Journal of Royal Society of Arts, February 6, 1874.

EASTERN ART, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON EUROPEAN MANUFACTURES AND TASTE.

By Dr. Chr. Dresser, F.L.S.

You have done me the honour of requesting that I read to you a paper on “Eastern Art, and its Influence on European Manufactures and Taste,” and in so doing I am sure that you have looked to my making such remarks as will induce our national advancement, both in art and in commerce, rather than to my saying complimentary things, which "#" or might not be rigidly true. This paper I am not going to act the part of Certain£who, while last year in Vienna, reviewed the various works in which art was applied to useful objects, and lavished praise on English works simply because they were English, while in the departments under consideration we were in some instances shamefully beaten by foreign competitors.

How far censure should be passed on the correspondents themselves who acted thus it is difficult to say, for if a man has to write of the art merits of the various exhibits, of the excellence of manufacturing processes, of the dress of a princess, the habits of a people, the price of a dinner, the quality of wines, the music at the opera—in fact, of everything, from a shoe black to a Shah, a button to a coronet, a three-legged stool to an ivory throne, how can he possibly criticise with fairness the works of which he has to write *

Our correspondents are men of letters, and some of them are gifted with marvellous powers of description, but others who are less gifted criticise where they should only describe, or mete out praise where censure should be given, and thus they do a gross injustice to the manufacturer whose works are reviewed, and seriously stand in the way of national progress.

I am now speaking of honourable men, who, through pardonable ignorance, do harm while seeking to do good, and not of those whose reports can be influenced by the nature of the treatment received at the exhibitor's hands. Men whose comments can be changed in character, and who give repeated notices in return for repeated ac £are only to be condemned as altogether unfitted to use the important power which they hold in their hands.

In this paper I shall express my opinions freely, with the view of aiding the cause of national progress, and I am sure that, even if my frankness gives pain in some cases, you would rather receive from me a candid statement of my feelings than words of flattery, which should induce you blindly to imagine that we are foremost in manufactures in which we are actually far behind.

In commencing our considerations of Eastern art, I must ask you to notice that in the design of an art-work we have, first, the construction of the object, and then its ornamentation; in other words, we have first its formation and then its beautification, but the consideration of structure precedes that of beauty. Structure concerns it self with utility, and not especially with beauty; if an object which is intended to meet utilitarian ends is, when formed, beautiful, the structuralist says, so much the better, but if it is verily ugly

he cares not, for he is a utilitarian only; but on the other hand the artist cares too little about use fulness, he making the production of beauty his first if not his only care.

The ornamentalist should stand between the pure artist on the one side and the utilitarian on the other, and should join them together. He should be an artist in every sense of the word, yet he should be a utilitarian also. He should be able to perceive the utmost delicacies and refinements of artistic forms, yet he should value that which is useful for the very sake of its usefulness.

I have no sympathy with those who regard a utilitarian object as of value only as it has art qualities—despising its usefulness, and I am equally without sympathy with those who value an object which is beautiful simply on account of its usefulness—despising its beauty. Let us have objects which are useful, but let them be beautiful also. 

In this utilitarian age, and in this practical country, there is less danger of our having art works of a useless character than there is of our having useful works which are uncomely in form. The latter finds expression in the new bridge which we have just placed over the Thames at Wandsworth, the railway bridges at Cannon-street and Charing-cross, and the exterior of the Great Northern Railway Station. These are excellent illustrations of objects which are at the same

eminently useful and superlatively ugly. Yet why they could not be both useful and beautiful no one can see. Mr. Page, whose bridges are more artistic than those of any other engineer that I know, will tell you that this may be so with

bridges; and we well know that there is no in compatibility between beauty and utility in building. Surface decoration might do much to redeem

the exterior of the Great Northern Railway Station from its present ugliness, and colour and simple agencies might mitigate the offensiveness of the

bridges; but at the very outset works should be so constructed as to be to the utmost degree useful, and yet at the same time beautiful.

We have now set up a standard by which we may judge of the merits of works of art-industry. Thus we shall ask, are they useful ? and then, are they beautiful? If we have to consider a jug, a tea-pot, a coal-box, a chair, a fender, or a door

knob, we shall in each case first inquire whether the work is useful, and then, whether it is beautiful. And if it fail in either quality we shall regard it as imperfectly answering the end of its creation, for by its beauty it should give pleasure, while it is at the same time perfectly meeting a utilitarian Want.

I shall now subject one or two Eastern objects to this double test, in order that we notice the manner in which they meet required wants; and first I shall take a Japanese kettle. The kettles which I have here are from the Vienna Exhibition, and formed part of that very £ collection of objects sent by the Tycoon's Government to Austria during the past year, an exhibit which must be regarded as of the highest interest to Europeans generally, and to those in particular who have the sagacity to perceive what is beautiful and what is new, and to apply the knowledge gained to the advancement of our own industries.

To take one kettle first, we notice that its “body” consists of a flattened spheroid, and thus resembles in shape a common cheese, with its edges rounded. This body is formed of thin, rough bronze, one-half of which is covered with little

rounded eminences which thickly and regularly cover its surface. The handle of the kettle is of smooth bronze, and so is the lid, but the lid is in laid with silver in a manner that gives to it much beauty. In many respects we have here a typical

kettle—a kettle typical in its utility and typical in its beauty—for notice. Where the kettle is to come in contact with the fire it is formed of rough and unfinished metal, the heating surface is increased materially by the excrescences; and those parts of the kettle which are to be touched by the hands – as the handle and the lid—are smooth and pleasant to the feel.

But the kettle is also beautiful. Its shape is good, the protrusions of its surface give to it beauty as well as increase its utility, and the ornament on the handle and on the lid is consistent in character, appropriate as a method of enrichment, and exactly what is necessary to render the kettle, what Keats would term, “a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.” I have here two other Japanese kettles

which differ from the last, chiefly in having a sheet of metal surrounding the lower portion of the body, and spreading from it as a bell-shaped member,

while the body is, in one case, without any tubercular excrescences, and in the other it is furnished with them. Here we have the heating surface in creased by the lower portion of the body consisting of double metal, the one thickness forming its lower part, and the other surrounding this like a sort of petticoat and projecting from it so as to enclose hot air. The lid and the handle, however,

are smooth and beautiful, as in the last illustration.

It is curious that while the kettle is an object in use in every house in the land, we have to go to Japan to learn how to make one as it should be made. But we are a pig-headed, self-opinionated people, who blindly persist in our ignorance. We

do not give thought to what we do, but insist upon doing those things which our fathers did, just as our fathers did them. -

From Wolverhampton our kettles chiefly come, yet to what Wolverhampton manufacturer could I say, “You do not know how to make a kettle,” without subjecting myself to severe reproof. Yet it is a fact that none of them know how to

make this common object as it should be made.

Where is the English kettle, I ask, which has utilitarian qualities comparable with those of the Japanese example; and where can we find kettles with art qualities equal with those works under consideration ? We could excuse the want of

artistic beauty to an extent, as we are only now becoming alive to our ignorance in matters of taste; but with humility I say that we, with our boasted utilitarianism, cannot coustruct a common kettle rightly as a merely useful object.

I must give one other example of what I may term utilitarian fitness, but with this example I must content myself. Here is a Turkish water vessel, which was shown in the very interesting and |important Turkish court in the Vienna Exhibition.

The body of this vessel is somewhat egg-shaped, but downwards it is continued as a tapering foot, which is rough with perforations; upwards it terminates with three small necks, which are surmounted by a small funnel-shaped member.

From the upper part of the egg-shaped body a small spout protrudes in an upward direction, and opposite to the spout is a handle, which is also small; in the funnel-shaped orifice there is a piece of clay, which is perforated with small holes, and the whole vessel is porous.

If a water vessel is well constructed, we can from it discern much of the character of the people who made it, and of the nature of the country from

whence it came, but without going into this matter let us consider the Turkish water vessel which we have just noticed. This vessel is so placed in a pond or river that it is covered with water to a height anything less than that of the top of the spout. The rough and elongated foot is stuck in the mud at the bottom, and thus it is prevented from floating, and from altering its position. The body being porous permits the water to percolate through it; hence the vessel acts as a filter as well as