ENGLISH POTTERY.
English Pottery. By Bernard Rackham and Herbert Read (Ernest Bonn. £6 88. net.) Tats is the most important book on English pottery that has appeared—important not only for the adequacy of the historical information which the two authors are so competent to give, but chiefly because it is the only book on the subject written from the critical standpoint. The introductory chapter alone should prove to be very disconcerting to the vast majority of collectors, even if it means only a re-shuffling in their cupboards so that more prominence is given to examples which formerly occupied positions comparatively unimportant, while other highly-prized pieces, some of them the most scarce examples in existence, are relegated to the darker recesses. The collector of taste, on the other hand, while feeling keen pleasure at the confirmation of his dis- criminate judgment, will deplore the inevitable rise in the prices of his favourite wares which will follow, unless, of course, he can eatch some dealer unawares.
To the early English earthenware, which has always been dismissed as crude—unworthy of aesthetic consideration— the authors have given the place which it rightly deserves, and that the highest of all English pottery. Other forms were more dexterously accomplished, more finished (in a technical sense) ; but seldom did the later pottery retain the power and vitality, the fitness to the medium that were the chief attributes of the work of the earlier potters. It is essential that the collector and the student should read the introductory chapter before going on to the informative matter contained in the chapters which follow, for the authors' standards of judgment (although they are as vague as any standards of Art must be and contain no definite rules for appreciating the standards when they appear) are never- theless of primary value as stimuli to- aesthetic appraisement. In this chapter, however, they have been forced, possibly through their enthusiasm, into a rather hasty and inaccurate comparison of pottery with sculpture. On page 4 the authors say that : " Sculpture, whether glyptic or plastic, had, from the first, an imitative intention, and is, to that extent, less free from the expression of the aesthetic sense than pottery, which may be regarded as plastic art in its most abstract form." This raises a very difficult question on the rela- tionship of pottery to sculpture which cannot be treated very fully in a short review. If pottery is not limited by imitative requirements, it is surely limited, to a great degree, by the habit formations of the race. It is a utilitarian Art. A good pot besides possessing a form suitable to the clay (a quality which, analysed, springs from man's natural hatred of the extravagance of force) must have qualities appropriate to its purpose. This, then, restricts the freedom of the potter. Sculpture is by no means " imitative in intention." The authors are confusing the subject-matter with the objective —a common mistake. Subject-matter is only the stimulus to which the sculpture reacts—it is the factor which releases the creative forces within him. Once the subject-matter has set these forces into action its function, so far as the sculptor, as sculptor, is concerned, ceases. He is then absolutely free : he goes on to design an edifice which, although expressing the inherent and fundamental desire to construct or create is yet unrestricted by rules and requirements, already, through experience and practice, found to be If value. Sculpture is, briefly, a free construction which does not need to fulfil any of the functions of utility. Pottery, on the other hand, belongs to that type of design which is determined by fulfilment—economically expressed—of pur- poseful function. A kitchen, arranged in such a way as to have every requirement in its most easily attainable position will possess a certain element of design. It is to this type of design that pottery is most closely related.
The book follows the development of English pottery from the Middle Ages, through the Tudor and Stuart periods, to the eighteenth century and the advent of Wedgwood. Chapter IX. is remarkable for the breadth of judgment shown by the authors in determining the true significance of Wedg- wood to be in the industrial rather than the aesthetic develop- ment of English pottery.
The illustrations are many and well reproduced.
W. MCCANCE.
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