Even
now, I am adapting them, as you see, to the throatlets of our dames and
maidens, in the confident hope that, ere long, they must assert their
superiority, as vehicles for gems, over those senseless perversions
which offend consistency. The general history of the arts, even without
especial reference to this important chapter, shows that the career of
the true goldsmith, always beset by difficulties, was never more so
than now. The plethora oi the precious gems, offering perpetual
temptation to abandon art in simple favour of gaudy phantasy, is a
great but by no means insurmountable difficulty. There is no reason why
a constituency, numbering the millions of London alone, viewed as the
centre of the art industries of Great Britain, should not support the
worthy schools of her goldsmiths as well as jewellers. It seems evident
that, if they, as parties to the contract, will only where to
principle, London will not fail to respond, more and more initiated as
she shall be into the mysteries of the crafts, by the grateful
influence of her technical schools and art societies.
I
will not for one moment discourage the liberal application of precious
stones to articles of perso.ial ornament, but I would have them
consistently dealt with. In the interest of the wearer, as well as the
producer, more regard should be shown to form and meaning. Why should
diamonds not be massed, unaided by enamels or gold, in many of the
forms of the Renaissance ? Surely their effect as gems would not
suffer, and the jewels so produced should command more patrons than
others, however beautiful the material, which were unsupported by
conventional art. It is both impossible and undesirable to attempt to
check the empire of the gems, which have become the ruling destiny of
our art, and, therefore, a condition of its existence. To those who
would say that the splendid gems of this century contributed in a
measure to the disturbance of traditional composition, I would reply
that if such gems had been available in the earlier centuries,
undoubtedly they would have been employed, much in the same fashion as
the imperfect stones of these periods. Even admitting that such
applications, while preserving their artistic character, might to some
extent have been modified with especial regard to the use of such a gem
as our plenteous diamond (then only in a partial state of existence),
the inexorable fact remains, and its observance is a condition of our
continued prosperity; that the gems of this age have become a paramount
consideration.
Gems
must be lavishly employed in response to universal demand, but should
be applied with more and more judgment; with more and more feeling for
tbe decorative principle, if the modern goldsmith aspire to a share in
the glorious traditions which have elevated his craft into an art.
The
scope of. my paper forbids my entering into the arts in gold as
dissociated from gems. By any foregoing observations I must not,
therefore, be understood to imply a want of veneration for an art so
really beautiful that, were its principles more generally observed,
would not only deserve, but re-occupy, a foremost rank in public
estimation. I do perceive the unconquerable love of that which is
sparkling in the perfection of modern gems. Natural inclination to
gaudiness demands, therefore, unexampled discretion on the part of the
goldsmith, whose aim it is to steer the course imposed upon him by the
19th century, with its inexhaustible supply of gems at last within the
grasp of all classes of society.
Now
that the gems are absolute, there is something of despotism in their
sway, which warns the goldsmith that prosperity depends entirely upon
their judicious application. Let us therefore conspire to train the
Workman to a tasteful exercise of these combined arts. Philosophically
we shall grieve over the attenuation, if not in years to come the
virtual disappearance, of unaided art in gold. When we have lamented
that its staunchest patrons, possessed by fashion, are now untrue to
their old allegiance, we must even so acknowledge the potent attraction
of the gems, alluring us to departure from arts which had the reason of
their being in the forbidding price of precious stones.
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