THE HOME ARTS ASSOCIATION.
WE almost envy the happy person who first steps into supply a real lack, and who lives to see that lack to some extent supplied. To Mrs. Jebb the "Home Arts-Association" owes its' origin, and already in-very many centres its beneficent work is being carried on. It began its labour of love under the even more humble title of the "Cottage Arts Association," with a few classes for wood-carving, which Mrs. Jebb formed among the lads- of the agricultural district where she lives, But we believe it was not till January last that the quiet work of years took to itself the dimensions of an organised' society and made its voice heard. Those quiet years, we -may believe, were in no sense welded. The work of startling, mushroom-growth is rarely the work thatlives: Seeds of movements, as of plants, have first to lie dormant, andahen-to make sloW- growth of root and stem before leaf andflower. appear. We ratherdietr '1st the Indian con- juror's mango-tree, that bears bloom and fruit while we sit and look on. Now, the strong young life of the society for promoting: the" Home Arts " is established. Already it has its office and its studios (1 Laugh= Chambers, Langhain Place), its bankers- most-needful item—and its council. It has its seventy-three centres all over the-country, each-, let-us hope, to-become indeed- a " centre " from which other branches- shall-radiate. Its Presi- dent is Lord Brownlow, in whose house- not long ago an exhibition of the work- produced by the-pupils taught in these classes was held. It has amongst- its:Viee:Presidents men who stand high in the world of Art; stroll as- Mr. CL E. Watts, and- the President of the Royal Academy; and, men .-and women equally well known in the world of philanthropy ; for this Asso- ciation is two-sided. While it seeks. to. rouse the intelligence, and educate the eye, and train the -fingers, it also has for its object the ennobling of the life and the improvement of the home, by teaching such arts and handicrafts as must be elevating, and may be lucrative.; and Oats its influence is far more beneficial than that of ninety- niaeout of a. hundred charities.
The extent-of the influence which may- and will be exerted by such an. organisation; can' hardly- be over-estimated. It will call into- the field of beneficent activity an entirely-new set of workere;—people-who, by reason of their artistic leanings, have been more-or less debarred from the ordinary methods of "doing good!' For, be it understood, these classes are conducted 14 voluntary teachers, whaleave-their studios and easels, or their
embroidery-frames, to carry a little of the content and meaning which has come into their own lives through the pursuit of art, into the lives of the less favoured. It is beautiful to see that the "Home Arts " have thus travelled up to Braemar, and down to Whitechapel and Bethnal Green; starting here a modelling- class, there one for mosaic-setting ; here for tile and pottery painting, there for humble joinery ; or again, for drawing and design, or repouss4-work, in brass and copper. And to the diffident volunteer, the Association holds out a helping hand by having training-classes at its studios, where such can be taught before going forth to teach. Here, too, if funds be forth- cons'ng (and as the Society's objects become known, funds will forncome), a few paid teachers will be trained for the purposes of the growing Association ; publications setting forth the Society's objects and methods will be issued, and specimens of work for the use of classes will be obtained and circulated. Many voluntary teachers can be wholly relied on ; but it cannot be so with all ; and to give stability and thorough- ness to the work, a few helpers, whose time and services shall be entirely at the disposal of the Association, are much required. When these have been supplied, there will yet be room and to spare for all and sundry who will offer their help ; and it is pleasant to think to how many meaningless, because empty, lives among our women, the truth of George Herbert's words may thus for the first time be brought home:—
" All other joys go less,
To the one joy of doing kindnesses."
The rn moters of this scheme tell us that they trust the instruction they give in the minor arts and handicrafts may serve to revive our village industries. We think, indeed, they may ; and that the day may come when we shall not have to turn of necessity to Switzerland for our carving, and to Germany for our toys ; and when the slender income of the labourer may be eked out by the earnings of his winter evenings—those wasted hours, now spent in the inn parlour, or leaning against a wall in the damp road. And who shall say our people cannot carve in wood, who remember Gibbon? or in stone, who have heard of Roslin Chapel and its 'Prentice pillar ? or work in clay, who recognise the genius of Tin- worth ? or that our minor arts are lost, who know the Doulton ware, or walk through the china factory of Worcester, or admire the "Linthorpe "pottery, or see the exquisite embroideries of the Kensington School of Art? Dead our lesser arts may seem to have been, but alive they are to-day; and no year probably ruses without some fresh proof of this, and in some new departure. Our own belief is that no real effort in the direction of calling out the artistic instinct is ever lost; bare accident will often suffice. From the wrecked Spaniards of the Armada, tradition tells us, the women of the Shetland Isles picked up the art of making the cobweblike and often beautiful" Shetland shawl," which is at this day a source of income to that some- what barren region. A lady on the East Coast of Scotland a few years since started a school of art-needlework, for the employ- msnt of women who would otherwise have gone to field-work or b 'come mill-hands. She herself furnished the designs ; but the minagement of what has since become a large and thriving business she was able to put into the hands of one of the women of the place, whom she had herself trained. The work sent out by this society is as beautiful as that of any London school of art, while its prices are lower ; and the demand for its products, we have been told, is so great that there is difficulty in executing all the orders received. From the poor and dirty homes of Donegal the Irish peasantry are sending out the embroideries known as " Kell's Embroideries," in polished flax and linen ; and from Irish homes come the gossamer fragments we are instructed to call "handkerchiefs,"—so lovely in design and perfect in execution that they would seem more fit for the service of the sanctuary than of the ball-room. Scotland, again, gives us its "Dunmore pottery," started, we believe, by the kindly enterprise of Lady Dunmore, which has rivalled in beauty and outdoes in cheapness the beautiful faience of Vallauris, whose classic clay has lent itself since the time of the Romans to the artist's hand.
And here we are led, by a natural train of association, to speak of another purpose which the Society for promoting the "Home Arts" will serve. In the factory of Vallauris many amongst the more modern shapes of beauty owe their existence to a sculptor of our own,—the Scotch Munro, who in his declining days gave back to the Cannes which did her best for him by sun and climate, soft air and blue sea, the creations of his
genins,—his latest or former genius we will not say, who hold fondly to the faith in the "full-grown energies of Heaven." Now, Munro was a self-made man. The first signs of his power were, we believe, detected by a lady who noticed that the tops of the lad's slate-pencils were carved into beads. Helping hands were held out to him, and he rose. But how many Munros and Gibbons must there be buried in our villages or hidden in our black factory-towns, on whom no friendly eye chances to light, and whom the necessity of earning bread binds for life to the treadmill (for so it is to the aspiring spirit of genius) of some dull and soul-less mechanical toil ? Often, indeed, the individual, though willing enough, may be unable to hold out the helping hand. But once given a friendly Association, with branches spreading far and wide, and- the thing is done. News of the nearest class will find its way to the ploughboy and the plater, to the brass-finisher or the lad in the rolling-mill ; for as surely as iron draws to the magnet, or the potato-plant in the cellar to the one chink of light, so surely does genius seek its outlet. And yet, because it is genius, because the artistic temperament is also the sensitive, how readily in the struggle of life may it be crushed out.
A living artist once related to the present writer a little incident which will serve to illustrate this. He was sketching in Scotland when a little group of village urchins gathered round him, and then as quickly dispersed. In a short time the band reappeared, and with an accession to its numbers. Bounding over the field they came, the new boy hugging under his arm a roll of papers. They were his own drawings, full of life and power. The artist gave the lad some advice, put his pencil in his hand, and "saw by the way he held it" that the gift was there. He thought of taking up this little village genius, but— he left him there. Was it the supreme moment in that boy's life, an opportunity never to come again ? If so, perhaps a Turner has been lost to the world. It is years since this story was told, and still it lies heavy on the heart of the hearer. And when the objects of the Home Arts Association became known, one of the first thoughts that arose was this,—` Had it been in existence a few years since, spreading as it does now like wild- fire in Scotland, this had never been.'
And still, "the half is not told." To fill the meaningless life, and teach it the " sweetnesses " of giving some of that life to others ; to make up to Art the great loss she has sustained by the extinction of the artist-workman in the machine-driving artisan ; to revive our village industries, so that poverty shall be less pain and life less colourless, and less of an eternal plodding to the working millions ; to call out the latent genius that is amongst us by offering conditions under which it shall be possible for it to breathe and to create ;—this is much, but it is only a part of the great hope which the promoters of the Home Arts Association have before them. "We try," to use the words of its founders, "to make our work enter into the people's hearts and homes and lives." That is what is wanted. We English are proud of our Saxon word "home." We sing a great deal about its "sweetness." Some of us make our own homes beautiful and home-like. Probably only by the sensations of discomfort we experience when we find ourselves for a time in the barren and unfamiliar ugliness of hotel or lodging, do we know how soothing and how uplifting is the atmosphere of home. And yet we are content to see the mass of our people deprived of this simple human need. Can we not pass on the wholesome contagion to those whose content- ment with their sad and ugly surroundings is but the content of apathy or despair ? We compel our people to be educated; can we not, perhaps, persuade them to have homes into which enters some comfort and some beauty ? We know we can, if we set about it, not in the spirit of an Art Education Act, but with faith in that "Touch of a hand that is warm."
And so, because good homes make great nations, we hold with one of the workers in this noble cause that "if we can give voice to the love of beauty that does exist in people's hearts, and lead them on to see the connection between good work and natural law and order, we may not only lead them to be artists in the best sense, bat better citizens as well."
One word more. Over three thousand years ago the "minor arts" received the highest sanction, and were dedicated to the holiest use. We may go further, and say that they were then inspired, or "God-breathed," if never before. "I have called," we read in the book of Exodus, " by name Bezaleel,
the son of Uri. And I have filled him with the spirit of
God, in wisdom and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship of the embroiderer in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work." Is it, then, an idle fancy to suppose that over the most humble and homely of our arts there rests a benediction ?
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