YOUR
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, Saturday, OCTOBER 15, 1988.
DRINK
HERE IT
PROBLEM
SOLVED
IS! THE
IDEAL SUMMER BEVERAGE
WATSON'S
LEMON BARLEY
WATER
A Friend of the Family
Cooling Health-giving
and Delicious
Manufac
REALISM in MUSIC
H.M.V. RECORDINGS
KOUSSEVITSKY AND BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA:-
Damnation of Faust (Berlioz) DB-3009-3010
HEIFETZ AND RUBINSTEIN:-
Sonata in A Major (Cesar Frank) DB-3206-3207-3208
FLAGSTAD KIRSTEN:or
Songs my Mother Taught me (Dvorak)
When I Have Sung my Songs (Charles) DA-1524 KREISLER FRITZ: AND LONDON PHILHARMONIC
ORCHESTRA:-
Concerto in E Minor (Mendelssohn) DB-2460-2461-246Z
RUBINSTEIN ARTHUR:-
Prelude in a A Minor (Debussy) DB-2450 Tombeau Couperin-Forlano (Ravel)
TOSCANINI AND PHILHARMONIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA:
Semiramide-Overtura (Rossini) DB-3079-3080
GIGLI BENIAMINO:——
Lost Chord (Sullivan) DB-1526
Goodbye (Tosti)
STOKOWSKY AND THE PHILADELPHIA
ORCHESTRA:--
Danco Macabro (Saint-Saens) DB-3077
CORTOT AND CASALS:---
SYMPHONY
Magic Fluto (Mozart) Variations on air from Beethoven
DA-915-916
SCHNABEL ARTHUR AND CARL:—
Concarto for two Pianos (Bach) DB-3041-3042
S. MOUTRIE & CO., LTD.
York Bldg.
Hongkong
Chater Road.
Music hath charms
Sunday Classical Concert.
at Repulse Bay Hotel
Under leadership of Geo. Pio-Ulski Programmo for Sunday, 16 Oct., 1938.
1 p.m. - 2.30 p.m.
PROGRAMME
1. Semiramide. Overtoro
2. La Corrida 7
3. Goldsmith's Daughter. Waliz
4. La Traviata. Selection
6. Ballet Egyptien
0. Mazurka
7. Neapolitan Nights
For Reservations
phone 27775.
REPULSE
BAY
-HOTEL
.Rosslai. Valverde.
.Fetras, ...Verdi.
..Luigini.
.Clinks. .Zamecnik.
THE HONGKONG & SHANGHAI HOTELS, LTD.
NEW
Chinese Silversmiths
HE art of the silver-
smith
|VAUXHALL known
TWELVE-FOUR
NOW
HERE
THIS CAR INVITES YOUR INSPECTION,
We shall be glad to demonstrato,
HONGKONG HOTEL
GARAGE
Stubbs Road...Phone: 27778-9.
MARRIAGE
The marriage arranged between Mr. Thomas Sing and Miss May Keat will take place on Monday, October 17. No Invitations are being issued but all friends are cordially invited to the reception to be held at the Gloucester
Hotel at 5 p.m.
The
Thongkong Telegraph.
SATURDAY, OCTODEN 15, 1935.
HOUSING REPORT
has
from
been the
an
earliest ages, and owing to the rarity, beauty, and lustre of the metal employ- ed, has been always highly esteemed. It has, more- over, been deemed ́ ́ as almost royal art; for the very scarcity of the precious metal has precluded its general use save as objects of personal adornment and in coinage. Therefore, in ancient times bronze was
the metal of every-day utilitarian purposes.
Consequently, the earliest examples of the silversmith's skill wore chiefly a variety of small articles for adornment,
BY T. PAUL GREGORY
and it was not until the rise of the various religious cults in Europe that it became the vogue for the fashioning of massivo and beautiful art objects and ceremonial, utensils which at once became essentials in the elaborate ritual of pagan wor ship as early as the sixth cen- tury B. C.
Chinese Experts
This splendid example of the Chinese silver- smith's art is modelled after a bronze ting or ceremonial tripod of the Shang Dynasty type, -Photo: Courtesy Messrs. Wang Hing.
most commonly used process, and the one most frequently scen employed on fine pieces of work is known na repousseo, i.o. metal-work beaten into relief by striking a thin sheet of silver- from behind with a hammer and --punch. This type of work la
called took by the Chinose, and. literally algnifies "hammering with a chisel or punch.” It is in France and Italy, of course, where this phase of the silver-- smith's art achieved its most eminent degree of successful application in the early middle ages, but it is nevertheless interesting to note that it was known and employed in China at an almost indentical period, and to no special nation 'may be assigned the credit of discovor- ing the process. The Chinese silversmith employs repoussec `like his western brother in the craft for the purpose of pro- ducing beautiful examples of work in relief. Dragons, phoc- nixes, emblematic bordor and diaper patterns are the usual de- corative motifs. The work is accomplished by laying a sheet of silver of the desired thick- ness, face downward on a bed of elastic cement (generally made of molten asphalt), and after applying the desired design (traced on paper with India ink), by pasting it to the metal it is then hammered into, rude relief into the yielding asphalt. After being beaten up from the under or reverse side, the metal is then turned, the asphalt la removed from the face and applied to the. back, so that the final touches may be given to the work from the outside. The tools used are
exemplified by the Chinese craftsman consummate skill is
In Chins, on the other hand, smith is a past master in all hind is located the forge where exceedingly simple, consisting although the oldest bronzo ob- branches of his ancient craft, the silver bullion is melted up. of a sort of small anvil, or jects date from the Shang (or and is equally skilled in Casting A survey of the quarters and a t'it-cham, and an assortment
light-weight Yin) Dynasty (1766-1122 B. C.), (Chuc) of metals; in Embossing glance at the rustic equipment of
hammers, it was not until about 200 B. C. (Seung); Beating or hammering are hardly an ideal introduction punches, tiles, burins, gravers, that silver came into use, and (Teok); Chasing or engraving to the domain of a peculiarly and the like. In fact, the crudity then only as a means of reliev (T'iu); and in Soldering (Hon), difficult craft, and it is only of the tools employed in the It requires optimism of a ing the simple grace of the
when one stops to compare the manufacture really enhances the character above the average to Various ornamentai tripods, The Workshops beauty of the finished products value of the finish product in the discover in the report of the wine-pots, and incense burners To even the most casual ob- that one begins to appreciate the eyes of the critical virtuoso; for Housing Commission tangible which had been created by the server a visit to an atelier of a skill employed in their composi- in the silversmith's art as indications that Hongkong's technical skill of the native Chinese silversmith is full of in- tion, slum and over-crowding pro-worker in metals. From that terest. It is, as may be expect. blems are any nearer to elimina-time onwards, silver as well as ed, not an elaborately appointed
Types Of Processes more essential than superiority tion. Thero is B tone of gold was applied with such dex- and well-lighted work-shop, but frustration and hopelessness interity that the bronze objects of on the other hand is more than proccesses may be of interest.
A description of the fools and of equipment. the report as though the Com-ancient China are the delight likely to
Simple Tools mission, made aware in the of the connoisseur and attest the room in some tenement situated sential part of the equipment is, be r small, dark The first and probably most es. early stages of the investigation skill of the craftsmen of old in the heart of the Chinese of course, the melting furnace, delicate
Even in the production of the that it was tackling a task be- Cathay. With the introduction
Beung ngan-sin or yond its powers, decided to of Buddhism from India in the must be understood, are not to dimensions, and lạ
quarter.
The work-shops, it This is of exceeding small "niello" work which is general- place the onus of suggesting a 3rd and 4th. centuries of our be confused with the sales-rooms ly made of an
general- ly known as damaskening, the practical Bolution elsewhere. era came a new standard in the which are elaborately furnished or basin lined with clay or simplicity,
iron kettle tools employed are of exceeding For this the Commission is not Chinese conception of art. The for the display of the finished cement, and worked
A burin or two to be condemned. Even a super- Chinese became more celebrated
by a is all that is needed to prepare ficial knowledge of the factors than ever as experts in metal products and the reception of primitive type of bellows made the surface of the metal for the attendant upon the housing pro-working, and by the seven- buyers. They are entirely silver to be melted is bought in repousace work, the design is
the passing tourists and local from galvanised iron. The reception of the silver-wire. blem in Hongkong is sufficient teenth century at the advent to permit appreciation of the of European tradera at Canton, separate establishments, and upon the local market in bullion first drawn on paper and then. Commission's monumental, nay they were allegedly acquainted one would scarcely conceive that form, and is generally re-melted pasted upon the surface of the practically hopeless task.
more suitable metal to be ornamented. Fur- with every process of metallurgy the beautiful examples of the and cast into The Commission's recommen- with the, possible exception
silversmith's art are the pro- shapes. The metallic pigs are rows in the shape of "t" grooves dations, judged in the light of galvanising.
ducta of an environment which then passed into the hands of are let into the material by the conclusions reached on the
Their silver-work had already seems NO totally devoid of apprentices whose duty is to means of a burin, and then the. economic, financial, sociological become famous throughout the aesthetic appreciation that it is hammer the silver into a speci- silver in the form of silver wire and hygiene factors, possess a Far East, and it is a striking difficult to reconcile the fact that fied thickness, depending, of is inserted and hammered into degree of plausibility and prac- commentary upon their superla- from such unexpected quarters course, upon the article to be place. This phase of the silver- ticability which might well be tive degree of skill that it effec- true objects of art are produced. produced. The silver bar is laid smith's art is mostly employed turned to useful account. How- tively supplements the simplicity The atelier of the average upon an iron block and pounded in the decoration of bronzes;. jever, the natural doubt of the of the tools employed in its pro- Chinese silversmith consists of with a sledge until it is of the and the craft was in the height. public, long-versed in the pecu- duction. To a European ob- a room about twenty or thirty desired thickness and dimen- of its glory in Peiping during liar propensity of Government server, it seems
feet in length, and twelve or so sions, and after being annealed the Ming Dynasty (1868-1644 remarkable, departments for pigeon-holding indeed, to what a great extent in width. Here are found the (by heating red-hot and plung- A.D.). Its most celebrated mas- Commission reports, will be apparently unsurmountable ob- work-benches of a dozen or so ing into a cooling trough) it is ter was a clever Buddhist monk whether the authorities will stacles are make ecrious efforts to translate manufacture of delicate objects
overcome in the workmen, and in the kitchen be ready for the craftsmen. The by name of Shih Sou (Shek Sau. the recommendations into prac- of art which call for the most, tice.
patient application of such dim-
of
Clearly the Commission's task cult processes as damaskening, GRIN AND BEAR IT of framing the recommenda- chasing, polishing, and the like. tions was not rendered any But after all, the Chinese silver- casier by its first conclusion:
is
that as overcrowding results never be fulfilled, except at a chiefly from poverty, and that prohibitive charge on the public poverty dependent upon pocket. But it is insufficient economic conditions over which meekly to 'accept this and to Government has little or no con-make no practical effort to re- trol, then the real solution of the move the obstacle. This is the problem lies in improved econo- root cause of the trouble, and mic conditions which result admirable though the recom- from factors beyond the in- mendations of the Commission fluence of the Government, may be in other respects, they Part of this dictum is extremely cannot claim to do anything else debatable. It might be demon-but scrape the surface. Let strated that Government could Government engage as many improve the economic lot of the experts as it likes, they will poorer class Chinese by legisla-probably come to precisely the tion which would sweep away same conclusiona La those several of the reprehensible reached by the Commission of features connected with the ex- laymen, The conclusions aro ploitation of workers, sub-con-fairly obvious no matter how tracting, blackmail under the exhaustivo be the investigation. cloak of "fees for protection It is the practical solution which against competition", the prin-fremains so difficult. If that cipal tenant scourge, and other solution deponds chiefly on an influences, so rightly condemned improved economie and educa- In the early part of the Commis-tional standard of the poorer sion's report.
Chinese, then the authorities Wo agree with the Commis-are duty bound to do their ut- sion and with Mr. W. H.. Owen, most to bring about those im- that unless, and ́until, the provements. We aro. by no labouring Chinese classes enjoy means convinced of the argu- a better economic standard, the ment that better economic con- erradication of overcrowding 'ditions: lie beyond the power of and slumming in Hongkong can Government.
7-li
As
in Cantonese) whose artistic ac- ,complishments were greatly esteemed by Chinese virtuosi.
By Lichty Indeed, so highly regarded was
Rup lengt
"Pit have to buy that stuck-up Mra. Banderass a prezent,
she'll never :bellevd we werd öble/hera,""
has
his work, that imitators arose by the score, who instead of en- deavouring to win renown for themselves on individual merits were content to attain mediocrity by forging the name of Shih Sou to their productions. It been the foreign demand, how- over, which has provided a decided incentive to further the silversmith's craft in China. The beautiful punch- bowls, trays, ten-sets, flower vasés, cigarette cases, and the. Infinite variety of smaller articles. are very attractive; and an. the work la invariably unique in design, and the workmanship of superior quality to any, obtain- able abroad, it is in constant. demand.
The great centres of the craft are Peiping, Shanghai, Canton and Hongkong, and in fact, since.. the outbreak of hostilities in tho hinterland, the fast is assum- ing first placo, not only on ac- count of the unparalleled ad- vantages that the Colony enjoys as a port and tourist centre, but also owing to the fact that stability of government and absenco of political turmoil offers the best Inducement for the development of the silver smith's ancient craft.