KERAMIC STUDIO 
7? 
MARSHAL FRY. 
A CLASS IN DESIGN 
Mr. Arthur Dow, Instructor. 
HE experiment of the New York Society in 
having a series of lessons or lectures with 
problems worked out by the members of the 
class under the instruction of Mr. Arthur 
Dow has proved an undisputed success. Be- 
yond a doubt the fall exhibition of the New 
York Society will show a marked advance in artistic decora- 
tion of porcelain and pottery as a result. Not that the 
lessons bore directly upon Keramics, but the general prin- 
ciples of art were demonstrated so clearly that few can fail to 
profit by them in designing and executing their fall work. 
The most gratifying point, however, of the whole series of 
lectures is the fact that those decorators whose reputations 
have been made in naturalistic painting are those whose work 
in conventional designing has proved most superior. With 
these to lead, the whole mass of Keramic decorators will, 
before long, be showing a higher, more artistic grade of 
decoration to which will be added the greater satisfaction of 
having done most of the work themselves, instead of having 
it all done by the teacher; so much of the conventional work 
can be done by the pupil. 
At the first lecture Mr. Dow spoke of the three funda- 
mental principles of decoration, beauty of line, of color, of 
dark and light — illustrating by a number of examples taken 
from the Japanese and other sources, showing that the beauty 
of a decoration depends not so much on the subject as on the 
arrangement of spots, first of dark and light, then of color, and 
as a secondary consideration, the beauty of outline, and of the 
line itself with which the design 
is drawn. As an experiment 
the members of the class were 
asked to take ten minutes to 
draw a design of tulips in a rec- 
tangular or circular space. The 
results demonstrated the neces- 
sity of learning to fill a space 
properly, so the same problem 
was given for the next class. 
The two panels in tulips by 
Mr. Fry are from this class and 
illustrate the problem exceed- 
ingly well. Mr. Dow said of 
them that they were good in 
spacing and beautiful in tone, 
the white flowers outlined in 
grey against a grey ground 
with black leaves veined with 
grey, making a very harmoni- 
ous dark and light scheme. In 
the line drawing of the aster, 
the interest lies in the cutting 
of the space by the floral forms. 
The problem for the third 
class was to construct a repeat- 
ing border for a ten-inch plate, 
taking the Chelsea or Dedham 
plate for a model, the original 
having a border one and a half 
inches from edge, then a one- 
half inch smaller border and a 
line v/ithin that. The results of 
this problem were extremely 
interesting, a plate by Mrs. Rollins of Lakewood, N. J., having 
a peculiarly interesting arrangement of light and dark. Since 
Mrs. Rollins had never done any conventional work before, 
MARSHAL FRY. 
MARSHAL FRY 
MARSHAL FRY. 
