8o 
House & Gardew^ 
JOHNSON’S 
Pas/e 'LiQuid '^Powdered 
POLISHING WAX 
You can give every room in your home that 
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floors and linoleum—You can take the drudg¬ 
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better if you polish it occasionally with 
Johnson’s Prepared Wax. Johnson’s Wax 
prevents cracking and blistering—brings 
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Are You .Building ? ? 
If you are building you should have our 
Book on Wood Finishing. It tells how in¬ 
expensive soft woods may be treated so they 
are as beautiful and artistic as hardwood. 
We will gladly send it free and postpaid 
for the name of your dealer. Use coupon 
below. ■ 
For Woodwork 
and Furniture 
You can easily keep your 
floors and woodwork in 
perfect condition by pol¬ 
ishing them occasionally 
with Johnson*s Paste or 
Liquid IVa.r. It cleans 
the surface and forms a 
thin protecting surface. 
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Free-Book on Home Beautifying 
s. C. JOHNSON & SON, Dept.H. G. 7, RACINE, WIS. 
(Canadian Factory—Brantford) 
"The Wood Finishing Authorities” 
Please send me free and postpaid your book on Home Beauti¬ 
fying. It tells how to make my home more artistic, cheery 
and inviting. I understand that it gives covering capacities, 
includes color charts and tells just what materials to use and 
how to apply them. 
My Dealer is. 
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My .Address 
City and State 
J 
A door knocker with 
characteristic Moorish 
bosse, dating from the 
late 16th Century 
SPANISH 
for MODE R 
DOOR KNOCKERS 
N STUCCO HOMES 
{Continued from page 73) 
vertical hammer, the latter dropping 
against a large plain nail head. Often 
it was called a door ring, and served 
a secondary purpose as a door handle 
in addition to its primary use of herald¬ 
ing the visitor’s arrival. The back 
plate grew in time to be very elaborate, 
but in the early days of the 15th Cen¬ 
tury it was unornamented and crude in 
outline. The solid hammer of the early 
knockers was the first concern of the 
Spanish smiths who fashioned them in 
the quaint forms of archaic men, birds, 
lizards, dogs, etc. The lizard was es¬ 
pecially popular, and in the later 
Renaissance period became a real work 
of art, with its outstretched wings, 
scales, ringed tail, all beautifully etched 
and engraved. The style most prevalent 
in Spain, however, was of the flattened 
ring type. The plain heavy rings of 
old yielded by slow degrees to the 
influence of art in being beveled and 
e.xquisitely chased. Often they were 
twisted; sometimes the ends of the 
ring, instead of being welded together, 
terminated separately in passing 
through the back plate, with lyre ef¬ 
fect, or in the pilgrim shell design, a 
motif popular in Castile. 
The back plate, which was very 
simple, too, in the early days of the 
ISth Century, began to assume various 
shapes and in the hands of the 
Spanish smiths, some fine examples of 
craftsmanship’ were developed before 
the handle emer.ged ver>' far from its 
primitive form. Later the simple art of 
smithing became in time a combination 
of smithing with Eastern methods of 
enrichment applied, when the metal 
was cold. Thus under the Moorish in¬ 
fluence the back plate, which w^as in¬ 
variably circular or star-shaped was 
pierced with Eastern patterns and its 
edge notched and serrated, or perhaps 
finished with a cabled border. Examples 
here show how the Moors imparted 
to iron, along with their basic principles 
of design, their delicate methods of 
working gold and silver. This Moorish 
delicacy of detail continued into the 
Renaissance even long after Christian 
rule had been established and at times 
combined with the Gothic with sur¬ 
prising harmony. The Spaniard recog- ( 
nizing the superior craftsmanship of the i 
Moor, employed him side by side with i 
Spanish artisans, whenever Christian ( 
buildings were to be erected. In this 1 
manner Moorish and Gothic lines ^ 
blended into a style called Mudejar. 
There is shown an excellent Mudejar ex¬ 
ample with Moorish and Gothic details 
successfully harmonized. The filigree 
of the back plate is interesting, for it 
shows how the scale of Gothic orna- I 
mentation could be reduced to a deli- | 
cacy that is purely Oriental in appear- ( 
ance. It was probably made by a } 
Moorish artisan working long after the J 
establishment of Christian rule. Gothic ; 
considerably architecturalized is seen in j 
another illustration which precedes the ! 
flamboyant style of the late Gothic i 
knockers. 
During the Renaissance when stone i 
tracery was intricately chiseled out of 
rough stone, the Spanish smiths adopted 
the same methods, even to the extent 
of chiseling the striker out of the 
solid iron. The back-plate was chis¬ 
eled and pierced with unbelievable rich¬ 
ness as if the question of labor was the 
insignificant item of the proceeding. 
The lace-like openness of some back- 
plates represent a prodigious amount of 
patient cutting, giving on the whole the 
effect of a French flamboyant knocker. 
The Spanish appearance is still retained, 
however, on account of the Eastern 
patterning incised up to the sides of 
the buttresses and on the neck of the 
winged beast, as well as the tracery 
crowning the panel. The enthusiasm 
of the sculptor was never carried out 
to the same extent as in Italy, where 
sculptors, elaborated designs until all 
simplicity and suggestion of utility dis¬ 
appeared and the knocker became 
merely a pendant statuette. 
Sometimes instead of the back-plate, 
there are bosses, single or in pairs, one 
placed above the other. This Moorish 
feature is often treated with a Gothic 
feeling. Often, they are beaten out into 
naturalistic leaf forms; sometimes, as 
two separate units, consist of rosettes, 
each concentric layer cut to a different 
(Continued on page 82) 
Gothic Renaissance in¬ 
fluence is seen in this 
early 16th Century de¬ 
sign, with canopy and 
human figure 
I. 
