SWITZERLAND. 
135 
produce soon led its inhabitants to cultivate those trades which 
border upon art-industry; and certain branches have been carried 
to such perfection, that they have given rise to extended exporta- 
tion. Swiss wood-carvings, watches, textile fabrics, braids, &c., 
are celebrated all over the world, and bring millions into the 
country every year. But in spite of continuous intercourse with 
foreign countries, and of numerous drawing-schools for the eleva- 
tion of the artistic element in the industries, little progress (as far 
as taste is concerned) is to be observed in the productions of the 
country. Old traditions are adhered to in all branches of indus- 
try, and the sckools are simply used for the diifusion of inherited 
technical skill. The Swiss wood-carvings are still given to pure 
naturalism, without regard to the requirements of the object; and, 
even in the more important schools and work-shops of this branch 
of industry, no profounder comprehension of art has found en- 
trance as yet. 
In Meiringen, Interlachen, Brienz, and other places, for m- 
stance, casts from nature are alone used for study, and plant- 
forms play the principal part everywhere. Bofingen, of Inter 
lachen, exhibited a series of such models, which, in arrangement 
and technical execution, were the best of all of their kmd to be 
seen at the Exhibition. Flowers with perforated stems, and with 
leaves that were hollow underneath, often of an arrangement 
that appeared to have been complicated on purpose, had been 
transferred into plaster with the utmost truth. These models 
might be recommended more especiaUy to the German schools, as 
the latter are frequently bound up too rigidly by style, so that the 
forms are wanting in healthy freedom. Among the works of 
Althans, Moor (Meiringen), J. Grossmann (Ringgenberg),Fluck, 
Stähli, Roetter (Brienz), &c., on the ground-floor of the Swiss 
Chalet, there were to be found plants, leafage, branch-work, and 
the like (besides graceful mannered animals), of the most perfect 
technical execution, but without any solid nucleus. The Swiss 
need a “ Frullini,” 1 to turn their skill to better account in more 
refined and more artistic productions. 
Watchmaking, which has its seat in the South-West, in the Jura 
1 Lodovico Frullini of Florence, a wood-carver, whose frames, panelg, &o., 
executed in the Benaissance style, were greatly admired at the \ ienna World s 
Fair, as well as at previous exhibitions.—Transl.