Craftiness

“ No one thinks of technical skill in that moment of revelation which comes when one stands for the first time in the presence of a noble work; later one may study at length and with delight the perfection of workmanship disclosed in solidity of structure and in harmony of detail; but in the moment of revelation it is the essential and interior truth and beauty, which shine from form and colour and texture as the soul shines in a human face, which evoke a thrill of recognition in us. ”

“ Throughout the previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one and the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different point of view: craft from the practical side, art from the contemplative. Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects or movements has also been an art; and every one of those great creative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now reserve the name of art, has also been a craft; has been connected and replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or by the doing of deeds which have a meaning. ”

“ Skill in one's art, profession, or trade is conscience applied; it is honesty, veracity, and fidelity using the eye, the voice, and the hand to reveal what lies in the worker's purpose and spirit. To become an artist in dealing with tools and materials is not a matter of choice or privilege; it is a moral necessity; for a man's heart must be in his skill, and a man's soul in his craftsmanship. ”

“ And in this profession, those that have most confidence, though the least skill, shall be sure of the greatest custom; and indeed this whole art as it is now practised, is but one incorporated compound of craft and imposture. ”

“ And more than this, we have in most of the work that has been left to us examples of craftsmanship, in every kind, which are invaluable as models of what we once could do, and may do, under favourable conditions, again. ”

“ The artist who works in stone, in color, sounds, words, building materials, and often in steel, as in the designing of bodies for some of the finer automobiles, is but the craftsman working in materials that are often elusive and difficult to handle and bringing into his work not only the skill of the craftsman but also the attempt at an expression of some need of his own inner being. ”

“ I hope that, in my enumeration of the qualities of intellect and craftsmanship that make for excellence in creative Literature and in pictorial Design, I have cut the ground from under the feet of those who advocate the work of craftsmen merely—those who consider that in technique lies the end as well as the beginning of success. ”

“ Are you a gardener? To be a master of the craft you must learn the laws of form, colours, arrangement, and symmetry. A tailor? If you can draw well you will become a cutter-out. In fact, I do not know the profession or trade where it does not enter into and advantage the man who has it to command. ”

“ Where the whole of the joint is not required, learn to carve economically, that it may be left in good shape for another dinner.
After you have learned to do the simplest work neatly and gracefully, much painstaking will be necessary in acquiring the power to accomplish with elegance the more difficult tasks. For to reach the highest degree of excellence in the art, one must be able to carve the most difficult joint with perfect skill and ease. ”

“ For the technical skill exhibited in each separate item of colour, carving, and "cunning" workmanship, had, with truest artistic sense, been subordinated to that wondrous balance of the whole appearance that went to make up the amazing harmony that was as a veritable atmosphere in the place. ”

“ The individual genius of the artist works first in design, though his work is for the use of the craftsman or artisan, his collaborator; for the two, head and hands, must work together, or else will render each other inoperative or ineffective.
The artisan, by right of his title, claims a part in the art itself; the craftsman, by his name, points out that he, too, has to work out the craft, the mystery, the inner meaning, of the design or intention. ”

“ The craftsman, as he fashioned the thing he had under his hand, ornamented it so naturally and so entirely without conscious effort, that it is often difficult to distinguish where the mere utilitarian part of his work ended and the ornamental began. Now the origin of this art was the necessity that the workman felt for variety in his work, and though the beauty produced by this desire was a great gift to the world, yet the obtaining variety and pleasure in the work by the workman was a matter of more importance still, for it stamped all labour with the impress of pleasure. ”

“ Begun in the simplest fashion, fashioned by the simplest means, created from the commonest materials, Fictile Art grew with man's intellectual growth, and Fictile Craft grew with his knowledge; the latter conquering, in this our day, when the craftsman strangles the artist alike in this as in all other arts. ”

“ The artist or the scientist who has an itching palm, who prostitutes his craft for the sake of worldly gain, is quickly relegated to the oblivion that he deserves. He loses caste, and the caste of craft is more precious to your true craftsman than all the gold of the modern Midas. ”

“ Very Large.—Shows extraordinary ingenuity, and a perfect passion for making every thing; with large Imitation, Form, Size, and Locality, has first-rate talents as an artist, and for drawing, engraving, etc.; and with Color added, is an excellent limner; with Ideality, adds niceness to skill; with large Causality, adds invention to execution, etc.: p. 162.
Full.—Can, when occasion requires, employ tools and use the hands in making, tinkering, and fixing up, and turn off work with skill, yet has no great natural passion or ability therein; with practice, can be a good workman ”

“ These wonder-working seeds of providence, patiently developing themselves in secret, were soon to burst forth in a wide harvest of change upon the field of human life. Certain men of mechanical genius arose, and their creative dreams wrought together in a mysterious way to the production of extraordinary results. ”

“ The buoyant life of this craftsman-preacher—whose craftsmanship, indeed, was the chief part of his preaching—who taught the labourers of his age, both by precept and example, that the difference between success and failure in life was the difference between being artisans of loveliness and poor hackworkers of profitable but hideous things—has a unique attractiveness in the history of the latter half of the nineteenth century. ”

“ And that, after all, is the true test of craft artistry: to the true craftsman the work that he is doing must be the most important thing that can be done. One of the best teachers that I know is that kind of a craftsman in education. A student was once sent to observe his work. He was giving a lesson upon the "attribute complement" to an eighth-grade grammar class. ”

“ The dark head beside him shook hopelessly; but he repeated the verdict with additional emphasis. “I tell you, craft is our only hope; some artfulness that shall undermine their strength even as their tricks crept, snake-like, under our guard.” ”

“ A considerable training and natural aptitude go to form the expert workman, for the ultimate perfection of shape and beauty of texture depend upon the more or less perfect conception of form in the craftsman’s mind and on his power to impress it on a recalcitrant material. ”

“ Here is the wizard performance by which a few dexterous strokes will transform a blank sheet into a living creature, or fill vacancy with a fairy world. Outwardly the success of his work depends upon his craftsmanship. He must be master of a thousand technical details. He must know anatomy, perspective, the values of light and shade, modeling, drawing, the mixing of colors, and whatever else has to do with the manipulation of the raw materials. Of all that makes up the so-called technique of art the ordinary layman has little inkling. ”

“ Old things, long since done, were to be put into new relations, & upon a higher plane, and all new work was to be conceived of as convergent upon one end, the dignity and sweetness of life, and the workman—artist or craftsman—was to derive therefrom his measure of happiness & delight. ”

“ For it is becoming the fashion, in our days, for artists of merit—painters, perhaps, even of distinction—to take up the practice of one or other of the crafts. All would be well, for such new workers are needed, if it was indeed the practice of the craft that they set themselves to. ”

“ Hence the craving for sight and knowledge of heroes. But see the slop-made piece of human (169) handiwork that skulks as maker, behind the screen of drawing-room intrigue, or behind my lady’s fan—shabby, shambling, beer-bedewed, only so much of him washed as might soil the satins and brocades he shapes for others’ uses! ”

“ But each ingenious artificer is practising a craft which no master taught, and to which it has nothing to add. The wondrous, instinctive, living machine creates for itself the highest pleasure it is capable of in working out the art with which it is endowed ”

“ And the brightness and cleanness of the tools whereby he formulates his thought, as well as the worthiness and fitness of the substance and the forms into which he shapes it for others to see, are the essentials of his craft. ”

“ If I have not emphasized them, it is because they are cunning of hand and brain, craftsmanship, things to be learned, technical excellences which embellish but do not disclose the secret of inspiring art. ”

“ The Four Crafts-Men.
"Dear children," said a poor man to his four sons, "I have nothing to give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on." ”

“ From the pull of the trigger to the present moment, the operation was a tribute to his genius of concentrating scrupulous attention to every minute detail. Now he was beginning to enjoy the peace of mind that comes to a craftsman when his work of art nears completion, and he knows success is positive. ”

“ His craftsmanship, his insight into and understanding of human nature and the forces that mold it—the intangible forces of the earth and air, the minute happenings of one’s daily life that, in themselves, are too likely to pass unregarded, but work so powerfully and well-nigh irresistibly upon the spirit of men and women—all this is superb and thorough. ”

“ He exemplified rather the talent than the genius of discovery, the patient sagacity which accumulates materials, rather than the fervid enthusiasm which traces the stream of nature's action to its spring, the great Creative Will. ”

“ But happiest of all, finally, talking of craftsmen, are they who not only receive a love of the good from nature, and noble ways from the same source and from education, but also live in the time of some famous writer, from whom, in return for a little portrait or some other similar courtesy in the way of art, they gain on occasion the reward of eternal honour and name, by means of their writings ”

“ The necessary preparations, then, having been made in the first degree, the lessons having been received by which the aspirant is taught to commence the labor of life with the purification of the heart, as a Fellow Craft he continues the task by cultivating those virtues which give form and impression to the character, as well adapted stones give shape and stability to the building. ”

“ Every vocation, even the lowliest, which we pursue in a spirit of entire sincerity, is a means of acquiring culture. The artisan may be, in his way, as truly a cultivated man as the artist or the scholar, for by culture I understand insight gained into all manner of activities through genuineness and thoroughness in one. To be cultivated is to see things in their relations. ”

“ Are we to imagine that inspiration or emotion of any kind is to supply the place of direct knowledge of facts—of skill in the very grammar of craftsmanship? Where a great result is arrived at much effort is required, whether the same be immediate or has been spread over a time of previous preparation. ”

“ In those early handicraft days such work was an art as well as a science; and surely the craftsmen loved their labor, else they could not have exercised the patience necessary to the attainment of such excellence. ”

“ He who invents with the most success, or dresses in the best taste, would probably, from the same sagacity employed to greater purposes, have discovered equal skill, or have formed the same correct taste, in the highest labours of art.”—Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses, Disc. ”

“ And—also even at the same distance—the artist and the craftsman, who resembled the divine creator of the world by making the most beautiful and useful things for Mankind, himself also partook of the same divine nature. ”

“ The {331} crafts and arts had risen to a degree of perfection which we can hardly boast of having superseded in many directions, if the inventive skill of the worker and the superior finish of his work be appreciated higher than rapidity of fabrication. ”

“ This is why the attainment of proficiency, the pushing of your skill with attention to the most delicate shades of excellence, is a matter of vital concern. Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond—a higher point, a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill; almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish which is almost art—which is art. ”

“ In the first place, as things were now, a meteoric display of talent which had been buried under the mounds of uniformity and routine—talent as various as the variety of faces—shot forth from thousands of rustic retreats, where its existence had been unsuspected. ”