Figure Piping

Figure Piping by M.C.A. F. Russell

Figure Piping* is an instructional treatise on the art of piping decorative sugar figures onto cakes, confectionery, and other foodstuffs, addressed to practising bakers and aspiring piping artists who wish to move beyond conventional scrollwork and floral decoration. Russell opens by justifying a return to the subject after a gap of several years, citing both requests from fellow artists and the demonstrated competitive success of figure piping at exhibitions, where it had earned prizes against all other forms of decorative sugar work. He argues that the art offers a practically inexhaustible fund of designs, and that a figure piped in glacé Royal can serve as a lasting decorative object — a sugar picture to be framed and glazed — unlike a wedding cake, which is inevitably destroyed by the first cut of the knife. The work establishes that figure piping stands closest in method to freehand drawing: the paper cornet replaces the pen, glacé Royal replaces the ink, and success depends on the same foundations — confident outline work, anatomical knowledge, keen observation of natural attitudes, and a good visual memory. Russell repeatedly stresses that the student who can draw with a pencil is already well advanced, and that both tools should be used together, with pencil sketches accumulated as a stock of original designs to be reproduced in sugar at need. Instruction begins with birds, which Russell considers the most accessible starting point. He guides the student through the robin in two positions — standing and singing — explaining where to begin the cornet line, how to carry it around the body, and how to judge proportion before adding legs, wings, and eye. Flying birds follow, with attention to the forward position of the head and the doubling of the feet beneath the breast. Russell then addresses the branches on which birds perch, noting that tree bark varies between species and that perspective can be suggested by narrowing a bough toward its farther end. Leaf effects, including piped-off leaves dried on curved surfaces, are described as a means of adding variety. From individual birds Russell moves to group compositions. A quartet of pheasants — running, flying, alert, and turning — illustrates how each attitude must be mastered separately before grouping, since a single poorly proportioned bird will undermine an otherwise strong arrangement. The wood-pigeon and nest, observed from the top of a Putney omnibus near the Green Park, supplies a domestic subject suitable for Christmas or birthday cakes. Waterfowl on the Serpentine introduce the rendering of water through graduated horizontal lines — thicker and longer in the foreground, finer and sparser in the distance — a technique that applies the same logic as pen-and-ink perspective. The animal world enters through deer, where Russell warns against copying the stylised stags of old tapestries and urges observation of living animals or the paintings of Landseer. The red deer, stag and hind, is worked through in step-by-step outline instructions. The horse follows in three postures: standing, trotting, and jumping. Russell discusses the photographic evidence on galloping horses with some amusement, noting that the snapshot catches positions no conventional artist would dare exhibit, and concludes that artistic selection matters more than mechanical accuracy. The jumping horse requires a rustic fence as accessory, and even the precise placement of the fence posts — a matter of an eighth of an inch — is shown to alter the entire visual logic of the leap. The human figure is treated as the most demanding subject, with the face in full or three-quarter view acknowledged as particularly difficult. A lady feeding pigeons, accompanied by a St Bernard, serves as the introductory human composition, with the figure built from hat and head downward through back and front lines to the skirt's hem before the arms and accompanying birds are added. Russell then transitions from outline work to bas-relief, in which the body of each figure is filled in with light or heavy pressure according to the prominence of the part being modelled — shoulders, ribs, haunches requiring more, flat surfaces less. A spaniel with a pheasant illustrates the technique, with the instruction to let each section dry before adding ears or wings that must stand proud of the underlying surface. Comic subjects — a mule being pushed and pulled by struggling men, a rabbit outrunning a fox terrier, two terriers baying at a cat in a tree — are shown to be seasonally appropriate and commercially popular. More ambitious multi-panel compositions are presented in the form of piped menus. An aquatic menu chronicles the Oxford–Cambridge Boat Race through scenes of training, embarkation, and the race itself. A military menu moves through polo at Hurlingham, outpost duty at Aldershot, tent-pegging at the Agricultural Hall, and artillery on foreign service. A patriotic menu combines the rose, shamrock, and thistle with scenes from British sport, piped in red, white, and blue on coloured grounds. Russell notes that the aquatic and military menus together won a special silver medal and a gold medal for most artistic work at two major London exhibitions in 1902. A Boer War commemorative design and a fox-life narrative group extend the repertoire into topical and sequential storytelling. The book closes with a section on butter and lard piping for savoury foods — hams, ox tongues, galantines, boar's heads — advising a warm working environment and restrained, neat designs so that the decoration enhances rather than overloads the dish. Russell ends on the observation that figure piping, like cooking itself, has no final climax, and that the piper with the most artistic practice and the keenest eye for fresh subjects will continually discover possibilities beyond anything the book has been able to map.

By M.C.A. F. Russell · First published 1903 · Genre: Instructional/Technical Manual, Culinary Arts/Food Decoration, Fine Arts · 6 chapters · 15,523 words

First lines

"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.

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Tags

figure piping · glacé Royal · confectionery decoration · birds · animals · natural history · anatomy · drawing instruction · instructional manual · outline drawing · composition · landscape piping

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Figure Piping is listed on Textopian as an article by M.C.A. F. Russell, dated 1903 CE.

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