[APPENDIX.]
OBJECTS FOR WOOD-CARVING.
“The most difficult part of making is to know what to make.”
Fig. 64.
In no circumstances should the wood-carver be at a loss for a subject to work on, yet this is the commonest source of complaint, especially among young artists, that they “do not know what to take up.” One result of this is the wearisome production of panels or “fancy pieces” without any definite aim, and a constant imitation of one another’s work. Unfortunately there are a great many who cannot understand or form any idea how a pattern would look when executed. They will pass it over in an engraving, but when they see it actually carved and made up they appreciate it. Now the tutor should teach the pupils, and the students teach themselves, to think of subjects, to invent them, to sketch and execute them. I have found that all workers are invariably more defective in this respect than in any other, and that it is one in which the direction of almost every art school in the world is either utterly wanting, or else leaves much to be desired.
Pupils should be encouraged to look at every object with an eye to ornamenting or decorating it, so far as that can be done without detracting from its usefulness. In every school a list of objects for carving should be hung up, and the workers be frequently requested to think of subjects to add to the list; outline sketches of furniture and other objects should be supplied. It is not at all understood that even a very little frequent employment of the mind inventing and planning, no matter at what, stimulates all the mental faculties to an extraordinary degree.
I therefore seriously urge that the wood-carver shall earnestly study the following list of subjects, add to it, and at times take one or the other of them and sketch it with variations. He may remember while doing this, that any of the ornaments given may be varied and applied to different things, as, for instance, the vine on a circular panel may be easily adapted to a square. Full directions for doing this may be found in “The Manual of Design,”[2] price one shilling, which also contains many patterns perfectly adapted to carving.