English Popular Art. By Margaret Lambert and Enid Marx. (Batsford.
16s.)
A Boox on English popular art must be reading tinged with sadness today when almost every art described in its pages is irretrievably lost. Giants are no longer made for unselfconscious pageants ; cast- iron firebacks have no function in a modern grate designed to give maximum heat for minimum fuel ; houses built to rigid economy standards have no pennies to spare for pargetting or pictorial paintings. It is not only the machine that has killed the popular arts, for the whole way of life that produced them has gone with lost Atlantis. The rural simplicities of Staffordshire pot- tery groups have no appeal for 'people who see beauty only in sophistication. No one will spend evenings carving wooden spoons when the television set is to hand, or cutting paper valentines when even the 'desire to make things with one's own hands to one's own taste no longer exists. So it is with nostalgic regret that we must thank Miss Lambert and Miss Marx for this comprehen- sive and attractively illustrated historical survey to remind us of the multitudinous little pleasures we have exchanged for a mess of die-stamped plastic pottage.
M. L.
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