Studio: international art (40.1907)

Studio-Talk

FRONT OF GOTHIC LOCK PROBABLY I5TH CENTURY

mediaeval craftsmanship,
writes that he considers
the contention that the
Germanic races were pre-
eminent in the design and
production of decorative
ironwork is well founded.
In many of the specimens
in the present collection
the skill of the German
craftsman is admirably
shown, producing as it
does designs in iron that
rival Venetian point-lace
in their delicacy and in
the decorative filling of
spaces. Gothic and ori-
ental impulses no doubt
remained latent for long
periods, during which
social conditions rendered
the cultivation of ait and
artistic industries difficult,
but they were strengthened
by repeated Gothic migra-
tions of which no histori-
cal record remains, but of
which there is much in-
direct evidence. Hence
came, no doubt, the ten-
dency in German ironwork
to oriental forms, the insis-
tence upon curvatures of

a high order, and deliberate rejection of the
commonplace compass curves and rectangular
disposition of lines more frequent in French
and Italian work. Then, again, the German
race has always shown a love of detail and
of grouping detail into large forms and
generalisations. These characteristics perhaps
became too strongly marked in German archi-
tecture, but in metalwork elaboration of detail
controlled by beauty of general grouping and
contour led towards a wonderful development of
decorative qualities. Another characteristic of
German ironwork is the evidence it gives of the
craftsman’s desire to beautify the home. It is
often extremely difficult to fix the date of any
given piece of ironwork. Broadly speaking it
may be said that very rarely can a fixed date be
given before the eleventh or twelfth century,
though there is evidence to show that much