forceful note in ceramic art. It has a relationship with bygone majolica of another land. It is a transplantation of a southern stock into a northern clime. One is reminded of those labels at Kew Gardens indicating that certain rare trees from sunnier lands have been acclimatized and have become beauty spots in a far country.

The Slow Growth of a New Art.—It is always interesting to the student to examine specimens belonging to the experimental stage of an art. It is here that the potter struggling with his new technique betrays in his motifs suggestions as to its origin. There are very few wares in ceramic art that stand out as supremely original. In some way or another they bear relationship to earlier potters' work, as a rule. Whole schools of artistic potters have been avowedly copyist. This is a truism in regard to European ceramic art as a whole: it is admittedly derivative from Oriental prototypes. But in regard to various branches of pottery apart from porcelain, there is little doubt that it has a long lineage. It is therefore possible to compare the stages of evolution of faience in the Western countries and to realize that since Greek and Roman and Etruscan days man was a progressive potter, though even in this field derivative technique came from east of Suez. The earliest examples of the Copenhagen faience suggest that the old Italian majolica models had lingered in the memory of the potters making their essay into a new domain. Those who have carefully watched the slow but sure growth of this art faience of Copenhagen will have come to realize how surely the potter has put his foot on a new plane and established something that is characteristic and original. He has by a gradual process year by year added new forms, created dishes and beakers of sound design, and perfected the decorations in colour till they have reached something which is gay without being garish and exuberant in rich colouring without being other than surprisingly harmonious. One wonders how the Oriental rug-weaver can place his blues and his reds seemingly so disastrous to tone effect. But there they are, and, either by strong contrast or perfect harmony, the results are artistically true. It is the same question one asks of the colour effects in the Copenhagen art faience. They are perfectly luscious and strikingly original. No one else has employed these combinations of pigments, nor their wide range of colours. They appear to have been produced by magic. But to any one with a working knowledge of a great factory will come the reflection that the apparent magic is the wizardry of genius, and genius has been defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains. The strenuous work, the long vigils, the indefatigable and indomitable determination to accomplish the mastery of the technique is here evident. It is the strong and fruitful harvest of a slow growth carefully tended in an especially artistic environment by trained minds.

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Vase, decorated with sprays of flowers in rich colours.

The Old Masters of Majolica.—The Italian school with its glazed ware of polychrome decorative effects, Faenza, Caffaggiolo, Urbino, Pesarro, and later its lustre (notably the ruby ware of Gubbio), was partially derivative from Persian and from Hispano-Moresque prototypes. Figure subjects form an important feature. Groups in contemporary costume, portraits, and religious or allegorical subjects, as well as heraldic devices, occupy the centre of the dish. But the border is a framework which is richly decorated with brilliant and varied colours. The designs are conceived in the best vein of sixteenth-century fecundity of invention. Elaborate floriate ornament is in combination with satyrs and grotesque masks, or cupids, or birds, or sea monsters. It suggests the sprightly grace which enlivens the tail-pieces engraved in contemporary Italian books. Design, till it ran riot later, was exuberant, and there seemed no end to the outburst of originality and imagination.

It is to these old masters, particularly of the Italian period from about 1480 to about 1580, that one turns for great ideas and perfect execution. Before the latter date signs were evident that the art was declining: already the secret of the Gubbio ruby lustre had been lost.

The earlier Persian pottery and the Rhodian ware, produced as far afield as Damascus and Ispahan, had disseminated the wondrous technique of the East. The Hispano-Moresque ware of Malaga and Valencia, a century earlier than the greatest period of the Italian school, gradually lost its Moorish character with arabesque design and pseudo-Arabic characters, till, in the late sixteenth century, designs in contemporary Spanish costume and broad floriate borders found favour. The copper lustre was, however, still a feature.

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Vase with hexagonal top and base, richly decorated with flowers and arabesque ornament, by Christian Joachim.

It is obvious, therefore, that the old masters are the fount from which so much has been derived. Nevers, Rouen, and Moustiers caught the colour-schemes of Persia and Italy, and each in turn made them her own. In studying the finest work of the old masters of faience we see that the technique is something very different from what Staffordshire has made it. John Dwight in the seventeenth, and Thomas Whieldon in the eighteenth century both worked on sound lines. It is not high art to attempt to make faience simulate porcelain, any more than it is when wall paper pretends to be marble, or leather, or tapestry. Porcelain shows as much of its white body and sparkling glaze as is possible. It depends, as does an etching, on its uncovered background for its luminous effects and its atmosphere. Faience is like an oil painting: it demands that the whole surface be covered. It has a yellow, or brown, or green, or lilac ground. The decoration, in contradistinction to porcelain, is broad and strong. There are no finicking "Chantilly sprigs" in faience. Bold, virile, and striking must be the notes that dominate faience, but withal—and herein lies the supremest difficulty—it must be naïve and simple. It must not suggest the palace, and certainly not the boudoir. It must bespeak the open air. It is the perennial herbaceous border in ceramic art, and not the hot-house or the conservatory.

The Great Promise of a New School.—Lovers of Copenhagen ware and connoisseurs who were aware of the possibilities of faience produced under rightly understood principles have not been disappointed in the art faience which Mr. Christian Joachim has made his own under a group of trained artist potters. His is the guerdon of praise, and the laurel wreath should be placed on his head for his services to the art of his native country. He has happily received the support of a farseeing directorate. His life record will stand as a great triumph for the Copenhagen art faience. What Arnold Krog has done in porcelain, Christian Joachim has done in faience. With a fine appreciation of the limitations of his technique, and with a bold imagination as to further possibilities in modern conditions, he has sent forth his pottery with a message of gaiety and youth. No man is a prophet in his own country. But in Europe and in America Christian Joachim's work has become noteworthy. Danes the world over buy it because it is Danish. We English and other strangers buy it because it is beautiful art.

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Figures. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Modelled by R. Harboe.

Bottom the Weaver.
Fairy.
Philostrate, Master of the Revels.

In an examination of the art tendencies of the new school, it would appear that in the attempt to be surprisingly original there is the wilful abandonment of anything suggestive of Persian, or Rhodian, or Moorish, or Italian ideals. The motifs are especially modern, and the schemes of colour are skilfully handled in a novel manner, and owing to scientific development the potter's palette is more extensive than heretofore. The promise has already been fulfilled, and connoisseurs await later developments with no little curiosity.

The Rich Output of Colour and Inventive Form.—The illustrations to this chapter lack colour, and therefore they cannot do justice to what is one of the most important features in the new art faience. Among the pigments that are used are the following, no incomplete range in comparison with what has gone before in this ceramic field. The Dutch found blue the least refractory of colours, and adhered largely to its use till later they employed yellow. Rouen employed yellow and red and green. But Copenhagen has a palette consisting of cream, yellow, green, blue, red, lilac, and a warm plum colour or purple. This latter colour, the product of scientific modernity, is wielded with a sure hand by Christian Joachim and his school of artists. It is in such examples as the dish and the placque with tropical birds (illustrated, pp. [307], [311]) that the rich colour effects procurable are seen at their best. In the placque extreme simplicity and artlessness of design is exhibited in the floral border. In the dish the border is luxuriant with colour, although broad in treatment. Such examples are extremely decorative, and exhibit this branch of ceramic art on a high level. They attain their excellence by methods of their own. They cannot be confounded with the productions of any other factory, either older or contemporary. Their originality is a factor not to be eliminated in adjudging them.

In vases and other vessels demanding attention to form there is apparent the striving, natural in all potters, for unique forms. A fine vase with rich floral decoration (illustrated, p. [315]) follows the early Italian drug pot. Another breaks new ground, and its square hexagonal surfaces require a touch of geometric ornament, rarely found in Copenhagen faience (illustrated, p. [319]). Punch-bowls with covers, having as a knob a full-sized lemon in natural colours, are novel and utilitarian. The modelling of Mr. Harboe and of Mr. Slott-Möller is deserving of recognition. A Midsummer Night's Dream was performed some years ago in the open air in a glade in the Deerhavn, near Copenhagen, before some thousands of people. It is natural, therefore, to find little faience figures of Bottom the Weaver, of Flute the Bellows-mender, and of Philostrate the Master of the Revels, of Puck, of Oberon and of Titania, and of delightful fairies. These are not conjured up from the German translation by Schlegel of Shakespeare's plays, but from Shakespeare's own imaginings, minus the addition of the heavy hand of German Kultur. We do not remember that Staffordshire has attempted to reproduce Shakespearean characters in clay, though at one time, after Wedgwood, Jupiter and Venus and other alien gods and goddesses were found on every cottager's mantelshelf. The Copenhagen figures of Clown, Columbine, and Harlequin are pleasing in their graceful simplicity (illustrated, p. [327]).

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Figures—Clown, Columbine, and Harlequin—by Christian Joachim.

Boxes—bonbonnières as the French term them—are produced in great variety. We reproduce two, broadly decorated and having covers with original design of bird and wood sprite. This latter follows the true canons of plastic art. He is as rotund, with no breakable projections, as a Japanese ivory button netsuke. With them is illustrated a vase Persian in character, but with modern colour effects. All this is excellent, but one asks for more. In wishing the new school of the North bon voyage, we may be allowed to express a hope that it will continue its outburst of resplendent colour and perpetuate its virile design, that it may worthily vie with the great masters of faience in the South and in the East. In regard to personal inclinations, the writer would like to see sometimes embodied in the decorative borders of placques and vases the interlaced work of Runic design, symbolic of the Norse mystery and magic. If the Italian saints find place on the tazzas of Faenza, surely Thor and Wodin, who gave their names to two days of the week, and other heroes of Northern mythology, should be embodied in this Copenhagen gallery. The triumphs of the Vikings and their sagas quicken the imagination. Of heroes of later date, one could wish to see Cnut at the English seashore, or the rugged portrait of old Christian IV.

It may be that these vain cravings for pages from the past run not attune to the dreams of the master potter with an eye to the future; possibly decorative technique forbids—but here are the stray lines of a foreign spectator in kindly spirit.

The ware is marked in green with an italic A to signify its origin from the parent Aluminia factory as early as 1863, and to this are added the three lines so well known as a Royal Copenhagen Porcelain mark.

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Vase and Boxes with lids surmounted by wood sprite and by bird, richly decorated in colours. By H. Slott-Möller and Christian Joachim.

CHAPTER XII
THE FACTORY
TO-DAY

CHAPTER XII

THE FACTORY TO-DAY

Its situation and surroundings—Facilities for the study of plant, flower, and animal life—Modern equipment in machinery and in hygienic improvements—The absence of lead poisoning—New impulses.

In the word factory there is nothing suggestive of poetry. In England it represents the Frankenstein who has slain many cottage industries. In connection with our own potteries there are the Five Towns, merged into one, with a quarter of a million of inhabitants. They stand for organized science and applied manufacture. Their architecture is an architecture of chimney-shafts and kilns, black with smoke. It is a prosperous district, crammed with the workers in a gigantic industry. There are visions of murky canals and great hills of accumulated rubble of the mines, coal and copper and iron, dug from the bowels of the earth and blotting out the skyline.

There are crowded byways filled with hurrying operatives, men and women and girls. The beauty of the rich, green, undulating lands of Staffordshire has been effaced by this delving of human moles. It is as though some ruthless giant had made sport of the hills and worked havoc on a smiling plain. But modern life demands sacrifices, and chinaware must be made to send to the four corners of the earth—this is the great White Country.

In Denmark things are managed differently. It comes as a welcome surprise to the English visitor, educated to other scenes, to find the Royal Porcelain Factory set in a pleasant suburb of the city near the old gardens of the Palace of Frederiksberg. One cannot have an omelette without breaking eggs: the factory chimneys are there, the green-hedged paths are surely a snare leading up to another such prison-house as are all factories the world over. Here are the heaps of quartz, and we catch the hum of the machinery. The workers are in the hive; some unkind sprite has snatched them from the pleasant ways of a delightful city set by the sea and immured them for their sins in this fortress of stone.

COURTYARD OF ROYAL COPENHAGEN FACTORY.

Showing turkey and brood.

It suggests the story of Böttger and his workmen imprisoned by reason of the secrets they held. Surely these workmen and artists who know the secret of the Copenhagen ware will not be allowed to escape. It is too precious a thing to Denmark that its secrets be divulged. But the reply comes suddenly when the doors are opened and the secret, that is no secret, is disclosed. These men and women are Danes, and proud of their art and filled with the love of their Copenhagen porcelain. They come and go as they will. Like bees they roam over the flowers and the gems of nature, and they return home to the hive because they love their art. That which their hand findeth to do, they do with all their might.

Facility for Study of Animal and Plant Life.—There is sunshine here in this Northern pottery. The courtyard shows a scene no other factory in the world can offer; it is bewildering to a student of potteries: a turkey with her brood proudly dominates the scene. We have with the camera caught this as a record. It is as suggestive as it is remarkable that the artists have carried their love for fidelity so far that flowers and animals and birds find themselves in suitable environment at this strange enchanted factory.

Animal life is dear to the potters here. There are over three hundred moulds of different types—wading and diving wild fowl from the remoter "haunts of coot and hern"; sea-gulls, never absent from the harbour and canals spanned by bridges over which trams pass; bears and seals, the originals of which are to be found at the Zoological Gardens close by; and if the Phœnix—that fabulous bird which lives for five hundred years, making its nest of spices and burning itself to ashes, coming forth with renewed life for another five hundred years—could be captured, it would find a place in the aviary of the factory which, Phœnix-like, has arisen with youth and vigour.

The Absence of Lead Poisoning.—In place of the white-faced factory workers, we find at the Copenhagen factory a healthy band of workmen, artisans, and artists, employed in conditions that are a credit to all concerned. The usual drudgery of a pottery is eliminated as much as possible in this factory. The latest modern appliances to ventilate the dust-laden air are in use. There are no cases of lead-poisoning, because lead is not used in the factory either in pigments or in glazes. A dining-hall and dressing-rooms have been erected for the workmen. The factory provides its own electricity and mechanical power; it is heated throughout by hot water, and has a complete system of vacuum and pressure mains.

The lady artists work in almost ideal conditions. They are installed in studios filled with flowers and plants, and in no other factory are the artistic conditions so favourable to the study of plant and animal life. The photographs we reproduce are taken of the normal surroundings of everyday work.

INTERIOR OF ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN FACTORY.

Showing studios of lady artists.

The writer has indelible memory pictures of the workmen at the machinery, or in the open air turning over the quartz where it lies in heaps "weathering," exposed to the sun and the frost, of slowly grinding stones revolving in a vat mixing and amalgamating the raw materials, in preparing them for the next stage of handling, revealing the slow and patient processes of the potter's art. There is something hazardous in manipulating the raw materials, crushing them into powder, and bringing them together in the correct proportions for the body. It is here that the long traditions of the factory, the well-guarded secrets in the mixing, and the skilful instinct in conjunction with scientific exactitude, come into full operation. The result is evident in the smooth, white, pearly body and the transparent liquid glaze, so technically perfect and so much admired by other potters.

One recalls an anxious and expectant group at the ovens when a firing is being removed after the ovens have cooled down from the intense heat of the grand feu, a temperature never attempted by the manufacturers of soft-paste porcelain in this country.

The laboratory holds mysteries of its own. It is an inner sanctum to which few penetrate. These little human touches indicate that there is a romance in manufacture as well as in more stirring scenes to the accompaniment of the roll of the drum or the rousing bugle-call. The potter's art is rich in associations which render the arts of peace as alluring in story as the arts of war. Many victories have been won in silence, but no less triumphant for that, and these represent man's conquest of earth and the white-hot flame of the furnace, whereby he transmutes the rocks from the quarry and the mountain-side into crystal vases reflecting those same mountains, and streams, and placid lakes, and clouds in stately procession. This is the art of the magician, and modern science has added one more laurel wreath to her victories over the elements.

The interior of a great factory where art is in the making has many exciting moments. The cruel fire is no respecter of persons. After the various steps have been taken, the grinding, the mixing, the moulding into form, the firing in biscuit, the painting, and the subsequent glazing, the creation comes out of the oven as a finished work of art. At any one of these stages a slip may mean disaster. Each successive process gains in difficulty. It is a tragic instant when the last hour is reached. After the oven has cooled the news goes round that a firing is being taken from the kiln. A knot of artists gathers round as each piece comes out. Some call for admiration; there is a hush of joyful surprise when a completed masterpiece comes forth perfect. Alas! too often some delightful dream with its tender colours has twisted out of shape in the intense heat. A graceful form has coalesced with a neighbouring vase. They stand as failures, and the workman with swift, relentless hand gives them a tap with a hammer, and they become shards. The poet-painter's dream has ended in nothingness.

New Impulses.—In regard to the future there are golden hopes and happy anticipations. The past has been glorious, the present is triumphant. A true and living school of design amid sound artistic environment has its band of artist-potters, trained under happy auspices, whose aims are set steadfastly on art that is nothing unless it be national—these are the children of to-morrow. New generations will come and go, and new art impulses will beat, as the waves breaking from the Baltic, on the little pottery set on a rock and proud in its great achievements. The future, like the vessel in the furnace, is in the hands of Fate. Taking courage in both hands, the potter-sons of Denmark will in those yet unborn days carry on the great traditions. There is a great heritage for the sons of the days to come, and looking backward, they will place the laurel wreath on the brow of the masters who, in the old days and at the present era, have fought the good fight and won the guerdon of praise from potters in far-off lands who have paid homage to the art of the Three Blue Lines.

FINIS

INDEX

INDEX

Printed in Great Britain by
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON