Chapter IV: Part 4

The revival of the hall or living-room with the ingle-nook is a noteworthy feature in recent country houses. In fact, in the design and construction of the small country houses or country cottages built of late years, mostly as retreats for workers in towns, artists and others, we find the most successful, attractive, and characteristic buildings of our time, probably. The cottages designed by Mr. C. F. A. Voysey, for instance, with rough-cast battened and buttressed walls, green or Whitland Abbey slates, green outside shutters, and white casements, have the charm of neatness, quaintness, and simplicity, an utter absence of pretentiousness and show, and a regard for the character of their site. There are some charming cottages of this type at Bournville, already referred to, designed by Mr. Harvey, the young architect of the estate. I give one here of my son’s (Mr. Lionel Francis Crane) design--a timber cottage in the recent “Cottages Exhibition” at Garden City. In designing a country house, an architect is of course much less fettered than with a town or street site, and he can frame it in a garden, which is an important decorative adjunct or setting to a country house or cottage. It is possible also to make it fit into or even become a part of the scenery, especially if local materials are employed. Indeed, it seems to me, that the secret of harmonious effect in building lies in the use of local materials as regards country houses. The beauty of our old castles, abbeys, country houses and cottages is greatly owing to this. We feel they are in harmony with the character and colour of the scenery, and have become parts of these, independently of the effects of time.

In the present awakening of the public mind to the importance of the housing question, and the want of substantial, comfortable, as well as comely dwellings for the people, especially in the country districts, much attention has been directed to cottage building, and a practical effort is being made by the Garden City Association to solve the question in the competitive exhibition in cottage design and building they recently organized. The question is, as usual, complicated by the commercial question of profit and percentages on invested capital.

Architect, Lionel F. Crane. Builder, Frank Newton, Hitchin]

Architect, Lionel F. Crane. The Furniture by A. Heal (Messrs. Heal and Son)]

Were the object solely the national welfare, as it should be, cottages could be designed and built good to live in and seemly to look at. Objections have been made to the local bye-laws, but so far as I am aware these bye-laws are only intended to secure the minimum conditions necessary to health and comfort, and would in no way interfere with the erection of well-built and sightly cottages. Thatch, it is true, is I believe, in some counties forbidden on account of danger from fire (probably really increased by the use of low-flash oil in cheap lamps), but for detached cottages with the use of iron laths and reed thatch (as Mr. Robert Williams has pointed out) such danger is reduced to a minimum, and certainly there are thatched cottages and barns, and even churches, in England which have lasted hundreds of years, and thatch, after all, makes an excellent roof, cool in summer and warm in winter, and pleasant to look upon.

Architect, Lionel F. Crane. The Furniture by A. Heal (Messrs. Heal and Son)]

Ernest W. Gimson, Architect]

How charming a cottage can be made, how picturesque and pleasing though quite new, how perfectly in keeping with its surroundings and fitted to its site, I lately had an opportunity of seeing in the neighbourhood of Leicester. I allude to a certain cottage designed by Mr. Ernest Gimson. The interior also was an illustration of how decorative rooms could look with hardly any decoration. This is a hard saying for decorators, but my impression was that whitewashed walls, plain oaken furniture, only relieved by William Morris’s printed cotton in the shape of window curtains or loose cushions here and there, were sufficiently decorative considering the designs and conditions of the structure of the house. With glimpses of the wild hill-side and the beautiful woodland landscape beyond them seen through the deep-set windows, there seemed no need for landscapes on the walls--bad news for poor frozen-out picture-painters again!

The reign of the big plate-glass window, I believe, is over, and certainly in such a climate as ours one needs as a rule to be assured one is really indoors. Certainly, nothing makes so much difference to the aspect and comfort of a room or house as the position and size of the windows. I have a preference for casements with plain-leading, and if the window is high, stained glass may find an appropriate place above the transoms, or in windows where veiled light is needed, or plain roundels where a view from within or without is not desired.

There is no doubt a determined effort in the direction of a return to simplicity, both in house designing, furniture, and decorations on the part of the more refined and cultured, as a reaction perhaps against the ostentation and luxury of the appointments of the extremely and newly rich, and the pretentiousness of the decorations of monster hotels, where coarse imitations of decadent periods of French art do duty for splendour, though even here of late the simpler taste has asserted itself. There is indeed some danger that oak or green-stained furniture and whitewashed walls may come to be considered as outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace, when perhaps they are only the fashion.

“Have nothing in your house but what you believe to be beautiful or what you know is useful,” was the straightforward advice of that great conservative revolutionist in English decorative art and other things--William Morris--and he certainly acted up to it in his own house.

Furniture Designed by Ernest W. Gimson, Sidney H. Barnsley, and Ernest A. Barnsley]

As to the useful, there are no complications about that. A room with a definite purpose has character, and is always more or less picturesque. The kitchen is generally the most picturesque room in the house, yet usually entirely devoid of what may be called decoration. Its objects of art are merely the tools of the workshop, the bright brass and copper vessels, the dish-covers gleaming like polished armour from the white walls. The rows of blue and white plates and dishes upon the dresser, and all the simple but sufficient hand tools of the cook’s office about, easily make up an attractive Dutch picture.

From a Sketch by Walter Crane]

The real aesthetic dangers come in to the rooms which have no visible means of subsistence, so to speak. The dining-room, perhaps for this reason, is more successful generally than the drawing-room, and there exists a sort of tradition that it should be warm and rich in colour. Silver plate often gleams pleasantly from the sideboard, and the furniture is simple and massive in its lines. An old English dining-room, with Chippendale or Sheraton furniture, has a character and distinction of its own. A library, again, is almost sure to look a habitable room, and there are few more agreeable linings to walls than books, and here we must depend upon the taste of the binders, as well as on the furniture provided for the mind. There would, however, be room for the professional decorator upon the ceiling, and I mind me of the lovely plaster ceilings to be met with in sixteenth-century houses, sometimes armorial, sometimes emblematic--such as those at Knole and Blickling. In plaster work we have a beautiful and permanent kind of decoration which we owe to Italy, but which seems to have become quite domesticated here, and to have developed its own forms with us. The plain white, flat ceiling of the ordinary modern dwelling-house is the last relic, and even this used to have a big plaster rose screwed up in the middle, from which sprouted the gaselier; but one need not regret the departure of both excrescences in favour of the clean and pendulous shaded electric light, with light and simple brass or copper fittings. Our plasterers, however, might be able to throw some delicate ribs or pleasant spacing of simple sprays and devices upon the inviting plain of white plaster over our heads, or, if not, why not let the joists show and paint or stencil them with running leaf patterns, or paint them black, leaving white plaster between? Mr. George Walton, one of the most tasteful and original decorators in the newer mode, and under the Glasgow influence, showed a new treatment of a ceiling in glass and metal, together with a completely decorated and fitted interior at the recent Glasgow Exhibition. A plaster ceiling demands a frieze, and both may be effective either plain or coloured. This would depend upon whether a light, dark, or rich effect were required in the room. There is much charm in the coloured treatment of plaster, especially of figure designs in low relief as in the work of Mr. Anning Bell, Mr. Pomeroy, and Mr. Gerald Moira, though these require large rooms, public halls, or churches.

The Stamped Leather, Plaster Ceiling, Chimney Breast, smaller Frieze Panels, and Door Panels Designed, Modelled, and Painted by Walter Crane]

Designed by Walter Crane]

Designed by Walter Crane]

I have designed decorations (ceilings and friezes) in plaster and in stucco, and gesso worked _in situ_. These, in several instances, were gilded or silvered and lacquered so as to produce a low-toned metallic effect. This ornament harmonizes with richly coloured and rather dark-toned walls hung with silk or Spanish leather; but these were by no means cottage interiors.

For a cottage or small country house, printed cretonne, used as hangings for the lower walls of a room, has an attractive effect if suitable in pattern and colour, having a fresh, clean, and even gay effect with white woodwork and furniture.

The most comfortable, and at the same time the most romantic, also, I fear it must be added, the most expensive, way of decorating walls is by hanging them with arras tapestry such as that produced by William Morris. The dining-room of the English House at the last Paris Universal Exhibition was panelled in oak up to about six or eight feet, and the space above to the cornice was hung with Morris arras tapestry, designed by Burne-Jones and himself, showing the legend of King Arthur’s knights and the Holy Grail. The simplicity, yet richness and dignity of effect has a striking contrast to the more clamorous decorations of some of its neighbours, among which, however, the Spanish Pavilion was an exception.

Complete schemes for wall decorations (including field, frieze, dado, and ceiling), can, however, be had in wall-paper, which, with plain painting for the modest citizen, remains the chief method of interior mural decoration. A frieze usually heightens and lightens the effect of a room, and its junction with the field can be utilized for a picture-rail, the wall space from the picture-rail to the skirting being covered with rich or quiet pattern, as the particular scheme may demand. Sometimes a patterned frieze does well above a plain tinted wall.

Designed by Walter Crane]

Designed by Walter Crane]

I venture here to give some illustrations of some of my recent wall-paper designs, by permission of the makers, Messrs. Jeffery and Co.

Designed by Walter Crane]

The blue and white lily pattern (single prints) would be suitable where a bold effect was desired for a dado or field of lower wall with plain white, or a quiet frieze above. It might be useful in halls and passages.

The rather ornate design called “Dawn,” with the figure medallion, might be used for a drawing-room in quiet tones. The blue and the brown being re-echoed in the hangings and furniture with white wood-work.

The “Rose Bush” would be appropriate to a dining or living-room where a rather dark and rich effect was aimed at. It would harmonize with oak framing and furniture.

The “Olive Spray” might be generally useful, and would answer as a background for pictures.

When wall-paper is used for ceilings the walls should be comparatively quiet.

I have found the “Vine Trellis” pattern has a good effect with a plain tint on the walls, and is especially useful in covering the rather blank and ugly plastered soffit of the staircase which so often meets the eye in a town-house of the older type.

“The Cockatoo” would answer in a large room where an ornate effect was desired, or it could be used as a frieze above panelling, or a plain tint.

The “Oak Tree” is on simpler lines and rectangular in feeling, combining a bordered field with a frieze.

In choosing wall papers to suit particular rooms, regard should be had to the character of the lines of the pattern as well as the colour, bearing in mind that a pattern which runs into marked vertical lines would tend to increase the apparent height of a room, whereas a pattern of marked horizontal feeling would tend to make a room look lower and longer.

Designed by Walter Crane]

Designed by Walter Crane]

Designed by Walter Crane]

In designing complete schemes for wall-paper one’s aim has been to balance the different quantities of pattern in the different parts, and to re-echo the leading lines, masses, and colours by different expedients, so as to keep an essential relationship between each part.

Relationship is, of course, the essential in all decoration, otherwise it becomes a patchwork of conflicting pattern and colour. It matters not what our materials may be, or by what means, costly or simple, we seek to obtain our effect, whether by painting, carving, gilding and rich textiles, metal or plaster work, stamped leather or wall-paper, stencilling, tiles and plain painting or stained wood and whitewash. All must be in keeping, and seem fit and in its right place and proportion, and suitable to its conditions and surroundings; rich and splendid if the aim is to be rich and splendid, simple and quiet if the aim is to be simple and quiet; but without the pretence of richness or obtrusive display on the one hand, or the extreme rudeness, baldness, and ugliness which sometimes accompany what looks like the affectation of simplicity on the other.

OF THE PROGRESS OF TASTE IN DRESS IN RELATION TO ART EDUCATION.

If taste in dress could be traced to, or its cultivation and exercise were solely due to, the influence of the constant study of beautiful forms and fine historical models in design, as well as of the living human figure, we might be justified in looking to our schools of art to give us the best types and standards in costume. There are, however, too many missing links between the ordinary art student and the practical designer, between the tasteful person and the leader of fashion, to enable us to prove a close connection of cause and effect in the matter.

No doubt the general and extended cultivation of a knowledge of art even on the ordinary art-school lines has contributed not a little to the general interest in artistic questions, and quickened the average eye to some extent; but it must be said that we have not yet succeeded in making our schools of art remarkable as sources of invention, of initiative, or, on the whole, distinguished for capacity of artistic selection. We should be expecting too much, perhaps, to look for these things from training grounds. We ought to be satisfied if they ultimately turn out a fair average of capable artists, or, rather, enable students to become capable artists.

Even if all schools were equally well equipped in respect of models and teaching staff, under the present system there is practically but little margin left by the regime of the Board of Education for individual experiment and inquiry off the main lines of the prescribed courses of study in which passes or honours are obtainable.

The courses and classes of study are arranged in certain stereotyped ways, so that it becomes an object to attain a certain mechanical proficiency in certain methods of drawing, and the representation of a certain range of forms, in order to obtain certificates, rather than to cultivate the sense of beauty in individuals with a view to the public benefit and the raising of the standard of taste.

These defects are, it seems to me, inseparable from any attempt to teach art and taste in schools (that is to say by precept and principle rather than by practice), and upon a uniform system directed from a central department. Such an organization must necessarily tend to become rigid and work according to routine, and its administrators’ best faculties are apt to be too much absorbed in mastering the details and rules of the system itself, and in the working of it, to be able to think out, much less to adopt, vivifying changes from time to time.

At certain stages, no doubt, by its command of expert opinion, such a Department may be of service to the schools of the country collectively in setting up a standard of taste, and advancing it from time to time by means of the national competitions, which are the means of instituting instructive comparisons between the work of different schools.

But the real educating after influences; the inspiring and refining sources of artistic invention in design must be found in the splendid array of examples of ancient art of all kinds in our museums and galleries--which are mines of artistic wealth to the student and the designer.

Yet the most ordinary art-school training cannot be without its effect, even if only negative. The mere practice of cultivating the observation and uniting it with a certain power of depicting form is an education in itself, and gives people fresh eyes for nature and life.

The mere effect upon the eye and feeling of following the pure lines and forms of antique Greek sculpture, and the severe and expressive lines of drapery can hardly be without a practical influence to some degree even upon the least impressionable.

At all events, we have living artists, many of whom have survived the usual art-school or Academic training, and who through their works have certainly influenced contemporary taste in dress, at least as far as the costume of women is concerned.

I think there can be no doubt, for instance, of the influence in our time of what is commonly known as the pre-Raphaelite school, and its later representatives in this direction; from the influence of Rossetti (which lately, indeed, seems to have revived and renewed itself in various ways) to the influence of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. But it is an influence which never owed anything to Academic teaching.

Under the new impulse--the new inspiration of the mid-century from the purer and simpler lines, forms, and colours of early mediaeval art, the dress of women in our own time may be said to have been quite transformed for a while, and though the pendulum of fashion swings to and fro, it does not much affect, except in some small details, a distinct type of dress which has become associated with artistic people--those who seriously study and consider of the highest value and importance beautiful and harmonious surroundings in daily life.

Beginning in the households of the artists themselves, the type of dress to which I allude, by imitation (which is the sincerest form of flattery--or insult, as some will have it) it soon became spread abroad until, in the seventies and early eighties, we saw the fashionable world and the stage aping, with more or less grotesque vulgarity, what it was fain to think were the fashions of the inner and most refined artistic cult. Commerce, ever ready to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of anything that spells increased profits, was not slow to flood the market with what were labelled “art-colours” and “aesthetic” fabrics of all kinds; but whatever vulgarity, absurdity, and insincerity might have been mixed up by its enemies with what was known as the aesthetic movement, it undoubtedly did indicate a general desire for greater beauty in ordinary life and gave us many charming materials and colours which, in combination with genuine taste, produced some very beautiful as well as simple dresses: while its main effect is seen, and continues to be seen upon the domestic background of interior fittings, furniture, furniture-fabrics and wall-paper. The giddy, aimless masquerade of fashion continues, however, perhaps not without a sort of secret alliance with the exigencies of the factory and the market, and it has lately revived, in part, the modes of the grandmothers of the present generation, but, as is often the fate of revivals, has somewhat vulgarized them in the process.

Modern dress seems to be much in the same position as modern architecture. In both it looks as if the period of organic style and spontaneous growth has been passed, and that we can only attempt, pending important and drastic social changes, to revive certain types, and endeavour as best we can to adapt them to modern requirements.

Yet architects are bolder than dressmakers. They think nothing of going back to classic or mediaeval times for models, while the modiste generally does not venture much further than fifty or a hundred years back, and somewhat timidly at that. Small modifications, small changes and adaptations are always taking place, but it generally takes a decade to change the type of dress.

Regarding dress as a department of design, like design, we may consciously bring to bear upon it the results of artistic experience and knowledge of form.

Now, a study of the human figure teaches one to respect it. It does not induce a wish to ignore its lines in clothing it, to contradict its proportions, or to misrepresent its character.

It seems curious, then, that the courses of study from the antique and the life usual at our art schools do not have a greater effect upon taste and choice in costume than they appear to have.

We must remember, however, the many crossing influences that come in, the many motives and hidden causes that bear, in the complexity of modern existence, upon the question, and the stronger social motive powers which determine the forms of modern dress.

Fundamentally, we may say dress is more or less a question of climate.

Pure utility would be satisfied if the warmth is fairly distributed, and the action of the body and limbs is free. The child with a loose tunic, leaving arms and legs bare and free, still represents primitive and classic man; and he also often satisfies the artist.

But the child is free to grow, to get as much joy out of life as it can. It does not feel under the necessity of pleasing Mrs. Grundy, except perhaps when mud-pies are “off.”

· UTILITY ·

· SIMPLICITY ·

· PICTURESQUENESS ·]

Primitive, again, and picturesque is the dress of the labourer, ploughman, fisherman, navvy; though purely adapted to use and service. Concessions to aestheticism, if any, only come in by way of a coloured neckerchief, the broidery of a smock frock, or the pattern of knitted jersey.

Yet each and all are constant and favourite subjects of the modern painter. Why?

Fundamentally, I think, because their dress is expressive of their occupation and character, as may be said of the dress of all working people.

The peasantry in all European countries alone have preserved anywhere national and local picturesqueness and character in their dress; often, too, where it still lingers unspoiled, as in Greece, and in Hungary and Bohemia, adorned with beautiful embroidery worked by the women themselves.

The last relics of historic and traditional costume must be sought therefore among the people, and for picturesqueness we must still seek the labourer.

This seems a strange commentary upon all modern painstaking, conscious efforts to attain the natural, simple, beautiful, and suitable in dress, to be at once healthy and artistic. There really ought not to be so much difficulty about it.

If we lived simple, useful, and beautiful lives, we could not help being picturesque in the highest sense.

_There_ is the modern difficulty.

We are driven back from every point to the ever-present social question.

UTILITY·

PICTURESQUENESS·]

Sketched at Banffy Hunyad, Transylvania]

Sketched at Banffy Hunyad, Transylvania]

Therefore, it seems to me that, though highly valuable and educational, we must not rely entirely upon conscious cultivation and conscious effort to lift the question of dress above vulgarity and affectation.

Modern society encourages the ideal of do-nothingness, so that it becomes an object to get rid of the outward signs of your particular occupation as soon as you cease work, if you are a worker, and to look as if you never did any if you are not.

This notion, combined perhaps with the gradual degradation of all manual labour under the modern system, has combined with business habits and English love of neatness, and perhaps prosaic and Puritan plainness, to produce the conventional costume of the modern “gentleman”--really the business man or bourgeois citizen.

The ruling type always prevails, and stamps its image and superscription upon life everywhere.

Thus the outward and visible signs of the prosperous and respectable, the powerful and important, have come to be the frock-coat and tall hat--gradually evolved from the broad-brim and square cut jerkin of the Puritan of the seventeenth century.

Even the modern gentleman, when he takes to actually doing something, or playing at something, becomes at once more or less picturesque.

The flannels of the cricketer, and the boating man, the parti-coloured jerseys of our football teams--the modern equivalent, I suppose, of the knightly coat heraldry of the lists--all have a certain character and expressiveness. The costume of the cyclist again is another instance of adaptation to pursuit allied to picturesqueness, since it acknowledges at least the form of figure, and especially the legs, lost in ordinary civilian costume. In the various forms of riding-dress, again, we get a certain freedom and variety in costume through adaptation, both in men and women’s dress.

What modern costume really lacks is not so much character and picturesqueness, as beauty and romance--a general indictment which might be brought against modern life. We are really ruled by the dead weight of the prosaic, the prudent, the timid, the respectable, over and above the specializing adaptive necessities of utility before mentioned.

When we turn from the prosaic picturesqueness of such specialized dresses to the region of pure ornament, as in the modern full or evening dress of men and women, what do we find?

As far as men are concerned pure convention, the severest simplicity, without beauty, and almost without ornament, and, except in the case of those entitled to wear orders, confined to studs, watch-chain, etc. The clothes, the negation of colour--black, enlivened only by white linen and white waistcoat, and patent leather.

I have here drawn a contrast between a gentleman’s dress of the present time and one of the fourteenth century.

Both are extremely simple in design; but the mediaeval one alone can claim beauty of design, as it is true to the lines of the figure, and does not cut it up by sharp divisions and contrasts.

In the repression of ornament we may detect another influence, that of monarchical and aristocratic institutions. Since if ornaments were freely worn by ordinary citizens, what would become of the doubtful distinction of ribbons and stars. The ordinary citizen, in the exercise of his individual taste, might have finer jewellery and better design upon him than the courtier and the diplomatist. That would never do, of course.

The same rock ahead will be found, I think, in the case of trousers.

Knee breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes are obviously more elegant and becoming than tubes of black cloth; but if the ordinary citizen takes to them what becomes of the official dignity of the golden footman, or of the cabinet minister at court, my Lord Mayor, Mr. Speaker, and other notabilities?

Men’s dress having been reduced to the extreme of plainness in ordinary life, any relics of antiquity are used to denote official position, and the very plainness of evening dress is made use of to set off the decorations of courtly persons.

19th CENTURY

14th CENTURY]

These are a few of the complexities which attend any serious attempt to reform men’s dress. They serve to convince one that costume is really controlled by the forms of social life, condition, occupation, rank, general tradition, sentiment, and sense of fitness, so that we can only reasonably expect great changes in the outsides of life when corresponding changes are affecting the inside--the economic foundations, constitution, and moral tone of society.

But let us look at the ladies.

Here at all events appears to be a field for the cultivation and display of taste and beauty for the sake of beauty and taste alone. Mere convenience and utility in a lady’s evening dress does not appear to be consulted at all. It often loses much of its primal covering capacity, and takes the form of a floral dressing to set off the head and bust and arms of the fair wearer. Most delicate materials and colours are used--white samite, mystic, wonderful; trailing clouds of glory in tulle and gauze; Eastern embroidery, and Chinese and Indian silks, gold, coral, pearl, diamonds and precious stones, and flowers both real and (alas!) artificial, are some of the materials which contribute to the modern lady’s evening toilette.

In the choice and use of these beautiful materials there is evidently abundant room for the exercise of the nicest judgement and the most refined and delicate individual taste. There can be no doubt, too, that these qualities are often met with, and that they are invariably found with a love and considerable knowledge of art. I do not say that a knowledge of art alone will enable people to dress tastefully. That is not always the case. The power of expression of taste or individuality in dress is no doubt like other gifts of expression, innate.

But a study of art, the training of the eye to appreciate the delicacies of beautiful line and quality of colour, and beauty of design in pattern, even without much executive power, must act upon the selective capacity generally. I think there is no doubt that we do see the signs of artistic culture, over and above natural distinction of choice, more frequently in the dress of refined and cultured women in our days than at any former period, perhaps, since the first half of the sixteenth century. There is more variety, more individuality, signs of that increasing independence of thought and action which distinguish our countrywomen.

The immense range of choice, both in simple and costly materials in women’s dress, may be put down to increased commercial activity and the modern command of the markets of the world, no doubt. The taste and discrimination which selects and combines them in an artistic dress, is, to begin with, instinctive, but is largely aided and guided by conscious cultivation and the study of art and the works of artists, I think.

We may, indeed, detect certain distinct influences in certain leading types of women’s dress, even in that comparatively narrow region left to individual choice by the dictates of fashion or the milliner, dressmaker, and draper, and comparatively few feel themselves at liberty to move much beyond this.

If then our dictators, for the mass, must at present be sought principally in these professional or trade directions we are thrown back again upon the quality and effectiveness of our artistic and technical education.

The great municipalities are busy spending large sums upon technical institutes, where the artistic lamb is expected to lie down with the manufacturing and commercial lion, where science and art are to become inseparable, if not undistinguishable, and inventive design is expected to keep pace with the labour or wage-saving ingenuities, and mechanical economics forced upon the manufacturer by competition. Among other things millinery and dressmaking will be taught, so that one may suppose the technical school will have a direct bearing upon taste in dress.

The same difficulty arises here as in the case of art-school teaching. You may lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink. Rather, perhaps, we are providing patent buckets before securing a water supply. What I mean is that, ultimately, in all the arts, in all matters of taste and beauty we must go back to life and nature. Beauty is inseparably associated with love, and cannot be produced without it: and unless the conditions of ordinary life admit of beauty we must not expect the reproduction of beautiful things. We cannot expect that science, or mechanical principles, or commercial demand will enable us to produce it in any direction to order. We cannot expect to get beauty at any price, if while arranging an elaborate system of art education on the one hand we allow ourselves to destroy its sources in nature, in the beauty of our own land, by ruthless destruction or vulgarization now too common. Beauty and taste can only spring out of the conditions or the materials which go to the making of a harmonious life. They must have opportunities of germinating and growing up in minds with leisure to think, with capacity to feel, with freedom and opportunity to select, with materials and margin for experiment, and above all with a centralizing social ideal--a keynote of love hope or faith.

Let us ask ourselves how far we are, individually or collectively, from the attainment of such conditions.

OF TEMPORARY STREET-DECORATIONS

The decoration of streets at times of public rejoicing seems to afford abundant opportunities for the exercise of artistic taste and fancy, and since in our time such occasions are apparently on the increase, it might be worth while for artists to give more serious attention to design of this kind. It cannot be said that hitherto public efforts at street decoration in this country have been very distinguished. English individualistic habits, and English commercial instincts are both unfavourable to artistic success in this direction; we are not good at collective expression in any art, and the new imperialism has not so far helped us to be articulate in street decoration. The adornment of our streets and public places usually falls into the hands of trade contractors, and anything like freshness of idea, taste, or pleasing fancy is distinguished rather by its absence. Our fiery patriotism seems quite content to let our decorative crowns and gilded emblems and wreaths be “made in Germany,” and the popular imagination is sufficiently lifted by union jacks, supplied in “all sizes” down to the pocket-handkerchief by the dauntless commercial instinct aforesaid.

Nothing, of course, gives colour and movement so readily as bunting, and the very sight of a flag is exciting. But flags are dangerous things, and private zeal in the display of flags often outruns heraldic discretion. One sees strange treatment of the national emblem sometimes. A people so fond of waving them ought to know its own flags and how to hoist them one would think. I noted the other day a remarkable treatment of the red ensign, the usual arrangement of the union jack in dexter quarter being varied by cutting it into quarters and placing one quarter in the usual place and the other at the extreme lower corner of the fourth quarter of the red field, dropping the other two out altogether. This may have been from motives of economy. I have seen, too, the white ensign hoisted upside down! The old way of hanging gay rugs and tapestries from the window-sills would produce a very picturesque effect in a street, and would at all events avoid such a “nice derangement of epitaphs” as those above mentioned.

Some streets lend themselves to decorative effects better, of course, than others, and narrow streets are easier to decorate than wide ones.

Scale in regard to the buildings and the position of the decorations are of the greatest importance. In our London streets very frequently the houses differ in height and width of frontage as much as they differ in architectural taste and period, and this increases the difficulty of effective decoration.

A Venetian mast may be in decent scale in relation to the height of buildings at one part of the street, or even on one side of a street, and quite ridiculous in regard to other buildings on the same or other side of the same street. Yet the street decorator clings to the Venetian mast as a chief means of street decoration, even if only a spar, with the tenacity of a shipwrecked sailor. The result, too, in such a climate as ours often is a wreck. Those poles recently placed in Piccadilly--one of the prettiest of our streets opposite the Park (perhaps because one side is left out!)--look too small, and are rather fussily garlanded, while the shields--bearing the portcullis and the rose alternately--are miserably undersized, and not of a fine shape. The best thing is the connecting garland with its lamps, but these ought to be thicker in the middle. Then again, the poles face only one way--outwards to the road, so that they do not tell much in perspective. Something on the principle of the cross-tree or yard-arm and hanging sign is more effective. At least in _one_ piece of artistic decoration attempted for the coronation--I mean the scheme of decoration for Westminster Bridge by the Royal College of Art under the direction of Prof. Lanteri and Prof. Moira--this principle was adopted. Boldly designed banners painted by the students hung from cross-trees over the pavement, balanced by lanterns at the other end, while between them busts of heroic size of our kings and queens under canopies, and backed by stencilled hangings faced the roadway, these groups being connected with the masts which bore the banners by hanging garlands.

From a Coloured Drawing by G. E. Kruger]

The tapering rectangular column of the new art mode with the flat trencher at the top might come in quite usefully as a substitute for the Venetian masts in places, and the flat top could be used for plants in pots, vases, gilt globes with victories on them, or other emblems, or heraldic beasts, or electric lamps. A continuous light arcade of such columns, connected by a light entablature bearing suitable inscriptions, with hanging garlands, or bay trees in tubs between, would be a pretty scheme for a straight, and not very wide street.

One generally feels the want of some connecting link across the roadway, overhead, in any parallel scheme of street decoration. A string of flags is the simplest way of doing this, and is done often enough, but if the street is sufficiently narrow a succession of cloths or banners hung horizontally across the street, forming a kind of irregular valarium, would have a good effect--say alternating in two or three colours, with bold heraldic devices, either national or appropriate to the locality, upon their fields. Streets hung in this way in red and white, in green and white, or blue and white would have a pleasant effect. Striped cloths could also be used in this way.

By Walter Crane]

One consistent colour scheme, say the heraldic colours of the township (with Chinese lanterns strung across for night effect) for each street or section of the town, with an arch or gateway to mark the entrance to each ward or district, would be a means of obtaining unity, as well as striking and harmonious decorative effect.

Something of this kind was in the mind of a deputation which waited on the Lord Mayor at the time of the coronation to offer a suggestion to the City, which would have lent itself well to such a treatment.

Starting from Temple Bar, the existing Griffin--or City dragon (which we whispered might be temporarily removed!)--might have made way for a fanciful Gothic gatehouse with gilded portcullis and gates, built of timber and plaster of course, but substantial enough to support warders and trumpeters, and a gallery of fair ladies who might shower roses or gilded oak leaves upon the King when he passed, as our Richard II was greeted at his coronation from the tower in Cheapside, which bore a golden angel upon its top. St. Paul and St. George should occupy niches on such a gateway, which should also display the banners and badges of the City and the Temple, and the arms of the City guilds, while Gog and Magog personified should stand at the gates.

Fleet Street should be arcaded by a series of simple timber supports upholding a balcony, or tier of seats, at the height of the first-floor windows. The timbers might be whitewashed and decorated with chevrons or other simple patterns in black or red, but the construction not concealed. And at regular intervals, upon piers, a bold heraldic beast (say the dragon of St. George) might support the City banner; Pegasus and the Lamb those of the Inner and Outer Temple to mark their boundaries, with the Red and the White Rose. At Clifford’s Inn the Art Workers’ Guild could hang out their badge, an’ it liked them; while St. Dunstan, and the White and Blackfriars might appear further on.

I would drape the fronts of the houses in white and red, the St. George’s Cross might run from end to end of Fleet Street, and on the parapets of the houses there should be a hedge or cresting of green boughs connected across the street at intervals by light, arching trellises surmounted by crowns, to be illuminated at night, and covered with green leaves and hung with the shields and badges beforenamed (which in the able hands of Mr. Barron, of the Society of Antiquaries, would not be the tame things to which we are too much accustomed).

Such a scheme could be a type for each ward, or, on the other hand, each ward could be different in scheme as well as colour, but each should have its gatehouse and its guild represented thereat.

Well, the City considered itself sufficient to itself--is it not always self-sufficient? The Lord Mayor preferred to rely, possibly, upon the mute inglorious Alma-Tademas and St. John Hopes and Barrons concealed in the Guildhall Library--or shall we say, the contractors of Houndsditch. I fancy there was a suspicion that we were only early birds trying to get the contract, and that Lord Windsor (who headed the deputation) was perhaps the head of a decorating company, limited!

ARMS OF WESTMINSTER

HERALDIC DRAGON SUPPORTER

TEMPORARY·STREET·DECORATION DETAILS·IN·PREVIOUS·SKETCH·IN·ELEVATION. ENLARGED·TO·SCALE 1/2″ TO 1 FOOT.]

It is said the world knows nothing of its greatest men--perchance, also, it never sees its best street decorations. But how can one reasonably expect London to glow with enthusiasm over grand schemes of street decoration which principally consist of shining decorative lights carefully concealed under municipal or other bushels?

OF THE TREATMENT OF ANIMAL FORMS IN DECORATION AND HERALDRY

The forms of animals furnish the designer in all kinds of decorative work, whether flat or in relief, with pleasant means of enriching and enlivening his pattern.

Ornament may indeed reach great refinement and delicacy without the use of living forms, as it has done in the case of Arabian and Moorish types, and in such Persian work under Mohammedan influence as the superb carpet from the Mosque of Ardebil; yet a lover of incident and romance, of movement and variety--perhaps one might say a western imagination--welcomes the forms of animals, birds, and even humans, as delightful elements of pattern.

Originally, no doubt, like the recurring types of floral form in Oriental, Chinese and Indian and Persian work, animal forms were introduced with definite meaning, with symbolical and heraldic purpose, and (despite Mr. Lewis Day) I still think that ornament gains in dignity and character if it contains some kernel of thought or intention or poetic fancy in its meshes, in its lines and curves, and the forms with which its inventor plays.

Technically, by the use of animal forms contrasting masses can be obtained in design of a kind not possible in any other way. A mass of stems and leaves and flowers in a tapestry is pleasantly broken by the varied shapes of figures and animals which give relief and breadth by their larger contours and masses of colour, and this power of contrast and mass are elements of great value. Even in a mechanically repeated surface pattern, woven or printed, interest, dignity, and distinction can be given by recurring elements of this kind, especially if we are careful about their choice and, above all, their treatment.

The treatment of animal forms in design of course depends greatly upon the conditions of the work, the material of its execution, and its use and position. The rich colour and texture of Arras tapestry, for instance, it is obvious would lend themselves to a much greater degree of realism than the more abstract treatment suitable to the limitations of inlaid work, or cloisonné enamel. In embroidery, again, the needle has considerable freedom as regards texture and the expression of surface, and in the case of the plumage of birds, may, as we see is done in Chinese and Japanese silk embroidery, approach nature in the construction and set of the feathers, and the sheen and gloss of their colour effect.

Even in the extremely abstract treatment necessitated by the exigencies of incised hieroglyphics we can hardly find finer examples of treatment, so direct and unerring is the characterization, than the birds and animals of the ancient Egyptians. The same power of characterization, though with a freer hand, is also seen in their mural paintings.

The early Greek potters ran them close in designing the black silhouettes of animals forming borders around their vessels and vases; but we find here at work a conscious ornamental feeling in the treatment of their forms--an apparently intentional arrangement of the lines of the animal into more or less formal curves. A running antelope, for instance, will take a sort of volute curve, and in one case the volute itself is drawn beneath. The forms of these animals and birds of the vase paintings were no doubt influenced by the brush, and many of them might be described as _brush forms_. The bodies of the birds and fish are oval or ovoid masses, and in their repetition, by means of such ornamental generalization, a certain balance and rhythm is obtained.

Indeed, there is no better method of insuring ornamental effect when introducing animal forms than the practice of designing them within certain definite boundaries, which may be geometric, such as squares, circles, and ovals, according to the contours of the masses required in the particular design.

The Japanese give in one of their drawing-books some clear adaptations of birds and animals enclosed in circles, and they are very ingenious pieces of packing.

The early weavers of the Egypto-Roman textiles of Alexandria and of Byzantium, and of the renowned Sicilian silks from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, and those of Lucca of the fourteenth, all revelled in animal forms, and were adepts in their treatment. In the latter cases they were used symbolically and heraldically, and, indeed, with the development of heraldry in the middle ages under feudalism, such elements became the principal elements in decoration of all kinds, so much so that it might be almost said that heraldry was _the_ ornament and decoration of the mediaeval times.

Our Richard II, it will be remembered, in the famous Wilton picture, is kneeling in a robe of golden tissue woven with the badges of his house--the hart couchant and the phœnix--repeated all over as in a sort of diaper, and there are abundant instances among our brasses, stall plates, and effigies, of the splendid treatment of heraldry in the arms, as well as the dresses of knights and ladies bearing their family totems thick upon them.

The Lions of England designed by Walter Crane.]

Boldness, spirit, distinctness of colour and form, and characterization governed by ornamental colour and effect, seem to be the chief principles in designing heraldic animals.

They not only have to be depicted, but _displayed_. Therefore every distinctive and important attribute or characteristic is emphasized.

The lion’s mane and tail become foliated, and his legs are fringed and tasselled. His claws are spread wide--cleared for action; his mouth is well open, and his long red, curly tongue rollicks out between his emphatic teeth. A lion out of a cage in the Zoological Gardens would be no manner of use on a coat, or as a crest or a supporter. The endeavour of later times to make the heraldic lion a more reasonable being has only tamed and degraded him. He looks round-headed, muzzy, and spiritless.

Much the same principles apply to the treatment of the other “fearful wild fowl” of heraldry, as well as the necessity for very careful decorative spacing. I will only recall, in this connection, the spacing of the English leopards in the fourth quarter of the royal arms on a shield of thirteenth century shape as offering good field to a designer from the exercise of ingenuity in space filling.

OF THE DESIGNING OF BOOK-COVERS

The book-cover, as a field for surface design, appears at first sight to offer in its many varieties a less restricted field for invention than perhaps any portable object of common use which demands the attention of a decorator.

Yet in no field of design are certain qualities more essential to success--qualities, too, outside the particular conditions of the various methods, and processes used in the production of book-covers.

These are, in chief, tastefulness and sense of scale and proportion, important enough it will be said in all design, but narrowed down to the limited field of the book-cover, and in full view of its object and purpose, they become all-important.

Limited, for instance, to the narrowest demands of utility--an inscription or title on side or back needful to distinguish the outside of one book from another, questions of choice of scale, of lettering in relation to the size and proportion of the cover, of the choice of the form of the lettering and the spacing of the letters upon the cover immediately arise.

Now the side of a book-cover presents a flat surface within rectangular limits, varying in size according to the folding of the sheet of paper which determines the size of the book to be covered--folio, quarto, octavo, and so on.

The book itself is a rectangular object as it lies on the table. It is a casket of thought at its best, at its worst it contains records or human remains of some kind.

The rectangularity, however, is what will influence the designer, from the spacing of his block or tablet of lettering, to the intricate arabesque of the most elaborate gold tooling.

The best cover designs are those, to my mind, wherein the feeling of the angularity of the enclosure is expressed or acknowledged in this way, but of course it may be felt and expressed in a variety of ways.

In the old stamped leather and pigskin bindings of the early days of printing of the books from Venice and Basle, for instance, a frequent and very satisfactory plan was to form a series of borders, one within the other, from the edge of the book, enclosing a central panel, left plain except for the title, stamped or inscribed upon the upper part of this plain panel. The borders were formed of stamps of different patterns, heraldic devices, scroll-work, emblems enclosed in straight lines. These designs are often models of scale in book ornament, and being carefully spaced and composed of repeating elements, have a delicate and at the same time rich effect.

I need not dwell upon the splendid jewelled and silver mounted manuscripts of the scriptures of Byzantine times, which called in the work of other craftsmen, since I presume one is dealing rather with the design of surface ornament as a matter of mass and line adapted to the ordinary conditions of the book-cover.

The method of stamping the coat-of-arms of the owner boldly upon the centre of the sides in gold upon leather covers, used from the sixteenth century and onwards, has a dignified effect, and these stamps, whether heraldic or of abstract ornamental elements, are often beautiful examples of rich and effective spacing within narrow limits, the enclosing shape or boundary indicated only by the edges of the device, which fits into its invisible shell, as it were, without effort and without any sense of cramping.

The designers of the stamps either blind or in gold must have been in close touch with the designer of printers’ ornaments--initial letters, headings, borders, and the like--if not in some cases identical with them, and to this no doubt we owe that sense of scale and proportion in the ornamentation of the earlier bindings.

In gold-tooled designs the necessity of their having to be composed or built up of certain restricted elements, or separate tools, the ingenious combination of which produces the delicate arabesques of line and leaf and floral forms we admire as the crown and glory of the binder’s craft, has also contributed to the preservation of scale, since the tools must necessarily be limited in size.