Craftsmanship

CRAFTSMANSHIP. - Small industry carried on by the owner with the help of a few employees.

I. DEFINITION

Several attempts have been made to give a definition of the artisan, but full agreement has never been reached. At present a special commission, created within the International Union of artisans and of small and medium-sized enterprises, is gathering documentation on the matter with the aim of arriving at an international definition of the figure of the artisan. At the national level the same definition is also under study, and it will have to be based on the character of the firm, on its size, on the predominance of the factor of manual labor, on the number of employees and on the nature of the individual processes. Taking all this into account, it may be stated very approximately that artisan is the professional qualification of one who in the field of production works only with the help of family members or of a few employees, impressing upon the product the mark of his technique and of his hand.

II. HISTORICAL NOTES

The origins of handicraft are indistinguishable from man's first conquests, when with the working of stone, wood, bone and horn he forged the first objects suggested by need and then modified by their functions. From his hands come first weapons and household tools and then, gradually, rudimentary articles of clothing and furnishings. As nomadism declines, the stable dwelling arises, and with the house needs increase and the sense of beauty develops: clay appears, in its various forms, and here and there decoration emerges that refines the products; the working of metals begins. Man in these epochs is naturally a craftsman.

There is not, and there cannot be, in the course of the centuries any break in continuity, and it may be affirmed that handicraft has never had true periods of decadence, inasmuch as, being divided into two great branches (ordinary handicraft and artistic handicraft), when one has not marked progress, the other has given us the splendor of the mosaics of the Romanesque basilicas or the chiseling of the sacred vessels and the armor of the 16th century. Conversely, when artistic handicraft seemed to decline, the eager ingenuity and ready intuition of the master craftsmen gave us tools and techniques perfect enough to assure to woolen fabrics and damasks or to the products of the nascent art of printing merits not attained, nor surpassed, by the most perfect modern industry.

However, the golden period of craft activities unfolds in the centuries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The people acquire awareness of their worth, see in productive activities the guarantee of their life and the origin of their strength. They oppose the arrogance and the pretensions of the nobles, affirming at the same time their right to political liberty and to freedom of work and trade.

The guild is the instrument that brings about this profound social revolution: communal life, gathered within the well-fortified walls of the city, offers handicraft great possibilities of asserting itself. Masters are not lacking, nor are journeymen and apprentices. The destruction of the castles, the abolition of tolls, the relative safety of the roads allow relations with the most distant countries, and craftsmen and merchants unite against the common enemy — the nobles — and give the Commune an industrious life, wealth and power (v. CORPORAZIONE; MONASTERO; SCUOLA DI ARTI E MESTIERI).

Then the development of mechanical progress, the fearful imposition of the machine have undoubtedly limited the field of work of handicraft. To handicraft there no longer belongs mass production, the domain of industry.
But handicraft, having reduced its own sector of activity, has gained in quality what it has lost in extent.

III. CRAFTSMANSHIP AND INDUSTRY

The position of the industrial product in relation to the craft product can be summarized as follows: the industrial product is a mass product; a standard product which, while it does not answer to the taste or the particular need of anyone, can supply the needs of all. The craft product is the quality product; not the anonymous object that comes out of the machine in thousands of copies, but the object that bears the imprint of the hand that produced it and answers to the particular aesthetic or practical need of the person who requested its making or who purchased it.

Industry represents the bulk of production, while craftsmanship has remained at its margin — a margin more or less significant depending on the sector under examination. For example: in the artistic crafts, as in those of goldsmithing and in clothing, a broad field has remained to craft work. In some typical crafts, industry has been unable to offer any competition, while in the various activities that come under clothing, and particularly in the making of garments, craftsmanship resists mass-produced goods victoriously.

On the contrary, where the product has a predominantly instrumental function and what is chiefly required is a low price for wide consumption and uniform types answering to the practical needs of modern life, industry has reduced craft work to a minimum. And this we observe, for example, in metalworking, in the arts of weaving and printing, in building.

The conquests of science and technology have, however, opened new fields and given rise to new crafts: electrotechnics, mechanics, the development and spread of precision instruments, and the art of photography have given craftsmen the means to assert their ability in keeping with the times.

Our considerations then set aside the vast and intense work that craftsmanship carries out for the repair of industrial products and of products damaged by use. From footwear to clothing, from the most common objects of use to the restoration of works of art, from the repair and overhaul of engines and machines in general to the retreading and repair of tires, there is no sector in which the practical and keen intelligence of the craftsman does not double or triple the life of an object with his modest and precious work.

The shoe, today, very often comes out of a factory, but how many times is it necessary to resort to the work of the craftsman shoemaker before declaring it worn out? Let the same reasoning be repeated for kitchen utensils, for clothes, for tires, typewriters, watches and lighters, and one will see how great is the wealth that is not lost thanks, perhaps, to a patient mender or a laborious and enterprising blacksmith.

This activity confers no titles of nobility or glory in the world of production, but it constitutes a precious collaboration for industry as well.

One can conclude, therefore, that craftsmanship is not a productive sector, but a way of producing applicable to all productive sectors.

A revealing sign of the perennial nature of craft work is given by the tendency of markets that have developed mechanical progress to the utmost, and consequently imposed mass-produced goods on consumers: the countries of America, for example, demand craft products from the nations of the old world and encourage the immigration of master craftsmen.

The uniform product tires, and even the North American consumer seeks for his home furniture of craft manufacture, ceramic dishes or at least some original ornament due to an Italian, French or Flemish master craftsman.

IV. PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CRAFTSMANSHIP

The craftsman represents the highest affirmation of human personality in the world of production: whether decorator, engraver, tailor or carpenter, he embodies in himself the fundamental elements of production: labor, technique, capital. His intellectual faculties, his muscles, all his financial possibilities are strained in the productive effort, and he brings to his work the passion of one who feels that the success of his life and the future of his family are bound to this toil.

In the craftsman's workshop work the master craftsman, a few apprentices and sometimes a few employees. Very often there are neither apprentices nor employees, but only the sons and grandsons of the craftsman, who learn the trade already handed down for centuries from father to son. The machine in the craftsman's workshop is a precious aid for avoiding the rough labors of preparing the work, but it is never the true and proper instrument of the work. Apprentices and workers live in uninterrupted contact with one another within a few square meters of space: the master craftsman is with them and directs and teaches while working.

V. SOCIAL ASPECT

Social unrest brushes against, but does not overwhelm, the artisan's workshop, which represents an oasis of peace: in the artisan family there is normally no unemployment; women artisans can work in their own homes without neglecting domestic work; women's work often supplements the insufficient earnings of the head of the family and, in rural areas, is seasonal in character. The woman artisan works in the winter months, when all agricultural activity is silent, and from her hands come lace and needlework of noble craftsmanship or fine hand-woven fabrics. The peasant, likewise, in the "dead season" often turns into a repairer of scythes and ploughs, a cooper, a carpenter.

Artisanry therefore represents a happy solution to the social problem. It is a precious complement to work in the fields, ensuring financial stability for the rural family; it allows, in the many varieties of home work, the orderly life of the family without bringing women into the factories; the trades of seamstress, embroiderer, mender and knitter represent at the same time a source of income and a defence of femininity.

The trades of tailor, furrier, tie-maker, glover, and not a few others, give us the ideal type of the family enterprise because they unite the men and women, the young men and girls of the same household in a productive activity.

Because of its markedly personal and family character, artisanry has always enjoyed favourable consideration both in Christian social doctrine and in the social movements inspired by it.

VI. POLITICAL ASPECT

The profound sense of individualism - which the very nature of the activity they exercise arouses in artisans - has not prevented the craft trade from establishing itself over the centuries in social and political life, through professional organizations whose memory still inspires admiration.

We must note first of all that since the most ancient times the craft trade has flourished in a climate of freedom. In the East as in the West, in Greece as in Rome, the free class is made up of artisans and merchants. The Roman plebs in its great majority was in fact made up of artisans. During the Middle Ages the communal liberties find their economic expression in the guilds and crafts. Even today a political community is the less exposed to sliding toward tyrannical regimes the more the craft trade flourishes within it.

VII. CRAFTSMANSHIP TODAY IN ITALY

Italy, also in the past, has always been the classic land of craftsmanship, both because of the markedly individualistic character of its inhabitants and because of the glorious traditions in this field that are lost in the remoteness of the centuries. Even today craftsmanship plays a very notable part in Italian economic and social life. From the 1936 census there result as existing in Italy 993,840 craftsmen - with and without employees - of whom 803,622 are men and 190,218 women. Craft enterprises amount to about 800,000, and those who live on their income number between 4 and 5 million. During the Second World War, given the difficulty of obtaining raw materials, craft activities in Italy too suffered a decline and came to a halt; once hostilities ended, however, they quickly recovered, and promising outlets seem to be opening up for them, especially in the Americas.

Raimondo Michetti