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WOOD-CARVING
DESIGN AND WORKMANSHIP
A Suggestion from Nature and Photography.
C OPYRIGHT , 1903,
B Y D. A PPLETON AND C OMPANY
All rights reserved
Published October, 1903
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EDITOR'S PREFACE
In issuing these volumes of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to
state what are our general aims.
In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of workshop practise, from
the points of view of experts who have critically examined the methods current in the
shops, and putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship,
and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially associated
with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat design itself as an essential part of
good workmanship. During the last century most of the arts, save painting and sculpture
of an academic kind, were little considered, and there was [8] a tendency to look on
"design" as a mere matter of appearance . Such "ornamentation" as there was was
usually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by an artist who
often knew little of the technical processes involved in production. With the critical
attention given to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seen that it was
impossible to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true
design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of
good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper
finish, and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself
was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines.
Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought—that is, from
design—inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from
workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation. Proper
ornamentation [9] may be defined as a language addressed to the eye; it is pleasant
thought expressed in the speech of the tool.
In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship before people as
furnishing reasonable occupations for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within
the bounds of academic art, the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few
per cent can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen,
there is every probability that nearly every one who would pass through a sufficient
period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success.
In the blending of handwork and thought in such arts as we propose to deal with, happy
careers may be found as far removed from the dreary routine of hack labor as from the
terrible uncertainty of academic art. It is desirable in every way that men of good
education should be brought back into the productive crafts: there are more than
enough of us "in the city," and it is [10] probable that more consideration will be given
in this century than in the last to Design and Workmanship.
This third volume of our series treats of one branch of the great art of sculpture, one
which in the past has been in close association with architecture. It is, well, therefore,
that besides dealing thoroughly, as it does, with the craftsmanship of wood-carving, it
should also be concerned with the theory of design, and with the subject-matter which
the artist should select to carve.
Such considerations should be helpful to all who are interested in the ornamental arts.
Indeed, the present book contains some of the best suggestions as to architectural
ornamentation under modern circumstances known to me. Architects can not forever go
on plastering buildings over with trade copies of ancient artistic thinking, and they and
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the public must some day realize that it is not mere shapes, but only [11] thoughts ,
which will make reasonable the enormous labor spent on the decoration of buildings.
Mere structure will always justify itself, and architects who can not obtain living
ornamentation will do well to fall back on structure well fitted for its purpose, and as
finely finished as may be without carvings and other adornments. It would be better still
if architects would make the demand for a more intellectual code of ornament than we
have been accustomed to for so long.
On the side of the carver, either in wood or in stone, we want men who will give us their
own thought in their own work—as artists, that is—and will not be content to be mere
hacks supplying imitations of all styles to order.
On the teaching of wood-carving I should like to say a word, as I have watched the
course of instruction in many schools. It is desirable that classes should be provided with
casts and photographs of good examples, such as Mr. Jack speaks of, varying from
rough choppings up to minute and exquisite [12] work, but all having the breath of life
about them. There should also be a good supply of illustrations and photographs of birds
and beasts and flowers, and above all, some branches and buds of real leafage. Then I
would set the student of design in wood-carving to make variations of such examples
according to his own skill and liking. If he and the teacher could be got to clear their
minds of ideas of "style," and to take some example simply because they liked it, and to
adapt it just because it amused them, the mystery of design would be nearly solved.
Most design will always be the making of one thing like another, with a difference. Later,
motives from Nature should be brought in, but always with some guidance as to
treatment, from an example known to be fine. I would say, for instance, "Do a panel like
this, only let it be oak foliage instead of vine, and get a thrush or a parrot out of the bird
book."
In regard to the application of carving, I have been oppressed by the accumulation [13]
in carving classes of little carved squares and oblongs, having no relation to anything
that, in an ordinary way, is carved. To carve the humblest real thing, were it but a real
toy for a child, would be better than the production of these panels, or of the artificial
trivialities which our minds instinctively associate with bazaars
W. R. LETHABY.
September, 1903 .
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