Since Höyen, the historian, delivered his lecture in 1844 _On the Conditions for the Development of a National Scandinavian Art_, artists had turned homewards. There was the national spirit of the northern people, the peasants and the fisher-folk, to make the Danish _genre_ picture. There was nothing northern to be found in Rome. Eckersberg had indicated the way, and with the study of man came the study of nature. Johann Thomas Lunbye, with his cattle and his forest landscapes, caught the somnolent air of cattle before Troyon had set the fashion in France. Peter Christian Skovgaad interpreted the spiritual beauty of the Danish beech-woods; his favourite light was the cold pale day of the northern sky with its sober blue. Kroyer, with his _Skagen Fishers at Sunset_, and his _Fishermen setting out by Night_, surrounds the _Dansk Folke_ with mystery and poetry. To these days belong the rejuvenation of Danish art, and what the painter was doing on his canvas the ceramic artist was shortly to do on his vase and on his placque. The dawn of the Renaissance was at hand. CHAPTER VIII THE MODERN RENAISSANCE CHAPTER VIII THE MODERN RENAISSANCE The after-effects of war--Philip Schou, Councillor of State, rebuilds the factory--Arnold Krog appointed art director--A new technique developed--Triumph of modern Copenhagen porcelain--The new impulses stimulate other European potters--A new note added to European ceramic art--The avoidance of classic or stereotyped styles--The idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen--Intense national sentiment of Copenhagen--Marks of leading painters and modellers. On the threshold of the great Renaissance of art which re-established the name and fame of the Royal Copenhagen Factory, it is necessary to look at the subject from more than one point of view. The fire which Müller had lit had been burning dimly; indeed, save for the blue-and-white utilitarian ware, it had almost gone out. The Copenhagen factory was a century old in the seventies. Most of our English porcelain factories had put out their furnaces for ever. Chelsea, Derby, Plymouth, Bristol, and Bow had entered that ghostly realm where collectors snatch at the body of the potters and posterity portions out the inheritance of the departed great. The years of the English porcelain factories, with their triumphs and their decadence, were compassed within the span of a man's life. Plymouth and Bristol, the only hard-paste factories, together ran less than twenty years. Bow succumbed in less than half a century. Chelsea existed only thirty-nine years, and Derby, with all its vicissitudes of fortune, changing hands many times, never reached a century old. The Worcester factory is the only English porcelain factory in existence to-day with a history which goes back to the middle years of the eighteenth century. [Illustration: PLACQUE. WILD GEESE ON ICE. Painted in underglaze colours by Arnold Krog. Period 1891-1895.]