CHAPTER VIII

THE MODERN RENAISSANCE

The after-effects of war—Philip Schou, Councillor of State, rebuilds the factory—Arnold Krog appointed art director—A new technique developed—Triumph of modern Copenhagen porcelain—The new impulses stimulate other European potters—A new note added to European ceramic art—The avoidance of classic or stereotyped styles—The idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen—Intense national sentiment of Copenhagen—Marks of leading painters and modellers.

On the threshold of the great Renaissance of art which re-established the name and fame of the Royal Copenhagen Factory, it is necessary to look at the subject from more than one point of view. The fire which MÜller had lit had been burning dimly; indeed, save for the blue-and-white utilitarian ware, it had almost gone out. The Copenhagen factory was a century old in the seventies. Most of our English porcelain factories had put out their furnaces for ever. Chelsea, Derby, Plymouth, Bristol, and Bow had entered that ghostly realm where collectors snatch at the body of the potters and posterity portions out the inheritance of the departed great.

The years of the English porcelain factories, with their triumphs and their decadence, were compassed within the span of a man's life. Plymouth and Bristol, the only hard-paste factories, together ran less than twenty years. Bow succumbed in less than half a century. Chelsea existed only thirty-nine years, and Derby, with all its vicissitudes of fortune, changing hands many times, never reached a century old. The Worcester factory is the only English porcelain factory in existence to-day with a history which goes back to the middle years of the eighteenth century.

The half-century from 1825 to 1875, not only in Copenhagen but in every part of Europe, represents a dead level of banality in art. Sporadic attempts to awaken enthusiasm or to stimulate public interest fell on stony ground. Genius unrequited, and hardly recognized, consumed its life energy in solitary grandeur in many a lonely furrow. The period is bounded on the one side by the Napoleonic Wars, and on the other by the Crimean War and by the Franco-Prussian War. In England, artistic impulses were stifled by the rapid progress of the age of machinery, led by the Manchester school of thought—Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. A soil so sterile as this was incapable of producing the highest artistic results. The treasuries of many of the great European Powers had been drained almost to depletion by vital wars, and the little kingdom of Denmark had her share of political troubles. The war-cloud had settled on the isthmus of Schleswig-Holstein. Prussia and Austria and Denmark were whirled in a maelstrom of incessant warfare concerning the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. All the Great Powers became involved. For forty years the struggle in one form or another broke out anew like a smouldering fire. It was not until 1866 that the Treaty of Vienna definitely assigned the future of the duchies to the Powers. This is not the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of a prolonged struggle by Denmark against more powerful neighbours, but in consequence of the widespread arena of conflict, from Missunde to Jutland, and the large war indemnity paid, it is manifest that the fine arts came very near extinction in such troublous times, when blow upon blow was rained upon the kingdom of Denmark.

The fortunes of the factory were at a low ebb, as we have seen in dealing with the decadent period. But in 1883 the models, stores, and other effects of the factory were sold to the limited company "Aluminia." From this date a new future commenced for the factory.

Philip Schou rebuilds the Factory.—The hour demanded the man, and the man was Philip Schou, who came as the pioneer of modernity. In the outskirts of the capital, close to the park of the Castle of Frederiksberg, large buildings were erected, containing workshops provided with the latest improvements in machines and kilns of the newest designs. The ovens were much larger than the older type, and designed to hold about 15,000 pieces of average size. These drastic changes at the dawn of the Renaissance, entirely due to the foresight of Schou, necessitated the expenditure of a considerable amount of money. It is not surprising to find that during the first years the undertaking, from a financial point of view, did not prove successful. This, at the time, except to Schou, may not have been recognized as the happiest omen, but it is a postulate that art and commercialism do not usually thrive together. It was the same in MÜller's day; it has always been an admitted fact, and it always will be acknowledged that the cloven hoof of commercialism has marked the oncoming of a decadent period. But Philip Schou had ambitions and desires which no reverses could thwart. His practical grasp of the situation and his perspicacious conception of future possibilities, which have now been realized, stamp him as a man possessed of that rare combination of poetry and practicability which marks the pioneer of any great enterprise.

There are triumphs of great business organization which compel our admiration in no less degree than artistic achievements won in equally adverse conditions. To build up the decayed fortunes of a moribund art, to combat financial disaster and impending ruin, require indomitable courage and intensity of application which cannot be classed other than as genius.

The great period of MÜller and the great triumphs were sinking into oblivion. Of the once famous factory it seemed as though little might be left but the name. The old models of beautiful symmetry had long been set aside or even destroyed. The favourite blue-and-white service, the national pattern treasured as the remaining heirloom, had lost all its style and harmony. Haphazard conditions prevailed and slovenly results predominated. Originality had taken wing and deserted the old factory. The old mussel design was painted on any form that found its way into Denmark from other factories. Copenhagen was content to follow, and leave art and prestige to take care of themselves. Now and again artistic productions, such as a wedding or a jubilee vase made from the old moulds, like milestones, marked the road. With this material, with its poverty of art and paucity of ideas, the new director, shrewd and energetic, saw that no headway could be made. A demand for artistic and original decoration of articles of domestic use and luxury was just making itself felt, and there was some talk of creating a national Christian VI style. But the factory has accomplished something greater—it has created a European style.

The early days of the factory, with its new impulses and its youthful spirit of modernity, are reflected at once in the first attempts to inaugurate something of artistic and permanent value. The comparison between Schou and MÜller holds good in many respects. They both were men in advance of their day. They were builders, not only in the sense of being pioneers of an artistic industry, but in the practical sense of laying down ovens and expending money on valuable plant as a means to the great end they had in view. The struggle against adversity, the accumulating cloud of financial losses, the want of outside support, are common factors in both these men's sturdy fight against failure. MÜller had to combat the inheritance of failure left by Fournier, and Philip Schou had to overcome the deathly inertia that had paralysed the factory during the decadence. It is not easy to find co-operation in face of a general tendency in an opposite direction. Mediocre minds find it more congenial to float unconcernedly with the stream. Schou was the strong swimmer fighting against the current.

There is one other point where he claims kinship with MÜller; he was felicitous in the selection of his lieutenants, and his choice of artistic assistance to further his ambitions was as wise as it was phenomenally prescient.

Arnold Krog appointed Art Director.—In 1885 Arnold Krog became an artist at the factory. Trained as an architect and a painter, he had already spent five years in the restoration of Frederiksborg Castle, and like those old Italian craftsmen who made all art their domain, he came to the decoration of porcelain with instinctive appreciation of its qualities.

A happier combination than this could not have been desired. Schou, the business head, the man of strength of purpose, tenacity of will, battling with stern facts and figures, and Arnold Krog, the artist and dreamer, inventing new forms, wrestling with technical problems with a practical skill wedded to poetic impulses.

The days of early Renaissance were filled with eager incessant work, and whatever difficulties surged up to the doors of the factory, Schou resisted them bravely. He believed in the future of the factory, he believed in the work of the artists. It was this great proud belief of a great man in his life's work that created the second great period in the history of the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. This quotation from a fellow-worker of that date shows how lovingly his memory is still cherished: "Optimistic and broad-minded man as he was, he firmly believed that the factory would succeed in spite of all difficulties. He did not look for immediate profit, but left us to work in peace, undisturbed by all the anxieties and pecuniary difficulties with which he, as managing director, must have had to contend."

A New Technique developed.—In regard to the direction in decoration which the new porcelain took, it is interesting to realize how distinct a departure this was from contemporary art. The moment that Arnold Krog awakened to the fact that the body of the porcelain is smooth, white, hard, and of surpassing beauty, that moment determined its future. To cover it with colours or with gold in the overglaze style, as his predecessors had done, was at once to extinguish its innate loveliness. If blue dots and lines could be painted on plates, surely, thought the new art director, other artistic designs could be produced in the same manner. From these premises the principle of underglaze painting was accepted, and has been since followed so successfully.

The determination of the method employed immediately led to the inquiry as to the exact definition such painting was to take. The difficulty now was to decide what to paint. It was obvious that mere ornamentation would lead to nothing new. Could Europe teach Copenhagen anything? It apparently could, at that stage. Accordingly, Philip Schou and Arnold Krog made a tour of Holland, Belgium, France, and England, and visited many of the leading factories. At the Antwerp Exhibition they saw many beautiful things from SÈvres and the other great European factories, but they had to admit that their journey was in a great measure fruitless, as they did not discover what they sought—new impulses for original work.

It was not enough that all traditional arabesques and scrolls should be discarded: the plain white resplendent surface of the ware demanded its place in the scheme of decoration.

At Paris, Arnold Krog visited the collection of M. S. Bing, who had just returned with rich treasures of Oriental art from China and Japan. These masterpieces in bronze, earthenware, porcelain, and ivory, together with drawings and colour-prints with endless variety of composition, brought with them an atmosphere of ancient culture, artistic genius, and unerring instinct, and to the mind capable of unlocking the mysteries of the old unexplored East they revealed their secret.

The immediate results indicate clearly enough that Copenhagen had not "jumped a claim" and found treasure-trove upon which she could live till others gained the secret. There was no slavish imitation of the designs of the Oriental potter, as was the case with SÈvres and with Worcester. With true vision, the results of the East were traced to the original source of inspiration, and henceforth Nature in all her forms, in all her varying phases and moods, became the mirror into which Copenhagen looked to see herself reflected.

With such an ideal before the factory there was work enough for all and much to be accomplished. The records of this period show the incessant labours of all concerned in building anew the fortunes of the factory. Liisberg the sculptor was appointed modeller, and a young apprentice, Hallin, was made his assistant. The extreme difficulty of the technique offered frequent disappointments. The tone is determined by the exact thickness of the layer of pigment applied, and it is impossible to distinguish between the different shades before the firing has taken place. The only guide in this work is a fine instinct. But the enthusiasm of the little band of workers, modellers and artists, was not damped by the vagaries of the furnace. With little enough by way of precedent to guide them, they attained a sure and unerring technique and a complete mastery over the idiosyncrasies of the medium in which they worked. These early years of intense application have created traditions for the factory, and the days of Philip Schou stand as never to be forgotten in the strenuous outburst of initiative industry which has raised a monument to Danish handicraft and culture. In 1902 Philip Schou resigned his position as managing director, and it is pleasurable to record that in a full and complete life he has seen his early dreams realized. He received decoration at the hands of foreign Governments, and in 1888 was made a knight-commander of the Legion of Honour. Copenhagen porcelain had won European distinction, being acclaimed as adding new impulses and teaching a new technique to the older factories.

The early successes of the porcelain were as surprising to the leading experts of Europe as they were gratifying to the pioneers of the Copenhagen Renaissance. It is an interesting fact that the first piece painted in underglaze colours was bought in September 1885 by the Duke of Sutherland, whose yacht was lying in the Sound. The Duke paid a visit to the royal factory, and although at that time only three pieces were finished, he carried off a specimen decorated with a stork flying over a lake. Such an historic piece as this is now worth a considerable sum.

Triumph of Modern Copenhagen Porcelain.—At the great International Exposition at Paris in 1889, the Royal Copenhagen exhibit attracted unusual attention. Although the factory was not then in a position to make a grand show of large or costly pieces, French collectors and connoisseurs besieged the show-cases, and the demand far exceeded the supply, ten times the price asked being offered in many instances by disappointed collectors. Within fourteen days of the opening of the Exhibition everything of any artistic value was sold. Coupled with this commercial success came the award of the Grand Prix d'honneur, a rare distinction at that time, especially for so small an undertaking.

At this Exhibition the coloured crystalline glazes were shown for the first time. These, now so well known in the adoption by most of the leading factories of the world, were discovered in 1886 by Clement, the chemist at the Royal Copenhagen Factory, and perfected by his successor, Hr. Engelhardt. (This crystalline ware is dealt with separately in Chapter X.)

The days of the early Renaissance were full of promise—a promise that has not been unfulfilled. The old factories, with traditions of a century and a half, threw off their lethargy at the trumpet-blast of modernity. The Copenhagen factory was like the fairy prince of the romantic tale who blew the magic horn and awakened the sleeping princesses.

The New Impulses stimulate other European Potters.—Art criticism of this period abounds in glowing tribute. M. Edouard Garnier, one of the directors of the SÈvres factory, wrote in the Gazette des Beaux Arts in 1889: "Not one of the foreign porcelain factories which in 1878 threatened to become dangerous rivals to us seems to have made any progress; on the other hand, the beautiful exhibits of the Royal Porcelain Factory of Copenhagen are quite a revelation to us: they show quite a new spirit in the art of porcelain-making."

Among the varied developments at this time considerable attention was given to the form of the blue-and-white "mussel"-painted ware, and a wonderful variety of shapes followed each other in quick succession. All the old artificial and oftentimes meaningless designs which had crept in during the decadent period were discarded, and were replaced by tasteful and natural designs which were conceived with a view to the characteristic lines in their decoration. The great and wonderful inventiveness and rich variety of this table ware in its thousand forms are therefore the consummation of the incessant search for truth and symmetry and beauty which characterized the early Renaissance period.

If proof be needed of the great influence Copenhagen art exercised on contemporary ceramics, the proof is ready to hand. Just eleven years after the Paris Exposition of 1889 came the great Exposition of 1900, and an examination of the grand-feu specimens of the SÈvres factory shows to what extent the delicate tones of the new Copenhagen technique in underglaze painting had affected the French potters. Crystalline glazes had by this time been developed. In 1894 M. Edouard Garnier, of the National factory at SÈvres, in again passing judgment upon the work of Copenhagen, refers to the fact that two specimens exhibiting "marvellous skill in the execution"—the Flight of the Sparrows and the Lilacs—were bought for inclusion in the modern collection of ceramic art of the SÈvres Museum, and to this museum Hr. Philip Schou sent the first specimens of varied colorations "au grand feu" and the experiments made by Hr. Engelhardt of full or partial crystallized glazes.

In regard to the general atmosphere of the grand-feu ceramics, the SÈvres factory had by 1900, the year of the Exhibition, turned with such fond eyes to Copenhagen that the results then offered, triumphs though they were, reflected something more than usual of the Northern spirit. For instance, one remembers the two great biscuit groups in hard porcelain for table decoration at the ÉlysÉe, by FrÉmiet, the master sculptor. These were 4 feet 8 inches in height, and were marvels of fabrication. The one was the Athenian Minerva, and the other the Scandinavian Diana standing in her chariot, with a hound at her feet and driving two reindeer. These were the first pieces of so great a size ever made in biscuit at SÈvres. Figures of Northern animals followed the success of the factory by the Baltic, and there was one, a Wolf tracing human steps in the snow, by M. Valton, which won commendation. Nor was this all. The grey tones were successfully reproduced in the Danish Dogs, by Gardet.

There is no greater tribute to pay to the inspiring genius behind the Royal Copenhagen Factory than to enumerate these instances of old factories with the prestige of SÈvres and Meissen hailing the newly awakened spirit of a younger factory. On every side, in these days, came the tribute of praise generously given by masters of technique and by rival workers in art. The Renaissance was something more than a name—it had become an accomplished fact.

The great achievement of the modern Renaissance period is the creation of a new technique in underglaze decoration, which has added something to modern European ceramic art. The underglaze blue, employed at the old royal factory by MÜller, was familiar from early Meissen days. But the revelation that underglaze painting of landscape had become something more romantic than Chinese prototypes was a fact only realized after Copenhagen had made successful experiment. The landscape of the Oriental potter, at the best, had something of formality and followed a convention alien to Western laws of perspective. Differing essentially from the enamel colours of the overglaze Continental work, and not less so from the glost-kiln colours of the English factories in their underglaze work, the grand-feu colours, with their scheme of harmonies imparted something fresh and original to the art of the modern potter.

It is, therefore, of great interest, commingled with considerable speculation, to contemplate the various stages of evolution of this characteristic style, and to await the future phases of its development.

In reviewing the work of this Renaissance period, an attempt has been made by the writer to arrive at some conclusion as to that exact point of time at which the genius of the factory reaches its whitest heat during a brilliant quarter of a century of work. In a rich field of design which exhibits so much character and freshness, when new surprises may come forth from the oven at any moment, no inconsiderable difficulty presents itself in selecting any period where the work is more excellent.

Happily, in contemplating the underglaze productions of Copenhagen, there is an extended period which may be passed in review. It is perhaps natural, when making tests of the general output of work, to select the middle years as productive of ceramic art of the highest order. There is the advantage in point of date of being able to apply a standard to it, either side by side with earlier work, or in comparison with later creations in the same style of decoration by the same band of artists and modellers.

The number and character of the decorative pieces produced at the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory during the ten years from 1896 to 1905, to which the highest praise has been given, seem to indicate that a close investigation of the details of the work of the individual modellers and artists might with advantage be pursued by those cosmopolitan collectors intent on acquiring masterpieces representative of the highest modern ceramic art.

Personal tastes and predilections are not unimportant factors in passing judgment upon the present-day work of the factory, but the authorities of museums in various parts of the world, whose standard is a high one, have not hesitated in selecting modern examples of Royal Copenhagen porcelain. In following the trend of the development of the porcelain since the great outburst in 1900, when at the Paris Exhibition by general acclamation Copenhagen was acknowledged to be ahead of all other European factories, disinterested critics and less disinterested competitors have eagerly watched the progress of the Danish ware. Art requires no passport to cross international barriers, and foreign experts have enthusiastically admitted that the work of Copenhagen is of surprising beauty. At successive exhibitions, when nation has stood in friendly rivalry with nation, the ceramic record of Copenhagen has not been dimmed by equal work. So far it is still in advance of every one in Europe. Imitators it has, and, as the old adage puts it, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

The question is always asked of factories "with a past," whether it be SÈvres or Meissen, Wedgwood or Worcester—Is the work of to-day an echo of past glories, has the lamp burned dim, is the sacred fire still alight? In regard to other factories this is not the place to make any pronouncement, nor is it impossible to say that at any moment the spirit of the presiding genius of these great factories with great traditions may awaken to inspire anew the modern potters upon whom the mantle of succession has fallen. To cover European factories in a survey is often to come upon silent and deserted temples with decrepit worshippers offering sacrifices to a dim and distant past. But the oracle may yet speak.

It is here that Copenhagen, with its great period of overglaze work, under the MÜller rÉgime, holding equality with the great factories of its day, as we have shown in earlier chapters, now comes forward with a second great period of underglaze work, bearing no immediate relationship with the first. Holger Danske has awakened to give magic potency to the Danish art.

The following are the chief characteristics of Royal Copenhagen porcelain. It is always hard fired au grand feu, and the various classes of the underglaze decorated ware may be summarized as follows:—

Underglaze Painted

I. Individual Pieces.

Vases and placques signed by the artists who have painted them. Such unique specimens of personal work are never reproduced.

(A list of artists, with facsimile reproductions of their signatures, will be found at the end of this chapter.)

II. General Art Objects.

Vases, placques, bibelots, and ornamental subjects.

These are designed with a view to general production, and this practice has originated since 1893.

In this class may be included the collection of Commemorative Placques designed by Arnold Krog. The number struck of these is limited, and they are never repeated after the occasion for which they were made (see p. 243).

More strictly utilitarian ware is represented by the continuous output of the blue-and-white fluted service, to which new forms are constantly being added.

III. Figure Subjects.

Peasants, children, and animal life—quadrupeds, birds, and fish—all modelled directly from nature.

IV. Vases and Modelled Subjects with Coloured or Crystallized Glazes.

This style was commenced at Copenhagen as early as 1886, and is described in detail, Chapter X.

Overglaze Painted Porcelain

Revival of porcelain in the style of the Juliane Marie period, modelled and decorated from old and rare examples. This is the latest phase of development.

In tabulated form some conception may be formed as to the classes into which the work of the modern Renaissance may be divided. Something must be said about the immediate causes which directed the line of progression and advancement in the course it has taken.

The principles of decoration especially applying to porcelain, smooth, white, and hard, such as this, have been realized to the full by Arnold Krog, the art director of the factory.

The uttermost developments of the underglaze painting are governed by the axiom that such a fine body as that of the Copenhagen porcelain is instantly destroyed by being covered with colours or with gilding. The old Danish mussel-blue painted underglaze dinner ware is the skeleton upon which the fabric of the modern Renaissance movement has been built.

The Avoidance of Classic or Stereotyped Styles.—Something of the forcefulness of the originality of Copenhagen may be gathered from a brief hypothetical survey of what divergent paths design might have taken even at that critical moment when it was determined to employ the underglaze colours for decorative landscape subjects. The conventional panel might have been still employed, and with it the formal scenes of gardens with cavaliers and ladies, bringing the Chinese landscape subject into Western perspective, and at the same time eschewing the vivid colours of SÈvres or Meissen. Or underglaze painting, in blue and the other grand-feu colours, might have found itself in panels supplemented by overglaze enamel colours of bright tone, in floral decoration, or oeil-de-perdrix and other luscious patterns, and richly gilded. It might, not unnaturally, have appeared to be a safer beginning to develop the Danish conventional pattern into something more intricate in design, with geometrical borders and formal floral painting or with old Scandinavian interlaced designs of Runic character, exhibiting the newer advance of underglaze treatment.

Copenhagen, with wise rejection, took none of these courses, and the Renaissance leapt into being not only with new applications of underglaze painting, but with a complete and rapidly perfected theory wherein the subject became a ceramic poem. Throwing all convention to the winds, it brought tone to underglaze painting, and within the limits of the potter's technique, the same relative atmospheric quality to the decorated vase or placque as there is on the canvas of the painter.

The porcelain found itself in an incredibly short time, and rapidly passed through its initial stages. The first light had come from the East. The influx into Europe of some of the finest art work of Japan had a marked effect on design.

But Krog's genius was too original to snatch at the body; he caught the spirit of the best, and the first attempts have a slight indication of their origin, till with full strength Copenhagen needed no guiding hand to lead her to the inspiration of all true design. The simple forms of nature were translated into ceramic art, and the melting, dreamy, sad-hued porcelain was imbued with the subtle effects of the Danish landscape. The great simplicity of motif was the great simplicity of genius. The effects are so natural and reticent that their greatness might well escape common observation. But the trained eyes of half the potters in Europe and of connoisseurs of the highest ceramic art were turned, and are turned still, to the output of the Copenhagen factory. Summa ars est celare artem is eminently applicable to the art of Arnold Krog and the band of Danish artists trained under him. There is nothing showy or clever, nothing cheap or meretricious in all their work. Everything that has come from Krog's hands has been well conceived, and an honest attempt made not to win admiration but to make one step forward in artistic evolution towards the ideal. Without seeking reward he has won the esteem of the cultured critics of a whole continent.

The Idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen.—Wherein lies the strength of Copenhagen porcelain? The mysteries of underglaze did not originate in Denmark. The blue, greenish-yellow, brown, sea-green, maroon, lemon-colour, celadon-green, and red, are colours found painted under the glaze in old Chinese examples in collections in various European museums. But there is a difference. Chinese landscapes in blue have a charm and atmosphere of their own, although the European taste has shown a marked preference for enamel-painted porcelain of more brilliant colours. The underglaze of the East was mainly confined to decorative conventional treatment. There is the exquisite family of jars, designed as presents at the New Year, painted underglaze, with the prunus blossom, and geometric pattern representing the breaking ice. These are grotesquely termed "ginger jars" in the jargon of the auction-room, and fine specimens bring immense prices under the hammer. In a measure these, and vases and beakers with floral decoration, and cups and saucers, with dragons or with the well-known "aster" pattern, may be regarded as conventional. From these prototypes Meissen and SÈvres and Worcester drew many fine inspirations.

In underglaze blue painting there is another class with landscapes and figures, such as bowls, of which there are infinite variety, which convey, in lieu of regular ornament, a certain atmosphere. Even the ordinary ginger jar of commerce, if it be old enough, exhibits a most alluring suggestiveness. These designs appear to be traditional on common ginger jars half a century apart in point of time. There is a background of mountains, and stretch of sky with a triangular flight of birds, flying high. There is a tree in the foreground, and a rustic homestead. On a bank a fisherman casts a line into the water, and away on the expanse of lake stands a junk. The whole is crudely and hastily drawn, and one jar, if not exactly the counterpart of another, has the same details in the scene. But, curiously enough, there is a poetry and depth of tone about these common ginger jars which is difficult to define.

To arrive at a technical reason for these differences in styles is to examine the theories governing the art of ceramics. To take the overglaze painting; this may be compared to the canvas of the painter which is covered with pigment. His sky is blue or red or yellow or an admixture of all three; the reflections of light on the water are touches of pigment. There is no part of the canvas over which his deft brush has not travelled. The underglaze painter on porcelain is like the etcher, who obtains his illumination from the uncovered surface of the copper upon which he works. The untouched portion of the plate of the etcher forms the wide expanse of sky, and gives luminosity to the deeply bitten lines of his subject. Similarly, in underglaze painting on porcelain, the dazzling white expanse of the body, afterwards to be coated with limpid transparent glaze, is the background into which the design of the artist must imperceptibly melt. It is this depth of tone and atmosphere which give poetic charm to underglaze painting.

But the subject is not left to take care of itself. Without pictorial indefinition the work may still remain on the plain of formal decoration even though that be superlatively conceived and executed.

What is it that one sees when one comes face to face for the first time with a Copenhagen vase of this golden period? The merest dilettante in porcelain-collecting must at once recognize something that he will find nowhere else in his cabinets. In form there is always, necessarily, a full expanse to carry the subject, if it be landscape. Nor is there a front and a reverse, as in the old school of conventionally treated landscapes circumscribed by panels. There is a breadth and continuity of subject traversing the circumference of the vase, which, from new points of view, offers new surprises.

The body is white and hard and of ivory-like closeness when seen by transmitted light. The rich liquid glaze has a slight greenish tone and has a surface like polished crystal. The quality of this glaze is exceptionally fine and possesses artistic properties peculiarly its own. In modelled subjects such as fish this is especially noticeable. In the noble figure of a Sea Lion, this glaze simulates the original so skilfully that the sensation conveyed is exactly that of the smooth, sleek, satin-like texture of that animal's body. It is obvious that with such a vehicle as this glaze the effects produced in landscape painting are those seen in nature in the sun-pierced vaporous haze of a climate remarkable for its exquisite tones.

In colour the subjects appear in low tones of subtle elusiveness, never, by reason of the technique of the underglaze palette, departing from the strictly limited range of colours we have enumerated. The tones of all these are pitched in a minor key. The brilliance of the painter in enamel is conspicuously absent. There is no scarlet, or bright yellow, or mazarin blue, or vivid green. The charm of colour lies in its exquisite delicacy. It is the highest ceramic landscape painting offered to the delectation of those possessed of sufficient connoisseurship to appreciate the supreme handling of a difficult technique.

It departs from the Chinese prototypes in underglaze blue. The deep blue of Nankin is delightful in its poetry, but it is a convention that landscapes are painted all blue. Copenhagen becomes more realistic, but no less poetical, with added touches of amber, and mauve, and grey, and sage green, and the blue, pale and tender, carries out a colour scheme which stamps this Western art as something original and ideal.

It is thus seen that in body and glaze and colouring Copenhagen has excellent points challenging comparison with anything that has gone before. But with these technical problems solved satisfactorily, there is yet something to be added, which has created a reflective school of design and elevated Copenhagen to its present status. This quality, difficult to describe, and yet ever-present in the results when submitted to definite criticism, may be roughly summarized as consisting of two essential traits of disciplined art—the apt choice of decorative subject and the complete mastery exercised in fittingly decorating the object.

Apart from the technical excellence of selection of idea and symmetrical incorporation with the form under decoration, there is the national spirit, which is the soul imparted to the work of artists filled with intense love of nature. This charm, lightly and daintily woven into the dreams which the porcelain conveys in dim mysterious manner, cannot be captured by the snare of the imitator.

The Western potter hitherto had not quite realized that he must be a poet as well as a potter. To study Copenhagen porcelain is to read poetry conveyed in another medium than printing-ink and paper. Nor is this new of the highest ceramic art. To contemplate old Chinese porcelain is not to think in poetry but to speak in poetry. Great potters have twin souls the world over. The Chinese themselves have terms for their own ware which indicate the plane on which all great ceramic art should stand. To one colour is given the term "the moonlight," to another "the blue of the prune skin," to another "the violet of the wild apple," to another "the liquid dawn," to yet another "the red of the bean blossom." Descriptions of certain ware and certain colours and glazes become little poems, such as the account of the Ch'ai Yao—"As blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as thin as paper, and as resonant as a musical stone of jade." Nor is Chinese literature wanting in reiterated allusions to the beauty of the national porcelain. The wine cups are likened to "disks of thinnest ice" or to "tilted lotus leaves floating down a stream."

The strain of poetry, so pronouncedly a feature in modern Copenhagen work, is noticeable even in the old overglaze decorated porcelain. The innate love of nature found expression in its refusal to follow stereotyped forms of ceramic decoration. The national note never departed except during the decadence. The Flora Danica service, with its stiff and painstaking decorations in botanical style, was a monument to national ceramic art. The modern spirit, with its landscape and realism, is crystallized in a great gallery of placques and vases, and may be said to embody the Poetica Danica—the new interpretation of nature. The flowers are no longer botanical specimens pressed between the pages of a ceramic album. They are painted in situ, and become delicate units in dream pictures, beside still lakes or embosomed in grassy dells.

Intense National Sentiment of Copenhagen Style.—The Renaissance period is at once national and reflective of the moods of the land of its origin. The illustrations appearing in this chapter faintly suggest the luminosity of the originals, but in their selection an attempt has been made to show that a certain ordered progress has been at work. The earlier examples are significant of the lingering traces of Oriental suggestion, rapidly and completely assimilated, and any mannerism, if such there be, was pushed aside by the native growth of vigorous inventiveness and the rich profusion of forms and designs not dependent on any outside influence.

To compare Japanese art with that of Copenhagen is to compare two parallel lines which only meet in infinity and never coincide. Truth and sincerity, love of nature, and mastery of form are common to the Japanese and the Danish ceramists. But the former reflect the brilliance of colour harmonies of a land teeming with rich colour and steeped in Oriental tradition. The mirror is held to national life and sentiment, and accordingly movement, humour, poetry, are essentials in Japanese pottery.

The art of Copenhagen equally reflects the national life and character under a northern sky. Pensive, dreamy, tinged with the stillness of the Arctic night, with its violet sky, the wistful art of the North never attempts the sensuous moments of the art of the Far East. The beauty of form is reticent and reposeful. The range of the grand-feu colours coincides exactly with the tender colours of the little kingdom, and the melting glaze adds that luminosity which makes the Danish landscape so spirituelle.

Danish art has never attempted to be Japanese; on the other hand, Japan has seriously realized that the art of Copenhagen is worth the copying, and has done this with a light heart.

Again and again one is struck with the originality of a design new to ceramic decoration. The Placque, of the period 1896 to 1900 (illustrated, p. 207), is a case in point, and is almost the only instance of a dallying with the romantically artificial. But the effect is so charming and so poetical that it disarms criticism. What could promise so little as a subject for decorative treatment? A pair of iron gates, flanked with stone pillars surmounted by formal urns. An avenue of poplars approached by the ascending steps of a terrace, stretching from the foreground in two converging lines, with the solitary figure of a woman in black in the middle distance. That is all. But the result is an alluring picture of an old-world chateau. A touch of Southern elegance and courtly grace makes itself evident in the formal scene, with its pathos of the figure symbolizing lonely sorrow and the dark shadow of the chapel at the end of the grove.

It is possible, without eliminating much, to trace the steady growth of temperamental art during a quarter of a century in successive stages of five years. True to first impelling motives, the art of the factory has never turned back. The modern movement known as l'art nouveau, which swept across Europe with its meaningless swirls and curves, left no trace on the work of the Royal Copenhagen Factory. Rich in the possession and eager in the fulfilment of its own original conceptions, it had no need of extraneous impulses, and has remained unstirred by ephemeral art movements. The illustrations in this chapter are arranged chronologically as far as possible, and it will be seen that the subjects become as Danish as the ballad of King Christian. The gallery is rich in its dreamy suggestiveness, the ceramic record of reposeful scenes luxuriating in luscious somnolence—the sea, the sand-dunes, the wild swans, and geese, and mallards, the wood with its deer and wild life, the secluded lake with its denizens, the meadows, and the cattle of the farm lands.

There has been a process of fermentation going on in modern Danish pictorial art, and its influence is seen on the porcelain produced at the royal factory. It is new because it is everlastingly old—the worship of Nature. There is in modern Copenhagen porcelain the tender, dreamy melancholy of the old Danish ballads. It is like some magic story told in the twilight. Everything is silent, nebulous, steeped in fragrant yet pathetic memories. There is a subtle and refined introspection, an Æsthetic yearning akin to sadness.

Every Dane remembers Jacobsen's whimsical visionary Mogens, who hums softly to himself the refrain—"I LÄngsel, I LÄngsel jeg lever!" (Longing, longing I live!).

This tristful ideality is a note in literature not far to seek. The Danish poets have reflected Nature's moods with throbbing ecstasy, tinged with sombre forebodings. It comes with unexpected pathos as an ending to Christian Winther's poem En Vandrer (A Wanderer), who, after a pilgrimage through woodland glades of summerland, exclaims at the sight of the cloud-capped mountains in the distance—

Og—naar de er bestegne
Imorgen—ak!—hvad saa?

(And when they are climbed, to-morrow, alas! what then?)

The outlook of the Copenhagen potter-artists reflects the genius of inspired vision. The face of Nature is transfigured. This interpretation links poesy and pensive art indissolubly together in these ceramic poems palpitating with sensitiveness.

A touch of tender melancholy pervades the art of the potter. He has caught the pale green of the sea, the vibrating light on the long sand dunes and the silvery vaporous clouds that fret the horizon. To take a Copenhagen vase with its sea-scape and dancing spray and pack of scudding storm-clouds, tempts one to place it to one's ear as children do sea-shells; surely one shall hear the sound of the leaping surge and the roll of the breakers!

Bathed in liquid light, that soft effulgence peculiar to Denmark, where the sunlight is so soft and subdued and nothing stands out in harsh contrast, the scenery lends itself to soothing reverie. It has been given to few to commune with Nature in her melting moods, "like Niobe all tears." Corot stands for all time as having pierced the veil, and Cazin has caught the quivering play of ghostly light rarely made known to mortals. The modern Copenhagen potters have, "daring greatly," communed with Nature in like manner. They have essayed to "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art"—or of ceramic art. But success is theirs. The transparent atmosphere lending a pearly tone to the trembling stretches of soft verdure and the cool limpid shadows resting on the still meres are reflected in the porcelain. The pictures are soothing and restful; we can hear the flutter of the mallards among the reeds.

Of the paysage intime there is profusion of wealth in the long vista of the low-lying seashore of a beautiful land, the wheeling gulls, the stretch of dunes, and the circling procession of clouds over a wind-swept sea. The poetry and dreamy searchings of Copenhagen porcelain have held the mirror to Nature. With outer eye illumined with spiritual vision, the potters have translated the soul of Nature's physical beauty into porcelain. Here is the natural—but there is the vast, unfathomed supernatural. Can it be possible that there are yet other secrets of the magic of the Northlands? Will the inner vision bring forth into the furnace the dreams of the old world deep in the Northern heart, buried these long centuries? Can the potter poet call up the fleets of ghostly ships that set forth from Trondhjem Fjord with King Olaf and Olgafar the mystic boat with neither sail nor helm nor galley oar? All the wealth of dead ages lies as a hidden treasure-house for him who can with wizardry open these portals and bring back the Northern poesie. The Valrafy, or Raven of Battle, loved the swell and the roar of the fierce Northern Main. The ocean sprite frequented the cold waters of the Baltic and flashed, icy bearded, through the rack and cloud of storm. Mermen and mermaidens still plash in the sea-caves where mortals venture not, and to this day in story and tradition they are treasured in the hearts of fisher-folk and those who go down to the sea in ships.

But these are vain imaginings, and to ask more of an art already raised to a plane of evasive and incommunicable inventiveness is to clamour impertinently for the impossible.