Studio: international art (14.1898)

Furniture for the New Palace, Darmstadt

The interior is painted in white, green, and orange
on a light green ground.

It might readily be supposed that in an age
which is characterised by so much attention to
education at least the average tradesman might be
supposed to understand his own trade, and that
good and intelligent workmanship, if not a drug in
the market, should not at least be far to seek.

That such is not the case all those who under-
stand and appreciate excellence of workmanship
will be willing to concede.

The old traditional knowledge is dying or dead,
and as yet we have nothing to replace it. The
prevalence of the commercial spirit, the influence
of machinery on the minds and hands of the
workman, and, above all, the want of perception
on the part of the public, are all causes
to retard the development of a true
knowledge of craftsmanship.

The superficial and mechanical finish
of the average suite of furniture is all
that is now demanded, and, to borrow
an analogy from another domain of art,
it is as if one were to cheerfully substi-
tute the arid and mechanical precision
of the musical box for the personal and
vital charm of the violin.

The designer and the workman who
realises his design should bear some-
what the same relation to each other as
the composer and the performer. The
•one interprets the ideas of the other,

.and in doing so adds his own personal
note to the final result.

The various articles of furniture de-
scribed here have all been made by the
Guild of Handicraft at Essex House, a
description of which recently appeared
in The Studio, and Mr. Ashbee has
given his personal supervision to every
detail of their manufacture. The illus-
trations will perhaps hardly convey the
particular quality of the workmanship,

■except in the case of details on a large
scale, and for this purpose the reproduc-
tion of the photograph of the hinge of
the music cabinet on page 97 has been
introduced as a practical illustration of
the above remarks. Here the designer
is responsible for the outline and general
form, and the relation it bears to the
-cabinet and its decoration, but the work-
man has also his part to play.

The mechanical ideal of finish would secretaire designed by m. h. baillie scott

lead the average workman to be satisfied only with
a perfectly dead level surface, and the rows of dots
which form part of the design would be brutally and
unmistakably defined. But under Mr. Ashbee’s
guidance the workmen at Essex House have learnt
a better way. The work possesses, in fact, what an
artist would call “ feeling.” The surface of the
metal bears the evidence of the tool and is deli-
cately modelled, while the rows of dots are sug-
gested rather than expressed. Most important, too,
is the principle that in each piece of furniture, as
far as possible, each workman shall be responsible
for his own work—that there shall be as little sub-
division of labour as may be, and each piece be
carried through by one man. This has been done
in the case of the examples shown. Of the wood-

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