WROUGHT METAL WORK IN AMERICA—I 
By J. M. Haskell 
W HOEVER is fortunate enough to own a 
good piece of genuine Mediaeval or 
Renaissance wrought iron work is sure to 
have an object worthy of study, whether 
made in Britain or on the continent. If 
earlier than the latter third of the xvm 
century, its lines will have been studied with 
care, the composition at least interesting and, 
if of the best periods, full of delightful and 
subtle feeling. Its mechanical execution, too, 
varying with the several periods, will be 
well and substantially done, and in the best 
pieces worthy of careful attention from the 
modern craftsman. 
The great masters of the art of wrought 
metal were at one time or another, British, 
French, Italian, Spanish or German. Some 
good pieces came to America during the 
colonial emigrations, of which a few are 
still preserved. For the greater part of the 
xix century, however, the blacksmith’s art 
remained in abeyance, indeed we may say 
that the art died out in this country for nearly 
or quite a hundred years, until it became 
revitalized with the awakening of all the 
technic arts during the concluding quarter 
of the last century. 
Wrought metal work then, in America, 
has reached its present high state of excel¬ 
lence through the same process of evolution 
as has each of its sister arts. That is to say, 
not by the slow, uninterrupted and labored 
workings of a native school of craftsmen 
through a long series of years, each gen¬ 
eration profiting by the mistakes of its 
predecessor and, with increased power of 
technique and a slowly progressing grasp 
of the fundamental principles of composition, 
arriving to-day at a state of comparative 
quality consonant with the intellectual and 
technical perfection of the age. On the con¬ 
trary, when America awoke to a consciousness 
of her artistic inferiority to the old world 
through the Centennial exhibition of 1876, 
tempered by a belief in her power to attain 
a more suitable position in the world of 
art—an impression confirmed, and a hope 
justified by the Columbian exhibition of 
1893—she instinctively turned for inspiration 
and instruction to the work of continental 
and British craftsmen. I he consequence is 
that to-day, a quarter-century after the 
awakening, American decorative wrought 
metal work is still deeply affected by the 
spirit and intent of its foreign exemplars. 
In metal, as in the other artistic media, an 
American school is slowly making fits way 
out of this foreign chrysalis which has so 
long hampered it, while 
perfecting its development 
into the final stage of its 
career. But it has not 
yet fully “arrived.” Let 
me hasten, however, to say, 
lest the significance of my 
criticism be misunderstood, 
POLISHED STEEL STAIR RAIL—RESIDENCE OF GEORGE VANDERBILT, ESQ., NEW YORK 
Hunt & Hunt, Architects 
Wm. H. Jackson Company, New York 
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