Читать книгу Inventors at Work, with Chapters on Discovery - George Iles - Страница 63

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When reeds or somewhat rigid fibres are woven, they compel a straightness of edge in patterns and designs. A wave has to be suggested by stepped or broken lines, and so we have a rectilinear meander or fret, in contrast with its free-hand form as developed in a woven fabric. Under the constraint of her material a squaw as she weaves a design into a basket, must give squareness to a contour which would be somewhat rounded were it executed in delicate threads. This is clear in the human figures of the Pomo basket shown on page 109; and in those of a Yokut basket bowl, also in the National Museum in Washington, illustrated on the next page.

Yokut basket bowl.

“Basket Work of North American Aborigines.” Otis T. Mason.

Stone and brick-work, in their rectilinear shapes, impose a rigidity in architectural design from which modern bricks, in their rich variety of flat and curved surfaces, have wrought emancipation. In the new residential streets of St. Louis, for example, the architecture owes much of its freedom and beauty to the new shapes in which brick is now manufactured. Even wider liberty than now falls to the lot of the brick-maker has always been enjoyed by the potter. In his hands clay lends itself to any desired imitation, to any fresh design however fanciful; what is more it invites those modifications of old forms in which art takes its chief forward strides. All but infinite are the variations which Japanese potters have played on the shapes of vases, jars, kettles, and basins, each clearly true to its type, while at the same time original in a pleasing way. How the Japanese artist in clay has rejoiced in his freedom is exemplified in the collection of Japanese pottery at the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston. Says Mr. Edward S. Morse, who brought this collection together: “Utensils for every day life, terra cotta funeral urns, large terra cotta bowls, weights for fishing nets, brush handles, and even clothes-hooks are in Japan made of pottery. Where we use silver and other metals, or glass, in making articles for daily use, the Japanese use pottery.” He adds: “The prehistoric pottery of Japan was modeled by hand, and to-day in various parts of the empire, this ancient art is continued in its prehistoric form. There are many potters in Japan who are still at work using only the hand in making bowls, delicate tea-pots, and dishes of various kinds. The pottery vessels offered at Shinto shrines are usually made without the use of the wheel and are unglazed. The potter’s wheel was brought to Japan from Korea. The first was probably the kick-wheel used in Satsuma and other southern provinces.”

The Japanese employ not only clay but wood in methods that richly repay study. Says Mr. Ralph Adams Cram:—“In one respect Japanese architecture is unique: it is a style developed from the exigencies of wooden construction, and here it stands alone as the most perfect mode in wood the world has known. As such it must be judged, and not from the narrow canons of the West that presuppose masonry as the only building material. … Perhaps the greatest lesson one learns in Japan is that of the beauty of natural wood, and the right method of treating it. The universal custom of the West has been to look on wood as a convenient medium for the obtaining of ornamental form through carving and joinery, the quality of the material itself being seldom considered. In Japan the reverse is the case. In domestic work a Japanese builder shrinks from anything that would draw attention from the beauty of his varied woods. He treats them as we do precious marbles, and one is forced to confess that under his hand wood is found to be quite as wonderful a material as our expensive and hardly worked marbles. In Japan one comes to the final conclusion that stains, paints, and varnish, so far as interior work is concerned, are nothing short of artistic crimes.”[12]

[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.