Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-01
THE CERAMIC ART
Seen in Its Highest Development in
Staffordshire, England.
MIGHTY FORESTS OF GHIMEEYS.
The Potters Are the Most Contented Workers
Of the Kingdom.
nEDGwooD, THE WONDER WORKER
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE p1srArcH. +,


teries, is an inland county, lying near th,
center of England. It has no great plac,
in history. The old monks were not at
tracted to it as q region in which to built
splendid abbeys. Antiquarians have no
found much in it to wrangle over. It ha
inspired little in romance or song. No on,
| ever came to it second time for its beauty
Two Roman roads or military ways
| Waiting street and Icknield street, inter
sectIng, cross the shire from east to west. I
you will tramp to the Longwynd Hills, owe
in Shropshire, you can trace the trackway
worn white and bare to the eternal stone
over which the Romans brought supplies O.
pottery, 1900 years ago. from, the Sever
Valley and Staffordshire, to their military
stations south and southwest of ancient Ur
conium. Better ways than these nov
traverse the shire. Canals gleam alons
| valleys, glisten above viaducts and penetrate
mountains, making seaports of every busy
town; and with the railways they have Gu
a grandam's "broken-dish" patchwork
quilt.
The Forests All Burned Up.
The shire was once all forest land. Tha,
was not long ago. But they assert in Stat
fordshire that all these old forests were
felied and the whole shire made bare, sim
ply to fire the old-fashioned ovens. Out oi
these came the tygs, posset-cups and pots of
Roman time, when huge, strong mugs were
good enough for drinking purposes, the
Delft pitchers and porringers of the Nor
man period, down to even those marvellous
achievements of Wedgwood time, when the
priceless Barbereni, or Portland, vase was
not only duplicated, but e1celled in so won
drous copies.
Then came the era of coal and clay in
Stafordshire, or more properly speaking of
Wedgwood, clay and coal. Somebody
has computed that you could walk on
crockery over all the area of Staffordshire
which comprises about 790, 900 acres of land,
if all that ever went out of the shire could
be brought back and set down piece by
piece within it. But without one primeval
tree, and with room for but few others save
in parks and demesnes of the nobility and
potter gentry, Staffordshire is still forest;
in the south and center a mighty forest of
chimneys where coal and iron endlessly
burn and fuse and pollute the land from
flaming caverns at the Net of leviathan tree
trunks of brick, from whose tops overspread-
ing arms of smoke wheel and turn with the
wind, and the blessed sunlight rarely filters
through their thick and sulphurous pail
like foliage.
The Progress of the Trade.
This hideous transformation, out of which
such vast utilitarian stores and countless
articles of beauty have come, has been the
work of little more than q century. Pottery
work of 800 years ago can be definitely
traced to Burslem. The town was then
known as butter pottery, that is, a pottery
where pots for keeping butter were made.
Then in 1890. along came two ingenious
Hollanders named Eler. They introduced
new form OF glaze secured by superficial
vitrIication of the clay through the super
heated fumes of common salt The Elers
also brought to Stafford the unglazed red
China method from the East.
This was all very wonderful for that time,
but by and by white ware made its appear
ance through an accidental discovery. On
a journey to London, one of the Burslem
potters had powdered flint recommended by
an inn hostler, for his horses disordered
eyes. To more easily pulverize it, a flint
stone was thrown into the fire. The potter
saw that the fame changed it TO pure
white. Flint stones were gathered in the
south of England, sent to Staffordshire in
large quantities mixed with tobacco pipe
clay, and. pure white stoneware was pro-
duced.
The crushing and grinding mills for pull
,verizlng flint, mixing it like flour with
water, and serving it in paste of any de-
sired consistency, wore only matter of
time. Then In 1853, Josiah Wedgwood per-
fected earthenware for the table-whose first
delicate cream color is so attractive to col
lectors-which SO pleased the Queen, that
she gave to it her name and patronage.
TIE word Queen was stamped in all these
dishes. Hence "Queensware" OF that and
the present time. Following this, came the
most brilliant career ever enjoyed by manu-
facturer. The story reads like an Arabian
Nights tale.
Wedgwood's Wonderful Work.
man from the collegiate standard, a cripple
through malignant disease in youth, and
not one who had inherited prestige or SUBJ
stance. seemed to possess the audacious
originality of all real genius, inconceivable
patience, and, above all, an answering
LOYALTY to true art. With these qualities,
he so welded art to refined progress and
utility that there was recovered from the
whole sweep of the known past everything
of true beauty that had been revealed to the
potter. With marvellous rapidity of con-
ceptiou, development, application and
adaptability, he not only recovered and re-
created what seemed 1rfeplaceable, but
established to endure new standards in the
noblest ideals possible to ceramic art
In word, 30 centuries of art effort were
by his brain and hand concentrated into 80
wears of Incompatible creations More
wonderful than his own work, taste kept
abreast OF his exquisite revelations. Nearly
a century has elapsed since he died here at
the Etruria he built. To be exact, it is lust
96 wears. But in all this interim OF progress
no added precious secret in ceramics has
been disclosed. 1t almost seems that this
was the one man predestined to come and
throw wide the door upon their exquisite
mysteries. 1t is no wonder that single
pieces from his hand are now worth the
value of kings crown.
His Monument Is in Every Home.
But all this is well-knowu. Wedgwood
is buried in the modest churchyard over
there at Stoke. There is no cenotaph or
column above his grave, but his monument
is in every refined home throughout the
world. It is also in the complete renais-
sance of one of the most useful, enduring
and lovely of all arts. 1t Is visibly and
practically here in Staffordshire in this
great cluster of pottery towns and cities,
outlving villages, and through the vast
outreaches and interchanges the Stafordshire
pottery trade, which alone supports more
than 800, 900 souls.
And best of all, to us, it is in the redupli-
cation in our American cities of these great
establishments, where our own labor and our
own capital are gradually acquiring such
skill and rewards that, before new century
shall come, the deserving fame of our own
ceramic art shall vie with that of any land.
But there is other interest in the pa tteries
than that connected with their mercantile
facts and figures; with their extraordinary
art development. compelling the employ
mont of the most noted and skillful decorn.