Style, in furniture, is a matter of good spacing, rather than of period or person. The best designs are very simple, finely balanced compositions of a few straight lines (No. 31, D).
Book covers with their lettering and decorations, and book pages with or without illustrations are examples of space cutting,—good or commonplace according to the designer's feeling for line-beauty, In the early days of printing the two pages of an open book were consider together as a single rectangular space. Into this the type was to be set with the utmost care as to proportion and margin.
EXERCISE
The few examples given here show how varied are the applications of a single principle. The study of these will suggest a field for research. If possible the student should work from the objects themselves or from large photographs; and from the original Japanese design books. These [pg 41]
[pg 42] tracings are given for purposes of comparison.
| 1. | Copy the examples, without measuring. An attempt to copy brings the pupil's mind into contact with that of a superior, and lets him see how difficult it is to reach the master's perfection. Copying as a means of improving one's style is the opposite of copying as a substitute for original work. |
|---|---|
| 2. | After making the best possible copies, invent original variations of these themes,—keeping the same general plan but changing the sizes. |
COMPOSITION OF POTTERY FORMS. Makers of modern commercial ware usually leave beauty of line out of account, thinking only of utility,—of the piece of pottery as a feeding-dish, or as a costly and showy object. The glaring white glaze, harsh colors and clumsy shapes of common table-ware must be endured until there is sufficient public appreciation to demand something better; yet even this is less offensive than the kind that pretends to be art,—bad in line and glittering with false decoration.
Pottery, like other craft-products, is truly useful when it represents the best workmanship, combined with feeling for shape, tone, texture and color,—in a word, fine art.
Such quality is found, to mention only a few cases, in some of the “peasant wares”; in the best Japanese pottery, ancient and modern; in Chinese, especially of the Sung period (A. D. 960-1280) in Moorish, Persian, Rhodian and Greek. When each maker tried to improve up older models, and had the taste and inventive genius to do it, the art grew to supreme excellence; even fragments such handicraft are now precious. The difference between the contours a really great piece of pottery and ordinary one may seem very slight, but in just this little difference lies the art.