ART.
POPULAR ART.—L DECORATIVE.
DURING the last few years, there have come into common usage many phrases unfamiliar to our fathers, and even in some eases doubtfully comprehended by the mass of those who use them so glibly, and we hear the most frivolous school-girl discussing psychic force and the most practical business man dilating upon Decorative Art. The absurdity is patent enough, when once fairly examined, but it does not lie in the fact of either person caring to know anything about such subjects, but because with the majority it is sufficient to use the phrase, without seeking to understand its meaning. A rage for nomenclature is one of the most notable characteristics of the present day, and the man who can invent a good high-sounding Greek name for his hair-wash or his oil- cloth may consider his fortune made. Not long since, strolling down Piccadilly, I saw in a chemist's window that his "Egyptian Looffas were indispensable for a gentleman's bath-room ;" and on
the other side of the street, I was invited to take my chop off "the patent, hydraulic, silver grill." It is quite needless to multiply examples,—a glance at the first sheet of the Times will
produce a dozen such. The step from employing words that are not understood to applying phrases that are not understood is a
very easy one, and it is of one such application that I am de- sirous to speak. One of the most common phrases continually repeated is that of "Decorative Art," and perhaps it is the one- which is the least understood of all We have occasionally asked for a definition of its meaning, but have never received a satisfac- tory answer. The subject seems to fall naturally into three divisions. First, what Decorative Art has always been hitherto ; second, what is meant by the words now ; and third, what should be meant by them, were they rightly used.
First, then, without lingering long over the historical part of the question, there is no doubt that, in the first instance, all art was de- corative. The art of the savage, the only outcome of which was in painting his face and his tomahawk, was pure decorative art, and for many centuries art remained dedicated to similar purposes, even though making in the meantime enormous strides in skill and beauty The Egyptian carvings on rock-hewn temples, or gigantic statues, are as pure decorative art as that of the North-American Indians ; there is in them no sign of beauty being sought for its own sake, but only as a supplement to architecture and religion. A temple wall was bare,—they covered it with the deeds of the god to whom the place was dedicated; a statue of the deity was required, and it WNW carved and erected there,—and so on throughout the various departments. How long this lasted it is difficult to say ; there seems to be considerable doubt whether the whole art of Greece. was not originally intended only for decorative purposes. That its noblest works were is undoubtedly the case. From the days of the greatest supremacy of Rome downwards art gradually lost more and more of its decorative character,. and gained a vantage-ground of its own. No longer sub- sidiary to the service of architecture or religion, it grew day by day of more importance, till we find it culminating in the days. of Venetian glory in Titian and Tintoret. But as Art advanoed thus from infancy to manhood, a change took place in it similar to that which takes place in a human being, and it became gradually self-conscious, and with this self-consciousness came its fall. Gradually painters and architects and workers in metal began to. lose confidence in their individual efforts, and found it easier to imitate the perfection of those who had preceded them. We- have dwelt thus long on this branch of our subject to try and show our readers, what is indeed the case, that there is no autho- rity for the term "decorative art" in olden days, as then all art was decorative. For instance, the most magnificent picture that Tintoret ever painted was painted to measure, to fill the end of the great council-chamber in the Doge's Palace at Venice, and the picture is of an awkwardly irregular shape, to allow space for- the two doorways at the end of the hall. So also you have Veronese painting the ceilings of the PM Palace, and Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment" and Raphael's "Madonna," both painted for the Sistine Chapel at Rome, the first remaining there to this day. And this is "decorative art," as it used to be. What does "decorative art" mean now?
Well, it is difficult to say exactly what it does mean, but we can imagine one of its ordinary practitioners, if compelled to give a perfectly truthful, straightforward answer, would say something like this:—" Really good art is much too great a thing to be wasted in ornamenting a sideboard or a carpet ; for such art you must pay a great price, say, two or three thousand guineas, and then you mast put it in a large, elaborate, gilt frame, and hang it up opposite the looking-glass. Besides, good art needs time and labour, and perhaps even more than these to produce it, and we can't give you that, it would not pay ; but we will sell you another sort of art,— a good thing, of its kind, better fitted for every-day use, and this is what we will call 'decorative art." And if the persevering inquirer were to ask, further, what was the special differentia of this decorative art, he would probably be told "that it was founded upon a notion that man could improve nature very much, and that proceeding upon this plan, he took, say, some reeds and a bird and a red sun, and he arranged them in the following manner :—First, he put the reeds side by side, vertically upright, and left some space between each ; balanced upon the extreme point of the centre reed he placed a red sun, half the size of his picture, and in the exact middle of this, with wings extended horizontally, he placed his bird. But it may be said, all decorative art is not like this, and does not delight in perverting the natural shapes and appearances of objects. Well, it is true that there are some exceptions, but
by far the larger part of what is called "decorative art" at the present day does rely for its attractiveness on this perversion of nature.
Take a walk down either Oxford Street or Bond Street, and you will see in the window of almost every shop devoted to furni-
ture, panels depicting something like the above design, generally on a gold ground. The cause of it was very simple,—a few years ago, a man of genuine artistic taste, much cultivated by study, set up a house in Bloomsbury, and inaugurated, in com- pany with some others, this style of decoration. It has been taken by thousands of others without his taste or his knowledge, and the results are, as a matter of course, horrible. When the ordinary furnishing upholsterer worked only in plain wood, or at all events, plain wood and a little gilding, there was some limit to his error, but now that he employs workmen to paint artistic designs on gilt panels, imagining that he can order good art as he can good polish, he has a gigantic scope for ugliness and folly. In the same way that this "decorative art" attacked furniture, it attacked dress, but the results it produced there were less violently manifested.
Mr. Morris having set the example of painting walls and back- grounds generally of neutral greens and browns, soon the more artistic of the women began to follow in the same track. The amount of sickly-green and dirty-red dresses that Mr. Morris is indirectly responsible for is an awful thing to contemplate, but it is more the folly of his followers that is to blame than his teaching. The only reason for which he recommended these neutral shades of colour was that they were to serve as a back- ground. One of his favourite sayings, if we mistake not, is "that you don't want to make a picture of your walls, but a background for pictures ;" and as a natural effect, when a beautiful woman put on a trailing gown of a neutral-green hue, she looked all the better for her background, but as the majority of women are not beautiful, but require some little attractiveness of colour to set them off, as a rule the dresses were not becoming.
Then from painting and dress the mania attacked needlework. We must have decorative needlework, "conventional needle- work," as its admirers called it, with a delightful sense of mystery.
We had it, we have it, it is going on still ; probably most of our readers can look up from their Spectator and see it opposite them, -on chair or fire-screen. This conventional needlework is a fearful thing. Formerly, if the designs were not very beautiful, they were at least fairly like the flowers that they were intended to represent, and done from patterns designed by competent persons. At the very least they were bright and pleasant in colour. But now every one invents her own patterns, and twists the most beautiful flowers in the world into fantastic combinations of spike and ball.
People without the slightest acquaintance with the most elementary forms of design sit down calmly to conventionalise nature," at their own wild will," and the results are awful. This is decorative art, as at present understood and practised; the catch- word that is in every one's mouth means practically that any art is good enough, if it is not required for gilt-framing and Academy exhibition. How long will this fallacy last ? When will people discover and take to heart the first truth about art,—that any art is no art, that you cannot have an art which shall be good for one thing and not good for another? For instance, because you do not want a bird as elaborately painted on the panel of a ward- robe as in a picture, that it is not necessary it should be rightly painted, as far as it goes. The truth is, that all art is decorative art, the difference being only in the degree. For instance, the art that is required to cover a water-bottle or a wardrobe should have for its chief character simplicity of form and colour ; and so, in infinite gradation, real decoration progresses till it culminates in the grand fresco at the end of a Venetian palace or a Roman chapel, and you have Tintoret or Michel Angelo for your fur- nishing upholsterer. When will people learn that they can no more design without an apprenticeship to it than they could practise any other difficult profession without learning ? The present state of Art, in our nation, is alike pitiable and ludicrous. Every one talks of it, and no one seems to know, or care to know, the first elements of its life. To con- clude, then, with a few words upon what decorative art should be. We have seen that in former times all art was decorative, we have seen partially that at the present time a division has been made between decorative and pictorial art, and that in consequence decorative art has become hardly worth calling art at all ; that it is mainly practised by workmen and amateurs, and that as a rule, the educated artist passes it by with grave contempt. So long
as this state of things continues, there is no hope for it. The essence of good decoration is that it must spring from thorough artistic feeling and perception, and be grounded upon true knowledge of natural forms. And the second indispensable mark of decorative art is that it should be true, as far as it goes, no matter how short a way that may be. The greatest test of all good decorative work is that it should be easy, springing with but little effort from a mind fully stored and a hand accustomed to severer labour. For instance, if in designing a flower we choose to omit all accident of light and shade and local colour, we may do it, and it may still be a good design, but we have no right to alter the proportions of its leaves or the number of ite petals. Any art which stops deliberately short of nature, but yet does not falsify it, is thus decorative in the right meaning of the term ; but art is not decorative because it is painted on gilt wood, or because it suggests nothing in the world save the ignorance of its creator.
Previous page
