Arthur Hayden

“ But in the Renaissance figures of Copenhagen children the spirit of childhood is present. The simple peasant Child (illustrated, p. 279) , with burden of bottle and basket, is as true to life as the faithful record of an old Dutch master. It is, possibly without meaning to be, symbolic of the life of toil of the peasant. It is a tale the clay tells of the busy life of the fields. Even a tiny child has to bear her share of the long day's work. It is just that sad touch of reflection which illuminates great works of art, and it is here present. ”

“ There is no greater tribute to pay to the inspiring genius behind the Royal Copenhagen Factory than to enumerate these instances of old factories with the prestige of Sèvres and Meissen hailing the newly awakened spirit of a younger factory. On every side, in these days, came the tribute of praise generously given by masters of technique and by rival workers in art. The Renaissance was something more than a name—it had become an accomplished fact. ”

“ A true and living school of design amid sound artistic environment has its band of artist-potters, trained under happy auspices, whose aims are set steadfastly on art that is nothing unless it be national—these are the children of to-morrow. New generations will come and go, and new art impulses will beat, as the waves breaking from the Baltic, on the little pottery set on a rock and proud in its great achievements. ”

“ To contemplate old Chinese porcelain is not to think in poetry but to speak in poetry. Great potters have twin souls the world over. The Chinese themselves have terms for their own ware which indicate the plane on which all great ceramic art should stand. To one colour is given the term "the moonlight," to another "the blue of the prune skin," to another "the violet of the wild apple," to another "the liquid dawn," to yet another "the red of the bean blossom." ”

“ The outlook of the Copenhagen potter-artists reflects the genius of inspired vision. The face of Nature is transfigured. This interpretation links poesy and pensive art indissolubly together in these ceramic poems palpitating with sensitiveness.
A touch of tender melancholy pervades the art of the potter. He has caught the pale green of the sea, the vibrating light on the long sand dunes and the silvery vaporous clouds that fret the horizon. ”

“ To compare Japanese art with that of Copenhagen is to compare two parallel lines which only meet in infinity and never coincide. Truth and sincerity, love of nature, and mastery of form are common to the Japanese and the Danish ceramists. But the former reflect the brilliance of colour harmonies of a land teeming with rich colour and steeped in Oriental tradition. The mirror is held to national life and sentiment, and accordingly movement, humour, poetry, are essentials in Japanese pottery. ”

“ The old models of beautiful symmetry had long been set aside or even destroyed. The favourite blue-and-white service, the national pattern treasured as the remaining heirloom, had lost all its style and harmony. Haphazard conditions prevailed and slovenly results predominated. Originality had taken wing and deserted the old factory. The old mussel design was painted on any form that found its way into Denmark from other factories. Copenhagen was content to follow, and leave art and prestige to take care of themselves. ”

“ The poetry and dreamy searchings of Copenhagen porcelain have held the mirror to Nature. With outer eye illumined with spiritual vision, the potters have translated the soul of Nature's physical beauty into porcelain. Here is the natural—but there is the vast, unfathomed supernatural. Can it be possible that there are yet other secrets of the magic of the Northlands? Will the inner vision bring forth into the furnace the dreams of the old world deep in the Northern heart, buried these long centuries? ”

“ The days of early Renaissance were filled with eager incessant work, and whatever difficulties surged up to the doors of the factory, Schou resisted them bravely. He believed in the future of the factory, he believed in the work of the artists. It was this great proud belief of a great man in his life's work that created the second great period in the history of the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. ”

“ The beauty of form is reticent and reposeful. The range of the grand-feu colours coincides exactly with the tender colours of the little kingdom, and the melting glaze adds that luminosity which makes the Danish landscape so spirituelle.
Danish art has never attempted to be Japanese; on the other hand, Japan has seriously realized that the art of Copenhagen is worth the copying, and has done this with a light heart.
Again and again one is struck with the originality of a design new to ceramic decoration. ”

“ The interior of a great factory where art is in the making has many exciting moments. The cruel fire is no respecter of persons. After the various steps have been taken, the grinding, the mixing, the moulding into form, the firing in biscuit, the painting, and the subsequent glazing, the creation comes out of the oven as a finished work of art. At any one of these stages a slip may mean disaster. Each successive process gains in difficulty. It is a tragic instant when the last hour is reached. After the oven has cooled the news goes round that a firing is being taken from the kiln. ”

“ With perforated border and rim decorated with scale design in blue, and having national Danish pattern in centre.
There has been a process of fermentation going on in modern Danish pictorial art, and its influence is seen on the porcelain produced at the royal factory. It is new because it is everlastingly old—the worship of Nature. There is in modern Copenhagen porcelain the tender, dreamy melancholy of the old Danish ballads. It is like some magic story told in the twilight. Everything is silent, nebulous, steeped in fragrant yet pathetic memories. ”

“ It is the same question one asks of the colour effects in the Copenhagen art faience. They are perfectly luscious and strikingly original. No one else has employed these combinations of pigments, nor their wide range of colours. They appear to have been produced by magic. But to any one with a working knowledge of a great factory will come the reflection that the apparent magic is the wizardry of genius, and genius has been defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains. ”

“ The underglaze colours find complete harmony in the decoration of figures of birds, and are delicate and true to nature in the modelled fish, which have a graceful charm especially their own. They are a perfect medium for placques and vases, depicting the long vaporous clouds stretched across a leaden sky, the silvery blue transparent billows tossing in from the Baltic, or in the foreground streaming wearily over the level grey-yellow sand, flecked with the lilac seashore flowers and tufts of grass on the sand-dunes. ”

“ Apart from the technical excellence of selection of idea and symmetrical incorporation with the form under decoration, there is the national spirit, [Pg 245] which is the soul imparted to the work of artists filled with intense love of nature. This charm, lightly and daintily woven into the dreams which the porcelain conveys in dim mysterious manner, cannot be captured by the snare of the imitator.
The Western potter hitherto had not quite realized that he must be a poet as well as a potter. To study Copenhagen porcelain is to read poetry conveyed in another medium than printing-ink and paper. ”

“ His life record will stand as a great triumph for the Copenhagen art faience. What Arnold Krog has done in porcelain, Christian Joachim has done in faience. With a fine appreciation of the limitations of his technique, and with a bold imagination as to further possibilities in modern conditions, he has sent forth his pottery with a message of gaiety and youth. No man is a prophet in his own country. But in Europe and in America Christian Joachim's work has become noteworthy. Danes the world over buy it because it is Danish. We English and other strangers buy it because it is beautiful art. ”

“ It is the highest ceramic landscape painting offered to the delectation of those possessed of sufficient connoisseurship to appreciate the supreme handling of a difficult technique.
It departs from the Chinese prototypes in underglaze blue. The deep blue of Nankin is delightful in its poetry, but it is a convention that landscapes are painted all blue. Copenhagen becomes more realistic, but no less poetical, with added touches of amber, and mauve, and grey, and sage green, and the blue, pale and tender, carries out a colour scheme which stamps this Western art as something original and ideal. ”

“ The "Danish pattern" in blue was not long in attracting copyists from other European factories. To-day in Copenhagen itself English faience transfer-printed in blue stands as a trade imitation and a tribute to the genius and originality of its prototype. Possibly the potter plagiarists may never have heard of the pregnant words of Goethe: "There are many echoes, but few voices." ”

“ The Danes fought stubbornly. The love of the fatherland and the flag, the split flag of old Denmark—the Dannebrog—a white cross on a red field, was stimulated by the poets of the day. Old memories were awakened of the days of Juel, Hvidfeldt, and Tordenskjold. Workmen, peasants from the farms, and merchants from the city hastened to enroll. The students of the university, a thousand strong, enlisted to a man. The Danish ships, supported by the shore batteries, lay in the shallow waters of the Sound. ”

“ The mantle of Philip Schou has descended on his son-in-law, Frederik Dalgas, who has ably continued the traditions of his predecessor in the management of this national enterprise. The inception and development of this art faience of Copenhagen is due to Mr. Frederik Dalgas, who brought a keen and virile intuition into this new field of ceramic adventure. Whereas in the porcelain there is delicate artistry and finesse, in the faience there is breadth and vivacity of colour schemes. Never do the twain touch each other in kinship. The faience is not a poor kinsman of the porcelain. ”

“ Some arts have been lost. It is said that the art of translation has never been discovered. All have laboured after it in vain; it is as hard to seek as hidden treasure, and one never finds it. But the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory found the "hidden treasure" in the design which has grown into a thousand shapes inspired by the traditions of Müller, who "laid the East in fee," and whose successors true to his memory are not those
Who would keep an ancient form
Through which the spirit breathes no more. ”

“ The Zoological Gardens in close proximity to the factory has provided the Polar bear and other studies. A notable example of fine modelling is a Sea Lion, which is life-like in its faithful representation. The modelled fish, with the liquid glaze suggestive that they have just been captured, are a remarkable feature and are true in every detail—as true as were the botanical specimens on the Flora Danica service. They come as decorative objects as surprisingly beautiful in form as are the birds, and their variety captivates the lover of natural form and subdued colour. ”

“ The Copenhagen factory was a century old in the seventies. Most of our English porcelain factories had put out their furnaces for ever. Chelsea, Derby, Plymouth, Bristol, and Bow had entered that ghostly realm where collectors [Pg 202] snatch at the body of the potters and posterity portions out the inheritance of the departed great.
The years of the English porcelain factories, with their triumphs and their decadence, were compassed within the span of a man's life. Plymouth and Bristol, the only hard-paste factories, together ran less than twenty years. ”

“ The light, graceful plant motif shown in the blue-and-white painted fluted porcelain is as welcome a sight to Danes the world over as the slender twin spires of Roskilde Cathedral, where the kings of Denmark sleep in eternal peace. ”

“ The simple forms of nature were translated into ceramic art, and the melting, dreamy, sad-hued porcelain was imbued with the subtle effects of the Danish landscape. The great simplicity of motif was the great simplicity of genius. The effects are so natural and [Pg 236] reticent that their greatness might well escape common observation. But the trained eyes of half the potters in Europe and of connoisseurs of the highest ceramic art were turned, and are turned still, to the output of the Copenhagen factory. ”

“ The news of the great discovery by Johann Fredrich Böttger, in 1709, of a white translucent porcelain, having all the characteristics of the Chinese ware, ran like a flame throughout Europe. Translucent porcelain may be either what is termed hard paste (pâte dure) , containing only natural elements in the composition of the body and the glaze; or soft paste (pâte tendre) , where the body is an artificial combination of various materials used as a substitute for the natural earths. All Chinese or true porcelain is of the hard-paste variety. ”

“ The year 1780, the date when the first opening of the retail business took place, was the turning-point in the history of the factory. Müller was acclaimed as a genius by his countrymen. It was proposed that a statue should be erected to his honour—and this in his lifetime. A wave of enthusiasm found an outlet in Latin poems to "the man who had done so much for his king and country." It is exceptional to find such contemporary honour bestowed on a potter. Rarely is a man a prophet in his own country. But happily Müller lived to wear the laurel wreath. ”

“ All credit is due to him for instilling the principles of fine lines and graceful forms into the minds of the young potters. But it was Müller by day and by night, with long vigils, often all night, at the ovens with his workmen whom he was training to control the caprice of the furnace, who seized the situation and gladly profited by experience in his uphill struggle to establish his factory in the face of all difficulties. Müller had the genius of "moulding men in plastic circumstance." Nor was Luplau the swan he is sometimes thought to have been. ”

“ Frantz Heinrich Müller, the greatest potter of Denmark, is not dead, although his ashes have lain in a nameless grave for nearly a century. His memory still lies green in the hearts of those who love great things finely conceived, great triumphs nobly won, and great dreams perfectly consummated. ”

“ In regard to the modelling of figures, especially those in costume, the reticence of Copenhagen is noticeable in comparison with the outré cavaliers and dames in crinolines of the Saxon and other factories. The subdued colouring and the simple charm of the Danish figures places them in a gallery of their own. Nor must this be mistaken for insipidity or weakness of design. Judged by the highest canons of art, the quality of such creations indicates complete control and mastery of technique, and art in due subjection. ”