THE ALEXANDRA VASE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8779, 16 November 1906, Page 3

THE ALEXANDRA VASE.

It blazed in the morning light, all red and cream and green and gold, with here and there a pale spurt of blue, made of the dull earth, thrown from the potter's wheel, painted, tired, glazed and iired" again. And now, alone and unrivalled, it is set in the midst of the Royal Doulton exhibit at the New Zealand International Exhibition. It stands over 4ft hign, it measures over a foot and a half in diameter, it weighs over a hundredweight, and" it is worth £500. But what are all these details but' trifles light as air. One look at the Alex-' ttndra Vase and you are arrested ; it flings out its fiery challenge to you to think of nothing but the flash of dazzling colour it spreads before you. You have all heard of the choice put before the Greek warrior : the woman or £he vase: and how he chose the vase. Perh.a.j?e yptr have condemned him tor

this, as one of those men who would sell oven his share of the aun. But what if that vase were even such another red riot of inextinguishable passion as this; and the man thought ho could let all thlnjrs perish w> long only a* tliis endnved." That is a feeling quite beyond this a.q;e and place. The plastic art? and painting have lost the dominance they once had over human lire, when life itself was swayed by imprewions rather than reflections, when it was more spectacular than speculative, when, Paganism pave large and noble scope for the development of the earth-drama. Art then was joyous and virile, a ministration to the beautiful in all forms ; at times to the florescent and seivmous. "Shall the clnv say to him t^at fpshionoth it, 'Wiiat nmkest thou?'" asked the Prophet Isaiah. The- clay of such a vase as this can indeed speak thus to tho notter and the artist, for the one miecht fashion and the other paint a bowl of never such rare beauty, and yet all be lost in the firing. Conceive* the alternate courage and nnxietv of an artist who, his mind filled with this dream of red and yellow roses flaming forth luxurious from the fiery glow of its glorious red depths, trusts this work iof his haucta to the risks of the potter's furnace, knowing, as he does, that a chance cold wind- or a too hot firo may wreck all that seemed so good to him. No wonder that the potter"' and the produce of his labours are so often alluded to by the moralist. The fragility ,pf his work and the ease with which it is destroyed, supply fitting emblems of the facility with which human life and power may be broken and destroyed, and the emerging of it whole and perfect from the many firing processes is an emblem of the uses of adversity and tho refining of experience. The Alexandra Vase was manufactured by the Royal Doulton Company, whose exhibition at tho New Zealand International Exhibition Messrs John Bates and Co. are supervising. During the early part of next week the vase is being shown on a table by itself, in the centre of the Royal Doulton exhibit, at Messrs Bates' Art Pottery Pavilion, in the centre of the main avenue leading from the Dome Hall to the Machinery Hall.