Illustrated History of Furniture: From the Earliest to the Present Time

by Frederick Litchfield

The difficulty of altering this unsatisfactory state of things is evident. On the one side, the manufacturers or the large furnishing firms have a strong case in their contention that the public will go to the market it considers the best: and when decoration is pitted against simplicity, though the construction which accompanies the former be ever so faulty, the more pretentious article will be selected. When a successful pattern has been produced, and arrangements and sub-contracts have been made for its repetition in large quantities, any considerable variation made in the details (even if it be the suppression of ornament) will cause an addition to the cost which those only who understand something of a manufacturer's business can appreciate.

During the present generation an Art movement has sprung up called Æstheticism, which has been defined as the "Science of the Beautiful and the Philosophy of the Fine Arts," and aims at carrying a love of the beautiful into all the relations of life. The fantastical developments which accompanied the movement brought its devotees into much ridicule about ten years ago, and the pages of Punch of that time will be found to happily travesty its more amusing and extravagant aspects. The great success of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, "Patience," produced in 1881, was also to some extent due to the humorous allusions to the extravagances of the "Aesthetetes." In support of what may be termed a higher Æstheticism, Mr. Ruskin has written much to give expression to his ideas and principles for rendering our surroundings more beautiful. Sir Frederic Leighton and Mr. Alma Tadema are conspicuous amongst those who have in their houses carried such principles into effect, and amongst other artists who have been and are, more or less, associated with this movement, may be named Rossetti, Burne Jones, and Holman Hunt. As a writer on Æstheticism has observed:—"When the extravagances attending the movement have been purged away, there may be still left an educating influence, which will impress the lofty and undying principles of Art upon the minds of the people."

For a time, in-spite of ridicule, this so-called Æstheticism was the vogue, and considerably affected the design and decoration of furniture of the time. Woodwork was painted olive green; the panels of cabinets, painted in sombre colors, had pictures of sad-looking maidens, and there was an attempt at a "dim religious" effect in our rooms quite inappropriate to such a climate as that of England. The reaction, however, from the garish and ill-considered colourings of a previous decade or two has left behind it much good, and with the catholicity of taste which marks the furnishing of the present day, people see some merit in every style, and are endeavouring to select that which is desirable without running to the extreme of eccentricity.

Perhaps the advantage thus gained is counterbalanced by the loss of our old "traditions," for amongst the wilderness of reproductions of French furniture, more or less frivolous—of Chippendale, as that master is generally understood—of what is termed "Jacobean" and "Queen Anne"—to say nothing of a quantity of so-called "antique furniture," we are bewildered in attempting to identify this latter end of the nineteenth century with any particular style of furniture. By "tradition" it is intended to allude to the old-fashioned manner of handing down from father to son, or master to apprentice, for successive generations, the skill to produce any particular class of object of Art or manufacture. Surely Ruskin had something of this in his mind when he said, "Now, when the powers of fancy, stimulated by this triumphant precision of manual dexterity, descend from generation to generation, you have at last what is not so much a trained artist, as a new species of animal, with whose instinctive gifts you have no chance of contending."

Tradition may be said to still survive in the country cartwright, who produces the farmer's wagon in accordance with custom and tradition, modifying the method of construction somewhat perhaps to meet altered conditions of circumstances, and then ornamenting his work by no particular set design or rule, but partly from inherited aptitude and partly from playfulness or fancy. In the house-carpenter attached to some of our old English family estates, there will also be found, here and there, surviving representatives of the traditional "joyner" of the seventeenth century, and in Eastern countries, particularly in Japan, we find the dexterous joiner or carver of to-day is the descendant of a long line of more or less excellent mechanics.

It must be obvious, too, that "Trades Unionism" of the present day cannot but be, in many of its effects, prejudicial to the Industrial Arts. A movement which aims at reducing men of different intelligence and ability, to a common standard, and which controls the amount of work done, and the price paid for it, whatever are its social or economical advantages, must have a deleterious influence upon the Art products of our time.

Writers on Art and manufactures, of varying eminence and opinion, are unanimous in pointing out the serious drawbacks to progress which will exist, so long as there is a demand for cheap and meretricious imitations of old furniture, as opposed to more simply made articles, designed in accordance with the purposes for which they are intended. Within the past few years a great many well directed endeavours have been made in England to improve design in furniture, and to revive something of the feeling of pride and ambition in his craft, which, in the old days of the Trade Guilds, animated our Jacobean joiner. One of the best directed of these enterprises is that of the "Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society," of which Mr. Walter Crane, A.R.W.S., is president, and which numbers, amongst its committee and supporters, a great many influential names. As suggested in the design of the cover of their Exhibition Catalogue, drawn by the President, one chief aim of the society is to link arm in arm "Design and Handicraft," by exhibiting only such articles as bear the names of individuals who (1) drew the design and (2) carried it out: each craftsman thus has the credit and responsibility of his own part of the work, instead of the whole appearing as the production of Messrs. A.B. or C.D., who may have known nothing personally of the matter, beyond generally directing the affairs of a large manufacturing or furnishing business.

In the catalogue published by this Society there are several short and useful essays in which furniture is treated, generally and specifically, by capable writers, amongst whom are Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Edward Prior, Mr. Halsey Ricardo, Mr. Reginald T. Blomfield, Mr. W.R. Letharby, Mr. J.H. Pollen, Mr. Stephen Webb, and Mr. T.G. Jackson, A.R.A., the order of names being that in which the several essays are arranged. This small but valuable contribution to the subject of design and manufacture of furniture is full of interest, and points out the defects of our present system. Amongst other regrets, one of the writers (Mr. Halsey Ricardo) complains, that the "transient tenure that most of us have in our dwellings, and the absorbing nature of the struggle that most of us have to make to win the necessary provisions of life, prevent our encouraging the manufacture of well wrought furniture. We mean to outgrow our houses—our lease expires after so many years, and then we shall want an entirely different class of furniture—consequently we purchase articles that have only sufficient life in them to last the brief period of our occupation, and are content to abide by the want of appropriateness or beauty, in the clear intention of some day surrounding ourselves with objects that shall be joys to us for the remainder of our life."

Many other societies, guilds, and art schools have been established with more or less success, with the view of improving the design and manufacture of furniture, and providing suitable models for our young wood carvers to copy. The Ellesmere Cabinet (illustrated) was one of the productions of the "Home Arts and Industries Association," founded by the late Lady Marian Alford in 1883, a well known connoisseur and Art patron. It will be seen that this is virtually a Jacobean design.

In the earlier chapters of this book, it has been observed that as Architecture became a settled Art or Science, it was accompanied by a corresponding development in the design of the room and its furniture, under, as it were, one impulse of design, and this appropriate concord may be said to have obtained in England until nearly the middle of the present century, when, after the artificial Greek style in furniture and woodwork which had been attempted by Wilkins, Soane, and other contemporary architects, had fallen into disfavour, there was first a reaction, and then an interregnum, as has been noticed in the previous chapter. The Great Exhibition marked a fresh departure, and quickened, as we have seen, industrial enterprise in this country; and though, upon the whole, good results have been produced by the impetus given by these international competitions, they have not been exempt from unfavorable accompaniments. One of these was the eager desire for novelty, without the necessary judgment to discriminate between good and bad. For a time, nothing satisfied the purchaser of so-called "artistic" products, whether of decorative furniture, carpets, curtains or merely ornamental articles, unless the design was "new." The natural result was the production either of heavy and ugly, or flimsy and inappropriate furniture, which has been condemned by every writer on the subject. In some of the designs selected from the exhibits of '51 this desire to leave the beaten track of conventionality will be evident: and for a considerable time after the exhibition there is to be seen in our designs, the result of too many opportunities for imitation, acting upon minds insufficiently trained to exercise careful judgment and selection.