House and Garden 
having been produced when 
the style was vitalized by 
actual demand for utilitarian 
purposes. The best period 
of any art or industry is the 
time when its products are 
M O 
WORK OF THE MERRIMAC POTTERY 
N 
truly functional, when they express their part 
of the life in which they figure. The old 
water jars, now much treasured by architects 
and landscape gardeners, were meant to be 
handled by ordinary folk, who regarded them 
not as works of art, but as tools of their daily 
life. The vessels had to be strong enough 
to bear the burdens required of them; their 
shapes were made convenient, and their han¬ 
dles were modeled on the main body with 
the knowledge that they must stand a heavy 
strain. Old Spanish oil jars were made of 
solid material, with substantial bottoms, and 
with contour curves persuaded rather than 
forced. And though the surfaces of these 
vessels were often simple to severity, one 
always feels the life-giving personal touch, 
the absence of the machine-made accuracy 
of to-day. 
Antique designs, of course, have not es¬ 
caped American potters. They have been 
used in three ways. Direct castings or repro¬ 
ductions, from moulds made from the orig- 
TERRA COTTA URNS 
Volkmar still uses it), but 
there are such equivalents 
as a wooden slat or board, 
with zinc edge cut into the 
desired outline, pivoted on 
a center and swung around 
to mark out the damp clay 
with smooth infallibility. 
Thus is the life effaced from 
the copy ; thus its surface 
inal pieces have been carefully taken, and 
in many cases are altogether charming. 
New models, developed with the indirect 
aid of old pots, along reverent and skill- 
fid lines, lay claim to warm appreciation. 
Imitations of the foreign original, on a dif¬ 
ferent scale, have been, with few exceptions, 
wantonly bad. In the first place, it is not 
practicable to enlarge or reduce mathemat¬ 
ically a design made for a certain size. 
Proportions, in other words, hold good 
only for the particular scale in which the 
work is conceived. Was it not a French 
writer who declared that to multiply with 
rigid accuracy the dimensions of a small 
sculptured figure would make it no longer 
human, but a monster ? 
I he potter in America, whatever his 
nationality or previous experience, takes all 
too readily to the use of mechanical devices 
to save hand modeling. The potter’s wheel, 
which has antiquity to recommend it, is rarely 
found in its old form in this country (Charles 
MADE BY WM. GALLOWAY 
R 
33 
