CHAPTER VI.

LIMITS.

One of the great difficulties in exhibiting together samples of the produce and the industry of the world, must obviously be the magnitude and consequent expense of any building capable of containing such an exposition. In order to do this most effectively, and to secure the greatest amount of space for the primary object, it became necessary to lay down principles within the limits of which the objects exhibited should be confined. No real difficulty opposed the definition of this boundary, even if a liberal interpretation were admitted.

The Fine arts and the Industrial arts, although of the highest importance each to the other, are separated by a sufficiently definite line of demarcation, even at the points at which they most nearly approach. The characteristic of the fine arts is, that each example is an individual—the production of individual taste, and executed by individual hands; the produce of the fine arts is therefore necessarily costly. The characteristic of the industrial arts is, that each example is but one of a multitude,—generated according to the same law, by tools or machines, (in the largest sense of those terms,) and moved with unerring precision by the application of physical force. Their produce is consequently cheap.

The fine arts idealize nature by generalizing from its individual objects: the industrial arts realize identity by the unbounded use of the principle of copying.

The union of the two, enlarging vastly the utility of both, enables art to be appreciated and genius to be admired by millions whom its single productions would never reach; whilst the producer in return, elevated by the continual presence of the multiplied reproductions of the highest beauty, acquires a new source of pleasure, and feels his own mechanical art raised in his estimation by such an alliance.

§ This distinction between the fine arts and those of industry, would appear to place some of the latter in a class to which they are not yet generally admitted. It might seem that all lace not produced by machinery, must according to this view be admitted amongst the fine arts.

There are in the Exhibition some beautiful examples of such lace amongst the productions of other countries as well as of our own. They are made by the united labour of many women. The cost of a piece of lace will consist of—

1.—The remuneration to the artist who designs the pattern.

2.—The cost of the raw material.

3.—The cost of the labour of a large number of women working on it for many months.

Let us compare this with the cost of a piece of statuary, which is undoubtedly of a much higher class of art; it will consist of:—

1.—The remuneration to the artist who makes the model.

2.—The cost of the raw material.

3.—The cost of labour by assistants in cutting the block to the pattern of the model.

4.—Finishing the statue by the artist himself.

In lace-making the skill of the artist is required only for the production of the first example. Every succeeding copy is made by mere labour: each copy may be considered as an _individual_, and will cost the same amount of time.

In sculpture the three first processes are quite analogous to those in lace-making. But the fourth process requires the taste and judgment of the artist. It is this which causes it to retain its rank amongst the fine arts, whilst lace-making must still be classed amongst the industrial.

Here we may observe the strong analogy which unites these very different processes. If we continue the examination we shall find other resemblances, and by contrasting sculpture with lace made by machinery, we shall see in the very nature of their production, the wide interval which separates the industrial from the fine arts.

In the making both of lace and of statues, the remuneration to the artists can only be reduced by producing a larger number of them through more extended education. The expense of the raw material is small in both. The expense of labour in lace-making is very large, and it is perhaps considerable also in sculpture. The discovery of more convenient localities yielding marble, may make some diminution in its cost; and the improved manufacture of thread may slightly reduce the price of lace. A reduction in the price of labour may to a very moderate extent reduce the cost of the raw material of both. But it is evident that any _very great_ reduction is not to be expected.

Let us now contrast this possible reduction with the past history of some industrial art. The plain lace made at Nottingham, called patent net, will supply us with a good example. In the year 1813 that lace was sold in the piece at the rate of 21_s._ a-yard. At the present time lace of the same kind, but of a better quality, is sold under the same circumstances at 3_d._ per yard. Thus, in less than forty years the price of the industrial produce has diminished to one eighty-fourth part of its original price.

§ The fine arts, already possessing a building and an exhibition of their own, which usually opens on the same day as that proposed for the opening of the Palace of Industry, it seems difficult at first to imagine why the limited space disposable within the latter edifice should be occupied by any portion of a subject exclusively belonging to the fine arts. Yet it has been decided that Sculpture shall be admitted but Painting rejected.[7]

Supposing both departments of art to be equally excluded, there would still be a propriety, and even almost a necessity to admit some examples of each. New tools used by the sculptor, suppose for preparing the block, might require an example of their mode of application; whilst the effects produced on the surface of the marble by other tools, could only be shown by comparative specimens.

Machinery of a very beautiful kind has been contrived for copying accurately, on a reduced or an enlarged scale, both medals and statues. The Venus de Medici itself could not be justly excluded from a purely industrial exhibition,—if placed in the centre of a series diminishing on the one side to a statuette of a foot high, and increasing on the other to a figure double her own height. Such a series, though fairly introduced as an illustration of industrial art, would, indeed, itself be highly interesting to the fine arts, as exhibiting the effect of change of magnitude, when the proportions remain identical.

Enamel painting would be excluded as belonging to the fine arts, but every painting on porcelain partakes in fact of the nature of an enamel painting. A service of porcelain would of course be admitted as a specimen of mechanical art, however highly it might be adorned by this form of painting.

New modes of engraving might be exhibited, analogous, for example, to that by which medals are so beautifully represented. There are several new methods of surface printing for multiplying original designs. In all such cases it would be very desirable to place before the eye of the spectator, the originals from which the copies were derived, and it might also add to the utility and interest of the Exposition, even to exhibit other forms of engraving of the same subject, for the sake of comparison.

The instruments by which daguerreotypes and talbotypes are produced, would assuredly claim a place; so also might a collection of their results. It would also be instructive that some of these productions should be accompanied by the original forms or paintings from which they were copied.

The general rule, therefore, might be, that specimens of the fine arts should not be admitted by themselves; but that they should not be excluded,—as illustrations,—either of the use of some tool or instrument by which their own production might be assisted,—or as forming parts or decorations of objects of the industrial arts,—or for the sake of comparison with the copies or imitations of them produced by these latter arts.

[7] Since this was written, the beautiful effect produced by sculpture in the Crystal Palace has fully justified the decision of the Commission. In fact, the only real objection to the admission either of sculpture or painting arises from the extent of space required.