International studio (59.1916)

The Story of a Copper Tase

alternately circular and oblong. Each made use
of all the colours, but with one predominating,
so that the row of lights went from violet to red,
following the spectrum. To carry well at a dis-
tance they were made three feet or more in
diameter, and hung twenty feet high.
The base of a screen may be square, circular,
oblong or hexagonal. The designs are all geo-
metrical, the lines of triangle, square or hexagon,
developed in three and four dimensions, variety
obtained by skilful light and dark, and colour
values. But this fourth dimension, hyper-cub-
ism, is not to be confounded with the ultra-
modern work in art. Where that is often an
expression of the artist’s intuition or whim, done
without compass or rudder or fundamental prin-
ciples, these designs of Mr. Bragdon’s are pure
geometry translated into form.
By and for itself, says its creator, this lighting
has comparatively little value. It is his inten-
tion to use it always with music for the people,
not to emphasize one art at the expense of the
other, but to combine sound with colour and
form, the ensemble making the audience less con-
scious of either as an art, putting them more into
the spirit of the occasion. The natural beauty
of the park amphitheatre in Rochester, plus the
community chorus music and the lighting, created
a psychic atmosphere. So impressed was the
great audience that the people hardly applauded;
instead they listened and looked and felt.
The new method of lighting offers great possi-
bilities in combination with other arts. Form
and colour are themselves enriched when corre-
lated with music, the dance, drama. A fire dance,
for example, could be made many times more
beautiful and effective with this lighting.
Closer correlation of the arts is a thing to
which, unconsciously, many artists in many
fields of work are tending. And the salvation
of art will come, says Mr. Bragdon, from the
people themselves, gifted not with technique,
but with an innate love of beauty, and able to
correlate the arts into a perfect whole.
New York Public Library.—Visitors should
make a point of seeing the “ Recent Additions”
in the Print Gallery, which include both ancient
and modern examples, also an exhibition of prints
illustrating portraiture of Colonial and Revolu-
tionary periods. These displays can be enjoyed
through the summer and fall months.

HE STORY OF A COPPER VASE
Why is this vase different from hun-
dreds that are daily displayed in the
shops? The shape is not strikingly unusual. The
colour is the same warm tone of pure copper when
undefiled with acids. The essential difference is
that it stands for an ideal. One must know some-
thing of the development of this vase to appreciate
it. For, after all, is it not the association of ideas
that causes us in many instances to base our values?
A few months ago Didier Pelee from across
the sea sat with his wife, resting from his
labours under an orange tree in their simple
home. He said to her: “ What shall I make that
will show future generations that handicraft had
not lost its cunning in the commercial twentieth
century, something that will stand for beauty,
and at the same time show great technical skill?
There are few left of the patient, careful crafts-
men of old. The shop with its hum of many
voices and tread of many feet has drawn the
workers from their homes where once they made
things of use and beauty, where they formed
with their own hands out of raw material the
finished product, and felt from beginning to end
the thrill of creative joy.” Pausing and looking
at the distant mountains, he continued, “It shall
be a vase. Adown the ages, far as we can trace,
mankind has fashioned vases.”
This determination having taken fast root, he
sought a shape that would be graceful and dig-
nified, at the same time one that would be
impossible to spin by machine. The design
completed, he took a piece of copper twenty-six
inches in diameter and eighteen gauge in thick-
ness and cut it into a circle. He outlined the
bottom the exact size it would be when completed.
From this small circle, he made flutes to the outer
edge. His tools were only two hammers, one long
gas pipe, three inches in diameter, and one iron
ball, two and a half inches across the top. After
the material was fluted, he hammered it round
and round, this hammering causing the metal to
concentrate. Gradually it changed form. After
hammering out the flutes, the disc began to raise
and to resemble an immense plate. It was then
necessary to anneal the metal and repeat the
process. The object, at this stage of develop-
ment, was too large to anneal with the small
torch at hand. So out in the yard this crafts-
man built a fire, and there each night he annealed


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