CHAPTER XII

THE FACTORY TO-DAY

Its situation and surroundings--Facilities for the study of plant, flower, and animal life--Modern equipment in machinery and in hygienic improvements--The absence of lead poisoning--New impulses.

In the word _factory_ there is nothing suggestive of poetry. In England it represents the Frankenstein who has slain many cottage industries. In connection with our own potteries there are the Five Towns, merged into one, with a quarter of a million of inhabitants. They stand for organized science and applied manufacture. Their architecture is an architecture of chimney-shafts and kilns, black with smoke. It is a prosperous district, crammed with the workers in a gigantic industry. There are visions of murky canals and great hills of accumulated rubble of the mines, coal and copper and iron, dug from the bowels of the earth and blotting out the skyline.

There are crowded byways filled with hurrying operatives, men and women and girls. The beauty of the rich, green, undulating lands of Staffordshire has been effaced by this delving of human moles. It is as though some ruthless giant had made sport of the hills and worked havoc on a smiling plain. But modern life demands sacrifices, and chinaware must be made to send to the four corners of the earth--this is the great White Country.

In Denmark things are managed differently. It comes as a welcome surprise to the English visitor, educated to other scenes, to find the Royal Porcelain Factory set in a pleasant suburb of the city near the old gardens of the Palace of Frederiksberg. One cannot have an omelette without breaking eggs: the factory chimneys are there, the green-hedged paths are surely a snare leading up to another such prison-house as are all factories the world over. Here are the heaps of quartz, and we catch the hum of the machinery. The workers are in the hive; some unkind sprite has snatched them from the pleasant ways of a delightful city set by the sea and immured them for their sins in this fortress of stone.

It suggests the story of Böttger and his workmen imprisoned by reason of the secrets they held. Surely these workmen and artists who know the secret of the Copenhagen ware will not be allowed to escape. It is too precious a thing to Denmark that its secrets be divulged. But the reply comes suddenly when the doors are opened and the secret, that is no secret, is disclosed. These men and women are Danes, and proud of their art and filled with the love of their Copenhagen porcelain. They come and go as they will. Like bees they roam over the flowers and the gems of nature, and they return home to the hive because they love their art. That which their hand findeth to do, they do with all their might.

=Facility for Study of Animal and Plant Life.=--There is sunshine here in this Northern pottery. The courtyard shows a scene no other factory in the world can offer; it is bewildering to a student of potteries: a turkey with her brood proudly dominates the scene. We have with the camera caught this as a record. It is as suggestive as it is remarkable that the artists have carried their love for fidelity so far that flowers and animals and birds find themselves in suitable environment at this strange enchanted factory.

Animal life is dear to the potters here. There are over three hundred moulds of different types--wading and diving wild fowl from the remoter "haunts of coot and hern"; sea-gulls, never absent from the harbour and canals spanned by bridges over which trams pass; bears and seals, the originals of which are to be found at the Zoological Gardens close by; and if the Phœnix--that fabulous bird which lives for five hundred years, making its nest of spices and burning itself to ashes, coming forth with renewed life for another five hundred years--could be captured, it would find a place in the aviary of the factory which, Phœnix-like, has arisen with youth and vigour.

=The Absence of Lead Poisoning.=--In place of the white-faced factory workers, we find at the Copenhagen factory a healthy band of workmen, artisans, and artists, employed in conditions that are a credit to all concerned. The usual drudgery of a pottery is eliminated as much as possible in this factory. The latest modern appliances to ventilate the dust-laden air are in use. _There are no cases of lead-poisoning, because lead is not used in the factory either in pigments or in glazes._ A dining-hall and dressing-rooms have been erected for the workmen. The factory provides its own electricity and mechanical power; it is heated throughout by hot water, and has a complete system of vacuum and pressure mains.

The lady artists work in almost ideal conditions. They are installed in studios filled with flowers and plants, and in no other factory are the artistic conditions so favourable to the study of plant and animal life. The photographs we reproduce are taken of the normal surroundings of everyday work.

The writer has indelible memory pictures of the workmen at the machinery, or in the open air turning over the quartz where it lies in heaps "weathering," exposed to the sun and the frost, of slowly grinding stones revolving in a vat mixing and amalgamating the raw materials, in preparing them for the next stage of handling, revealing the slow and patient processes of the potter's art. There is something hazardous in manipulating the raw materials, crushing them into powder, and bringing them together in the correct proportions for the body. It is here that the long traditions of the factory, the well-guarded secrets in the mixing, and the skilful instinct in conjunction with scientific exactitude, come into full operation. The result is evident in the smooth, white, pearly body and the transparent liquid glaze, so technically perfect and so much admired by other potters.

One recalls an anxious and expectant group at the ovens when a firing is being removed after the ovens have cooled down from the intense heat of the _grand feu_, a temperature never attempted by the manufacturers of soft-paste porcelain in this country.

The laboratory holds mysteries of its own. It is an inner sanctum to which few penetrate. These little human touches indicate that there is a romance in manufacture as well as in more stirring scenes to the accompaniment of the roll of the drum or the rousing bugle-call. The potter's art is rich in associations which render the arts of peace as alluring in story as the arts of war. Many victories have been won in silence, but no less triumphant for that, and these represent man's conquest of earth and the white-hot flame of the furnace, whereby he transmutes the rocks from the quarry and the mountain-side into crystal vases reflecting those same mountains, and streams, and placid lakes, and clouds in stately procession. This is the art of the magician, and modern science has added one more laurel wreath to her victories over the elements.

The interior of a great factory where art is in the making has many exciting moments. The cruel fire is no respecter of persons. After the various steps have been taken, the grinding, the mixing, the moulding into form, the firing in biscuit, the painting, and the subsequent glazing, the creation comes out of the oven as a finished work of art. At any one of these stages a slip may mean disaster. Each successive process gains in difficulty. It is a tragic instant when the last hour is reached. After the oven has cooled the news goes round that a firing is being taken from the kiln. A knot of artists gathers round as each piece comes out. Some call for admiration; there is a hush of joyful surprise when a completed masterpiece comes forth perfect. Alas! too often some delightful dream with its tender colours has twisted out of shape in the intense heat. A graceful form has coalesced with a neighbouring vase. They stand as failures, and the workman with swift, relentless hand gives them a tap with a hammer, and they become shards. The poet-painter's dream has ended in nothingness.

=New Impulses.=--In regard to the future there are golden hopes and happy anticipations. The past has been glorious, the present is triumphant. A true and living school of design amid sound artistic environment has its band of artist-potters, trained under happy auspices, whose aims are set steadfastly on art that is nothing unless it be national--these are the children of to-morrow. New generations will come and go, and new art impulses will beat, as the waves breaking from the Baltic, on the little pottery set on a rock and proud in its great achievements. The future, like the vessel in the furnace, is in the hands of Fate. Taking courage in both hands, the potter-sons of Denmark will in those yet unborn days carry on the great traditions. There is a great heritage for the sons of the days to come, and looking backward, they will place the laurel wreath on the brow of the masters who, in the old days and at the present era, have fought the good fight and won the guerdon of praise from potters in far-off lands who have paid homage to the art of the Three Blue Lines.

FINIS

INDEX

INDEX

A as a mark, Copenhagen faience, 330

Abildgaard, 107

A.H. as a mark, 102

Aluminia Company buys factory (in 1883), 205

Aluminia mark on Art faience, 330

Andersen, Hans, _Princess and Swineherd_, _Tinder Box_, figures illustrating, 269, 284

Animal life, study of, at Copenhagen, 270, 339

Antonibon, Pasqual, potter at Venice, 24

Arentz, Johan, 109

Arnoux, Report on Pottery at Paris Exhibition (1867), 24

Art Faience, Copenhagen, 307-330

B and G (as a mark), 283

Bargains in porcelain, a regiment of dragoons exchanged for collection of porcelain, 32

Battle of Copenhagen, 179 Bowl commemorating, 184

Bau, N., 109

Baÿer, J. C., the painter of the _Flora Danica_ service, 105 Signature of, 103

Berlin factory founded by Frederick the Great, 32

Bing, M., collection of Oriental art at Paris, 215

Bing and Gröndahl, Messrs., the factory of, at Copenhagen, 283

Bird life, strongly represented in figures and painted work, 270, 339

Biscuit figures, a high test of ceramic art, 266

Biscuit figures of great size (Sèvres porcelain) (1900), 224

Blue-and-white, early, underglaze painted, 157-76 Painters of, 104, 110 Table of marks, 174-6

Boisgelin, Count Louis de, visits Copenhagen factory (1790), 76, 109 his report quoted, 76-84, 150, 151

Bornholm clay used at early period, 63, 78, 165

Botanical character of Copenhagen, decoration in _Flora Danica_ service, 148

Böttger, Johann Fredrich, his discovery of hard porcelain, 22, 29 his secret divulged throughout Europe, 30, 35

Bowl in memory of Battle of Copenhagen, 184

Brandstrup, gilding by, 195

Brongniart discontinues making _pâte tendre_ at Sèvres, 24

Bushell, Stephen W., "Chinese Art," quoted, 23

C7 (incised) as a mark, illustrated, 104

Cadewitz, Martin, 107

Camrath, Johan, junior, 110 senior, 108

Caroline Matilda (Queen of Denmark), her tragic history, 47

Catherine II, Empress of Russia; her friendship with contemporary philosophers and scientists, 142 Establishes a French theatre at St. Petersburg, 142 Letter of Voltaire to, 143 Great services made for-- _Flora Danica_, 139 Sèvres, 139 Wedgwood, 140

Characteristics of modern Copenhagen porcelain, 230, 233

Charles XV of Sweden, present of Fournier Copenhagen service to, 39

Child-life a feature in Copenhagen modelling, 274

"Chinese Art," by Stephen W. Bushell, quoted, 23

Chinese conventional underglaze blue-painted types, 233, 238 Crackled glazes, 292 _Flambé_ glazes, 291 Influence on Copenhagen at the outset of the modern period, 211 Potter, the poetry of the, 95, 245 Prototypes in underglaze painted porcelain, 233 Subjects at Copenhagen, rare, 125

_Christian VII_ (of Denmark), the court of, 43-52

Chronology (Queen Juliane Marie period) (1732-1780), 42

Chronology (1780-1820), 74

Classic movement the, in Europe, 191

Classic ornament, avoidance of, in modern Copenhagen porcelain, 234 used in Copenhagen decadent period, 196

Clement, chemist at Copenhagen factory, produces first crystalline glaze in 1886, 219

Clio, Hans, signature of, 101, 106

Colour, combinations of rich, in Copenhagen art faience, 325

Colours of underglaze painting, their limitation, 236, 268

Colours invented by Müller, 64, 78

Commemorative placques, 230, 243

Commonplace development of underglaze painting avoided at Copenhagen, 234

Contemporary criticism of Copenhagen factory (1790), quoted, 76

Copenhagen Art Faience, 309-31

Copenhagen factory compared with Meissen, 77-80, 126

Copenhagen Factory Mark, its origin and symbolic meaning, 56

Copenhagen porcelain, early (soft-paste), 37

Copenhagen porcelain, characteristics of modern style, 230, 233

Copyists of modern Copenhagen porcelain, 229, 295

Costume subjects, weakness of, in china, 266

Costume subjects, respective claims of overglaze and underglaze painting, 268

Costume subjects. Meissen vitiates Europe, 126

Costume subjects in Meissen and Chelsea manner avoided at Copenhagen, 126, 129, 277

Court scandal. _Coup d'état_ of Crown Prince Frederik, 48

Court scandal. The story of Queen Caroline Matilda, 47

Crackled glazes, 292, 301

Crown, use of, as a mark, 262

Crystalline glazes, 289-303

Crystalline glazes invented by Hr. Clement in 1886, the chemist at the Copenhagen factory, 219

Dalgas, Frederik, his activity in upholding the traditions of the factory, 313 his development of the Art Faience, 313

Dannemand, Countess, presents a service of Copenhagen porcelain to Charles XV of Sweden, 39

Danish and Japanese ceramic art compared, 247

Danish heroes of the Battle of Copenhagen, 184

"Danish" pattern, the, in blue and white, 159 Dish, illustrated, 169 Plate, illustrated, 249

Decadence, the, at Copenhagen factory (1820-1880), 177-97

Decoration, fitting, a true test of high ceramic art, 238

Defects in firing in porcelain corrected by the painter, 265

Delft and its origin, 309

Denmark the arena of European conflicts, art impulses extinguished, 179

Denmark, the first porcelain made in, 35

Derby porcelain peacock compared with Copenhagen model, 288

Diderot and Catherine II of Russia, 142

Diversity of designs, Müller period, 81

Dutch potters' imitation of Chinese porcelain, 309

Eckersberg, Danish painter, 197

Eighteenth century, outburst of enthusiasm for art of potter, 28

Empire style, the so-called, 191

_Encyclopædia Britannica_ (1911), article on _Ceramics_ (_re_ Copenhagen) quoted, 282

Engelhardt, Hr. V., chemist at Copenhagen factory, his crystalline glazes, 223, 296

English factories, soft-paste, list of, 27 Hard paste, 27

English factories, slavish imitation of Oriental models and marks, 11, 281 The short duration of the old, 202

English factories, soft paste mainly produced at, 27

English porcelain, its peculiar technique, 310

English potters, clever technique of, 27

Europe, establishment of china factories in, 21 Secret of hard paste discovered, 29

European ceramic art, a new note added by Copenhagen, 216

European factories, hard-paste, origin of, 30

F painted in forget-me-nots, 99

F5, mark Fournier period, 36

Factory marks, European, with royal and patrician cyphers, 28

Factory Mark, not used from 1773-1775 at Copenhagen, 42, 56

Factory Mark (Copenhagen), origin and meaning of the three blue lines, 56

Factory, the old, closed down for want of fuel, 135

Factory, the Royal Copenhagen, to-day, 333-45 Art Faience and its future, 330 Dalgas, Frederik, the modern spirit of, the artistic distinction achieved under his direction, 313 Facilities for study of plant and animal life, 339 Its artistic environment, 339 Its modern equipment, its hygienic improvements, 340 The studios (illustrated), 341

Faience, Copenhagen Art, 309-31

Faience, its technique, 321

Falck, A., buys factory in 1867, 196

Figure Subjects, early production of, at Copenhagen, 71 National character of, 126, 274

Figure Subjects and Groups (1780-1820), 111-36 Classification of, 122 Renaissance period, 263-88

Figure Subjects, Thorvaldsen period, 196

Fischer, Admiral, bowl in memory of, 184

Fish modelled from nature, 273

_Flambé_ glazes of Chinese potters, 291

_Flora Danica_ service, the, 137-56 Painters and modellers of, 105, 106, 108, 144, 155, 156

_Flora Russica_, by Dr. P. S. Pallas, German naturalist, 153

Florence, imitative porcelain made at, 23

Foreign porcelain prohibited in Denmark, 114

Foreign workmen and artists at Copenhagen-- Baÿer, 83 Cadewitz, 83 from Meissen, 59 Luplau, 60, 83, 121, 122 Thomaschefsky, 83

Form _versus_ Colour, 265, 266

Formal landscape, the, supplanted by modern Copenhagen, 234

Fortia, de, Count Alphonse, his volume, 76

Fournier, Louis, French potter at Copenhagen, 36

Fournier, Louis, and his period (1760-1766), 35-9 Mark used by, 36

Frederick the Great carries off Meissen workmen to Berlin, 32

Frederick the Great founds the Berlin factory, 32 his ruse to stimulate interest in porcelain, 32

Frederik V of Denmark, Sèvres service a present from Louis XV, 38

Frederik V establishes a factory at Copenhagen, 35

Frederik VI, his early training, 141 Orders the _Flora Danica_ to be made, 140

Frederiksborg Castle, vases at, 125

Fürstenberg, artist from, at Copenhagen, 71

Fürstenberg, mark of, mistaken for early Copenhagen porcelain, 36

Future triumphs, the supernatural yet unplumbed, 253

Garmein, painter (1820-1825), 195

Garnier, M. Edouard (of Sèvres Museum), quoted, 220, 223

Genius independent of modern science, 67, 91

George III demands release of his sister on pain of war being declared, 51

Gilding of exquisite quality at Copenhagen, 91

Ginger jar, the Chinese, of commerce, its beauty, 237

Glaze-- Overglaze decoration, 233 Underglaze decoration, 214, 224, 236, 268

Glazes-- Chinese crackled, 292 Chinese _flambé_, 291 Crystalline (Copenhagen), 295 Transmutation, 291, 301

Gray, Thomas, student of nature, 153 The first note of love of nature in English literature in his "Letters," 153

Grimm and Catherine II of Russia, 142

Gubbio, ruby lustre glaze of, 318

Hald, Andreas, 109 Signature of, 102

Hamilton, Lady, Nelson's letters to, 187

_Hamlet_, quoted, 192

Hansen, Lars, painter, 106

Hard paste-- first made at Meissen, 22, 29 Plymouth, Bristol, and New Hall, 27 Sèvres, manufacture of, at, 24

Heraldic placques designed by Arnold Krog, 230, 243

Hetch, G., Director of Copenhagen factory, 191

Highest work of Copenhagen, an attempt to indicate, 230, 233

Hispano-Moresque ware, 318

HM (incised) as a mark, illustrated, 104

Holm (Privy Chancellor to Queen Juliane Marie), encourages Müller, 55

Holm (potter), signature of, 103

Holmskjold, the botanist, director of Copenhagen factory, 144

Höyen, his lecture on the natural Scandinavian art, 196

I as a mark, 195

I. Holm, 103, 107

Imitativeness of European potters, 11, 215, 281, 309, 314

Imitators of modern Copenhagen porcelain, 229, 281

Initials on Copenhagen porcelain (F), 99

Inscription on Chinese vase, 95 Copenhagen (bowl), 184 (cup), 69, 99 (plate), 87 (cup and saucer), 99 Staffordshire pottery, 96

Italian Majolica, old masters of, 317

J (mark of Jensen), 195

Jacobsen, quoted, 251

Japanese and Danish ceramic art compared, 247

Japanese imitations of Copenhagen porcelain, 247, 281

Japanese influence in Copenhagen at outset of modern period, 235

Japanese ivory carver, his technique, 267, 329

Jensen, mark of, 195

Jews compelled by Frederick the Great to buy porcelain, 32

Joachim, Christian, his art faience, 322, 325

JS (incised) as a mark, 103

Juliane Marie, Dowager Queen, patron of Müller, 55 Part of, in overthrow of Struensee, 48

Juliane Marie porcelain period--