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"THE QUEEX OF HEARTS": MODEt.l.ED AXD t'AtXTED ER]EZE

BYJ. E. C. CARR


pleasure in the rest of it is but small in comparison
to his disappointment that the one thing to make
it wholiy satisfactory is wanting. Experimental
both in form and treatment he aiways will be, and
to have obtained certain beautiful effects will not
deter the imaginative craftsman front trying sonte
new method of inlay to a new treatment of surfaces.
ln John E. C. Carr, whose work illustrates this
article, the experimental spirit perhaps predomi-
nates. His creations are re-con-
sidered at every turn, and if unsatis-
factory in their initial stages are altered
again and again until is reached that
perfection of beauty which the de-
signer desires to realise.
That every one will appreciate the
characteristics of Mr. Carr's design
is hardly to be expected, for no
work through which there run certain
definite and connecting ideas wholiy
escapes adverse criticism. Beauty, how-
ever, as Walter Pater observes, exists
in rnany forrns, and like all other
qualities presented to the human ex-
perience "is relative, the dehnitionof it
becoming unmeaning and useless in
Proportion to its abstractness."
Mr. Carr's metal work is beautiful
because it fulfils its purpose satis-
factorily, and is shaped to that end
with considerable grace of lines, and a
certain repeating Ornament that occurs
in nearly all examples, particularly when
the object is circular in form. His
work seldom irritates by a compli-
cation of opposing motives, and the
very simplicity of the repeats which
are so noticeable in the hanging
lamps gives harmony and coherence
to the whole. The rule is to bring
about pleasant results by a combina-
tion of the sweeping and the vertical
treatment. The graceful line already [.EADED GLAss

referred to is present in many pieces of Mr. Carr's
work. The wrought-iron Utting for a lamp partially
enclosing a newel is agood example; it is character-
istic of the copper door-plate and lock illus-
trated in a previous nu'mber of THE STUDto, and is
also to be noted in the back-plate of a wrought-
iron bracket (for oil lamp), which is inlaid in lines
of brass. In this preference for line to mass,
Mr. Carr is quite justified when the result is thus'