Studio: international art (82.1921)

STUDIO-TALK

MARKET BASKET INTERWOVEN WITH
MIDRIBS OF PEACOCK'S FEATHERS

(Czecho-Slovak Peasant Art Exhibition
Paris)

work of the modern self-taught artists who
execute them on common window-glass
painting from the back. 0 a a
In the opposite corner of our typical
interior is a painted wardrobe, of a shape
evidently copied by the village carpenter
from town-made models, but as regards its
ornamentation quite different from any-
thing seen outside the ateliers of these
rustic artists. This type of furniture is,
covered with a mass of paintings in the
most vivid colours, floral designs, virgins
and saints, doves and cocks, rendered in a
bold and archaic manner that is pleasing on
account of its rustic honesty and the
harmony of its ensemble. G. F. L.

AMSTERDAM.—It is a matter of
common knowledge that both on the
Continent and in England in recent years
old European pottery has attracted more
than ordinary interest. Its importance
is especially realised in the sphere of
applied art, and the more so because it is
recognised that modern industrial art
has much to gain from a study of the
products of the potter's craft in days gone
by. In the great mass of old European
earthenware the faience of Delft has a
176

place of its own, and among the specialities
of this kind of pottery the tile is of un-
usual importance. The tile represents
a method of decorating a flat surface and
has been employed for that purpose from
the earliest stage of the potter's art in the
Netherlands down to the present day.
Derived from Italy and Spain, this art
of tile production when introduced into
Holland assumed from the very first a
character of its own. The colours used
were much the same but the combination
was different. A typical example is shown
in the set of four, of which a reproduction
in colour is now given; here a warm
orange-yellow is used in an effective con-
trast to blue and green. All the oldest
examples are rich in colour, as, for instance,
the foliaceous design in fig. 5, the soldier
in fig. 9, and the powerful gladiator in
fig. 11. There is a great diversity in the
ornamental designs, and probably these,
too, were often adapted from the original
sources, but here also peculiar character-
istics show themselves. And each picture
is so well designed, whether it be a flower
on its slender stem, a graceful swan as
in fig. 4, or a gay cavalier (fig. 10), that
it is a pleasure to look at such tiles, a
Soon after the industry became estab-

FIG. I. VIOLET TILE, DUTCH
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

(Collection of Mr. Eelco M. Vis
Amsterdam)