COMPOSITION counts for more than purism in design. I won’t say don’t hamper yourselves with theories, or tie your hands with prejudices. I know that I have theories yet to be put into practice, and prejudices never to be eradicated —and I hope you have; but don’t adopt them lightly or without knowing what they imply, and, above all, don’t take them on anybody’s word; let them be the result of personal conviction, and you will find them helps then, not hindrances. What you feel to be right you must do, though all the world said it was wrong. But because this man has pronounced against naturalism or that man against convention, because someone swears by this style or another by that, don’t shut your eyes and swallow his dogma, cutting yourself offtbereby from the possibilities of art that lie in these forbidden practices. No one has authority to forbid. If preachers and prophets cannot succeed in convincing you without the shadow of a doubt that this or that is contrary to right and reason —then, reserve your freedom of choice. Least of all, don’t take anything I say for gospel, but only for my honest conviction. In the end it is your own conviction that you have to follow, not mine or any other man’s. But so long as you are students you must have faith —without it, at all events, you will not move mountains. Better put your faith in someone not quite worthy than be cocksure of your own self-sufficiency; in that case you are sure to misplace your confidence; but all fresh enthusiasm is good, and without it you will never do anything to arouse the enthusiasm of others.
Woodcarving is of no particular time or country. It is a cosmopolitan art, to be found everywhere; but it is most especially an art of the North, of the countries where there are forest trees, long winter evenings and snug firesides, just as marble belongs to the South where it is found. England has always been famous for its carpentering; and its open timber roofs, enriched more or less with rudish carving, are the admiration of the French —who claim to be far ahead of us in the matter of the more delicate carving of cabinet-work and such like. And we may admit that subtlety of execution and delicacy of finish were not precisely our strong points. At the time when the Italian, French and Flemish carvers were doing very graceful and highly - wrought work, we were mainly content with vigour, energy, and effect. Our earliest woodcarving belongs not to cabinet-work but to carpentry. It is only towards the sixteenth century that we get fully - developed joinery, carved panelling and so on. Cabinet making is an art of the seventeenth century —then begins the reign of the cabinet maker and upholsterer.
It is not surprising that the styles of carving should have varied with the centuries, according to the purposes of carpentering, joinery and cabinetwork, and according to the woods employed for those various purposes; the style especially suitable to anyone was obviously incompatible with others. The grain of the wood has, as you know, everything to do with the carving it. One must cut to one’s wood, or the wood will want to know the reason why —and the wood will have the better of the argument, too. If you would carve to any purpose, it must be according to the grain of the wood —I need not enlarge upon that. What is, perhaps, not quite so generally understood is that the design also must bear some relation to the quality of the material, hard, soft, overgrained, or whatever its character may be.
Variegated woods are plainly (according to the emphasis of the figure) ill-adapted to delicate detail. They only quarrel with it, interfere with its lines and contours, and undo the work of the carver. So it happened that carvers in oak naturally
resorted to strong lines and distinct relief, in order that their work might hold its own. Even in the more beautiful Italian walnut the figure is sufficient to necessitate a certain boldness of design, and it is perhaps because of the general use of these woods that carving in rather high relief has for the most part prevailed. And I am rather afraid that to this day there is an idea among carvers, and still more among their employers, that a high degree of finish and a near approach to the round are necessary to good carving. I would like the student to get rid of such notions. If he must start with a prejudice let him rather begin by thinking very slight relief necessary, and still less elaboration of finish. He will arrive quite soon enough, and by very natural degrees, at that point of execution where his art begins to go down hill. His fault is that he wants to start at the end, or at the very least in the middle, of his craft. Let me commend to his attention the beginning —that is the place to begin.
Ambition is no doubt a fine thing in its way (though “by that sin fell the angels” ), but it is easy to be too ambitious or to be ambitious in the wrong direction —in a direction, at all events, in which our faculties do not lie. We are too much disposed to overlook or to ignore the scope there is for carving of a quite rude description, and the professional carver —now that his craft begins to rank as a profession and no longer as a simple craft —looks with too lofty a contempt on all but the finished workmanship which claims to be more or less fine art (Carlyle uttered a wish that the devil might fly away with the fine arts —if he would only fly away with the phrase one would be much obliged to him). In the days of our less sophisticated forefathers —when it was not fashionable to talk about art —it was quite a common thing, as you know, to ornament the ordinary chests and other objects of household use with simple but not ineffective parting-tool and gouge work.
It is quite possible to attach far too much value to mere elementary surface decoration like that. Amateurs have attached to it sometimes an importance at which the carver, not unjustly, scoffs. But it is decoration, and it is worth having —and it is a pity that it ever fell altogether into disuse. I may add that it is more pity still that it is now being manufactured for sale in shops of some pretensions. But what is quite incompatible with fashionable upholstery, and quite out of the running as art of serious aim, is just what a working carpenter might take pleasure in doing, as the final touch of decoration to the thing he has been making —and the thing itself would be the more valuable to the person into whose hands it comes for that last touch of the workman. If those who are interested in the “Home Arts and Industries” could but revive that kind of thing in the villages all over the country, they would be encouraging a class of unpretending workmanship which might, in the case of individuals, develop eventually into something worth the name of art.
There are two or three examples on the screen of a quite rudimentary character which are yet, I think, by no means to be despised. They are all, I believe, English work. In the chair and cabinet furthest from you you have the very simplest and most obvious workmanship. You can see how the gouge dictated the design. It is rudimentary, but it is workmanlike and effective, and I think it is well worth doing. In the door panel in the centre of the screen you have work still of the simplest, mere surface carving grounded out, but the design is singularly good. As carving it is not carried far; but it might have been carried further without greatly improving the effect, and for a chair back, of course, you want a smooth not a lumpy surface. Besides, people want chairs which do not cost a small fortune.
The objection to anything like rude workmanship, nowadays, is that it is out of keeping with the greater degree of polish, I was going to say, but shininess more exactly expresses] it, which we effect in our domestic furniture. One would like to persuade people to care a little more for freshness, vigour, individuality, and a little less for a kind of smoothness which is artistically about on a level with the polish on one’s boots —but that I am afraid is Utopian.
Other details- are from the staircase of the Charterhouse. The carving in this case is most effective, but it is quite coarse in execution. My friend, Mr. Aumonier, has lent me a photograph of the staircase, in which you will see more plainly the rich effect of the work. Where such effects can be produced
