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.