=The so-called Empire Style.=--But there came another Continental movement inimical to art in no less degree than war--the great inventive spirit which produced the age of machinery. Art grew impoverished and unfertile. Genius seemed to have descended on the workshop and the loom. The painter, the designer, the creator of forms, and the artist in colours lived in a nightmare of banalities. In regard to England, this industrial revolution has been a most powerful factor in stifling art. In Denmark, happily, this problem has not even yet come with overwhelming force, as there are no mines, no copper, iron, or coal, and the shadowy side of scientific invention and deadening commerce has not darkened the artistic horizon. In considering the ceramics of Denmark, it should be borne in mind that, owing to an isolated northern position, artistic movements affecting the great European centres were slower in obtaining a foothold in Copenhagen. This in a great measure explains the steady growth of national art on its own lines. It was not until 1824, when G. Hetch became director, that the Copenhagen factory commenced to produce designs, then almost disappearing in other parts of Europe, in the Empire style. Count Caylus in France and Winckelmann in Germany in middle eighteenth-century days had heralded the oncoming classic movement which had its _furore_ of simplicity under the Empire. Sir William Hamilton and Wedgwood had carried on the traditions in England. The Copenhagen factory at this date followed the decoration of Berlin and Vienna. _A Cup_ of this period (1830-1840) is illustrated (p. 185). This cup is heavily gilded in the prevalent atrocious style. It is finely painted in natural colours, having a marine scene representing the Castle of Kronborg, with the Sound, and a vessel in full sail. It was here on the ramparts that Hamlet met the ghost of his father. To-day the Danish soldiers in blue uniform keep sentry-go on the platform of the bastion. The bugle-call echoes across the Sound, and the grey frowning walls hold the mystery of the poet's dream. One recalls Hamlet's vigil here, with his "The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold," and Horatio's reply, "It is a nipping and an eager air," and the angry waves beating below and the gathering storm from the north complete the picture. We recollect the words-- The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge. And remembering, fall in a muse, to be aroused by the note of the bugle and the clash of arms of the guard. [Illustration: FIGURE OF MERCURY. After Thorvaldsen. White porcelain unglazed.]