Manual of design : complied from the writings and addresses of Richard Redgrave by Gilbert R. Redgrave

Preface

During Mr. Redgrave’s long and active service in connexion with the Schools of Art and the foundation of the South Kensington Museum, from which he has so lately retired, as well as in his appointed duties relating to the International Exhibitions in this country and in France, he was called upon to prepare numerous official reports. On many occasions, also, he was required, when presenting medals and prizes to the Students, to address them on the course of their studies, and on the technical training of the designer.

His reports and addresses defined and formulated many new principles of ornamental design, and contained various practical suggestions concerning the methods upon which his system of teaching had been founded. The chief of these documents which have been officially printed, are : —

1. Report on Design. Exhibition of 1851.

2. Report on Design as applied to Manufactures. Paris, 1855.

3. Report on Applications of Drawing and Modelling to the Common

Arts. Paris, 1867.

4. Report on the present state of Design. Annual International Ex-

hibition, 1871.

5. Evidence before the Commission, on the Government School of

Design, 1847.

6. On the necessity of Principles in teaching Design, 1853.

7. Catalogue of Cabinet Work, Gore House, 1853.

The teaching of these reports has long been acknowledged as of recognised authority, and it has been vi

PREFACE, .

frequently proposed that the matter contained in them should be collated and published, as it would form a useful book of reference and a manual of the principles of design.

It has been more than once suggested to me to undertake the duty; but it was not until it was formally proposed to me, by the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education, that such a work should form part of the series of South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks, that I was led with some diffidence to see how far I might be able to do justice to this task, involving, as it did, the compilation of so large a portion of the thought and labour of my father’s long official career. I felt the more pleasure in attempting this work, from the gratification afforded to my father by their Lordships* selection of me, and from the assurances I received from him of his advice and assistance.

In undertaking this compilation, I have confined myself almost wholly to his own words. Indeed, nearly all the matter might be placed in inverted commas. I have studied to arrange and bring together like things in the order and upon the plan which my father has in most cases pursued, to avoid the repetitions which would naturally arise in such a series of documents, and to omit only such matters as had a local and temporary interest.

G. R. R.

Chapter I. Preliminary Remarks

There are certain periods in the history of the world or ot individual nations, when some important event, some discovery, or some cause which deeply affects the public mind, produces a corresponding change in art also. Such for instance, in civilized Europe, was the change produced by the discovery of printing and the dissemination by its means of the writings and thoughts of the ancients. These led to the study and contemplation of those fragments of antique art which had survived the injuries of time and barbarism, and the result of their study was to reconstitute beauty as the prevailing principle of art : they led also to the subversion of the religious sentiment which had, for many ages, been the leading and all-pervading idea of art.

Again, when from political changes art became gradually estranged from its Italian cradle, to be fostered by the growing power of the French kings ; and when the victories of the Fourteenth Louis had gained him the title of the Great Monarch, art also was led captive in his triumph. No longer satisfied with beauty, she decked herself to please him in “ barbaric pomp and

B 2 gold”: splendour and display became her ruling principles, and the Louis Quatorze style called after his name was formed.

As we approach still nearer to our own sera other changes, not so marked, but equally characteristic, might be noticed as influencing art through changes in the outer and surrounding world : all these changes are clearly discernible to us who look back upon them ; we can even trace them to apparent causes ; but rising gradually and imperceptibly in their own age, they were then not clearly noted as points of departure, as they did not sufficiently influence the prevailing taste to form a new and distinctive style.

In any critical examination of the present state of design, our attention is in the first place forcibly directed towards France, which has long ruled our taste in such matters. It may, therefore, be as well in the first place to glance at the conditions which have led to this state of things, and caused our neighbours for so long a period to rule supreme in matters of taste.

The decorative arts, attracted to France by Francis the First, were actively patronized and encouraged by the succeeding House of Bourbon. Colbert, the Minister of the great Louis, established, as royal manufactories, the tapestry and furniture works of the Gobelins, Beauvais, and Aubusson, and in these works the most skilled workmen, aided by the most scientific men of the age, executed the designs of the first artists of France. In the succeeding reign the porcelain works of Sevres became also a royal establishment with the like appliances for artistic excellence.

In these royal manufactories every effort was made to attain the highest degree of perfection, and the works were carried on with princely munificence, entirely irrespective of the cost of production. By Colbert also, schools for the instruction of the workmen in drawing and the elements of art were organized in some of the principal seats of French manufactures.

Ly these means France, and more especially Paris, gradually became looked up to for works of luxury. The products of her royal manufactories were spread abroad among the other nations of Europe, either by purchase, or as gifts to the various monarchs and princes, and the skilled labours of French workmen gradually led the surrounding countries to recognize her as the school of the decorative arts, and the acknowledged arbitress of taste.

The Revolution, and the long wars that succeeded it, though repressing for a time the intercourse with France, did not deprive her of those institutions which had tended thus to advance her in the eyes of the nations, neither did they disperse the continuous band of skilled workmen and cunning artificers who would emanate from these factories to raise still higher the pretensions of France to be considered the chief source of objects of luxury and taste.

To the protracted wars which had divided this Island from the Continent, and in many respects the Continental nations from each other, succeeded an equally long peace, during which commerce increased, and the accumulating wealth of Europe became everywhere invested in those vast undertakings which facilitate the intercourse of nations. By these means we were led insensibly to the first of those gatherings which were to bring together in one place all that science, skilled labour, and the arts could produce, and by which each country endeavours to supply the growing wants, and to tempt the increasing taste for luxury in its own and other lands.

It was under this natural tendency of the age, and arising out of it, that the first great gathering of the national industries took place in 1851. It took place, not inappropriately, in our own country, which had most diligently laboured in the improvement of the means of intercourse, and had most actively promoted the free communication of nations, by the construction of railroads and ships, and the removal of commercial restrictions.

To this first Exhibition, France, our nearest neighbour, was, after ourselves, the greatest contributor, and especially so in those objects for which she had so long held a high reputation. The first gathering of the industries of the world was speedily followed by a second in France itself.

In this second Exhibition the fine arts were more fully associated with industry as an integral portion of the Exhibition than in 1851, and the artists of Europe who had been invited — painters, sculptors, and architects — largely responded to the call. The entire of the arts thus formed a most judicious addition, and one which gave a marked character to the First Paris Universal Exhibition, inasmuch as the reciprocal influence of the arts on manufacture could be carefully examined.

Former periods of advance in the products of the artizan in any country have always been connected with progress in the fine arts, and there is reason to believe that taste and skill in manufactures are seldom attained by a country in which the fine arts are neglected, or not properly cultivated or encouraged. Here then was afforded an opportunity on a grand scale to consider the two in their mutual relations, and to examine the assembled products of the manufacturer and the artizan, together with those of the artists of the several countries ; in order to test if the inspirations of the latter had indeed led the others to a higher degree of taste, excellence, and skilful manipulation.

It has been already noticed that great public events, and the changed characteristics of the age, result in marked epochs of art and industry ; and it is not too much to believe that these great international exhibitions, arising out of and consequent upon the scientific improvements of the age and upon the improved means of intercourse, may conduce to some such important change in public taste. In these exhibitions the manufacturers of all countries are striving to compete, not so much in works of ordinary excellence, as in the production of such as shall outvie each other, and be considered markedly in advance of the taste and skill of the times. The result of these competitive struggles must be an advance to real excellence, or a retrograde movement towards decline, according as they are made on sound, or on illunderstood principles.

There would, however, be little difficulty in showing that, in former periods, the introduction of one false principle in decorative art, diverging at first but slightly from the truth, has led gradually to the entire adoption of a false, vitiated, and meretricious style. It is therefore most necessary that nothing should be taken upon trust, but that a searching investigation should be made at the present time, lest we are led astray by the grandeur of these displays, the vast amount of skilled labour, and the gorgeousness of the materials used, to accept the false for the true, the meretricious for the excellent, or the gaudy for the magnificent. We must not allow the blandishments of false and meretricious excellence, or of skill misapplied, to hinder the condemnation of works, however rare the talent displayed on them, but rather the reverse, for mediocrity will rarely lead us astray ; it is the sins of genius that lead the multitude to do evil, and in such cases the more the talent the greater the crime.

On entering upon such an examination it must be remembered that there are many difficulties in the way of a just judgment. As has been remarked, such exhibitions, however much it may be desired that they should do so, hardly represent the normal state of the manufacture. Each manufacturer is striving his utmost to attain notice and reward, not so much, it is to be feared, by an effort after perfect taste in his goods, as by an endeavour to catch the consumers by startling novelty or meretricious decoration, leading, in most cases, to an extreme redundancy of ornament. The goods are like the gilded cakes in the booths of our country fairs, no longer for use, but to attract customers.

Moreover, in endeavouring to form a just estimate of European manufactures the differences of national taste must not be overlooked. It will be universally allowed that the French as a people are more deeply imbued with the love of and the desire for ornament than other nations of Europe, and that, as compared

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with this country, the general knowledge of the middle and lower classes of Paris is, in such matters, above that of the same rank in England.

For this there are many causes, arising from political circumstances, climate, mode of living, and a hundred other things wherein they differ from us islanders.

Family life abroad differs so entirely from what it is in England. In the case of our nearest neighbours the French, what we understand by home-life is almost unknown— lofty erections of several stories permit several families to live under one roof, and without great cost to the tenant a more decorative treatment of the general structure is rendered possible. The places of general entertainment, intended for the pleasure of the many, are richly decorated, and each individual lives more or less in public, and in the enjoyment of public splendours.

The taste of successive monarchs, suiting itself to the genius of the people, has led to the erection of magnificent palaces in Paris and its environs, and the talent of the greatest artists of France has from time to time been engaged to decorate them. Rich in carvings, in costly marbles, in gilding and painting, in mirrors and arabesques, these palaces contain also collections of the rarest pictures and the finest sculptures of the artists of all ages. They are at certain times open to the people, and on fetes and holidays are crowded, as a matter of right, by all classes, from the ouvrier in his blouse to the shopkeeper, the merchant, and the man of fashion. .

These great national works, the constant sight of which has stimulated the public taste for ornament and decorative enrichment, have been the school for a body of skilled artists and workmen capable of gratifying the taste thus fostered, and we find that many of the theatres, the cates, the restaurants, and even the shops of Paris, in the richness of their decoration and the splendour of their gilding, vie with the palaces, which they attempt to rival. 1

But all this decoration constantly around the Parisian, imbuing him unconsciously with a knowledge of and taste for ornament, and insensibly forming his inclinations and educating his eye, has its defects as well as its advantages.

Accustomed to gaze on the splendour, the gorgeous enrichments of palaces, to sit weekly in their salons on velvet couches, not alone to enjoy the chastened art of the great works that adorn their walls, but to feast his eyes on the gilded blandishments of the chambers in which these works of art are enshrined ; accustomed also to the glittering brilliancy of his cafe, adorned for his delectation, and in many senses of the word more his home than the nightly dormitory he retires to from them, he cannot be content in his own house with the simple furniture suitable to his rank. His small apartments are fitted up for show rather than for comfort , a word not in his language : everything must simulate his out-ofdoor experiences, and if he cannot afford realities he will obtain the appearance of them by gaudy finery and over-decoration. In his commodes, his armoires, his hangings, his couches, his pendules, and his candelabra, utility is too often overlooked in favour of display and ornamentation.

Taste, therefore, which is in accordance with the habits, inclinations, and general disposition of any people, may be national without being correct. It is with nations as it is with individuals concerning whom we hear it said that one has a vulgar taste, another a refined taste, one a mean taste, another a taste for the beautiful or the magnificent. Thus in referring to the ancients, all who have had any knowledge of ancient art or literature would at once say that the Greeks as a people had a taste for the refined and the beautiful ; in literature, always entering into the most subtile definitions and the nicest distinctions, and in art, refining all they undertook with the most sensitive perception of what is perfect ; never leaving a new creation until they had by continual effort arrived at the most beautiful form, proportion, and colour of which it was capable.

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The Romans, who succeeded to their art, were of a different temperament : grandeur and massiveness were the leading cha racteristics of their taste. Larger in mind than the Greeks, there was at the same time a coarse strength in their nature ; and a barbaric grandeur to which Greek art never attained, was the cor' responding result. This was shown in the vast extent of their public buildings (such as the Baths of Titus and the Coliseum, compared with which the largest works of the Greeks would appear diminutive), in the coarse vigour and bold relief of their ornamentation, and the spherical curves of their mouldings.

Thus we see, that while each nation had a taste, the taste of each was wholly different ; and in examining French taste, which has so long dominated over the nations of Europe, it is most desirable thoroughly to search into its principles, that we may know when it is worthy of being admitted and followed, and when it is to be rejected, in order that a higher, purer, and more simple taste may be sought after in its stead.

We have already shown that French art is accommodated to the mind of the French people, and reacts upon it ; that it is up to their requirements, mental and sentimental, and certainly not beyond them. Whatever it might have formerly done, it now ministers to the inclinations of the people, but does not lead them. The French are a pleasure-loving people, of a gay and lively disposition, with a sensuous indulgence in pleasurable enjoyments, a proper national vanity and a love of display. To this their whole industrial art ministers ; and from all causes, natural and induced, the tendency of the national taste is evidently to glitter and over-ornamentation to display and finery rather than to decorated usefulness. We repeat therefore that it is most desirable as France has been so long acknowledged as the arbitress of European taste and fashion that we should test t oroughly the ground of her pretensions, and should beware lest unconsciously “the world is still deceived with ornament,” and

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ii led astray by pretentious display, instead of advancing in the road to real excellence.

The first step in this direction will be to attempt to lay down some general principles of taste in decoration, deduced from those works which in all ages have been considered excellent. Without such principles for our guidance, the inquiry would descend into vague and unsatisfactory assertions, a course which has fostered the idea that taste has no settled laws, but is a mere matter of fashion or individual feeling, against which there is neither dispute nor appeal.

Chapter II. On The Source Of Style

In attempting to define the principles which should govern decorative design, the first consideration must be given to those dominating influences, which pervading all the works of a period, subordinate them to what is called style. These influences, as we have already seen, may, and indeed must be various : they generally arise out of circumstances which impress the universal mind of the age, or of some nation pre-eminently great in learning, rule, manufacture, commerce, or the arts.

Style, indeed, will be universal in proportion as the sentiment which inspires it is more or less widely prevalent, more or less akin to our common nature ; and on this account those styles which have arisen out of the religious sentiment are generally coextensive with the religion which produced them.

When these influences arise out of the purer and nobler qualities of man’s nature, the style they produce will be noble also, and being constantly around us, contribute in no small degree to raise the tone of individual and national feeling. The influence of a mean style, founded upon the ignoble or sensual qualities, will in a like degree tend to degrade not only our taste but our moral intellect also.

Thus the governing influences of Greece, when her art was formed, were the worship of the Deity through his created forms and attributes of beauty ; and a sentiment of purity and beauty

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became the characteristics of Greek art. In the latter days of this people, when the poetical religion gave way before the subtilty of her philosophers, the sense of the beautiful only remained, and the principle of her art, deprived of the zealous fire that even an imperfect religious sentiment inspires, became more sensual under the domination of abstract beauty only.

When the Greeks were conquered by the Romans, and their artists transplanted to serve the conquerors, they brought with them their own dominant principle, sensuous beauty. This, however, alone, ill suited the spirit of their proud rulers. In the full career of universal conquest, pomp and splendour were their governing influences, and a new style was formed, wherein a degree of barbarous grandeur dominated over the element of beauty.

As the Romans, from being the conquerors, in turn became the conquered, their art died out under the mean and contemptible desire to appear what they no longer were ; having no influence sufficiently strong to inspire their artists, they became degraded imitators, and even broke down the mighty works of their fathers, to build trophies to call after their own names. The all-pervading spirit which had been present in the growth of Roman art being gone, Europe was ready for the new influence, which, gradually working on society, was to pervade all the nations in various degrees with the spirit of Christianity, and to produce the new styles called Romanesque and Gothic, wherein the sentiment of religion again largely prevailed.

And perhaps the very circumstance that religion was presented by means of art materially to the senses, rather than spiritually to the reason and intellect, increased the universality of the influence. Not only had the churches, but even the houses and all the worldly goods of our fathers, the outward impress of these new styles, which appearing first in the erection and decoration of splendid temples devoted to the worship of the Deity, gradually gave to all things an ecclesiastical character also.

When, from the causes before glanced at, the renaissance of ancient art took place, it was impossible that any sentiment of religion, which, in its own age, it might have possessed, could be re-born with it ; the beautiful only was sought in this revival ; — beauty, however, more or less tainted with the sensuality and pride of the peoples from the study of whose remains the resurrection to new life had been attempted.

Revived moreover without a thorough identity between the sentiment of the age, and the sentiment of the past which produced it, this style became at once subject to national modifications. In our own country it resulted in the Tudor, a style redundant yet mean and grotesque; without ingenuity, and without any constructive truth or consistency. It bore the impress of a people willing to borrow their art at second-hand rather than endeavour to cultivate it at home. Flemish, Italian, and French versions of the renaissance were mixed up in a strange medley with the Gothic of the preceding age, and the style had a character arising out of its very errors and absurdities.

In France the renaissance was gradually modified by successive monarchs, until the revived love of beauty which had given it re-birth gave place to the sentiment of pride. It was modified to pander to the self-esteem of the monarchs and people of the age, and mere meretricious splendour resulted in that style which is called the style of Louis Quinze. In all that this style differed from the true renaissance, it differed merely as arising out of decoration, and from the love for mere magnificence and display, for which it was admirably adapted, being one of the most suitable styles for gilding, and for brilliancy and sparkle in metal and or-molu work; showy and glittering beyond anything attainable in the simpler forms of the renaissance or of classic antiquity.

It must however be allowed to have a sufficiency of marked characteristics to rank as an acknowledged style ; the last in order which decorative art has developed, and, with the other instances

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brought together, tends to establish that one of the first elements of true style is an all-pervading and over-ruling sentiment.

In considering the elements of style, it must be remembered, that style does not merely relate to decoration, as is too often supposed, but originates in construction, to which decoration is only subsidiary. All the great aeras of style have been notedly aeras of changed construction. The -mound-like temples of Egypt, the horizontal constructions of Greece, the arched vaultings of Rome, the vertical aspirings of Gothic buildings, contain elements of style as marked in their bare walls , as when, in their completed state, they are covered with the rich decorative treatments peculiar to them.

These preliminary arguments being admitted, it will follow, first, that style implies some dominating influence reflecting the mind of the age in all its works, and therefore presumes a certain unity of character throughout.

Secondly, that the primary elements of style are constructive, and that the design of a work must have regard to construction, and consequently to proper use of materials, prior to the consideration of its ornamental decoration.

Thirdly, that as construction necessarily implies a purpose, utility must have the precedence of decoration.

Fourthly, as construction necessitates a proper consideration of materials, and as each material has its own mode of manipulation, and is wrought by separate and varied processes ; design must be bad which applies indiscriminately the same constructive forms or ornamental treatments to materials differing in their nature and application.

Fifthly, that as the greater regulates the lesser, the building should determine the style, and all which it contains of furniture or decoration should conform to its characteristics; and thus there would be a proper uniformity of style throughout, and a subordination of all the inferior objects to one another and to the whole.

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Many minor principles are contained under each of these several propositions. In the few words of discussion on each, necessary to connect them with our present subject, these will be noticed, and it is hoped that the preliminary argument will lead to a better understanding of the whole question of decorative design as illustrated subsequently in our remarks upon our various manufactures.

The subject of the first proposition — the prevailing influence characterizing works and thus producing style, has already been touched upon. When this influence is neither strong nor general, characteristic indications of style will be slight and hardly noticeable, and the age will be imitative rather than original : even the slight national character that is present in art labours being less observable by the people themselves than by others.

Thus although to Englishmen there appeared so little originality in the art applied to our own manufactures at Paris in the International Exhibition of 1855 as to incline us to regard them as devoid of any peculiar character, we were less at a loss to perceive a nationality in those produced in Germany, France, or Spain. It was some satisfaction, therefore, on various occasions to hear the same remark from Frenchmen and others on the manufactures of their own land, namely, that they could recognize national characteristics, and many indications of novelty and unity of style in British goods, these qualities being absent to them in their own ; a subject which seemed most justly a cause of regret on their part. Our mutual remarks are therefore somewhat encouraging to each other, and we may hope that there are influences at work to raise us above the rank of mere imitators of the men of other lands and other times — and as imitators necessarily shortcomers-— and that we may thus impress the national character of our age and people on our art and our works.

The great effort that is now made towards a wide-spread development of art education in Great Britain — and this not alone for the upper and middle classes, but for all, even the i7 poorest, must tell upon the rising generation. Once properly instructed, there is very little doubt that the plain good sense, the energy of will, and the dislike of mere display of our countrymen will result in works of much higher excellence in decorative art than has yet been attained in this country. The artizan will thus be empowered to add to his admitted manual dexterity and thorough workmanship, the knowledge and taste that will enable him to join beauty to excellence, and to carry out the labours which the advanced taste of the general public will demand at his hands.

It has been said above that we are rarely sensible of our own growth and progress, and thus it is most difficult to estimate whether any sentiment arising amongst us is sufficiently strong, persistent, and all-prevailing to produce a style. Such, however, may be the case notwithstanding our lack of the power to perceive it. There seem to be many symptoms that the desired change is arising, and will arise out of, or be very materially influenced by the great scientific improvements and discoveries of our times. Not however directly, but indirectly. Changed materials are altering the whole system of construction, and utility, in such works, is of necessity a paramount consideration ; the iron road has opened up to the multitude the power of seeing and enjoying nature ; the camera fixes her mo st fleeting images, and allows us to surround ourselves with evidences of the marvellous and infinite variety of her beauties ; the art of nature-printing places the very accidents of growth and structure palpably before us. As the altered character of the materials, and the necessity of strictly considering utility in our scientific works, has improved our knowledge of structure and weaned us from mere precedents in constructive art; so the opportunity of seeing and enjoying nature, and of searching into the details of her beautiful variety, has led to such a love and delight in natural objects as may be productive of a new style in decorative art also. If these sources of novelty are rightly understood and directed, they point indeed