Chapter V: Part 5

Before the recent revival in this craft, in which so much is due to the taste and skill of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, there was a tendency towards over-small, frittered and meaningless detail in gold tooling, and binders were given to mechanical repeats of stock tools and stamps.

Yet repetition of forms or lines may be used tastefully as well as in a commonplace way.

Few methods in tooling a book-cover are more appropriate and satisfactory than the diaper, which is sometimes used all over the cover, and sometimes covers the inner panel only.

The decoration of the back of the book-cover requires particular care. In gold-tooled bindings the ornament may effectively be concentrated upon the back, which of course must include the title, leaving the sides plain.

When the sides are decorated the back must be the link to connect the obverse of the book with the reverse--unless we like to say front side and back side.

But I am trespassing upon the binder’s province. The cloth cover seems to be a sort of compromise, though often agreeable enough. Our continental neighbours issue their books in limp paper wrappers, expecting them to be bound as a matter of course. This may account for the high state of the binder’s craft, as a craft, in France. Here, our publishers vie with each other in issuing their books in attractive cloth gilt covers which at one time were intended to rival the gold-tooled binding. Of late we have seen every kind of eccentricity upon book-covers both in design and execution, gold, silver, black and white, and various colours being used in cloth printed covers, and designers often going far in the pictorial direction. We may see the influence of the poster, but still more so when we come to the printed paper cover which imposes still fewer restrictions upon the designer, in fact, none at all, except that of space--unless his sense of fitness imposes limits upon himself; yet cloth covers have perhaps shown more licence than the printed paper cover of late.

The cover printed in few and frank colours and varnished for protection from wear has had a considerable vogue for Christmas books of the lighter sort and for those principally intended for children. These were, when first introduced, rather shocking to the bookselling mind, which went by weight and the amount of gold on a cloth cover, in appraising literary and artistic worth in the market.

When a certain thin square volume for which I was responsible was modestly offered at 5_s._, the usual test being applied, the answer was, “This will never do!”--the public, however, was of a different opinion.

It may be said for the cover printed in colours, when it encloses a book printed in colours, that it has a certain fitness, and for the rest must depend largely upon the designer.

The illustrated magazine cover has exercised a good deal of artistic ingenuity, and always presents the problem of the treatment of lettering as an essential part of the design, as indeed it always should be. There is something attractive about the angular and abstract forms of letters used in contrast with the free lines of the human figure and drapery, or floral ornament, or heraldry, and in a cover design to be printed from a line block the designer may indulge his feeling for these contrasting elements.

Here again the influence of the poster has come in, the conditions of the magazine cover in its struggle for existence on the bookstall being similar to the struggle for pre-eminence upon the hoarding among its larger commercial cousins. In the covers of the magazine, the illustrated weekly journal, and the railway novel we see the popular side of cover design and decoration, largely intended in the first place to attract attention, with a view of immediate sale.

Like all competitive processes with a commercial object, while certain qualities such as a kind of force or eccentricity may be evolved, it generally leads to deterioration on the artistic side. The final test of all design, and especially design of book-covers--the apparel of our companions and friendly counsellors--seems to be wrapped up in the question: “Can you live with it?”

One may admire the skill and celerity of a juggler and conjurer, but it would be uncomfortable to sit frequently at table with a professor of the craft who was given to whisk away one’s dinner napkin, swallow the knives and forks, or discover the roast mutton in his neighbour’s pocket.

So a sensational book-cover may startle us by its audacity, but it is apt to stare at us horribly upon the drawing-room table--and we can hardly be expected to re-furnish entirely to suit its complexion.

A painter I know tells me that there are two classes of pictures--“pictures to live with and pictures to live by.”

Books or book-covers might be divided as books to be taken care of and books to use.

The aristocracy, in their morocco and gilded coats, seem too costly and precious to handle every day and be dimmed by London smoke and dust. Few could duplicate their favourite books, so in the end the quiet cloth cover with its plain lettering is welcome for work-a-day, while, do as we may, the motley crowd in paper will press in and flaunt their little hour, “yellow and black and pale and hectic red,” driven like leaves before the breath of passing interest, some, perhaps, at last finding rest, and resurrection, in the portfolios of the careful collector.

OF THE USE OF GILDING IN DECORATION

The use of gilding in decoration of all kinds seems to be as fascinating to the artist as its pursuit in the solid form appears to be to a large proportion of the human race. In both instances, too, there are risks to be run; in both there is use or abuse of the material involved.

The uses of gilding in art are manifold. We may regard it as the most precious and beautiful means of _emphasis in design_. A method of heightening certain important parts, such as the initial letters of an illuminated manuscript, where, by raising the letter in gesso, or gold size and burnishing, an additional richness and lustre is obtained, especially with the use of full colours, such as ultramarine, the deep blue and vermilion which warm the heart in looking at the manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The jewel-like sparkle, too, of the burnished gold used for raised leaves and fruits here and there among the delicate arabesque page-borders as in French manuscripts of the early fourteenth century has a most charming effect, and contains suggestions for the use of gold in larger kinds of decorative work.

From a Photograph by Anderson]

From a Photograph by Anderson]

Gold, too, may be used _as light_ in drawing, as a heightening to take the place of white on a dark-toned paper. Burne-Jones revived this method with fine results.

Gold is a most valuable means of harmonizing different colours used in the same design or decoration, and is often useful _as an outline_ in flat decoration, and while it can be effectively used with the full range of colour where very rich effects are sought, it also combines well with any single colour in decoration.

The late G. F. Watts told me he considered _blue and gold_ to be the typical colours of the universe.

Certainly they form one of the most--if not the most--beautiful of harmonies.

In the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican at Rome--a series of vaulted rooms decorated by Pinturicchio--the prevailing harmony is blue and gold, the field of the vaulting being blue with raised arabesques in gold emphasizing the ribs, while the arched spaces formed by the vaulting on the side walls are filled with figure subjects in fresco, in which the gold note is re-echoed by certain parts such as armour, weapons and caskets being raised in gesso and gilded. The whole has a very rich and splendid but quiet effect. There is a reproduction to scale of a portion in South Kensington Museum--and also one of the room of Isabella d’Este at Mantua, which has a rich ceiling in gold and colour.

From a Water-colour Sketch by Walter Crane]

The lining of a certain dining-room in Prince’s Gate lately sold and removed might be quoted as a modern instance of blue and gold decoration. It is supposed to have cost an architect his reason, and both the painter and the patron more than either bargained for, as well as their friendship, but the result was most artistic, original and beautiful. Need I say the motive was the peacock, and the artist Mr. Whistler?

“There is safety in a swallow-tail,” says Carlyle in “Sartor Resartus.” That there is safety in white and gold appears to be the creed of the modern decorator. I heard a lady say she liked white and gold; it “always reminded her of champagne,” possibly it may remind others of a balance at their bankers. There is a well-known firm of architects in New York by the name of Mackim, Meade and White, who have been re-christened in the profession as “Mackim, White and Gold,” owing to their fondness for that blend in interior decoration, in association with what is called “old colonial” architecture.

One can obtain every variety of metallic tint related to gold by lacquering over silver leaf. I adopted this method in a room, using a coffered ceiling with the design of a vine in relief, and a frieze panelled with figure subjects (Æsop’s “Fables”). The light came from a large bay window at one end of the room, and so the edges of the reliefs caught the light. The general effect being subdued silver and bronze tones, relieved by touches of ruddy gold. (See illustration, p. 261.)

From a Photograph by Brooks and Son, Salisbury]

The use of _gold as an isolator_ has long been established in the form of picture frames--the gilded “flat” or moulding clearing a picture from its surroundings more effectually and easily than any other known method; but the picture frame, as I think I have before said, is only a relic of the architectural relation of the picture to the wall, where it originally formed a panel, as may be seen, for instance, in the Vandyke room at Wilton House.

Gold also forms a most valuable field or ground for colours, as in decorative painting and mosaic work, or may be used in painting with charming effect as a _colour_, as the early painters used it, for rich brocades and patterned stuffs, rays of light, the emblazoning of heraldic devices, inscriptions, and small fine details of all kinds.

Gold in Byzantine art always seems to have been used with a sense of dignity and of solemnity. The gold tesseræ which form the field of the mosaic decoration in the subdued light in St. Mark’s at Venice impress one with an effect of quiet splendour. There is nothing gaudy or flaming. The light falls through the narrow windows of the dome, and moves softly over the concave gilded surface, reflected backwards and forwards in every variety of tone as the sunlight travels, and the great figures and emblems loom majestically and mysteriously upon the gold field.

Another splendid example, and again chiefly a harmony of blue and gold, is seen in that exquisite gem of architecture and mosaic decoration, the Cappella Palatina in the Royal Palace at Palermo.

From a Photograph by Brooks and Son, Salisbury]

The opposite principle in the use of gilding is illustrated in St. Peter’s at Rome, and in many renascence interiors when the mouldings, capitals, cornices, and architectural enrichments of all kinds in relief are picked out in gold. The splendour may be there--if only in the impression of costliness--but it seems of a more obvious kind, more conscious and self-assertive, and when the principle is carried thoroughly out of gilding every prominence, the effect may easily become ostentatious and vulgar.

I think it is important not to lose the sense of preciousness in the use of gilding, and, as with costly marbles and beautiful materials of all kinds, one should be careful not to put them to base uses, or lose their artistic value by excess.

It is comparatively easy to offer up pious opinions on the use of gold; but the real problems only begin in front of the particular work in hand, and the conditions under which the decorative artist works continually vary. One may be guided by certain principles, but much more by feeling and judgement, which go to form what is called taste. Every work must be finer in proportion to the thought and feeling put into it, but no amount of gold-leaf will cover the absence of taste and sense of proportion.

OF RAISED WORK IN GESSO

Decorative design in gesso stands, it may be said, midway between painting and sculpture, partaking in its variations of the characters of each in turn--the child or younger sister of both, holding, as it were, the hands of each, playful, light-hearted, familiar, associated in its time with all kinds of domestic furniture and adornment.

With an origin perhaps as ancient as the other arts, its true home is in Italy. We find it at Pompeii, with its relatives, stucco and plaster-work, in association with architecture, which also are seen in such choice forms in the decoration of the ceilings and walls of Roman tombs, such as the famous examples of the Via Latina. We find gesso work also in direct association with painting in the devotional pictures of the early Italian schools, used for the diapered backgrounds and nimbi of saints, and raised emblems and ornaments. It reappears in our own country in the painted rood-screens of Norfolk and Suffolk. At Southwold, for instance, there is a notable screen with panels, painted with figures of the apostles, the backgrounds consisting of diapers in raised gesso.

The revival of classical taste and love of classical lore and ornamental detail at the time of the renascence in Italy led to later and highly ornate development of gesso and stucco, of which we may see elaborate examples in the ceilings of the Doria palace at Genoa, for instance; and in the fine decorative scheme of Pinturicchio in the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican, gilded gesso is used for caskets, weapons, and other details in the frescoes painted on the walls, gilded relief work and blue grounds being carried out on the vaulted ceilings above, in arabesques and medallions.

A beautiful model of part of the Appartamenti, by Signor Mariani, may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where also choice examples of gesso work may be found in picture and mirror frames, and gilded coffers or cassones. There are several of these from Florence with figures in relief on flat backgrounds, punctured or stamped with patterns on the paste, and afterwards gilded with rich ornamental effect.

Then again we find gesso used underneath the burnished gold letters and leaf work of the mediaeval illuminators.

The Italian craftsman’s skill in gesso seems to survive in the Italian confectioner with his freehand decorations squeezed out in the form of raised ornaments of plaster and sugar on birthday cakes and such like; and Italian workmen are still the masters of the craft and mystery of all manner of plaster-work, including moulding and casting.

Now there are various kinds of gesso and recipes for making it, and it can be worked in different ways, and on different scales, and in different degrees of relief.

For fine work on a small scale, such as might be used for caskets or small panels in cabinets, and the decoration of furniture generally, Gesso Duro is the best.

It is a mixture of whitening soaked in cold water till quite soft, glue or gelatine, boiled linseed oil, and a little resin, mixed well together to the consistency of cream. There is also a gesso used by frame-makers composed of whitening and parchment size.

Supposing it is desired to work a design on a panel of wood, the wood had best have a coat of shellac or varnish first. Then having determined your design lay on the paste with the point of a long-pointed sable brush--the kind known as a “rigger,” or small water-colour brush will answer--lightly dropping the gesso from the point of the brush or slowly dragging it, so that the gesso may flow from its point, as the design may require, and adding more of the paste where greater relief is required.

Designed by Walter Crane]

Gesso Duro takes some days to dry, but dries, as its name implies, very hard. It can then be scraped down if necessary, and worked on again or touched on to any extent; and the peculiar quality of the relief given by brush work is, perhaps, best left untouched, or at least only added to, and not taken away from by scraping down, although a very fine finish could be obtained in this way, giving the work almost the look of ivory, though, I think, in that case, departing from its true character.

The frame margin given was worked in Gesso Duro, from a design of mine, by Harold Weeks.

The design for a bell-pull was modelled in gesso by Osmund Weeks, for reproduction in electro silver, the sea-horse being in copper.

I have also used for work of about this scale simply a mixture of plaster of paris or thin glue, which answered fairly well if done with directness, as the mixture dries very quickly, and is apt to crack off the ground when dry.

By Walter Crane]

The device for the Art Workers’ Guild is an example of this method, also worked with a brush, and afterwards tinted with lacquers reduced to pale tints by methylated spirit. The lacquer, of course, hardens the surface.

For bolder work and higher relief I have used plaster of paris with thin glue or gelatine. In this, in proceeding to model the design, you dip small pieces of cotton-wool pulled out finely, and having saturated them in the mixture, you build up your design on the panel, which may be of fibrous plaster, and suited for insertion in wall, frieze, or ceiling, or fireplace. It is important to wet the ground or shellac it to stop the suction, before laying on the gesso. It will dry slowly enough to be modelled with the fingers or tools, and added to when dry, or finished with brush work. It dries very fast, and the fibre of the cotton-wool makes it cling to the panel.

I have worked figures on a frieze with a brush on a fibrous plaster panel, and had them cast afterwards, since plaster and glue on large surfaces without fibre is apt to crack off. “The Dance” was a frieze panel worked in this way.

There are various patents and materials in the market for working in gesso. One of the best I have met with is called “Denoline.” It consists of a fine powder, sold in tins, which only requires to be mixed with cold water to convert it into a paste of any consistency required. Flour appears to be an ingredient, and wheat flour, I believe, was used by the old Italian gesso workers.

Designed by Walter Crane]

Designed by Walter Crane]

The frame border was worked in this material, the gesso mixed as stiffly as possible, laid on and modelled with an ordinary modelling tool. It dries slowly and can be retouched. It is a little too sticky, and no doubt requires, like all the different varieties of gesso, its own peculiar treatment.

Designed by Walter Crane]

It might seem at first sight that such a material had no particular limitations or natural laws which in all art are so serviceable in evolving what we call style. Yet elastic as it appears to be, and possessing such considerable range of effect, experience soon teaches us that it has its own most fitting characteristics and tendencies in ornament. The artist, so far from desiring to disguise the real conditions of the work, would rather emphasize their peculiar characteristics. For instance, in laying on and modelling any design in gesso with a brush, he will find the brush and the paste conspire together to favour the production of certain forms of ornament, delicate branch and leaf and scroll work, for instance, and dotted borderings.

By Walter Crane]

Such forms as these the brush, charged with gesso, almost naturally takes, and the leaf shapes may be considered almost as the reflection of the form of the brush itself.

The modelling of the more raised smooth parts is produced by gradually and lightly adding--superimposing while moist fresh gesso, on the system of _pâte sur pâte_, which amalgamates with that underneath. The artist, in modelling the limbs of figures, would emphasize the main muscular masses, allowing for the natural tendency of the paste to soften its own edges in running together: so that a limb would be built up somewhat in the way indicated in the drawing by successive layers of the material floated over each other while moist. Of course, the success of the result depends upon not only the nicety of touch but also on the proper consistency of the gesso, which, if mixed too thin, would be likely to lose form and run out of bounds. Gesso, therefore, for brush work should be mixed like the valetudinarian’s gruel in one of Miss Austen’s novels--“Thin, but not _too_ thin.”

Designed by Walter Crane. The Side-board Designed by Philip Webb. From a Photograph by W. E. Gray]

It is of little use giving exact quantities, since satisfactory working depends upon all sorts of variable conditions, almost in the nature of accidents, such as temperature, quality of the materials, and nature of tools, none of which behaves exactly in the same way on all occasions, and this variability must necessarily lead to different results in different hands.

Frieze and Panel over Fireplace and subsidiary work on the Woodwork of the Fireplace, Designed by Walter Crane. The Fireplace Designed by Philip Webb From a Photograph by W. E. Gray]

Designed by Walter Crane. From a Photograph by W. E. Gray]

It is only personal experience of the subtle mechanical and material conditions which are inseparable parts of the production of all work of the nature of art, which can really determine their fitness to each individual worker, who must sooner or later, if his work is alive, make certain variations to suit his own particular idiosyncrasies.

Designed by Walter Crane. From a Photograph by W. E. Gray]

Designed by Walter Crane]

It is perfectly hopeless to attempt to pursue any form of art on purely mechanical precepts and principles. A few plain and practical directions, as to a traveller seeking his road in an unknown land, may be given, and the rest must be learnt step by step in experience, and as much as can be gathered from opportunities of seeing the work done by skilled hands, from which, indeed, everything learnable can be learnt.

Designed by Walter Crane]

Even complete mastery over materials is, after all, not everything. In fact, from the artistic (or inventive) point of view, work only begins there, as expression comes after or with speech.

Design has much analogy to poetry. Unless the motive is real and organic, unless the thought and form have something individual in them, unless the feeling is true, it fails to interest us. Herein lies the whole question of artistic production.

Yet is it worth while to learn what can be learnt about any form of art, if only it enables one to realize its true nature and something of the laws of its expression, which knowledge, at least, if it does not confer creative power, greatly increases the intelligent pleasure of its appreciation.

THE RELATION OF THE EASEL PICTURE TO DECORATIVE ART

Despite the invention of oil painting (which Cennino considered only fit for lazy painters) and the fact that many easel pictures now produced appear to have a very remote relation to decorative art as generally understood, I am still of the opinion that the easel picture, properly considered and placed in its right relationship to its surroundings, by judicious treatment and hanging, and above all by a certain mural feeling, may be _the acme of decoration_. Its relation to a scheme of decoration may be like that of a jewel in a dress.

Of course, everything depends upon the point of view of the painter, in the first place, and in the present age the easel picture has been a favourite medium not only for the display, strange to say, of that individualism and experimentalism which are supposed to be special modern characteristics, but also for the merging of individuality in schools, types, and modes of painting, or frank imitation of fashionable masters.

The easel picture differs from any conscious piece of decoration by not being necessarily associated with, or consciously related to, any other piece or scheme of design. Yet, practically, it _must_ be related to something. It is related, in the first place, if a sincere work, to something in the painter’s mind. Most painters are impressionable and sensitive to the effect of their surroundings. It is a common saying how much better a picture looks in the studio in the light in which it was painted, but probably it is not only the lighting but the surroundings also, and the picture has been perhaps unconsciously painted in harmony with its surroundings, its colour scheme affected by the colour of the studio walls, draperies, and furniture. Certain it is that, as a rule, painters are known by a favourite scheme and key of colour, quite apart from the fact that commercial considerations often encourage them to repeat themselves.

The modern picture-exhibitions--I mean big shows like that of the Royal Academy--have perhaps done more to destroy the decorative relationship of the easel pictures than anything. An analogous effect is produced on the mind by the sight of so many pictures of so many different sorts, subjects, and scales, and treatments crowded together, to that produced by a surfeit of ornament, and pattern on pattern, in internal decoration. This seems to point to the fact that true decoration lies rather in the sense of proportion and arrangement or distribution than in the use of particular units of ornament, styles, colours, or materials, and that one may destroy decorative effect by the very means of decoration--but we have only to remember the meaning of the word.

I have spoken of _mural feeling_ in a picture being important to its decorative quality or relationship, and it is the most obvious and necessary relationship, since it establishes a relationship with the destined place of the picture--_the wall_. Its frame, which separates a picture from its surroundings, also helps to unite it again to its original home, where it becomes a movable instead of a fixed panel enclosed by a moulding. No word is perhaps oftener on the pen of the prattler about pictures (or art critic) than the word “decorative,” which seems very variously understood and applied to all sorts and conditions of painting. What is really comprehended by the phrase is appropriate treatment, or _mural feeling_. A satisfactory definition of mural feeling would be difficult, since it is a quality composed of many elements, but I think most artists know what they mean by it. To my mind it includes a certain flatness of treatment with choice of simple planes, and pure and low-toned colours, together with a certain ornamental dignity or architectural feeling in the structure of forms and lines of composition, and is generally antithetic to accidental or superficial characteristics or what might be called landscape effects. Does this then exclude landscapes from the decorative relation, it might be asked?

Vast distances, large sky spaces, wind-tossed trees, turbulent seas and flying shadows certainly do not tend to the repose of a wall--but it is precisely to “give interest” (to people not interested in “mere patterns”) that pictures are hung upon it, and to some tastes there cannot be too much drama going on. Others would rather keep it bound up in another form in their libraries and only let it loose occasionally.

But I am far from saying that even the sky-landscape has no decorative place. But you must not mix it or have too much of it. A window may be an important decorative element in the scheme of an interior, and a landscape three parts sky may have something of the value of a window in a room. But it might be possible to decorate with landscapes alone, though one would prefer tapestry landscapes without sky, or with very high horizons, at least for the lower walls; certainly there never ought to be sky below the eye level on a wall. The Turner room has a certain unity and splendour of its own, regarded simply from a particular decorative point of view, and Turner would be pronounced I suppose the least decorative in feeling of modern artists--rather the epic poet in paint. Every age, too, has its own notions of decoration--indeed one might say even every decade now, or even a less period, we live so fast! No rules or canons of taste in art are of universal application or acceptable to all periods. As decoration is primarily fitness and harmony, with this central idea one may produce decorative effects with very different materials, and we have only to glance back to our historic periods to see how it was accomplished.

The standard of the Beautiful undoubtedly shifts, or perhaps changes hands in the unceasing struggle to win it, and what is worshipped at one epoch or in one century is cast out and trodden under foot in the next. Perhaps we have (during the past century) gained a little historic balance or toleration, and all of us are not prepared to make a clean sweep of the work of the other centuries in favour of the favoured one.

But a harmonious effect is always more difficult with mixed materials (which may account in some degree for the marked success of “the tulip and the bird” in modern decorative patterns).

Certain material conditions, too, favour the growth of a higher type of art at one period than another. We can never elude the economic basis which necessarily affects our forms of art as of other things.

“Pictures, furniture, and effects” is the auctioneer’s favourite phrase in describing the property of a gentleman. He might be describing pictures alone. We have heard of “furniture pictures”--but remove the reproach, is it not in the fitness of things that pictures should be furniture, and their highest destiny to decorate a room?

But when pictures become counters in the game of speculation, your decorative relations along with your social relations may take care of themselves. They become, in fact, very _poor relations_.

The portability of the easel picture may have something to do with its unrelatable character in some cases. Destined for nowhere in particular as a rule, it goes on tour--a member of a performing and often very diverse company, to all the provincial towns, and even on the continent. Yet there were portable and even folding pictures in classical and mediaeval times, and certainly there was no want of decorative relationship in the latter period when, as we know, they were often most beautiful pieces of furniture and wall decorations, as well as pictures. Even the gold-framed oil picture was frankly treated by the Venetians as a decoration--and a ceiling decoration--as witness the Tintorettos in the Ducal palace.

It would not be difficult to select pictures from the National Gallery from the Italian, Flemish, and even the Dutch and Spanish schools, which would not only be admirable pieces of decoration but also furnish the decorator with beautiful decorative schemes of colour.

An easel picture might be made the central point of its own scheme of colour and tone, and led up to, as it were, by everything in the room.

There may be, as I have said already, room for the open sky in decoration, too, if you “sky” it enough, or put it in a frieze, and this touches a rather important point of decorative relationship, too often ignored by the hanger of easel pictures, that is the placing of the picture so that its horizon or vanishing point shall be on a level with the eye of the spectator.

Checked by such considerations, and due selection of scale and tone in placing pictures, I would not say that decorative effects are not possible with the most easel of easel pictures--only you must add the decorator to the painter to bring them off.

From a Photograph by Alinari]

Some facetious friends of William Morris once proposed to send him a circular asking subscriptions to an association for the protection of the poor easel-picture painter, since he was being frozen out by designers of wall-papers and hangings of such mere ornamental interest that people did not want anything else on their walls.

It was a joke, but there was meaning in it, and, thrown as we are on the world-market, the floating of one man or one kind of art is too often at the expense of the sinking of another. Pictures, like other things, should, in an ideal state, be produced for use and pleasure not for profit, and there would then be less doubt of their decorative relationship; and, although, if this method were adopted generally, it would greatly reduce the output, I cannot help feeling the Japanese show a true instinct for the decorative relation of pictures when they only show _one_ kakimono at a time; but, after, all that would only mean that we could keep the rest of our collection--as so many masterpieces have been kept--rolled up or with their faces to the wall.

A GREAT ARTIST IN A LITERARY SEARCHLIGHT[2]

Our late veteran idealist-sculptor-painter so often sat in the chair of the literary operator, whether journalistic critic, interviewer, or more serious biographical appraiser, that one imagines that in his life-time he must long have ceased to wonder what manner of man--or artist--he might be, and, like enough, vexed not himself when vivisected to make a British holiday.

[2] “G. F. Watts,” by G. K. Chesterton. London, Duckworth and
Co.

The necessity for a more or less complete “sizing up” of a famous artist, of classifying him and affixing a descriptive label, or brand, seems to answer to some requirement of the age, despite the chance of the label becoming out of date, owing, perchance, to the unexpected versatility or longevity of the labelled.

It accords with the habits of a commercial people to have “all goods marked in plain figures;” curiosity, too, must be satisfied, and art, not always at once clearly speaking out for itself in the vernacular, the literary interpreter and critical labeller find their opportunity.

It is, however, difficult enough to attempt to sum up the quality and range of an artist in his lifetime, and in the short perspective of the present assign to him his proper relative position for all time; but, as it may be still more difficult after he has gone, there may be some excuse for the attempt--which has at least the excitement of daring--to make a true estimate of his powers and position while he yet liveth, and while his works change their character under different impulses and influences under our very eyes.

Not that such a brilliant and sympathetic little study as this by Mr. Chesterton needs any excuse. He is always such good reading, and has such a bright epigrammatic way of putting things, that even if he were less penetrating he could not fail to be amusing and stimulating. The rapid flash of his searchlight, as it were, touches so airily on so many interesting objects in its sweep that, as one might say of a painter, his background, with its wealth of subsidiary and illustrative detail, is often more fascinating than the treatment of his main subject or principal figure.

The book for one thing is remarkable for the attitude the author takes up in regard to the nineteenth century--in endeavouring to account for Mr. Watts--and, as it appears to be a not altogether uncommon view with men of the present generation--although mostly born in that mythical century--one may take his view as more or less typical. But, really, from the way in which the century just closed is regarded one might suppose it was as distant almost as the thirteenth.

By G. F. Watts, R.A.]

Have we then changed so much, or is it only the figure-heads or brain-heads and their ideals which have changed? That “there is a tide in the affairs of men” we all know--a flood and an ebb tide, indeed, and it may be the tide of aspiration is now rather low, and some of us may sigh as we look seaward at the stately departing ships with their brave ensigns glowing in the fading light of sunset which has left the foreshore, encumbered with the drift and wreckage of disappointed hopes and disillusion.

We may have to wait some time for the flood and we know not what argosies of new hopes and thoughts it will bring us. In the meantime we must make shift with our _one_ hope, or our hope with _one_ string as best we may.

But if our young men have ceased to dream dreams, our old men have not ceased to see visions, and the great idealist-painter we have so lately lost must be counted as the foremost of such.

It will always be to his honour that through good report and evil report he steadfastly upheld the banner which proudly asserts the intellectual character of painting, and claims its right and its power, as a language of peculiar vividness, richness, and resource, to express certain typical and profound thoughts and emotions, and to embody by definite but delicate symbolism ideas and ideals not possible to be conveyed so succinctly, so suggestively, and above all, so beautifully by any other means.

Matter and manner cannot really be separated in any vital art. Form and spirit become fused in all its highest, even in all its genuine shapes.

By G. F. Watts, R.A.]

Mr. Chesterton rather steps aside in one place to poke fun at Allegory (as I note literary men are, curiously enough, prone to do), although elsewhere he appears to admit that it has its due place and value in art, and he grows enthusiastic over Mr. Watts’s use of it.

But that is just the crux. Everything is in the artist’s use and treatment.

There is allegory and allegory. In its highest form it is a species of poetry, in its lowest it becomes a catalogue. We may go to Cesare Ripa and get a recipe for the correct make-up of any virtue we wish to symbolize. Fedelta (Fidelity), for instance, is given, “Donna vestita di bianco, colla destra mane tiene una chiave, ed ha alii piedi un cane.” Well, there you are--but it all depends upon the artist whether the emblem represents each item in the crudest form, or becomes a really fine design, full of refinement and inner meaning. To appreciate the allegory of a past age one must be able to read oneself into its spirit. The Allegories of Botticelli seem to belong to a different world from those of Rubens, and appeal to a different mood and even order of mind. I quite agree with Mr. Chesterton that a lady in classical drapery and a cornucopia, or caduceus, would quite inadequately represent modern commerce. (A bull and a bear playing see-saw across the globe would be nearer the mark, perhaps!) But the lady might have a place in a decorative composition, symbolizing things in the abstract, when beauty of treatment is again all-important. The spirit of Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” is more painter-like in allegory (which is always in Spenser perfectly definite) than that of any other writer, and it is perfectly blended with poetic and imaginative feeling, just as in a painted allegory the matter of it should be inseparable from its form.

By G. F. Watts, R.A.]

We feel this to be so in the finest works of Watts, such as the “Love and Death.” It is strange, however, to find Mr. Chesterton writing of allegorical pictures as if they were as plentiful as blackberries. “Millions,” he mentions--I wonder how many he could count in any Royal Academy exhibition? I had supposed that allegorical design was almost a lost art, as well as a dead language, in the estimation of our people--except perhaps the species which goes to the making of political cartoons.

Mr. Chesterton’s discriminating appreciation of Mr. Watts’s portraits is excellent, and his remarks upon the affinity between Watts and Tennyson very true. In the comprehensiveness, but indefiniteness, of their intellectual view they are akin; but vastness involves vagueness, and vagueness is a characteristic in the painter’s work. In Mr. Watts’s cosmic and elemental designs great half defined shapes loom up out of vaporous space. His heroes belong to no definite historic time, though in his wide catholicity and sympathy his work embraces all human types. His eye is fastened on the type and slights the circumstance. The accident, the realization of the moment is nothing to him; but one never saw a drawing in pure outline by the artist, and the charm of clear silhouette does not appear to appeal to him, neither is essential to his art. And Mr. Watts himself cannot be outlined, and therefore it seems curious to find him set down as a Puritan in one place, and a democrat(!) in another. Although Mr. Chesterton speaks of clear outline or “hard black line,” as a quality not Celtic, and bases his argument that Mr. Watts is not Celtic upon the character of his line, his phrase, “sculptor of draughtsmanship,” is incisive, as it is certainly a grasp of _structure_ rather than outline which distinguishes Mr. Watts’s work; and in this quality it may be said lies the true reason of the difference between his portraits and much modern portraiture which seeks rather the expression of the moment and the accidental lighting, as in a landscape, rather than the type and the underlying structure, the expression of which establishes a certain relation, and that fundamental family likeness between very different individuals which Mr. Chesterton has noted. For, indeed, men and women are moulded in types far more than is commonly supposed.

After all, the great merit of Mr. Chesterton’s critical remarks consists in their not quarrelling with an oak tree because it does not happen to be a pine; and in that he does not think it necessary in order that his subject may be properly appreciated to make a pavement of all other reputations, or, like the irrelevant Walrus and Carpenter on the sand--with much virtue in that “if”--“if this,”--certain essential characteristics, say, of an artist’s style--“were only cleared away it would be grand.”

For the rest, Mr. Chesterton’s sparkling style and wealth of whimsical illustration make the book uncommonly readable, which cannot always be said with regard to monographs on artists.

INDEX

Abydos, Temple of Seti, 89.

Academic method of art teaching, the, 58–65.

Action, representation of, 52, 54.

Advertisements, the curse of modern, 77, 78, 84.

Allegory in art, 278.

Anagni, chasuble from the Cathedral of, 206.

Animal forms in decoration, 203–224.

Architecture, importance of, in art training, 44, 50.

Art, influence of economic questions in, 23;
value of sound traditions in, 29;
social function of, 32;
the teaching of, 35–56;
sympathetic atmosphere a necessity for, 36–40;
connection between architecture and, 44;
essential unity of, 44, 48;
the imitative and imaginative sides of, 48;
advantage of architectural over pictorial training in, 50;
methods of art teaching, 58–68;
academic methods of teaching, 58–65;
dominated by the sculptor’s art and aims, 64;
modern possibilities of teaching, 66–68;
Tolstoi’s views on, 69–75;
the social and ethical bearings of, 88–101;
influence of, in the church, 93;
not the monopoly of the rich, 95–97;
refining influence of, 97, 98;
change in the conditions of the practice of, 99, 100.

“Art Nouveau, L’,” 128, 129.

Art Workers’ Guild, the, 18, 31;
device for, 251, 253.

Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, the: formation of, 20;
first exhibition of, 21;
objects and principles of, 22.

Assyrian reliefs, object and value of, 90.

Bacchus, visit of, to Icarius, Romano-Greek relief, 106.

Bamberg, Royal mantle from the Treasury of, 205.

Barron, O., 200.

Bell, R. A., 159.

Bellamy’s “Looking Backward,” quoted, 83.

Berthelet, Thomas, bindings by, 227, 229.

Birmingham, scheme for frescoes illustrating local history at, 120.

Blake, William, 5, 6.

Bland, J. P., specimen of calligraphy by, 65.

Blickling, ceiling at, 158.

Book-covers, designing of, 225–236.

Borgia apartments, decoration of the, 238, 239, 240, 248;
model of, at South Kensington, 240, 248.

Bournville, 121, 148;
views in, 123.

Brown, Ford Madox, 12;
frescoes in the Manchester Town Hall by, 118, 119, 120.

Building Acts, the, 126;
local bye-laws, 152.

Burges, William, 17.

Burne-Jones, Sir E., 20, 162, 175, 240.

Butterfield, William, 17.

Calvert, Edward, 7, 8, 9.

Carpaccio’s “Dream of St. Ursula,” 144, 147.

Crane, Lancelot, figure composition by, 37.

Crane, Lionel F., design for a collective dwelling by, 116;
cottage at Letchworth designed by, 148–151.

Central School of Arts and Crafts, the, 28, 29.

Chesterton, G. K., his “G. F. Watts” criticised, 273–281.

Cleobury, W. T., 133–139, 141, 143.

Cobden-Sanderson, T. J., 230.

Collective dwellings, 115–117.

Commercialism, evil effects of, 84, 85, 94.

Cretonne, printed, 160–162.

Crivelli’s “Annunciation,” 142.

Crouchback, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, figure from the tomb of, 223.

Dalpeyrat, M. Louis, 27.

Day, Lewis F., 18, 203.

“Decorative,” meaning of the word, 267.

Decorative art, development of, in the nineteenth century,
2 _et seq._;
modern revival of, 15 _et seq._;
relation of the easel picture to, 265.

“Denoline,” 252.

Dress, absence of beauty in modern, 81–83;
progress of taste in, 171–191;
influence of the pre-Raphaelites on, 175;
types of artistic, 177;
types of children’s, 179;
types of working, 181;
modern and mediaeval, 185, 187.

Dunkley, Miss L. M., designs for embroidery by, 45, 46.

Eastlake, C. L., his “Hints on Household Taste,” 17.

Egyptian hieroglyphics, 89, 90, 103;
decorative art, 112.

Enamelling, modern revival of, 26, 27.

Exhibition of 1851, the, 3.

“Fifteen, the,” 18.

Fisher, Alexander, 27.

Flats, effects of living in, 114, 115.

Flaxman, John, 9.

Fylfot, the, 104.

Garden City Association, the, 121, 148.

Genoa, Doria Palace, gesso decorations in, 248.

Gesso, origin of, 247;
fine examples of, 248;
methods of working in, 249;
Gesso Duro, 249;
“Denoline,” 252;
system of modelling in, 257.

Gilding, use of, in decoration, 237–246.

Gimson, Ernest W., cottage designed by, 152, 153, 155.

Graining, 130.

Greece, the artistic sense of, 90, 91.

Greek, ornament, 104–107, 215;
drapery, 173.

Harvey, Alex. W., cottages designed by, 123, 148.

Heraldic lions, 220–222.

Hill, Vincent, panel by, 67.

Holland Park, 1a, interior
of, 131;
gesso decorations in, 258–261.

Home Arts and Industries Association, the, 19.

House-decoration, Thoughts on, 110–170.

Howard, Ebenezer, 121.

Hungarian peasant costumes, 182, 183.

Hunt, Holman, 9, 12.

Kidd, A., stained glass panel by, 62.

Knole, ceiling at, 158.

Kruger, G. E., 195.

Lacey, Miss C. M., Heraldic studies by, 47.

Lanteri, Prof., 194.

Letchworth, Garden City, cottage at, 148–151.

Line, meaning of, in ornament, 107, 108.

London, some aspects of, 76–83.

Lucas van Leyden’s “Annunciation,” 144, 145.

Mackim, Meade, and White, Messrs., 242.

Manchester, frescoes in the Town Hall in, 120.

Mantua, model of the room of Isabella d’Este at, 240.

Martin, A. E., architectural design by, 42.

Millais, Sir J. E., 11.

Moira, Gerald, 159, 194.

Moore, Sturge, 9.

Morris, William, 15, 20, 24, 156, 162, 175, 272.
“Municipal Journal,” the (New York), 81.

“Mural feeling,” 265, 267.

Muybridge, Mr., 52.

National Association for the Advancement of Art in Relation to
Industry, the, 19.

New York, movement in favour of public beauty in, 81.

Ornament and its meaning, 102–109;
analogy of to music, 102;
origins of, 103;
two sources of meaning in, 106.

Palermo, Cappella Reale, decoration of, 241, 242, 243.

Palmer, Samuel, 9.

Paris Exhibition, the English House at the, 162.

Parr, H., studies by, 38, 39.

Peleus and Thetis, Greek cylix, 105.

Pictures, background for, 142, 144;
relation of, to decorative art, 265–272.

Pinturicchio’s decoration of the Appartamenti Borgia, 238, 239, 240,
248.

Plaster, treatment of, 158, 159.

Pomeroy, Mr., 159.

Pompeian decoration, 113.

Pre-Raphaelite movement, the, 12, 14, 15, 175.

Pugin, A. W. N., 17.

Ranworth rood-screen, 133–139, 141, 143.

Reynes, John, binding by, 233.

Richard II, figure of, in the Wilton picture, 219.

Rigby, H. A., pen-drawings by, 55, 57.

Rome, St. Peter’s, use of gilding in, 246.

Rossetti, D. G., 10, 12, 15, 175.

Royal College of Art, specimens of students’ work, 37–67.

Ruskin, John, 14.

Sandys, Frederick, 12, 13.

Scott, Sir Walter, 10.

Sevenoaks, Combe Bank, decorations at, 159.

Shaw, Henry, 16.

Shaw, Norman, 18.

Shea, J. R., cabinet designed by, 59;
wood carving by, 61.

Sicilian Silk Patterns, 207–214, 218.

South Kensington Museum, formation and influence of, 16.

Southwold, rood-screen at, 247.

Spooner, W. G., studies by, 49, 51, 53.

Stencilling, development of, 136.

Stevens, Alfred, 4.

Stevenson, James A., frieze by, 63.

Stothard, Thomas, 10.

Street decorations, temporary, 192–202.

Sykes, Godfrey, 4.

Temple Bar, suggestion for temporary gatehouse at, 197.

Tennyson, the Moxon edition of, 9–12.

Thoreau’s “Walden,” 111.

Tintoretto, 270.

Tolstoi, Count, his “What is Art?” 69–75.

Tristram, E. W., design for Tapestry by, 43.

Van der Meer, 142.

Van Dyck’s “Jan Arnolfini and his wife,” 142.

Venice, St. Mark’s, mosaics in, 244;
Ducal Palace, 271.

Voysey, C. F. A., 147.

Wall-paper designs, 163–169.

Walton, George, 158.

Watts, G. F., 240;
Mr. Chesterton’s book on, 273–281.

Webb, Philip, 15, 16, 131, 258, 259.

Weeks, Harold, 250.

Weeks, Osmund, 251.

Westminster Bridge, decoration of, by students of the R.C.A., 194,
195.

Whistler, J. McNeill, 242.

Whitechapel, Wentworth Street, 79.

Wilton House, the Vandyke room at, 243, 244, 245.

Windsor, Lord, 200.

Wotton Binder, binding by the, 235.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

The original book repeated chapter titles on most pages as though they were sidenotes. This eBook does not repeat the chapter titles.

The original book placed captions to the left or right of illustrations. This eBook generally places the captions above or below the illustrations.

Scaling information in captions does not apply to diagrams in this eBook, and the sizes of the illustrations, relative to other illustrations, are not necessarily the same as in the original book.

Transcriber adjusted the brightness and contrast of many photographs in order to reveal more detail in shadowed areas, and did not restore many photographs to grayscale, although they originally were printed that way. Without access to a pristine copy of the physical book, it was not possible to know how those photographs looked when the book was printed.

Infrequent occurrences of ‘æ’ in ‘æsthetic’ and ‘mediæeval’ have been replaced by the more commonly occurring ‘ae’. Occurrences of the ligature in other words have not been changed.

Transcriber corrected errors in the Table of Contents.

The Index was not systematically checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.

Page 33: Transcriber added missing closing quote after ‘is our selection,’.

Page 71: Unmatched closing quote removed after ‘with which he infects the spectator.’

Page 129: Transcriber added missing closing quote after ‘As you like it’.