LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

"DECORA'11VE ART." tTo ?NB Emma os TEN " Bracuros.i Sin,—The current number of the Spectator contains an article on "Popular Art" which is calculated to mislead the innocent laity,

and to bring decoration into unmerited contempt. The Times has quoted it at some length, and I don't think it should pass unnoticed by the followers of the art it ridicules. Can you allow me space for a few words on the other side of the question? Since your contributor confines himself to rash assertion un- supported by any substantial argument, I propose, briefly, to make a few counter-assertions :-

1. It is not "difficult to say exactly what decorative art does

mean now." Whatever may have been the practice of some of the old masters, the mass of modern painters work without any reference whatever to decorative art. Their utmost effort is to produce a picture that shall be admirable per se. The decorator, on the other hand, proposes first of all to decorate something— no matter whether it be a room, a cabinet, a vase, or what not— and all art that professes primarily to ornament some given place or object, however nearly it may approach to pictorial perfection, is, strictly speaking, "Decorative Art."

2. No" ordinary pradituner " in his senses would say anything at all like what your contributor imagines he would say. Far from it. Earnest decorators hold that no art is too good for decoration, although they maintain that most picture-painters' work is too self-assertive for the purpose.

3. Decorative art does not "rely for its attractiveness on this

perversion of nature." The decorative manner peculiar to the Japanese, for instance (which is caricatured in the second sup- position of what "he would probably be told"), betrays neither ignorance nor carelessness of what is natural. The conventional birds and flowers represented on the best Japanese lacquer are more true to the nature of birds and flowers than half the pictures of them that are supposed to be natural.

4. The " attractiveness " of bright colour is not quite the best

way to "set off" an ugly woman ; good-taste would suggest that the plainer a woman, the more careful she should be not to attraet attention to her personal appearance by exhibiting herself in gay colours.

5. Every embroideress does not invent her own patterns.

We see something too much of the same well-worn love-in-a- mist or honeysuckle pattern, &c., designed for the School of Art- Needlework, by Mr. Morris and others. The "competent draughtsmen" who perpetrated the originals of the abominable bunches of flowers that our mothers worked in worsted were not artists at all, whereas artists of very considerable ability have of late supplied designs for embroidery.

6. Whatever the exaggerations and errors of those who follow an artistic fashion for fashion's sake only, those who have eyes to see must be grateful to the men who, if only for a time, have delivered us from the evil of magenta, emerald-green, and sky- blue (so called).

7. People will very naturally be anxious to know what is meant by "any art is no art," before they "take it to heart."

8. You can "have an art that is good for one thing and not good for another." The art of the miniature-painter is good enough in itself, but it is bad for picture-painting ; the art of the picture-painter is bad for mosaic, fresco, or stained glass.

9. "All art" is not "decorative art." There is nothing decora- tive about the art of Rembrandt and Velasquez, yet they were artists, as well as Tintoretto and Michael Angelo. The difference between pictorial and decorative art is not "in degree." Painter and decorator may meet, but it is only at the summit of art that they join hands. It is not a question between them as to which has climbed higher, but as to the starting-point from which each set out towards the perfection at which both aim.

10. Those who pass by decorative art "with grave contempt" are far from being the most " educated " artists. It so happens that the contemporary English painters of most culture are the men who show in their work a leaning towards the decorative side of art.

11. " People " do not seem to realise that they can no more enlighten the world on decorative art "without an apprentice- ship to it, than they could practise any other difficult profession without learning."—I am, Sir, &c., Lawis F. Day.

[We regret that we are unable to afford the apace to refute Mr. Day's assertions at length, but it will be apparent to any one who has read carefully the article to which he alludes, in his

letter, that he quite misconstrues its object. So far from being "intended to bring decoration into unmerited contempt," it was an endeavour to rescue decoration from the hands of incompetent persons, and place it upon a true basis. Mr. Day's arguments are based upon the idea that we were speaking in depreciation of "Decorative Art" as a whole, instead of in deprecation of its debased forms ; but it is worth noticing that his opinions on this subject are totally at variance with those of the greatest autho- rity on Art in England, John Ruskin. Thus, for instance, Mr. Day attacks us for saying that "it is difficult to say exactly what Decorative Allis now ;" if he will turn to the beginning of the third lecture in "The Two Paths," he will find the following sen- tence,—" The first of these [obstacles] is our not understanding the true scope and dignity of Decorative design. With all our talk about it, the very meaning of the words 'decorative art' remain a confused and undecided." Again, Mr. Day goes on to say that "all art that professes primarily to decorates given place or object, however nearly it may approach to pictorial perfection, is, strictly speaking, Decorative Art." But here Mr. Day has fallen into the very common error of asserting something which has nothing to do with what we have said. What we spoke of was what Decorative Art consisted in, as practised by the great majority of common designers; what Mr. Day speaks of, is the object of this design, be it good or bad.—En. Spectator.]