REPORT OF MR. HILL.
67
In the arrangement of the exhibits, this department was made the most prominent of the whole. Passing by the art- galleries, and speaking only of the arts in their applications to industry, the whole of the great central nave of the main building was substantially devoted to this form of art. With the English, the most magnificent displays were made of porcelain, pottery gnd glass; and the cases of the Mintons, Copeland, the Worcester works and Wedgwood were splendid illustrations of the value that this nation sets upon this work. Nor were the French behind them. The porcelain of E. Colinot, Deck and Jules Harvey, of Cristofle, Barbadienne and others; sustained their ancient reputation. It is said that the English in earlier Expositions were much astonished and mortified at the inferior position in which they appeared in comparison with the French, and set themselves to work in earnest to introduce a better and higher art into this class of work. We do not think we are wrong in saying that to-day they show in this department a more varied collection of beautiful forms, a more original taste, and a better application °f the models of antiquity, and of the ideas of such nations as the Indian and the Japanese and others, than do the French.
In artistic metal-work there were some admirable displays,— as those of Elkington and Hancock, in the English department, of Barbadienne and Cristofle among the French. Of the work of the latter too much cannot be said. Much of the Painting and sculpture of the French, though powerful and artistic, is morbid in its character, rioting in the horrible or the sensual; but in this metal-work of Cristofle’s, the art was °f the purest and simplest character, taking its subjects from the most common objects of nature, and working them into the ornamentation of the material with a simple grace as healthy in tone as it was artistic in character. Both English a ud French work in this department, and measurably also in that of pottery and porcelain, showed» very distinctly the mfluence of Japanese art, the merits of which they incline to adopt without taking its absurdities.
In furniture, the English had some very artistic work.
leir manufacturers employ some of the best artists to pre-