British Manufacturing Industries Part 8

Boulle work is made occasionally by French and other foreign houses, and by Wertheimer of Bond street, but it is costly, and the rich relieved portions, such as the hinge and lock mounts, the salient medallions, masks, &c., set in central points of the composition, are either copies or imitations of old work. They lack the freshness, vigour, and spirit of the old French metallurgy.

A spurious kind of Boulle is made with a composition in place of the tortoisesh.e.l.l.

_Parquet floors_ are made by Messrs. Howard as follows: Slices of oak, varied sometimes with mahogany, walnut, and imitation ebony, are laid out and put together on a board. If rings, circles or other figures are introduced, these portions, patterns, and cavities as well as angular pieces are cut in the machine. The thickness of these pieces is a quarter of an inch. They are then laid on three thicknesses of pine, the grain of each thickness being laid crosswise to the one below, so as to keep the wood above from warping and opening. These are glued together, and kept for twenty-four hours under an hydraulic press. It is, in fact, coa.r.s.e marquetry, and the whole is laid down over a rough deal floor. Messrs. Howard also glue up their quarter inch hardwoods without a pine backing, and lay them down with glue and fine brads on old deal floors, a less expensive method, and which can be adopted without raising the level of an old floor.

It is remarkable that English cabinet makers should so rarely make these floors, or architects lay them down in rooms of modern houses.

The French, Germans of all states, Swiss, Belgians, in short most continental nations have these floors, and Swiss and Belgian flooring is imported into England. That of the Belgian joiners is in large pieces four feet or so square, of seasoned wood, moderate in price, and easily laid down.

In this country, our costly modern houses are barely provided with a border of a foot or so round the edges of the reception rooms. Even that is but an exceptional practice. Yet oak flooring is not a costly addition to important rooms, while the habit of keeping floors always covered with Brussels carpet tacked down is not the cleanest imaginable.

Another application of veneered wood practised by Messrs. Howard is called by them "_wood tapestry_." Very thin slices are arranged geometrically in large patterns, and fastened with glue on staircase and pa.s.sage walls, or made into dado panelling to the room, in this case capped by mouldings.

An ingenious method of inlaying thin veneers on flat surfaces of wood by machinery has been patented by the same firm. Veneers or slices of wood about the thickness of coa.r.s.e brown paper are glued on a board, e.g. a table top. A design punched out in zinc, of a thickness somewhat greater than that of the veneer, is laid over it, and the board is then placed under a heavy roller. The zinc is forced into the surface of the board by the roller to about the thickness of the veneer. A plane cleans off the rest of the veneer, leaving the portion only that answers to the zinc pattern, thus forced into the surface of the board. If soaked, the grain of the wood would push up the thin veneer, no doubt, but this is no greater risk than that to which all marquetry is exposed.

Neither of these inventions have as yet been carried beyond the simplest disposition of arrangement. What can be done in either method remains to be shown.

All the woodwork pa.s.sed under review thus far in joinery and cabinet-work, is of _hard_ woods. Much, however, of our modern furniture is of a less valuable description, and is made of pine, American birch, Hungarian and other ash. Pitch-pine, an exceedingly hard wood, difficult to dry, and with a disagreeable propensity to crack if not very well seasoned, is also used, and a beautiful material it is. Some small quant.i.ty of bedroom furniture in beech, oak, and ash is made in the workshops that I have been describing. As a general rule, however, this manufacture of soft woods is a separate branch of the trade. To see soft wood, such as pine, made up into admirable bedroom furniture, and French polished till the grain of it shows much of the delicacy and agreeableness of satin-wood, we should pay a visit to the works of Messrs. Dyer and Watts, in Islington, and to other houses that occupy their time exclusively in work of this kind. It is clean, cheerful, and, by comparison, cheap; is ornamented (in the works of Messrs. Dyer and Watts) with neat lines of red, grey, and black, some of the lines imitative of inlaid wood. It is popular, and if we proceed from the workshops of Messrs. Graham, Holland, and others, to their showrooms and warehouses, we shall find this deal furniture for sale, though they do not profess to make any of it. Less costly pine-wood furniture is painted green, or white, or in imitation of other woods.

The surface of woodwork, if the woods are valuable, is finished by _French polishing_. A solution of sh.e.l.l-lac is put on a rolled woollen rubber, which is then covered with a linen rag, on which the polisher puts a drop of linseed oil. He rubs this solution evenly over the entire surface of the wood as it pa.s.ses through the fibre of the linen, smooth action being secured by the oil. It is laid on in successive fine coats till a glossy surface is obtained which is air and water-proof. For fine work the surface should not be so glossy as to look like j.a.pan work. French polishing preserves woods liable to split, such as oak, from the too rapid action of the air.

_Graining_ is an imitation of oak or other woods. A light colour, chrome yellow, and white, is first laid on, and glazed over with brown. While still wet, the brown is combed with elastic square teethed combs to give the appearance of graining. Larger veins are wiped out by the thumb and a piece of rag. All sorts of woods are thus imitated, and the work when dry is varnished over. Independently of any skill or deceptiveness, this broken painted surface looks effective and lasts long.

Of the propriety of such a decoration there are many doubts, for the discussion of which there is not s.p.a.ce here. Marble graining has long been represented in Italy, e.g. in the loggia of Raphael in the Vatican. But in that particular instance, the painting is a _representation_, not an _imitation_. Wood graining is performed in all countries, and such imitations seem to have been practised by the ancients.

Mr. Norman Shaw is now exhibiting in Exhibition road examples of woods with fine grain stained green, red, and other colours, and French polished, the grain showing as if the woods were naturally of those hues.

For inexhaustible resource in tinting, polishing, and decorating wood surfaces, we shall have to learn from the j.a.panese, from whom probably the famous Vernis Martin was first borrowed in the last century. Much imitation lac-j.a.panning was executed in this country during the latter years of the century. This work is still made in Birmingham. Pieces of mother-o'-pearl are glued on wood and the intervening surface, covered with lac varnish which is rubbed smooth, coat after coat, with pumice and water, till the surface of the inlaid pearl sh.e.l.l is reached, and the whole ground to a gla.s.sy polish.

LONDON FACTORIES.

The number of hands employed in large cabinet-making and furnishing establishments is very considerable. Not only are the workshops well provided with joiners, cabinet makers, and turners, but also with upholsterers, cutters-out and workwomen, stuffing, tacking on or sewing on the covers of chairs, sofas, &c. Indeed, it is no uncommon occurrence for the entire furniture of royal palaces and yachts to be ordered from one of these firms by the courts of foreign potentates in every corner of the world. Chairs, tables, sideboards, &c., were made lately at Messrs. Holland's for a steam yacht of the Emperor of Austria; while Messrs. Jackson and Graham have been furnishing the palace of the Khedive at Grand Cairo.

To execute, with certainty and prompt.i.tude, orders such as these, both premises, plant (such as wood and machinery), and the command of first-rate hands, must be abundant. Painters, gilders, carpenters, paperers, and a miscellaneous a.s.sistant staff are required to pioneer the way for the more costly work, or to make all good behind it. The firm of Jackson and Graham, for instance, employs from 600 to 1000 hands, according to the time of the year or the pressure of orders; and pays out close upon 2000_l._ per week as wages, when all these hands are in full work; and to highly skilled craftsmen (independently of designers), occupied on the production of the most costly kind of furniture, 60_l._ to 230_l._ per week. The Howards employ from 150 to 200 hands on cabinet making and joinery alone. It is the variety and comprehensiveness of these operations, that is so profitable as a speculation. Such a business requires, it need hardly be said, a large capital, and must be liable to fluctuations.

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.

A few words must be given to a retrospect of the state of this branch of the national industry, and to its prospects. If we look back twenty-five years to the furniture exhibited in London in 1851, the improvement of the present time seems incredible.

We may take that Exhibition, the first of these modern displays of all sorts of products of labour, as a point of departure for our review.

In 1851, the Commissioners directed that a complete report should be drawn up on the subject of the decorative treatment of manufactures of all kinds, including the particular cla.s.s of objects under discussion.

The author of this report calls attention to what should be the first consideration, in the construction of objects for daily and personal use. From the continual presence of these things, "defects overlooked at first, or disregarded for some showy excellence, grow into great grievances, when, having become an offence, the annoyance daily increases. Here at least utility should be the first object, and as simplicity rarely offends, that ornament which is the most simple in style will be the most likely to give lasting satisfaction."[7] Yet on examining the furniture on the English side, the reporter could not but notice, how rarely this very obvious consideration had been attended to. "The ornament of such works on the English side consists largely of _imitative_ carving." Ornaments consisting of flowers, garlands of ma.s.sive size and absolute relief, were applied indiscriminately to bedsteads, sideboards, bookcases, pier-gla.s.ses, &c., without any principle of selection or accommodation. "The laws of ornament were as completely set aside as those of use and convenience.

Many of these works, instead of being useful, would require _a rail to keep off the household_."

[7] Supplementary Report, chap. x.x.x.

These strictures were far from being applicable to the entire British Exhibition of this cla.s.s of work. One or two notable exceptions may be quoted, such as a bookcase carved in oak, exhibited by Mr. Crace, bought by the Commissioners and added to the Kensington collections.

This and a few other works "are particularly to be commended for their sound constructive treatment, and for the very judicious manner in which ornament is made subservient to it. The metal-work is also excellent, and the bra.s.s fittings of the panels of the bookcase deserve to be studied, both for the manner in which they have been put together and for their graceful lines."

Four years later, in 1855, in the Paris Exhibition, our furniture and woodwork had made a stride forward, which was still more marked in the London Exhibition of 1862. By that time, our leading houses had appreciated the necessity of obtaining talented designers and foremen, and in many instances they had employed the first architects of the day to give them drawings. The result was a great progress. While the French, indeed, continued to produce very fine pieces, some on the best models, or rather after the principles of the best periods of the Renaissance, our own cabinet makers had run far on in the same direction and in many others, for the mediaeval feeling had still a strong hold on the taste of English architects and their patrons.

The greatest change, however, was that which the Paris exhibition of 1867 brought to light. Fifteen full years had pa.s.sed, since public attention had been called to any careful comparison between the state of our furniture and the decorations of the interiors of our houses, with those of other countries, and the advance was incalculably greater on the part of this country than on that of the other competing nations.

It is worth remarking, that in three great comparative Exhibitions, and particularly in that of 1867, national tastes and peculiarities seemed to have been so completely pared away, that it became difficult to keep the productions of the North and West of Europe from those of the South or the East, distinct in one's mind. Each nation followed the fashion of the works that had obtained the best prizes at former Exhibitions.

For the present, French Renaissance designs in woodwork, and the produce of the looms of Lyons in hangings, serve to give the key to the school of domestic and industrial art in this country. If we look at the richest and most costly productions that have been exhibited, and carried off prizes at the International Exhibitions of late years (and we have no other standard of easy comparison), it will be found that French cabinets, tables, and chairs have served as models to the successful compet.i.tors. Indeed, the most successful of such pieces of furniture are actually designed by French artists in some of our leading firms. There is a decided English type in the satin-wood furniture of Messrs. Wright and Mansfield, and there is some invention, though not always happy, about our designers of mediaeval furniture. These productions are, however, too apt to be heavy and ecclesiastical, to follow rather the types of stone constructions, and the teachings of the admirable plates of Viollet-le-duc, than the lighter work, inaugurated, not without power and success, by Pugin.

There is a company of artists, Morris and Co., who have combined painting and woodwork, and produced excellent results; but they have had few followers, or rather few successful followers. I cannot but mention with honourable commendation the Royal School of Art needlework, as a subsidiary branch of furniture art.

So far as to the past. With regard to the future some few remarks may not be out of place: on the excellence of workmanship, the propriety of design, and the beauty of decoration.

The altered conditions of a trade such as that of the cabinet maker, which combines the useful with the agreeable, comely, and beautiful, in its productions, have been alluded to already. This change must seriously affect the accomplishments of the workman. Instead of working under and with his master, he is become one of a regiment of officials. He cannot identify himself with the entire work of which he only executes members interchangeable with other members, all mechanically alike. Again, mortises, tenons, dovetails, and joinery of all sorts, no longer demand from hand-work the accuracy, neatness, and perfection of former days. These operations are done for him.

Occasionally he supplements the work of the engine. Like a player who only plays music occasionally, we cannot expect him to retain all the fineness of his hand in perfection.

Is the modern workman, then, the equal of those of sixty years since, whose productions stand so well to this day, because of this perfection of manual dexterity? It will be difficult to maintain that he is, but it would be most unjust to deny either that the best workmanship can be turned out, or that it is turned out, of our great establishments. This is the work of the most choice and accomplished hands. In smaller London houses, and in the furniture which we find in the trade generally, the workmanship is inferior, relatively, to that of the former period.

The introduction of machinery, however, is a fact, and its effects on manual skill must be accepted as a necessity. Nor must we pa.s.s over the further fact, that if the modern joiner is not the equal of the journeymen of Chippendale, he can _do more_. He has powers at command, and can carry into execution quant.i.ties, beyond the reach of half-a-dozen, perhaps a score of his predecessors. The consumer ought to reap advantages from this latter fact which he has failed hitherto to get, as shall be explained presently.

This brings me to the consideration of the proprieties of design, and the beauty of decoration of our present furniture. If workmanship is affected by altered conditions of the manufacture, so also is design, that union of effective and suitable decoration with the required convenience of each piece of furniture, which may be called _style_.

The artist, as regards his productions or style, is fashioned partly by what he thinks and loves, partly by his materials and his tools.

With some materials he can do little, for want of tools and appliances. As regards material, wood remains what it always has been, but the steam-engine supplies an absolutely new set of tools. What has been done with them? The impressed marquetry has been mentioned, but as yet nothing really new has been done by the use of machinery. Thin veneers which might be cut out with scissors, as if one were cutting paper in inexhaustible fulness and variety, are restricted, in this impressed marquetry, to such as can be copied in the coa.r.s.e material, zinc, which has to be punched or sawn out for the manufacture. Then again we have the carving or copying machine. At present nothing more is done with it than to copy, and to copy somewhat clumsily, in duplicate or in large numbers, that which has first been carved or modelled by hand. It would be premature to decide, that with so powerful a tool in his hand, an accomplished artist trained to use it, could not produce real and rapid sculpture. But no such artist has yet stepped on the stage, and it can only be an artist who can put the matter to a proof.

In following the style and ornamentation of former periods, our new machinery is in no sense a help to us. The man who cuts out his material for a Sheraton chair _felt_ what he was going to carve upon, chose his pieces, arranged the grain, and the spare material just as he would require it, with careful reference to the use of his carving tools from first to last. _The pace_, too, required in executing orders was then more deliberate; costly and elaborate plant and machinery not being required, provincial workmen of admirable skill were to be found in many towns. There is no royal process by which we can put a log of wood into one end of an engine, and find a chair, a table, or a cabinet at the other. What steam machinery does for us is to perform with certainty, and with immense rapidity, the simple operations of sawing, planing, boring, and turning. It is by turnery that ornamentation is done in the engine. Any length of moulded edges can be soon turned out, any amount of the parts of panelling, of turned rails, and of ornaments turned on flat surfaces pressed on the cutting tool, together with the piercing of fretwork and curved and shaped edges to boards. The saw being a fixture in this instance, is an advantage, but machine turnery is not rich in resources. The tool itself is filed laboriously to the mould required, and the wood merely pressed against it. When the wood revolves (as in the old lathe), the turner, with the simple edge of his chisel or his gouge, was the master of an endless variety of ornament limited only by his fancy or skill of hand.

It is nevertheless in the turnery and the fret-cutting machinery, that a furniture artist must find the elements of a style. The man of genius, the poet and maker, who can throw himself into these elements, will do wonders with them. The lathe is as old as history. During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, turned wood furniture was made in considerable quant.i.ties in this country, in Italy, and in the Indian possessions of the Portuguese. All the furniture of Arabs, Moors, and Turks springs from the lathe and the moulding plane; the tables and stools, the ingenious reticulation of Cairene geometrical panelling, the screens of woodwork so effective in the queen of Arab cities and in Damascus are derived from these humble sources.

To surface ornament of marquetry, occasional carved insertions can be added. But light, neat, and elegant woodwork, panelling, bookcases, cabinets, dressers, chairs, and tables, can be turned out without these additions, and the variety might be endless.

Carved acanthus foliage, bulging legs and surfaces, artistic carving and marquetry, and chiselled metal-mountings must be the work of trained sculptors. The engine gives them no real help. To design, that is invent (not to copy), carving and marquetry that will bear comparison with the products of Riesener, and of the school of Gibbons, is not to be done by command of appliances or skilful workmanship _only_. The artist who is thoroughly at home in designs of this kind, is the pupil or descendant of masters whose traditions are well established:

"Fortes creantur fortibus."

But neat furniture, unornamented by hand-work, ought to be turned out of the engine-room, the perfection of lightness, convenience, and strength. And here the buyer will look for the advantage of _cheapness_. We do not find that our large makers supply well-made machine furniture _cheap_. As a broad rule, prices seem to be calculated on _what a man would do_, and work done in the machine is priced, as if a man had made it by hand. In point of fact, five or six men's work is done in the same time, and the cost of wages charged on articles so made, will leave a disproportioned profit, notwithstanding the expense of setting up and maintaining the steam plant.

Decorative furniture can never be had at a cheap rate.

A word, in conclusion, as to the arts which are necessarily pressed into the service of furniture, and their prospects of the future.

These "sumptuary" arts have been spoken of in these pages as a revival in furniture and _style_, as dead. The disorders that culminated in the French revolution cut off our present European thoughts, or at least our manners and customs, from the past.

We are now trying to revivify past traditions. The furniture makers have made extraordinary exertions in this direction. How will it be in the coming years?

Some critics are of opinion that "art manufacture" is a delusion, and that, if our academicians were equal to the ancient Greeks, we should not find that rich buyers would care about the shapes of their chairs (if comfortable), the colours of their walls, and so forth--a singular delusion. If Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Raphael exhibited at Burlington House, their pupils and followers would overflow with good work in various degrees of elaboration. We should find it in our churches, houses, seats, carriages, and the rest. This is what _did_ happen when the great artists were flourishing. Ugliness and vulgarity were not endurable anywhere. Mentor expressed himself in drinking cups, Cellini in brooches, Holbein in daggers, Michael Angelo in a candlestick, Raphael culminated in a church banner. The art that finds its utterances on k.n.o.bs, or handles, or drawer fronts, is restricted certainly, because the object is of awkward shape or surface, is to be handled and used, and is only a part of something larger. Nevertheless the street of tripods in Athens, the front of the _biga_ in the Vatican, were "occasions" on which good sculptors did the best that those occasions allowed of. Four fine silver images, representing four great provincial capitals, in the Blacas Collection (now to be seen in the British Museum), were perhaps the ends of the poles of a Sedan chair.

Objects of this kind, though fragmentary, or slightly worked out, or combined in some grotesque but graceful fashion, with a piece of leaf or stalk, are the easy results of long years of mental and manual training.