Workpiece

“ 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. ”

“ This being so, the more is demanded from design and execution: we look for complete{213} triumph over the limitations of process and material, and, what is equally important, a certain judgment and self-restraint; and, in short, those mental qualities that distinguish mechanical from intelligent work. The latitude allowed to the worker; the lavishness and ingenuity displayed in the stitches employed; in short, the vivid expression of the worker's individuality, form a great part of the success of needlework. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When you realise the mass of work signed 'Dalziels' or 'Swain,' it is evident that its high standard of excellence must not be attributed to any system, but to the personal supervision of the acting members of the firms—men who were, every one of them, both draughtsmen and engravers, who knew not only the effect the artist aimed to secure, but the best method of handicraft by which to obtain it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And what is the meaning of this beautiful decoration which we call art? In the first place, it means value to the workman and it means the pleasure which he must necessarily take in making a beautiful thing. The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman’s heart. I cannot impress the point too frequently that beautiful and rational designs are necessary in all work. ”

“ Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought—that is, from design—inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation. ”

“ For instance, I have not spoken of the way in which you ought to look for those artificers in various manual trades, who, without possessing the order of genius which you would desire to devote to higher purposes, yet possess wit, and humour, and sense of colour, and fancy for form—all commercially valuable as quantities of intellect, and all more or less expressible in the lower arts of iron-work, pottery, decorative sculpture, and such like. ”

“ No task more noble or more needed awaits the thoughtful worker of to-day. The world exists but for the sake of its homes. Will you bestow your hand upon some fine æsthetic industry, as drawing, designing, engraving, telegraphing, phonographing, photographing? Will you be an architect? ”

“ The eye that judges a work of art should have surveyed the whole human field, so that it can tell from what clay this precious thing was made, in what craftsman's cot that trick of fashioning was learned, what natural beauty suggested to the creative impulse this appropriate form, what human institution helped or hindered its making. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So far as it goes, you cannot but admire his skill—admire the delineator's art, by which the picture is sketched upon the block, and the engraver's skill, who cuts the lines by which the printer spreads the scene out before the admiring eyes of those who read and view. Such is art, and skill, and industry. How much better than the idle life of those who furnished the originals for these "Life Scenes!" ”

“ Now the products of the arts show immediately their use towards the purpose for which they are made, and most of them possess also a certain attractiveness and charm. For example, to stand by and watch the process by which a shoemaker learns his trade is, indeed, not pleasant, yet the shoe is useful and not an unpleasant thing to look at either. 5And the process of education in the case of a carpenter is especially tiresome to the layman who happens to be watching, but the work which the carpenter does shows the use of his art. ”

“ Let us then understand that the nobility of any one is founded upon his deeds, and the excellence of a work depends upon the work itself, and not upon the material. We shall return to this consideration hereafter; now let us proceed. I say that I wished to give up working in wood, because it was my business at the shop to make all sorts of little things, such as candlesticks, cornices, masks, &c. ”

“ But since in art the labour which we have to employ is the labour of a particular class of men—men who have special genius for the business—we have not only to consider how to apply the labour, but, first of all, how to produce the labourer ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Beauty, Goodness, personal and living Truth—such, to the letter, was the first Workman. God joined, framed, hewed, cemented, carved the whole universe, the firmament, the stars. His gracious and magnificent hand, armed with an invisible chisel, is discovered in every part of the creation which has been wonderfully sculptured by this marvellous Workman. Workmen of every condition, here contemplate the work of your Model, of your Master, of your divine Patron. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each of our crafts is exercised upon some special matter—the art of the smith upon iron, that of the carpenter on wood. In all, there is the subject, the form and the work which results from the form. Matter is taken from without—art gives the form—and the work is composed at the same time of form and of matter. ”

“ And this brings us to a vital point in the whole question of acquiring style. If you are proposing to learn the craft of building, or pottery making, or carpet weaving, will you be satisfied to know nothing beyond what has been done by England or America? Or will you, just as a matter of business shrewdness, study what has been done in the past in Greece and Rome, in Egypt and Turkey and India? The business man and the scientist always keep a keen eye on the whole world. And the man of letters cannot afford to do less. ”

“ Experiences such as this sitting are of the greatest help and value to a writer, and give an insight into sister arts that widen one’s mental horizon and ripen one’s judgment. All workers should leave their own groove and see and know craftsmen in kindred branches of endeavour. Outside interests and hobbies are the worker’s salvation and inspiration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let me not be understood to disparage the work of photo-engravers and others engaged on these processes; on the contrary, the amount of patience, industry, activity, and anxious care bestowed upon the reproduction of drawings and paintings is astonishing, and deserves our gratitude.17 This work is a new industry of an important kind, in which art and craft are bound up together. The day has past when “process work” is to be looked down upon as only fit for the cheapest, most inferior, and inartistic results. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The painter should grind his own colours; the architect work in the mason's yard with his men; the master-manufacturer be himself a more skilful operator than any man in his mills; and the distinction between one man and another be only in experience and skill, and the authority and wealth which these must naturally and justly obtain. ”

“ In such a production the idea, the form, the execution, the elements of representation and of beauty, and the individual expression of the artist in his handiwork, are essentially one, and none of them can be imagined as really existing without the others. ”

“ In the alertness of attention, the full activity of every faculty, the glow of the imagination, which accompany the putting forth of the creative power, the whole force of the worker is concentrated and his whole nature is under the highest tension. Everything he holds of knowledge, skill, experience, emotion flows to one point ”

“ I am speaking only of the workman in relation to his tools and materials.
Consider for a moment the materials of the prose writer, the teller of tales. His materials are human lives. To him these figures of his fancy, these people who live in his fancy should be as real as living people. He should be no more ready to sell them out than he would sell out his men friends or the woman he loves. ”

“ They, being ever ready for something new, looked upon the material output of the Arts and Crafts Societies, and, failing entirely to appreciate the spirit lying back of the work, seized upon simplicity as an end in itself. ”

“ Their one great object was to construct a work which should carry their very spirit in it, which should excel all similar works, and cause men in after-times to inquire with wonder for the maker's name, whether it was such a common thing as a knife-handle, or a bell, or a ship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The same feeling is at work, as we have already pointed out, in decorative art; in which 'a redundancy of useless or ridiculous ornament is called richness, and the inability to appreciate simple and beautiful, or grand and noble forms, receives the name of genius.' The connection is curious, likewise, between this ingenuity of poetry and that of the machinery which gives a distinguishing character to our epoch. ”

“ Commerce, philosophy, science, scholarship, sculpture, architecture, painting, music, poetry, are the products of these ruling impulses—everything in fact which gives a higher value to the life of man. ”

“ The workman, however, does not know the matchless models of which these objects are the ugly copies, and, inasmuch as every æsthetic verdict arises out of a comparison, these reproductions represent for him the summit of perfection, and entirely satisfy his need for beautiful things round about him. ”

“ Of a different kind to these general preparatory studies, is that which may be properly be called the labour of production: such a technical skill and perfection as enables an artist to clothe his ideas in form. ”

“ The workman plows for him, cooks for him, builds for him, spins for him, but what does he do in return? He paints pictures, makes statues, writes novels or poems or plays or sonatas which the workman has neither the leisure nor the education to enjoy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Everything here was born obviously of the Arts and Crafts movement, a movement which seeks to teach that each shall make and build for himself ... if clumsily, yet uniquely ... the product to be something at least individual and warm from the maker's personality. ”