Chapter I: Introduction

“What, again?” I fancy I can hear someone exclaim, who has read some former efforts of mine in this direction and on this subject; and with all due respect I venture to echo the word, “Again!” And I will take the reader into my confidence, and give some reasons why I renew this subject after a lapse of a few years, during which time, to my certain knowledge, the art of figure piping has sprung up from nooks and crannies where it was previously non-existent, and, in one or two instances, where least expected.

My reasons, then, for again bringing this most varied and interesting art to the front is, firstly, because I have been requested to do so by several piping artists, who want to vary their subjects; and, secondly, because within the last two years we have had most convincing proof that figure piping holds its own as an art with any other form of decorative sugar work—it has had a fair honest trial for two seasons, and under the disinterested and impartial judgment of different experts it has scored, finishing up with a win against any variety. I would respectfully beg of the reader to accept this statement without the slightest taint of egotism on my part, which is not intended in the slightest degree; but I make the statement to prove beyond a doubt that the subject we have in hand _is_ worthy of consideration and encouragement to all pipers who are of an artistic turn of mind. Moreover, there are doubtless scores of young pipers to whom these articles will appeal for the first time, and, in regard to the scope for learning, I can assure the reader that I have learnt a very great deal since I first entered in the competitions, and even now never take my paper cornet in hand but the mind is made up to learn something more. So varied and so spontaneous may the subjects in this branch of the art become that we may look upon the fund of designs as practically inexhaustible. Surely this should act as an incentive to the young piper; and when you come to consider that you can make a veritable sugar picture to frame and glaze and hang in your private sitting room, or pipe a Christmas card, menu, or birthday card, you will readily see that figure piping with a meaning will be far more interesting as an object to look at than the most elaborate bit of scrolling or string work that was ever squeezed through a tube. Brilliant and commercial as it may look on a bride cake, it is doomed to be destroyed. The bride, who is supposed to make the first attack as the “Destroying Angel,” stands nervously with the knife, and, her mind being pre-occupied, can no more see the artistic merit of that cake than Hodge from the plough can see the literary worth of the soliloquy in Hamlet. The destruction of that cake soon becomes complete. The elaborate festoons, scrolls, and monograms—all of which were a credit to the piping artist—are mangled beyond recognition, and the head of the dove, or the foot of a possible cupid may be just recognised as the sections are packed away in those wedge-shaped cardboard boxes, with which we are all so familiar.

Now, although “artistic piping” may cover all the branches which jut from the parent stem, we may with safety come to the conclusion our branch has distinctive features, which are very marked, for while the “scroller” aims at geometrical accuracy and detail, the flower piper aims at thinness of petal, fidelity of shape and colour. The figure piper’s aim is bound to be anatomy and natural poses, for his “figures” may include anything in the animal world and it is absolutely necessary for him to observe, and study as much as possible, the natural and varied attitudes of each and all of them—that is, if he intends to work up his own designs, instead of working on the observation of others. Here I think I may digress a little to explain this matter more fully, for there are different grades of piracy in our exhibitions as well as on the high seas. Now, looking at it from a standpoint of “right,” I think that a student or anyone cannot be blamed for copying a design which may take his fancy, in glacé Royal, or any other medium, if by doing so he fancies he can improve himself. Or if he be in business, and he makes his copy good enough to sell—why not sell it? And if he should at any time be cornered as to the source of the design, I think it would be to his credit and his interest to tell the truth. Now, exhibition business is a different thing altogether, for if an exhibitor, after much time and patience and skill, works up a meritorious exhibit, which scores first prize, on its own merit, as a piece of original work, I contend that it would be absolutely out of place for some other exhibitor to present a counterpart of it for competition, say, the following year. “Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery”—but there’s a line to be drawn for all that.

We will resume the methods to be aimed at. In the first place, I would advise all intending figure-pipers, of whatever age, to aim strongly at originality. I fancy I can hear someone exclaim, “Where can we get our designs?” Well, if I lived in London, I fancy I could get a dozen or so in St. James’s Park, with its enormous variety of birds, its little bits of secluded shrubbery, its boats, and kaleidoscope incidents—in fact, you can get subjects for figure-piping anywhere almost, while there is any life at all. Why, I was riding on a Putney ’bus down Piccadilly one day, and saw on the branch of an elm-tree which grows just inside the railings of the Green Park a wood pigeon with her nest and pair of young ones—a capital subject to go across a chocolate medallion. Another pretty subject—and this, too, may be studied almost any day in the summer time—is a little girl, basket in hand, feeding the waterfowl, scarcely half-a-mile from the scene of the woodpigeon’s nest above described. This would be a copy, it is true; but it is a copy from Nature, and it was such copies as this that made the name of Sir John Millais, Sir Frederick Leighton, and others whose names stand as monuments to British Art. Whatever would the Hanging Committee say if a painted copy of one of their works were presented for acceptance at the next year’s Royal Academy exhibition? Well, as far as reputation went, it strikes me very forcibly it would almost be a case of “hanging” for the would-be exhibitor.

I have stated on former occasions, and it will bear repeating for the benefit of those who study this fascinating subject for the first time, that if the designer has a liking for, or is already tolerably well skilled in freehand drawing, he is well on the road to success in figure piping; and if he has a fancy for natural history, with keen observation and a good memory to boot, he has got pretty well all that is required, with the exception of a pot of glacé Royal, some paper cornets, and—perseverance.

I know perfectly well that a pupil who has any or all these qualities—the first-named being most important—in his composition, is far and away easier to teach than he who cannot use the lead pencil with good effect. In fact, the lead pencil and the paper cornet should, to use a common expression, go “handin-hand.” Many a time where the means of piping has not been available, I have had recourse to a lead pencil, and jotted down on paper some little incident which has been passed as a likely subject. By this plan you can accumulate quite a number of subjects, which may be reproduced in sugar at any time, possessing a value of their own on account of their originality.

These, of course, may be introduced on Bride Cakes, Birthday Cakes or Christmas Cakes, petits fours, and in butter on hams, tongues, galantines, pressed beef, etc. Of course, a good deal of judgment is required in the choice of your subjects for any particular function, and what would be highly appropriate for a wedding would be tolerably “tame” for a hunting or golfing party. Any design may be suitably embellished with a few scrolls, and figure piping may also be judiciously blended with flowers occasionally, so that all these branches may work in conjunction with each other to gain an artistic end.

The intending figure piper never knows where he may cast his lot, and the very emperor of dramatic writers has told us that

There is a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough-hew them how we will.

Therefore, if it be your lot to be cast in a thoroughly representative fox-hunting district, surely the habitués of that district would better appreciate some fox-hunting designs than they would those that are relating to “Ping-Pong,” and the devotees of this up-to-date pastime would prefer something in their line to anything bordering on footballs; so that if the piping artist can adapt himself to circumstances he is sure to attract, by his work, the attention of those who may employ him.

As I proceed, I intend giving the necessary details as to how artistic figure piping may be practised from the earliest to the last—no, not the last stage, for I shall never reach that goal myself. I must here inform the reader that I am still learning, and no doubt will benefit, to some extent, by the undertaking I have in hand, which is for the purpose of bringing the reader up to the stage that I have arrived at. It will be necessary on the way to give some details in natural history, so that we try to avoid the common error, not only committed by some piping artists, but by taxidermists also, of perching a robin on a twig in the same attitude adopted by a Yorkshire canary, or flying doves with their crops so apparently full that they have naturally enough lost their equilibrium. No, let us endeavour to

Hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to Nature.

And the more natural in proportion and in pose we get our subjects the greater the pleasure it will be; for remember that, in glacé Royal piping, unaided by colour of any kind, we have nothing but the shape and proportion to establish the identity of whatever animal or bird we have tried to represent. Of late years, landscape and seascape piping has been introduced into the decorative art, and to a very great extent the first-named is an almost indispensable comparison to figure piping, for distant hills have to be represented sometimes and foreground trees as well, in order to make up a picture in sugar. Now, as in the case of landscape painting, we have to manage the perspective by executing all the foreground objects boldly and all the distant objects faintly, by proper management and delicate handling the cornet can be made to pipe a row of poplar trees and a farmhouse which apparently stand at least a-quarter of a mile away from a mare and foal, which may be represented as grazing in the foreground.

Although I have mentioned here the subject of white piping only, there is also a system of coloured piping, which is most practised on chocolate medallions, Christmas cakes, birthday cakes, &c. The colouring of sugar for flowers is a recognised innovation, and therefore, by way of variety, a “bit of colour” may occasionally “embellish the figures”; but you cannot, for discretionary reasons, go too far with brilliant tints without drawing some objections from the “pure sugar” advocates. Vainly may you try to explain that the Spanish green is “_from spinach_,” and that the blue and the red are equally harmless; but I think most of this prejudice is brought about by the violence of colour with which some eatables are “decorated.” Some of our exhibitions will prove this, and severe and thoroughly deserved are some of the criticisms we read on this subject when the confectionery critic goes round, pencil in hand, just to give them a “bit of his mind.” Pleasing effects may be obtained by a delicate handling of colour, and later on I intend giving instruction in this branch also, although, unfortunately, black and white photographic reproductions invariably convey a misleading impression as far as coloured designs are concerned, though fairly accurate when white sugar is used.