Inventors at Work, with Chapters on Discovery

by George Iles

[12] “Impressions of Japanese Architecture and the Allied Arts,” by Ralph Adams Cram. New York, Baker & Taylor Co., 1905.

In strong contrast with the art of Japan is that of Egypt; on the banks of the Nile the first buildings were of limestone, succeeded by huge structures reared from Syene granite, with no little loss in delicacy of ornamentation. It was only when marble, all but plastic under the chisel, was adopted by the Greek sculptor, that the frieze of the Parthenon could spring into life.

Here William Morris should be heard. In “Hopes and Fears for Art,” he says: “All material offers certain difficulties to be overcome and certain facilities to be made the most of. Up to a certain point you must be master of your material, but you must never be so much the master as to turn it surly, so to say. You must not make it your slave, or presently you will be its slave also. You must master it so far as to make it express a meaning, and to serve your aim at beauty. You may go beyond that necessary point for your own pleasure and amusement, and still be in the right way; but if you go on after that merely to make people stare at your dexterity in dealing with a difficult thing, you have forgotten art along with the rights of your material, and you will make not a work of art, but a mere toy; you are no longer an artist, but a juggler. The history of art gives us abundant examples and warning in this matter. First clear, steady principle, then playing with the danger, and lastly falling into the snare, mark with the utmost distinctness the times of the health, the decline, and the last sickness of art.” He illustrates this in detail from the history of mosaic in architecture.

While the modern artist duly respects the idiom of his new materials, their diversity and refinement, in granting him the utmost freedom, enable him to attain a truth of execution unknown before to-day. For writing on papyrus a brush had to be used; on vellum or paper, a pen or pencil may also be employed, tracing lines no wider than a hair. Our grandmothers were fond of sewing on a perforated card a motto or a flower in silk thread; such a sampler always had an unpleasant straightness in its outlines. When in weaving silk or linen there may be two hundred threads to the running inch instead of ten, the designer can introduce curves almost as flowing as if he were a painter. So too in architecture: the log hut was perforce straight in its every line; stone and brick made possible the arch; iron and steel are bringing in a free choice of the best lines, whether straight or curved, all with a new sprightliness, as witness the best of our office-buildings in New York, such as the Whitehall, Trinity, and Empire Buildings.

Sampler on cardboard, executed in silk thread.

Bark vessel, and derived form in clay.
“Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art.” W. H. Holmes.

Old Forms Repeated in New Materials.

Art in its early stages seldom displays any outright invention; with all the force of habit the savage artist clings to old familiar shapes, and it is interesting to remark how dealing with a new material may lead or even oblige him to modify a traditional form. The Algonquins inhabit a country in which the birch is common. They cut and fold its bark into vessels which, when imitated in pottery, have an unusual rectangularity. In many Indian tribes it was customary to use as a water-holder the paunch of a deer or a buffalo; many ancient urns of Central America have an aperture at an upper extremity, copied from the paunch, in every case with a simplification of outline. Winged troughs of wood were undoubtedly in the mind of the man who made the [earthen vessel] illustrated on the next page, found in an ancient grave in Arkansas. As usual the borrower put something of himself into his work, reminding us that the law of evolution is descent with modification. An [earthen vessel], illustrated on the next page, was plainly copied from a shell vessel such as the specimen found not far off, in Indiana. When the Clallam Indians, of the State of Washington, began to weave baskets, they imitated the forms of their rude wicker fish-traps. The like persistence was shown by the Haida squaws when taught by the missionaries to make mats from rags; they repeated their ancient twined model, long employed for mats and hats of vegetable fibres. As in America, so also in Europe; when the makers of celts passed from stone to copper or bronze, they reproduced the old forms, and only gradually learned to economize metal, so much stronger than stone, and so much harder to get, by narrowing and flattening their new weapons and tools.